Well, our class today seemed to stir up some excellent discussion regarding some very tough issues that surround the doctrine of election. It was suggested that I post my Scripture references here. They follow. They’re also available in my class notes. Please feel free to post questions or thoughts about this doctrine.
I Peter 1:1-2
I Peter 2:9
II Tim. 1:8-10
II Thess. 2:13-14
Rev. 13:7-8
Acts 13:48
John 6:35-40
John 6:44
John 6:63-65
Eph. 1:3-14
Rom. 8:28-30
Rom. 9:9-13
Rom. 9:14-24
Also, Wayne Grudem, in his Systematic Theology, gives the following quote which is quite helpful in reconciling a loving God with the just Judge who also creates some people to be “objects of wrath”:
We also must remember that there are important differences between election and reprobation as they are presented in the Bible. Election to salvation is viewed as a cause for rejoicing and praise to God, who is worthy of praise and receives all the credit for our salvation (see Eph. 1:3-6; I Pet. 1:1-3). God is viewed as actively choosing us for salvation, and doing so in love and with delight. But reprobation is viewed as something that brings God sorrow, not delight (see Ezek. 33:11), and the blame for the condemnation of sinners is always put on the people or angels who rebel, never on God Himself (see John 3:18-19; 5:40). So, in the presentation of Scripture the casue of election lies in God, and the casue of reprobation lies in the sinner. Another important difference is the that ground of election is God’s grace, whereas the ground of reprobation is God’s justice.
Hey Matt, I wanted to ask you on Sunday, but didn’t get a chance . . . what’s your take on prevenient grace?
By: Ben Whipple on February 23, 2009
at 10:09 am
For those who don’t know (just like me…until I looked it up), prevenient grace (in the eyes of free-will advocates) is a doctrine that refers to God’s grace in a person’s life prior to salvation. It, in a sense, removes the totality of natural man’s depravity, and restores everyone’s free will. In this way, all people are able to freely accept or reject Jesus’ offer of salvation.
In response to Ben’s question: I think the idea of prevenient grace is absolutely essential for the person who believes in both total depravity and the free will of people. It’s a nice little logical fix to the otherwise problematic doctrine of free will.
It seems to me that this doctrine was born less out of a careful study of the Scriptures letting the Word speak (exegesis), and more out of a preconception of man’s ultimate free will imposed on the Scriptures (eisegesis). What I mean is that it seems that the passages used to support this doctrine must be read in light of a prior belief in the free will of man in order to see them as a support for that doctrine. Studied in and of themselves, one would not arrive at this conclusion.
Even the passages used to support this notion of grace seem to much more describe the idea of an irresistible grace. That is, when God’s grace is poured out upon a person, they will believe and be saved. God’s grace not only enables a person to “accept” Christ’s offer of salvation, but it also ensures it.
By: Matt Borg on February 26, 2009
at 10:30 pm
In class I mentioned Augustine’s exposition of 2 Timothy 2:4. You can find that and his exposition of Romans 9 in his Handbook (Enchiridion) on Faith, Hope, and Love, chapters 24, 25, and 27. Here are some links to those:
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/augustine/enchiridion.chapter24.html
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/augustine/enchiridion.chapter25.html
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/augustine/enchiridion.chapter27.html
John Calvin says much the same about 2 Tim. 2:4 in his sermon “The Salvation of All Men.” Here’s a link to that, as well: http://www.the-highway.com/Salvation_of_All.html
By: Rob O. on February 27, 2009
at 10:16 am
Predestination is a topic that often frustrates me and even makes me mad. Having grown up in an Armenian church, and mostly attended covenant theology-oriented churches since I started college, I have been exposed to both sides of the discussion. In trying to come to some conclusions, I have encountered people on both sides who have been emotional, ungracious, arrogant, and sometimes just plain mean. I wonder why this doctrine has that effect on people?
When I read the Scriptures Matt posted, they make sense to me. Then, when I start reading about drowning people and reprobation and prevenient grace and total depravity and other big words that are not in Scripture, it gets all muddled and confusing again. One observation I have made is that when I hear people defending predestination, they often use specific passages from the Bible, but when people are defending alternative viewpoints, they often refer to what the whole Bible says, or the “whole counsel of Scripture.” Referring to the whole counsel of Scripture has merit, but usually is not as compelling as specific passages.
I say all that to say this. Does anyone have a list of specific passages from the Bible that promote free will, foreknowledge, and other alternate views on election?
By: Casey Marks on March 8, 2009
at 2:40 pm
Casey & leaders, i too have some trouble wrapping my small mind around the idea that God would create man “in His image” to love Him and worship Him and not provide an element of seperate will (be it free or not…) Without God we are in sin. We cannot right this seperation on our own. In a very limited study, i’ve searched for a few key phrases that seem to pop into my mind when thinking about election as having no element of our unique participation in the initial act of believing. Here’s what i came up with (this is certainly not exhaustive.): Matthew 7, Luke 11, Rev 3:20… i found when searching “knock and the door shall be opened.” Jesus knocks, we open, we knock and Jesus opens. It’s a relationship and we have a part in it.
Deuteronomy 4:29, Proverbs 8:17, Jeremiah 29:13, Matthew 7 (again)… when i was thinking of “seek and ye shall find.” Is not the Bible full of calls to action? Seek? Believe? Turn? God pleads for the people to change. Obviously they can’t without Jesus but he wants them to take action. It seems to me quite obvious that love isn’t quite love if the other person is controlled by the other. Doesn’t it require choice? Doesn’t it require sacrifice and submission?
Acts 10:43… Believe!
I believe God has foreknowledge and that without Him and Jesus’ atonement we could not be purified. However, when I think through the logic of this doctrine i have to wonder if election some how assumes that the initial act of believing (the entering of the Holy Spirit) is somehow required to be without sin… Who started? Had to be God, because salvation is pure. I’m not sure the scripture says that the Holy Spirit arrives and does the act of believing That is, can’t we be totally deprived, unable to save ourselves and essentially quit on ourselves, turning to Jesus out of selfish nature? The robber on the cross recognized that He was Lord and simply asked to be remembered, knowing that he was a sinner and deserved punishment… the other, mocked Him and refused to admit depravity and ask for and allow salvation to occur. We must turn to Him and believe… He takes it from there.
Just some of my thoughts. Thanks to our leaders for trusting God and the word to lead our class through such a challenging subject with such weak students! I’m not even sure if my response here is even on point with what Matt lead regarding critical elements of election… Are my thoughts off?
By: Daryl S. on March 8, 2009
at 3:46 pm
One more thing… God could save us without our participation. This is possible. But is this how it happens? Is this God’s plan?
By: Daryl S. on March 8, 2009
at 3:54 pm
Casey & Daryl…great comments/questions. I’ve been meaning to get a response posted all week, but have been too busy. I’ll try to get to it this weekend. Thanks for posting!
By: Matt Borg on March 13, 2009
at 10:31 am
Casey,
I have several points of response. First of all, I have definitely experienced (and, sadly, participated in) the negative discussions/fights about this doctrine. I think this one has so much emotion attached to it for two reasons…1) we’re sinful and want to be right and convince everyone else that we have the right point of view (this is really true of any argument though, I suppose) and 2) this doctrine really hits at the fundamental nature of God. Is He a God who values His own sovereign freedom above all else, or does He value the free will of the creature above all else. No matter your view, it is easy to see the opposing stance as an attack on the very nature of God. For those who love God, they want pretty desperately to defend God against a conception of Him that they find appalling. That, I think, is okay, but then my reason number 1 comes into play and messes the whole deal up. It should not be this way.
Secondly, I would argue that the whole counsel of Scripture does, in fact, lead to the conclusion that God does elect some to salvation. That being said, the following are some of the passages (not exhaustive) that I have either heard used or used myself to defend the conception of a libertarian free will. I won’t take the time to make the actual argument and counterpoint, but, needless to say, I don’t feel they actually point to human free will.
* Ez. 18:23, 32, 11
* Josh. 24:15
* I Tim. 2:3
* II Tim. 2:20-21
* Titus 2:11
* Heb. 6:4-6
* Heb. 10:26-29
* I John 2:1
* II Peter 3:9
By: Matt Borg on March 16, 2009
at 8:34 pm
Daryl S.
Interesting insights and very valuable. I’m not sure where you are coming down on the spectrum of election, but I believe that your final statement about participation in our own salvation is one of the keys to understanding your post– correct me if I’m wrong.
Firstly, I am not sure that I would view the ‘knock and the door will be open’ to be speaking about ’salvation’ per se. Remember when Jesus states this in Revelation, He is speaking to His Church, the Church that has been purchases, sanctified, and cleansed by His blood. He is not making an exposition on how people are saved, because we believe that the Church is already saved.
Secondly, when you state that God could have saved us without participation, you are correct. But I would also comment that you are right in that He did not. our response is required. But even the response (of belief and faith) is a gift from God. Sure the NT writers required belief from people, ‘Repent and believe the Gospel!’ But this doesn’t negate the fact that belief and faith are ‘gifts’ of God (cf. Eph. 2:8, 9). This is a tension, but I think it can be resolved by saying something akin to, ‘Electing grace enables us to respond to God in faith, but even this faith is given from God.’ In similitude to David’s prayer, ‘All that we have given you, we have given from your own hand.’ So God makes us willing to respond, we don’t, in a Semi-Peligain fashion, stir ourselves to believe.
Ben,
Prevenient grace as understood by the Arminian camp is, as Matthew said, drawn not so much from Scripture as it is from fabrications of their own theological bias. The Calvinist camps sees prevenient grace being played out in, ‘Not being as bad as we possible could be,’ and this seems tenable to me. But no where in Scripture do we get the sense that man is restored to ‘pre-Fall’ innocence. This would make many of the discussions of man’s ‘inability’ to be pointless in the Scriptures (cf. Jer. 17:9ff). And it doesn’t account for such things as ‘No one can come to Me unless the Father draws Him’ in the famous John 6 discourse. If we have been restored to innocence, the Bible seems to be silent on this point. I’m not sure adequate texts can even be proof-texted for this purpose.
Casey- I appreciate the humility in saying that you ‘get frustrated’ by this argument and it is something we have to think about. I think Matt had some good thoughts on why this happens. It is because we are sinful and the thought of God electing some and not electing others seems insulting. I think C.H. Spurgeon has some insight when he speaks of Romans 9 in this way: I had a friend once who was speaking to me about that infamous passage in Romans 9. He seemed upset and frustrated. I asked him, ‘What ails you friend?’ And he responded by saying, ‘I read this passage in Romans 9 and I simply cannot understand why God should have ever hated Esau.’ I turned and responded to my friend, ‘Well friend, that is what you can’t wrap your mind around, what I can’t wrap my mind around is why God should have ever loved Jacob.’
We often get mad when we see our thoughts of freedom, human dignity, and love assaulted by things in the Scripture, but we need to let the Scriptures shape our minds, not our own conceptions.
Finally, Matt is right when he says that the overarching conclusion of Scripture is divine election. From the very beginning of the Bible, God states the purpose of redemptive history. In Genesis 3:15 it is God who states, ‘I will put enmity between your seed and woman’s seed…and the woman’s seed shall crush your head…’ This verse teaches us several important things: 1) It is God who initiates the enmity. Praise the Lord He did not leave us to fend for ourselves in our sin leaving us helpless and destitute. It is God who establishes the ‘divine dichotomy’ between those who are saved (the woman’s seed) and those who perish (the seed of the serpent). After the Fall, God could have allowed us to all belong to our ‘father the devil’ but in His gracious sovereignty, God established the dichotomy, it is God’s doing. 2) God establishes the seed of salvation and the seed of Satan. In saying thus, He has perpetually established an enmity to exist. He is declaring not only, ‘I shall have a seed,’ but He is also declaring, ‘Satan shall have a seed.’ It is here that we see salvation and reprobation in clear terms. This is a perpetual statement of continuing enmity that is to last longer than the lives of Eve and her first posterity. 3) We see that the deliverer (or the crusher) comes from the seed of the woman and called by God– this is none other than Christ the Almighty God. We must see that our election is grounded in the fact that Christ is the elected Son of God. Our election finds its foundation in Christ being elected and called the ‘Son of God’ ‘the seed of the woman’ ‘the Son of Man,’ ‘Today I have begotten you,’ ‘True Israel’ and such. Our election is analogous (which means similar and yet different) to Christ’s election by the Father and being the faithful Adam, faithful Israel, and faithful covenant head. And we see in Christ the mystery of divine election and yet human freedom, for He was surely elect of God but retained perfect human freedom (though some argue that perhaps ‘responsibility’ is a more accurate word to use in contradistinction to freedom).
Matt,
Haha, I never thought I would see the day when you would be defending election! I was weirded out when I read your post;)
S.R.
By: Anonymous on March 18, 2009
at 8:24 pm
Daryl,
Great thoughts. I have a few responses. I apologize beforehand if this gets ridiculously long!
1) You made mention of not being able to wrap your mind around election apart from any human working. As believers, one thing that we must do is to view Scripture as our highest authority. This is how God has revealed Himself to us. So, if we see something in Scripture that is hard to make sense of or wrap our minds around, it is incumbent upon us to appeal to and believe what the Bible says, even if it’s hard to comprehend or even believe.
2) There is no doubt that there are an overwhelming number of passages that do implore or command people to believe, choose, do, and take action (I John 3:23). And so it is with salvation. We do choose.
However, we do not choose with a libertarian type of free will (one that is free from outside constraint or determination). Instead, the following is the experience that every believer has had. We begin life with a sin nature in complete and absolute rebellion against God. We don’t seek after Him, and we don’t want to. We see Him and His glory as worthless and we quite happily drag it through the mud and exchange it for other things we do want more. Apart from sovereign, saving grace, this would be our condition until our eventual death and judgment (Rom. 1:21-32, 3:9-18, 3:23, 6:23).
For the elect, however, there is something else. God sends forth His Word and His command. When His Word goes forth effectually in this manner, it causes the eyes of the called to open, it causes their ears to be unstopped, it causes them to turn, and see Jesus and the glory of God for all their beauty. It causes the desires of the rebel’s heart to change and desire God in Christ Jesus. In that moment, the former rebel’s very desires change, and he wants Jesus. And thus he “chooses” Christ as opposed to continuing in the filthy condition he previously did not even recognize he was in. He chooses to go to Christ, but he would not and could not do otherwise.
What person would ever choose to consume a plate full of dead, rotten fish covered with manure when a plate of the choicest of food were freely given instead? No one would! Prior to the effectual calling of God, our wills are enslaved to sin and can do nothing else and desire nothing else (like the rotten fish). When God’s saving call is issued, that bondage and slavery to sin is broken, and the sinner can turn to Christ (i.e. they finally see the good food for what it is and the rotten fish for what it is). Jesus didn’t die to make it possible for sinners to be saved, He died to actually save sinners, and this is how He does it.
3) I think this kind of understanding answers your question about how love can be love if the person loving is controlled by the one being loved. When viewed in light of the above comments, this is not the case in election. We see the magnitude of God’s great love. He freely chose to open our eyes, free us from sin, and enable us to love Him and His glory. That amazing love then compels the freed person to love God in response.
4) I’m not sure that I entirely understand the question about believing being without sin. You do ask, though, whether it is possible that we are totally depraved, unable to save ourselves, and turn to Jesus out of selfish motives. Romans 3 is pretty clear that people in their natural state do not turn to God for any reason, selfish or not. So, I would answer that, no, it’s not possible that people quit on themselves and turn to Jesus selfishly. The thief on the cross recognized who and what Jesus is. He saw Jesus as innocent and not deserving of death. He saw the beauty of Christ and the glory of God. He saw Jesus as Savior and punishment-bearer. His eyes were opened, and He wanted Jesus.
5) You say that we must turn and believe and then God takes it from there. Again, looking to Romans 3 and other passages that discuss our depravity and inability, I would ask how we could even turn if, “…no one seeks for God…” We couldn’t and we wouldn’t. Not only does God take it from our turning, He orchestrates and ordains the turning. He gives faith. He does the quickening and the convicting (John 16:7-11, Rom. 12:3, Eph. 2:8-9, etc). He chooses, calls, enables, and opens eyes.
Philippians 2:13 puts it this way: “…it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” Here, we see that God is the one who directs our wills, even though it seems as though our wills and choices originate within ourselves. Just because we have a conception that a choice is only a choice if we have free sovereign control over it does not make it so. The Biblical paradigm that we must confess is that God ordains our salvation…but we do still decide and choose it.
6) You say that God could save us without our participation and then ask if He does. We participate in the new birth just as much as we participated in our original, physical birth. We were there and we went through it, but we didn’t do the conceiving, we didn’t do the work of pregnancy, and we certainly didn’t birth ourselves! In the same way, the new birth is a sovereign and free work of God from start to finish. We “participate” only insofar as it happens to us.
7) Apart from the doctrine of election, I don’t know how people get around the numerous verses that speak of God calling (Rom. 8:30), choosing (I Peter 2:8-9), appointing to eternal life (Acts 13:48), etc. The overwhelming counsel of the whole of Scripture is that God does appoint some to eternal life. He conceives of it and works it from start to finish. I just did a word search for “called” and it’s amazing how many passages came up. Though it can be complicated and hard to understand, election is the teaching of the Apostles through the Scriptures.
By: Matt Borg on March 18, 2009
at 8:25 pm