Coram Deo: 01/30/08

*I would like to acknowledge the influence of Dr. R.C. Sproul’s work in the writing of this paper.

Now there are two basic views of election. One is the Arminian view and the other is the Reformed view. The Arminian view is the view that we have something to do with choosing God for our Salvation. The Reformed view is that God does all the choosing and He, in His sovereign will, chooses us. The Arminian view, named after a 17th century Dutch theologian Arminius, has only been around, to any degree, for the last 250 years. However, it is the majority report today, but this historically has not been the case. (Charles Finney really promoted Arminianism in this country during the early 19th century.)
Election is unconditional. In other words, election does not depend on anything that man does or wills. It doesn’t depend on any human condition or requirement prior to God’s sovereign decision. He alone, for His own good pleasure, elects people to Salvation from all eternity.
This is not to say that a person that is saved is not responsible to meet any conditions. This is not the case. For a person to be saved he must believe. He must repent. He must come to Christ. He does the believing, the repenting, and the coming to Christ. However, the reason he believes, repents, and comes is because he has been elected so to do. So this simply means that God chooses people simply because He chooses them in accordance with His own purpose and pleasure and not because of anything meritorious or inherent within the person. E.g. Choosing Israel; choosing me
Another term for unconditional election might be sovereign election. It is God ultimately that decides who is to be included in Christ’s Kingdom. Often the doctrine of election is called the doctrine of predestination.
Predestination means that before you were born, from all eternity, before you have done anything good or bad, before you believed or not believed, God predetermined your destiny by choosing you to Salvation while passing over others. Why you? I don’t know. Why me? I don’t know, except to say that it’s God that does it, not me. Why? Because that what the Scriptures say.
One of the controversies today is whether we should properly call this double predestination. In a certain sense, all predestination is double predestination in that it involves salvation on the one hand and reprobation on the other. Reprobation being the opposite of election and having the opposite effect ultimately leaving a person in the state of condemnation rather than in the state of justification.
Concerning those who deny this: 1) you must be a universalist, i.e. believe that all people are elected for salvation – [obstacle to this is the New Testament]. 2) The Bible nowhere speaks of predestination to damnation, a la Emil Brunner. Therefore, we must not speak of reprobation and predestination in the same breath. However, even Emil Brunner would have admitted to the logic of this, in that if only some are predestined to be elect, then some must not be predestined to the elect. If only some are predestined to the elect, then by logical inference one must assume that some are predestined to reprobation. Brunner would admit that this is a logical inference, but is one that can not be drawn. He would say that because the Bible doesn’t teach it explicitly, it is not incumbent upon one to believe it. Brunner is right that the Bible does not teach predestined reprobation explicitly. However, it is certainly implicit within the idea that if some are predestined to election, that others are not. Some at least must be predestined to reprobation. There is nothing in all of Scripture that is more strongly implicit than that. It’s unassailable.
The large question within the camp of those that hold to predestination is the question of how God predestines those to election and others to reprobation. Sometimes people think that double predestination means that God works in the same way as He does in election with reprobation. This is the doctrine of “equal ultimacy.” Two other terms that have been used to describe this view of equal ultimacy have been: 1) symmetrical view of predestination, i.e. symmetry of how God works in the lives of the elect and negatively in the lives of the reprobate. 2) Positive, positive rather than positive, negative.
Now the best way to explain the view of equal ultimacy is by these terms positive positive and positive negative. What the term positive positive means is that God intervenes in the lives of the elect in a positive active way to change the heart of the person and to actively incline that person’s heart to Him and brings them to faith. In other words He positively intervenes. And in the same way He (God) actively and purposefully engages the reprobate to unbelief by hardening their hearts. That is to say, God works positively in them to keep them ultimately from coming to faith and bringing them into a state of eternal damnation. This view could be branded “hyper-Calvinism” and does not reflect accurately the reformation view.
Rather the reformation view is one that could be described as positive negative. It does involve election and reprobation. There are two parts to it, but not in the sense of equal ultimacy. Rather, it states that God works positively in the lives of the elect changing their hearts, regenerating or quickening them, the New Testament says, to faith through the work of the Holy Spirit. He actively causes them to be “born again” bringing them into a right relationship with Him for Salvation. However, concerning the reprobate, He does not actively work unbelief or harden their hearts but merely passes over them leaving them to their own wicked devices. So the reprobate are not lost because God forced them into unbelief, but they are lost based on their own desires, on their own inclinations, on their own decisions they do not choose God. God offers Salvation to all men, but the point is they will not respond, more, they can not respond positively unless God intervenes and changes their hearts from stone to flesh. He doesn’t need to work on the hearts of the reprobate because they are already children of wrath, at enmity with Him, in bondage to sin, and fallen creatures who left to themselves would never come to Him on their own, indeed could not come to Him on their own.
The main point of election can be summarized by understanding the answer to the question, what comes first, faith or regeneration? The answer to that question is that regeneration always precedes faith. Faith comes after regeneration. Regeneration comes before faith. Faith follows regeneration. That is to say, that a man is changed or quickened in his heart before he believes.
Here is where the doctrine of total depravity comes into conflict with the ability to choose. St. Augustine called it a liber arbitrium, i.e. free will or the ability to do what one wants, and though one has that what one lacks is liberty or the ability to choose God. Jonathan Edwards called it moral bondage or lack of moral freedom.
Now let me make a further distinction between natural ability and moral ability. These two categories belong to Edwards not me, but the distinction is made that man has the natural ability to come to God, but not the moral ability. That is he has the freedom to make choices, he has a will, he is able to think, he has a mind etc. He has all the normal human qualities necessary to make the choice. When God calls man, He’s not asking him to do something that he is not able to do. For example, He’s not asking man to fly without first giving him wings. What he lacks is the moral ability to come to God. He has will. He has mind. He has all the necessary things he needs to make a right decision, but what he lacks is the desire. And it is his own fault that he lacks this desire. Here is the tension. He is born with this lack desire and he is responsible for this lack of desire insomuch as he is really responsible for the fall of Adam. This is the concept of “original sin.”
How then can God hold me responsible for not coming to Him when I am by nature a child of wrath, by nature at enmity with Him, and I am born with a disinclination to Him and I am totally without the moral ability to choose Him? Everything rest on the idea or concept that I really fell in Adam.
1 Cor. 15:21 For since by a man {came} death, by a man also {came} the resurrection of the dead.
1 Cor. 15:22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive.
Part of the consequences of Adams fall was not just for him, but for the entire human race. “For in Adam all die.” We cannot avoid the fact, Biblically, that Adam represents the human race and that there is a real imputation of Adams guilt and condition upon himself and upon all of humanity to follow. The classical historical reformational view of this is called Federalism. That is to say that Adam was the representative of all mankind. His sin plunged us all into spiritual, physical and moral bondage. It’s not fair! It’s not fair for him to represent me because I wasn’t able to choose him. In a Democracy we get to choose our own representatives. I didn’t have that chance so why should I be stuck for something Adam did thousands of years ago? Of course, this complaint itself is an indication of our falleness, i.e. that we should protest against God.
Let’s examine this for a moment. The reason I want to elect my own representative is so that I will be fairly and accurately represented. Isn’t that right? We want our representative to vote the way we would vote if we were there doing the voting. Right? We want our representative to represent us. That’s why we want to be the one that chooses them. But what we fail to remember is that our choice is fallible. How many times have you chosen a representative and they don’t vote they way they said they would or they way you had intended them to vote? They do not vote as you would have voted. They get into office and pretty much do what they want to do.
God did not allow me to choose my own representative. He appointed one for me. He chose for me, but He did so infallibly! His was the perfect choice. So when God chose Adam, He chose someone who accurately represents me. So that when Adam sinned, I in a very real sense, sinned in him. I cannot say that I would have done differently. Does that make sense?
Another argument that is heard is that it’s still not fair. No matter how accurate the representation was, it’s still not right to impute Adams guilt and condition to me. There is a principle objection to the idea of representation, of corporate solidarity, and of imputation. We must be reminded however, that if we do away with these three, representation, corporate solidarity, and imputation we have just done away with any hope of redemption because this is the way in which we are redeemed. That is through the hope of the 2nd Adam. Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us and our sins are imputed to Him through our corporate solidarity with Him. If we reject that in principle, we not only throw out Adam, but the 2nd Adam as well.
Getting back to the idea of moral inability to come to Christ, the principal objection to that is that in the New Testament there are many places where calls, open invitations are given to masses of people. “If anybody will.” The call is give openly and indiscriminately to all kinds of people. If we invite people to come to Jesus we are implying that they have the ability to do it. Are we not? Now the classic arguments against election are built one these passages, the “whosoever will” passages.
What do the “whosoever will” passages say explicitly? That whosoever chooses Christ will be saved. Good. Now what do these passages say about who will make that choice? Nothing, absolutely nothing. It implies that everybody has the ability to choose, but only by implication not by explication. If the Bible teaches explicitly that man does not have the ability to come, which of the two do we believe? The explicit teaching or an implicit inference? One of the first principles of hermeneutics is that we always interpret the unclear in light of the clear and we let Scripture interpret Scripture. Well, does the Scripture teach explicitly that we can not come without God’s intervention?
John 6:63 "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.
John 6:64 "But there are some of you who do not believe." For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was that would betray Him.
John 6:65 And He was saying, "For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me, unless it has been granted him from the Father." (No one is a universal negative. No one doesn’t mean someone. No one can [is able] to come. Even the coming is a gift of God; Eph. 2:8,9)
John 6:66 As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew, and were not walking with Him anymore.
Why did some of His disciples leave Him? They hated the doctrine of election even 2,000 years ago. When Jesus started teaching this kind of stuff, they couldn’t handle it and they left him. It’s no different today.
God commands that all men to come to Him. Then does this mean that God commands men to do something that they are unable to do? Yes! Is it consistent with God? Go to Romans 8:5.
Rom. 8:5 For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.
Rom. 8:6 For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace,
Rom. 8:7 because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able {to do so};
Rom. 8:8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
Is natural man responsible to keep the law of God? Yes. Can they keep it in their natural state? No
Erasmus said to Luther, “How do you say that God commanded men to keep the law when in fact they can’t keep it?
Luther said, “Don’t you understand the whole New Testament view of the purpose of the law? The law was not given as a means of Salvation. The law was never given with the end in mind that people could keep it. The purpose of the law and the command to keep it was the “evangelical function” of the law as Luther called it. What Paul called the use of the law being the schoolmaster. Not the teacher, but the disciplinarian. The law beats us down and shows us our utter dependence on Christ as our only hope. The call for perfection recognizes and mirrors a constant need in us for a Savior to complete an impossible task.
John 3:5 Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
John 3:6 "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Jesus in talking with Nicodemus said you are unable to enter the kingdom of God unless you are born of water and the Spirit, i.e. born again, regenerated.
Eph. 2:1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,
Eph. 2:2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.
Eph. 2:3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.
Eph. 2:4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, (Not, but man!)
Eph. 2:5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
Eph. 2:6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly {places}, in Christ Jesus,
Eph. 2:7 in order that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
Eph. 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, {it is} the gift of God;
Eph. 2:9 not as a result of works, that no one should boast.
Eph. 2:10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (We need faith to believe and get into heaven; we need faith to be justified; but the very faith we need is a gift from God. Do we understand that?)
Regeneration is a monergistic work of God. Meaning a “one working.” You cannot change your heart by an act of the will. (Rom. 9:16 So then it {does} not {depend} on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.)
Synergism means a co-working. Critics of election say that God offers us a grace that comes before regeneration, for us to co-operate with and ascent to, and if we do, we can be saved. This grace is called prevenient grace.
(Prevenio means to come before.) Why do some cooperate and others don’t? That view ultimately brings it back to man. He’s doing the work rather than a gift of God.
This is also referred to in the Bible as a calling. The New Testament uses this term in two different ways that we will call external and internal. The external call is that call that God uses to call the world to repentance. It is a general, non-specific call given to anyone that can hear it. If I am a preacher and I give an altar call, I give it to the whole congregation.
The other call is the internal or better stated the effectual call of God. That is only given to some, not all. Just like God brings into existence the world by Divine fiat or a Divine command so does He call the elect. Just as God brought Lazarus back from the physical death to physical life, let’s make an analogy between spiritual death and spiritual life. How does Christ resurrect Lazarus from the grave? Does He go in and give him CPR? No! He calls him, indeed he commands him, Lazarus come forth! The Bible uses this kind of language in Romans 8:28 and following. Notice here that you are not predestined to justification but to glorification. This is the “golden chain” of salvation.
Rom. 8:28 And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to {His} purpose.
Rom. 8:29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined {to become} conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren;
Rom. 8:30 and whom He predestined, these He also called; and whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.
It doesn’t say here that of those He predestined only some were called and of those called only some were justified etc. No! Those He foreknew ended up glorified! Can we understand that? The chain is not broken. Once God’s plan is set in motion (by Divine fiat) it is as good as done. Before the world began the Bible says you were predestined by God for election. In a sense you were saved before the foundation of the world. Can you feel the weight of that fact?
What is our response to the doctrine of election?
Rom. 8:31 What then shall we say to these things? If God {is} for us, who {is} against us?
This should be our response as Christians and not one of skepticism to a doctrine that is plainly and explicitly taught in God’s Holy Word.
Now those churches that have denied the doctrine of predestination as has been outlined here have adopted a substitute doctrine of predestination called prescience or foreknowledge. This is to say that God in His omniscience knew ahead of time who would choose Him, and in light of this, chose those for Himself that chose Him. This is a denial of the Biblical doctrine of predestination. It’s one thing to know that something will take place in advance. It’s another to know it will take place because I have predetermined it to take place. Studying the book of Ephesians we would see this.
This foreknowing is in the personal sense, indeed a love relationship between Himself and the elect. See Romans 9 to put an end to any question of other options. One must, at the very least, admit that God must in some sense know us in order to act in any way toward us.
Of course the greatest objection of all to election is that it’s not fair. Why did He choose me? I don’t know the answer to that. All I know is that He did. Why didn’t He choose everyone? I don’t know. I do know that it is not unjust? Paul anticipates that question in Romans 9 when he asks the question, “What shall we say then, is there injustice in God? May it never be.”
In Job 40:7 God says to Job "Now gird up your loins like a man; I will ask you, and you instruct Me.
Job 40:8 "Will you really annul My judgment? Will you condemn Me that you may be justified?
Job 40:9 "Or do you have an arm like God, And can you thunder with a voice like His?
Job 40:10 "Adorn yourself with eminence and dignity; And clothe yourself with honor and majesty.
All people deserve to go to hell because all have sinned against God. All have rebelled against His law. E.g. Let’s say that God gives five people mercy and another five justice. No one is treated unfairly. Those who are not elect get precisely what they deserve. Exactly what justice demands. Those who are elect get mercy. They are not treated equally but no one is unjustly punished. God does not deal with everybody the same way. He called Abraham not King Tut. In the middle of Paul’s persecution of the church He appears to him on the Damascus Road. He didn’t do that with Ananias. You must grasp the idea that God does not treat us all the same. He dispenses His mercy upon whom He wills.
Rom. 9:14 What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be!
Rom. 9:15 For He says to Moses, " I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion."
The argument here is that if God is a God of love, then is it not incumbent upon Him to give that love and mercy to everyone? Is that not the case? But if it’s necessary for God to be loving to everybody then the expression of His love is no longer mercy, it’s justice. For mercy to be mercy it must always be voluntary, not necessary. (Mercy is getting something we don’t deserve [or not getting something we do deserve, e.g. condemnation]; Grace is unmerited favor) If we argue that God of necessity must forgive all people to be a righteous God, we are saying that justice demands that God be merciful to all. And what we are really doing is confusing justice with mercy. Mercy is not mercy if it is required. Do you see that?
In the end it is important to recognize that we are not all children of God. Certainly not in the redemptive sense. John 1:12,13 states, “Yet to all who received Him, to those that believed in His Name, He gave the right to become children of God – children born not out of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.” Let us not just skip over verse 13 as if it didn’t exist.
The fundamental problem we have with the doctrine of election is not that it is not clearly stated in the Scriptures, but that we don’t want to believe it. Sadly, and in some cases tragically, we believe in the Bible, but we don’t believe the Bible.

Coram Deo

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Understanding Election

The Cambridge Declaration - 5 Solas

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