Up to this point, we have been examining ideas that, for the
most part, exist distinctly from each other. That is to say, each bears little
direct consequence on each other, at least in comparison to this idea of God’s
election.
- ·
Scripture guides us, in and of itself. It does
not need any additional qualification, addition, and we should not subtract
from it or compromise any of it.
- ·
God reigns absolutely and sovereignly over all
of Creation, including every aspect of humanity. We can conclude this not only
from scriptural witness, but from two aspects of his character—his omnipotence
and omniscience.
- ·
Because of Adam’s sin, man has fallen into a
state of complete depravity. He cannot and will not seek for God of his own
initiative, yet he remains responsible to God for his sin, not because he is
able to seek God, but because God is holy and righteous and he requires
holiness and righteousness from us.
- ·
God is holy, and can only love that which is
holy. Therefore he has entered into covenant with those whom he has chosen to
love.
In these last two, we begin to see these concepts interact
with each other. Man is sinful but God is holy. God also desires to love some,
yet he can only do so when he mitigates man’s sin. Now, we will see that
through God’s love, he chooses some to save.
God elects some to salvation. He chooses men and women to be
saved, not because they deserve it, or because they have faith, but because he
sovereignly desires to. None have faith. None seek for God, desire to please
God, or are even able to please him. If any are to be saved, God must save
them, but he does not save all men. Election follows logically from God’s
sovereignty and man’s depravity. If scripture did not teach election
explicitly, we would still conclude it necessarily from these concepts.
Election carries obvious and difficult questions with it.
God decides who will be saved, but if he does not save everyone, how can he be
loving? If he does not save everyone, how can he be just? If a person has no
choice in whether or not he will be saved, how can God condemn him?
Interestingly enough, Paul answered these objections, yet Arminians continue to
wrestle against scripture to remove the true weight of the doctrine and the
strength of God’s sovereignty, instead desiring to place the initiative with
men so that God is not at fault and is “truly good.” The net effect of their
theology removes God’s sovereignty, and places all determination for man’s
destiny within man’s hands when scripture absolutely denies this. Arminian
theology reduces God to little more than a passive spectator, endorsing and
confirming the ultimately sovereign desires of men.
John Wesley so absolutely hated the doctrine of election
that he preached entire sermons against it. “The doctrine of predestination
[election] is not a doctrine of God,” he said.
Calvinism
teaches that God chose men and women to believe in him before they were ever
born, and before they had a chance to decide for themselves whether they would
believe in God or not. In other words, God decided for them. Wesley and Finney
objected to the “arbitrariness” of such a doctrine, not to mention the
offensive violation of our free will. Finney said
Partiality in any being, consists in preferring one to
another without any good or sufficient reason, or in opposition to good and
sufficient reasons. It being admitted that God is infinitely wise and good, it
follows that he cannot be partial; that he cannot have elected some to eternal
salvation and passed others by, without some good and sufficient reason. That
is, he cannot have done it arbitrarily.
If God chose us apart from any characteristic, or decision,
or faith of our own, and purely by his own will, then he is partial to who he
chooses, and a partial God cannot be a just God. This objection to
arbitrariness is in itself arbitrary, and not based in any verse in scripture.
Arminian theologians do not deny the doctrine of election, just the basis of it.
Arminians believe that God chooses those who choose him.
Arminians commonly object to the Calvinist doctrine of
election by saying that an act (real or perceived) of God is not just merely
because God does it. The Calvinist believes that God chooses who will be saved
by his own will, for his own purposes. We do not understand these purposes, but
we trust that God is righteous in all he does and we accept that his election
is just. The Arminian objects, “So whatever God does is good just because he
does it?” Well, yeah. The Arminian judges God by his own standard of
righteousness, and if he does not understand God’s motives, e.g., his
“arbitrary” election unto salvation or damnation, then these motives cannot be
just. Was God just in choosing Abraham? Of course, Abraham had faith. Was God
just in hardening Pharaoh? Of course, Pharaoh hardened his own heart. Was God
just in allowing Satan to torment Job? Of course, he had far-reaching purposes
in Job’s misery. Was God just in sending an evil spirit to influence Abimelech
and the men of Shechem (Judges 9.23)? Arminians do not explore this. Was God
just in not allowing the sons of Eli to repent (1 Sam 2.25)? Arminians do not
answer this. Is God just in revealing his kingdom to infants but hiding it from
the wise and intelligent (Matthew 11.25)? Of course, because these men are
proud. They deserve damnation. Is God just in electing some and passing over
the rest, in choosing some to be vessels of mercy and others to be objects of
wrath (Romans 9)? Of course not, because we do not understand why.
Arminian theology demands explanations from the Almighty, the Creator of the
heavens and the earth, the eternal wisdom that gave life to us all. It is the
theology of the conceited, arrogant, entitled child. God refuses to explain
himself, as if we could ever understand him, and therefore scripture does not
satisfy the Arminian, so he fabricates explanations for God’s mystifying
actions.
God [elected] upon condition of their foreseen repentance,
faith, and perseverance…He foresees that he can
secure, and with the certain knowledge that he shall
secure their salvation.
Arminians believe that before the beginning of time, God
looked into the future and saw that some would believe in him, so he chose
these people. In other words, God chose the righteous. Instead of God, men
initiate salvation through their faith, repentance, and per-severance, and God
chooses those whom he knows will believe, repent, and serve him successfully.
How does this bring glory to God?
God, looking on all ages, from the creation to the
consummation, as a moment, and seeing at once whatever is in the hearts of all
the children of men, knows every one that does or does not believe, in every
age or nation…He saw [the elect] as believers, and as such predestinated them
to salvation.
Of course, none of this is even possible. If we are dead in
our sins, unable to please God, unwilling to seek God, and every intent of our
thoughts only continually evil,
then
God has only evil beings to choose from. Wesley tried to circumvent this
problem by claiming that “prevenient grace” removed the problem of sin, but as
we have seen, scripture nowhere teaches this. God does not give prevenient
grace to all men by giving life to their dead hearts, removing the complete
corruption and rebellion of sin, yet leaving them still sinners. For Wesley,
every man contradicts scripture and himself—dead in sin, yet able to believe;
hateful to God yet submitting to his will; a slave to sin yet somehow free from
its power. The sinner has life to believe, and every intention of this
unrighteous God-hater is
not continually evil. He is a new creation but
he is still the old man. Wesley placed all men in some unbiblical halfway state
between sin and faith. God does not give prevenient grace to all men, but instead
he gives new life to those he loves, unequivocally, unilaterally, and he does
this in spite of our death, corruption, and rebellion.
Notice that Wesley does not deny the existence of the
doctrine of election. Instead he inserts his own “fix” into its mechanics based
on his personal, philosophical objections. The doctrine cannot be denied
outright due to the sheer volume of scripture that supports it.
But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to
become children of God, even to those who believe in his name, who were born,
not of blood nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
When the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and
glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as had been appointed to eternal
life believed.
The God of our fathers has appointed you to know his will and
to see the Righteous One.
There has also come to be at the present time a remnant
according to God’s gracious choice.
But when God, who had set me apart even from my mother’s womb
and called me through his grace…
He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that
we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to
adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind
intention of His will.
For they stumble because they are disobedient to the word,
and to this doom they were also appointed.
To those who reside as aliens, scattered throughout Pontus,
Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who are chosen according to the
foreknowledge of God the Father.
For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become
conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many
brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He
called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.
Wesley solves his problem with these last two verses. God
chooses “according to [his] foreknowledge.” Wesley understood this to mean that
God chose those whom he foreknew would believe in him. R.C. Sproul said, “This
view of predestination is not biblical. It denies the biblical view because
there is no real predestinating involved in [this scheme], only foreknowing.”
In
this view, God does not choose; man does. In every verse and passage that
describes the ultimate purpose and end of men and Creation, God chooses,
directs, and initiates, yet in Arminian election, man elects himself. Grace
requires that God elects us, and not for anything we do or believe, not for
anything in ourselves, nor anything we can muster, or any decision we arrive
at, or any knowledge we attain. We can do absolutely nothing because we are
dead in our sin and enslaved to it, unwilling to seek God and unable to please
him. God must do all. God chooses, God saves, and God loves. Even our faithful
response, God graciously gives to us.
Wesley solves one major problem with this idea, however. If
God chooses men uncon-ditionally for salvation, then he necessarily chooses who
will be damned. Calvinists often try to sidestep this objection by saying that
God does not actively choose who will be damned, but passively allows them to
be damned by their own choice. Wesley rightly said
It is, in effect, neither more nor less; it comes to the same
thing; for if you are dead, and altogether unable to make yourself alive, then,
if God had absolutely decreed he will make only others alive, and not you, he
hath absolutely decreed your everlasting death; you are absolutely consigned to
damnation.
Roger Olson explores this difficult notion of election even
further:
Taken to their logical conclusion, that even hell and all who
will suffer there eternally are foreordained by God, God is thereby rendered
morally ambiguous at best, and a moral monster at worst. I have gone so far as
to say that this kind of Calvinism, which attributes everything to God’s will
and control, makes it difficult (at least for me) to see the difference between
God and the devil.
Arminian theology eliminates the arbitrariness of eternal
condemnation and Olson’s “moral monstrosity” with this foreknowledge of faith.
This theology answers this difficult question and justifies God in our sight.
God is no longer sovereign, however, but that is not a big problem with
Arminians. If God elects by his own desire, for reasons he denies us, then he
remains sovereign, but he leaves us to wonder, to question, to wrestle with
him, and ultimately, if we humbly submit to his word, to trust.
Scripture nowhere connects foreknowledge of faith to God’s
election. Neither of the passages that mention foreknowledge and election
mention faith at all. Paul says in Romans 8, “For those whom He foreknew,
He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son,”
(Romans 8.29), and then again in chapter 11, speaking of Israel, “He has not
rejected his people whom he foreknew” (Romans 11.2). Peter says we are “chosen
according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of
the Spirit” (1 Peter 1.1, 2).
Grudem says that this foreknowledge is not factual knowledge
of a person’s actions or beliefs, but intimate knowledge of the
person.
He says this foreknowledge “is a personal, relational knowledge: God, looking
into the future, thought of certain people in saving relationship to him, and
in that sense he ‘knew them’ long ago.”
Certain other verses shed light on this kind of knowledge:
Then Joseph…took to him his wife, and did not know her till she had brought forth her
firstborn Son.
If anyone loves God, he is known
by him.
You have come to know God, or rather to be known by God.
Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not
prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name
perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice
lawlessness.’
Paul explicitly denies any characteristic or behavior within
us that would compel God to choose us. Paul repeats this idea multiple times,
that God chooses on whom to have mercy, and he is in no way constrained by
anything we do or do not do. In Romans 9, he says
For though the twins were not yet born and had not done
anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to His choice would
stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls…
As if to deny not only any action on our part, but any
characteristic, attitude, mental state, personal preference, belief, etc., Paul
says this both negatively and positively, and in two different ways for each in
this single verse. Negatively, he says that God chose Jacob before he had done
anything good or bad, then “not because of works.” Positively, Paul says that
God chose Jacob “according to His choice,” and “because of Him who calls.” God
chose because that is what he wanted to do. In verses 15 and 18, Paul repeats
this twice more—God chooses by his own unconditional prerogative:
For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I will have
mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
So then he has mercy on whom he desires, and he hardens whom
he desires.
At this point, I wonder how there can be any confusion, but
Paul anticipates an obvious objection and asks the question for his readers,
“Why does he still find fault? For who resists his will?” We completely
understand Paul’s point, though we may not agree with it and prefer it much
less. God chooses whom he will choose. He has mercy on his elect, and he leaves
the rest in their sins. To answer this objection, Paul says three things. First,
he questions the person who would have the brazen audacity and arrogance to
question Almighty God. Second, he says that God has every right to do what he
wants with us. We do not belong to ourselves, but to him. Third, he declares
that God chooses unconditionally who will be saved and who will be damned in
order to reveal his glory.
On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God?
The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,”
will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the
same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? What if God,
although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured
with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so to
make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared
beforehand for glory.
Up till now, Paul has not given any reason for this
unconditional election, this “moral monster” that he describes, but Paul lays
everything out here. With a question and with a direct statement, Paul explains
that God chooses “vessels of mercy” and “vessels of wrath” to demonstrate his
wrath and his power, and to make his glory known to us. We understand God’s
wrath on the unbeliever by the contrast against his mercy for the believer.
The Monster God
Is God a monster?
What is a monster? Is not a monster some terrifying,
completely foreign thing we do not understand, that we do not control? In a
very real sense, does that not adequately describe God? Is God not all
powerful? Is he not infinitely beyond our comprehension? The writer of Hebrews
described the judgment of God as a “terrifying expectation” (Hebrews 10.27). He
said, “It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God”
(Hebrews 10.31). Is that not exactly what Paul describes in Romans 9, the
judgment of God? If we do not trust God, he cannot be anything but a monster, whether we are Arminian,
Calvinist, or whatever.
Wesley responded to this doctrine of election by saying, “Let
it mean what it will, it cannot mean that the Judge of all the world is unjust.
No scripture can mean that God is not love, or that his mercy is not over all
his works; whatever it prove beside, no scripture can prove predestination.”
No
doctrine can describe a “God of hate.” Scripture cannot describe a God who
unilaterally decides the salvation and damnation of every member of humanity,
utterly separate from their own self-determination. Wesley maintained that God
is love, but he actually meant that God is
only
love, and that any action of God that is not completely loving is also
completely out of his control. He concluded that men determine God’s unloving
actions, but consequently they also determine his loving actions. God
determines nothing at all.
Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the
kingdom of God.The Son gives life to whom he wishes.
It is my Father who gives you the true bread out of heaven.
But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to
become children of God, even to those who believe in his name, who were born,
not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
Wesley refused to acknowledge the election of God because he
believed his moral instinct superior to that of God described by scripture. He
could not understand how the biblical God could possibly be good and loving but
also full of wrath and absolutely sovereign. Wesley believed that God intends
to save all sinners, but that unconditional election represents God as being a
double-minded liar. He says, “He everywhere speaks as if he was willing that
all men should be saved. Therefore, to say he was not willing that all men
should be saved, is to represent him as a mere hypocrite… You cannot deny that
he says, ‘Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden.’”
If
only Wesley had abandoned his anti-calvinistic bent and read scripture with
even the slightest bit of objectivity, he would have found his answer. He
quotes Matthew 11.28 but ignores the preceding verses which shed light on
Christ’s intention. Immediately before this, Christ pronounced judgment on the cities
of Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum. “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you,
Bethsaida! Capernaum will descend to Hades,” he says. Then Jesus makes a very
peculiar statement in the light of these words of judgment and his lament over
these cities.
I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have
hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to
infants. Yes, Father, for this way was well-pleasing in Your sight. All things
have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the
Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the
Son wills to reveal Him.
God hid revelation from the people of these cities. He
refused to grant them repentance to turn from their rebellion and trust in
Christ, and Jesus praised the Father for doing this. “This way was
well-pleasing,” he says. He continues and tells the crowd that they do not
understand him, nor his message, nor do they know the Father intimately unless
Christ wants them to. He concludes his message to these cities by calling out
to those who will respond, “All who are weary and heavy laden.” This obviously
cannot include all in this audience, but only these “infants” to whom Christ
wished to reveal the Father to. God is sovereign in both judgment and repentance.
Our God is in the heavens,
He does whatever he pleases.
Whatever the Lord pleases, He does,
In heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all deeps.
The Most High is the ruler over the realm of mankind.
All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing,
But He does according to His will in the host of heaven
And among the inhabitants of earth;
And no one can ward off His hand
Or say to Him, ‘What have You done?’
Scottish Presbyterian James Orr decried sovereign election by
saying, “Calvin exalts the sovereignty of God, and this is right. But he errs
in placing this root-idea of God in sovereign will rather than in love. Love is
subordinated to sovereignty, instead of sovereignty to love.”
Sovereignty that is subordinate
is not sovereignty. The proof is in the
word:
sovereign. To be sovereign is to be subordinate to nothing. A God
that is not sovereign over all, who does not ordain everything, every act,
every event, every thought, is not a God who loves. How does God demonstrate
his love?
He keeps his word. He acts on our behalf. If God does not rule
over all, he cannot keep his word, for he is subordinate to us and we are as
fickle as a reed tossed by the wind.
Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good, For His
lovingkindness is everlasting.
Give thanks to the God of gods, For His lovingkindness is
everlasting.
Give thanks to the Lord of lords, For His lovingkindness is
everlasting.
To Him who alone does great wonders, For His lovingkindness
is everlasting;
To Him who made the heavens with skill, For His
lovingkindness is everlasting;
To Him who spread out the earth above the waters, For His
lovingkindness is everlasting;
To Him who made the great lights, For His lovingkindness is
everlasting:
The sun to rule by day, For His lovingkindness is
everlasting,
The moon and stars to rule by night, For His lovingkindness
is everlasting.
To Him who smote the Egyptians in their firstborn, For His
lovingkindness is everlasting,
And brought Israel out from their midst, For His
lovingkindness is everlasting,
With a strong hand and an outstretched arm, For His
lovingkindness is everlasting.
His lovingkindness is everlasting because he does great
wonders—he made the heavens; he spread out the earth; he gave us the sun, the
moon, and the stars; he delivered Israel from Egypt and hardened the hearts of
the Egyptians (Exodus 14.4, 17). His lovingkindness is everlasting precisely
because of his strong hand, outstretched arm, and absolute sovereignty.
Faced with the choice between good and sovereign, and either
unwilling or unable to reconcile the two, Wesley chose to believe only in the
goodness of God. Scripture describes God as good and loving toward his people,
but God is also holy, just, and he executes wrath on the unrepentant. God
decides who he will give life to. He decides who will be born again. He elects
sinners to repentance and grants them repentance—he does not see what we do not
have and then choose us on this basis. He does not choose the faithful,
repentant, persevering righteous because none of us have faith apart from his
will, none of us are repentance without his grace, and none of us will
persevere apart from his strength. We are weak, sinful, rebellious creatures
and every one of us deserve eternal damnation. If God chooses to save none of
us, he will still remain infinitely righteous. Wesley himself admitted that God
allowed Adam’s sin to ruin mankind and that “to permit the fall of the first
man was far best for mankind in general; that abundantly more good than evil
would accrue to the posterity of Adam by his fall.”
Wesley admits that God decreed Adam’s sin to plunge humanity into ruin, and
thereby allow God the opportunity to glorify himself by his great redemption in
Christ, but he refuses to trust in the same God who decreed the destiny of
sinners who refuse to trust in Christ. He understands the redemption but not
the condemnation, and he cannot trust a God he does not understand.
Romans 9
I have discussed Paul’s treatment of election in Romans 9
and I realize this will not satisfy many of the Arminians who read it. Many
much more qualified men have written on this passage and the clarity of Paul’s
argument for God’s sovereignty. Placing this passage in context does nothing to
remove the weight, the force, and the strength of the stance against free will.
We know with certainty that God is sovereign, and that man cannot determine
anything for himself but eternal damnation. Scripture is clear, but I will make
a few basic observations about Romans 9.
The epistle to the Romans presents God’s grand Gospel
scheme. God has revealed himself to all men (chapter 1). Everyone deserves
judgment because of sin (chapters 2-3). God has made salvation available through
faith in Christ, and we glory in the benefit of Christ’s victory over sin and
death and nothing can separate those God loves from Christ (chapters 4-8). Paul
responds to the obvious question: What about the Jews? God originally promised
salvation to them, but most of them refuse the offer of Christ. Does God not
love them? Are his promises of salvation to Israel now void? (9.1-5).
Of course not, he says. God’s word has not failed because
the physical nation of Israel does not equal the spiritual children of God (9.6).
God promised salvation not to every blood descendant of Abraham but to a
remnant within Israel that he has sovereignly chosen. Isaac was the child of
promise; Ishmael was the child of Abraham’s strength and effort. God did not create
Israel from Abraham’s work but from his gracious promise. Paul then continues
this theme by saying that God chose Jacob to be the ancestor of Israel and not
Esau, and he chose Jacob and rejected Esau before either of them was born or
had done anything good or bad to either merit or negate their election. Paul
goes so far as to quote Malachi 1.2-3, “I have loved Jacob; but I have hated
Esau.” Because scripture sometimes refers to Esau and Jacob as their respective
nations, Edom and Israel (Genesis 25.23; Malachi 1.4), Arminians try to remove
the force of election by claiming that Paul spoke of Jacob and Esau as nations
and not individuals in Romans 9. God does not single out individuals for
damnation, they maintain. Scripture does not exclusively speak of Jacob and
Esau as nations, but also as individuals. They were individuals before they
were nations, obviously, and God chose individuals to be the progenitors of
nations. Whether we believe God elects nations, or God elects only Christ, or
God elects only for service and not salvation, the claim here still stands—God elects
unconditionally, with no respect to our deeds, faith, attitudes, righteousness,
etc.
None of these claims against God’s sovereignty holds any
merit. Paul says that God “set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me
through his grace” (Galatians 1.15). Paul is an individual called to salvation in
order to serve. God tells Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew
you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet
to the nations” (Jeremiah 1.5). God sanctified Jeremiah, an individual, for service.
We see the same with Isaiah (Isaiah 6), Jonah (Jonah 1.1-2), David (1 Samuel
16.12-13), and the disciples (Matthew 4.18-22). Christ adds to Paul’s theme of
election when he says to his disciples, “You did not choose me but I chose you”
(John 15.16).
God chooses not only for salvation for also damnation. He
prevents men from repentance and guarantees their destruction. God does not
even command anyone to enter the ark in Genesis 7. He hardened the hearts of
Pharaoh and the Egyptians to bring about “great judgments” (Exodus 4.21; 6.6; 14.17).
He hardened the hearts of the Canaanite kings so that “he might utterly destroy
them” and their nations (Joshua 11.20). He sends an evil spirit between
Abimelech and the men of Shechem to facilitate their judgment (Judges 9.22-24).
He desires the death of Eli’s sons (1 Samuel 2.25). Scripture suggests that
they do not repent because God wants to put them to death. We see this in the
New Testament as well in John 12.38-40, Matthew 11.25, and 1 Peter 2.8.
Paul continues his argument by saying that God desired
Israel’s hardening in order to save the Gentiles (compare also Acts 13.46). He
quotes Hosea 2.23 which says, “I will call those who were not my people, ‘My
people,’ and her who was not beloved, ‘Beloved’” (Romans 9.25). Paul mixes together
language that describes both sovereign election and human faith. He says that
the “Gentiles … attained righteousness by faith,” and Israel “did not pursue
[righ-teousness] by faith, but as though it were by works” (9.30-31). He continues,
“If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that
God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (10.9), and “Whoever will call
on the name of the Lord will be saved” (10.13). If Israel trusts in Christ,
they will be saved. Then again in the next chapter, he returns to the notion of
God’s unconditional election. God keeps a people for himself. God said to Elijah,
after he fled from Jezebel and feared he was the only person who remained loyal
to God, “I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee
to Baal” (11.4; 1 Kings 19.18). Again, Paul emphasizes the theme in Romans 9, “There
has also come to be at the present time a remnant according to God’s gracious
choice. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise
grace is no longer grace” (11.5-6). God does not choose us because of anything
that can be found in us—faith, works, whatever—but only by his unconditioned
choice. God elects and then we respond in faith because he has elected us.
Though Paul clearly and emphatically answers the objection
against unconditional election, men continue to raise the question to this day.
Paul answers it in much the same way that God answers Job. God allowed Satan to
destroy Job’s livestock, his home, his family, and even his health. After
lengthy discussion with his friends with no answers to justify his troubles,
raising question after question against the righteousness and justice of God,
God finally answers Job. He does not give a single reason for the tragedy that
befell Job. He does not explain Satan’s involvement, he does not explain Job’s
inclusion in scripture for the benefit of believers to come, and he does not
give Job any hope for any future restoration.
Who is this that darkens counsel
By words without knowledge?
Now gird up your loins like a man,
And I will ask you, and you instruct Me!
Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell Me, if you have understanding,
Who set its measurements? Since you know.
Or who stretched the line on it?
On what were its bases sunk?
Or who laid its cornerstone,
When the morning stars sang together
And all the sons of God shouted for joy?
God instructs Job
through five chapters, and no small amount of sarcasm, describing his
magnificence in Creation, in his wonders, in the living creatures he has made,
in the heavens and the earth that continually declare his wisdom and strength.
After all of this, Job submits in humility and trust, and ceases his pursuit
for knowledge that God will not give him and for some justification of God that
he neither needs nor deserves.
I know that You can do all things,
And that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.
‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’
Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand,
Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
‘Hear, now, and I will speak;
I will ask You, and You instruct me.’
I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear;
But now my eye sees You;
Therefore I retract,
And I repent in dust and ashes.
If I even attempted to answer all the objections to election
and sovereignty, I would never stop writing. Men do not accept sovereignty
because they do not trust a God who they do not understand. God created the
world. He gave Adam a choice. Adam chose unrighteously, as all of us would
have, and doomed us all to perish. Because of Adam, all refuse to trust in God,
but he chose to save some when he had no obligation to save any. Election is grace
for us but judgment for the sinner. If God ultimately desires to bless men and
guarantee their happiness, then unconditional election contradicts this goal
and Arminianism becomes the only true choice, but if God ultimately desires to
glorify himself, to magnify the greatness of his strength, wisdom, and holiness
by demonstrating both his love and his wrath, then unconditional election fits
this plan perfectly.
