Let's Talk About Predestination! (Westminster Confession of Faith Chap. 3) Part 2

Predestination can feel like the doctrine that turns God into a math problem or a monster, depending on who’s talking. We refuse both options. Walking carefully through Westminster Confession of Faith Chapter 3, we wrestle with God’s eternal decree, why Scripture speaks so plainly about election and reprobation, and why the confession insists this “high mystery” must be handled with special prudence and care.

We define terms, then tackle the big objections: Is this unfair? Does it make God the author of sin? What do we do with passages like Romans 9 alongside 1 Timothy 2:4 and 2 Peter 3:9? Along the way we lean on the wider biblical witness, explain why Reformed theology rejects “equal ultimacy,” and clarify preterition: God effectually saves the elect, while those who are condemned are judged for their sins, not for lacking a label. We also bring in R.C. Sproul’s framework on justice and mercy to show why mercy, by definition, is never owed and why that matters for how we talk about grace.

This isn’t abstract theology for armchair debate. We keep asking what the doctrine is for: assurance of salvation, humility before God, courage to preach the gospel to all, and consolation for believers who want to rest in Christ’s promise that no one will snatch His sheep from His hand. If you’ve struggled with Calvinism, free will, the problem of evil, or the fear that predestination destroys evangelism, this conversation is for you. Subscribe, share with a friend who loves hard questions, and leave a review with your toughest objection or your most honest question.

Transcript

Welcome And Big Family News

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Welcome back to Catechizing Conversations. My name is Cisco Victor, and I'm joined again today by Drew Brackville as we talk through the Westminster Confession of Faith. Welcome, Drew.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Thank you, Sisko.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

And before we jump in, I also want to say congratulations. Drew had a beautiful baby girl with his wife, Catherine. Just has it been a week?

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Yeah, has it been a week? It's all blurring together. I think it's a little more than a week, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

Well, not far ago, this wonderful blessing. A week and a half. And uh we rejoice with you and your family. And shout out to Catherine, who's our sound editor for this podcast. And now her hands are even more full. So I hope she can still point out.

SPEAKER_00 1:21

She's got it figured out by this point. This is number four. Well, we greatly appreciate her.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

And she's got it figured out with the sound editing and raising children. Both, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

I meant the children, thank you.

Predestination And Reprobation Defined

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Well, we're continuing our discussion in the Westminster Confession of Faith, and we are on chapter three, which is entitled Of God's Eternal Decree. And we started talking about this in our last episode. And now we're stepping into even further what is considered one of the most difficult and controversial doctrines in theology. We're talking about predestination and uh not just election, but often what is called reprobation. And uh, as we start in chapter three point three, we see the severity and the the kind of sober doctrine here. By the decree of God for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto eternal life or everlasting life, and others are foreordained to uh everlasting death. So that's a statement that raises a lot of questions. Questions about fairness, about justice, about the very character of God. And these are not new questions, however. The church has been wrestling with them for centuries, and so in this episode, we want to uh wrestle with them as well, to explain this doctrine and how we are to respond to it with humility, reverence, and gratitude for the mercy of God that's shown us in Christ. Drew point eight really also it's the last section there, but it speaks to how we're approached this doctrine.

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Yeah. Yeah, the the section eight of chapter three in the in the confession says the doctrine of this high mystery of predestination is to be handled with special prudence and care, that men attending the will of God revealed in his word and yielding obedience thereunto may from the certainty of their effectual vocation be assured of their eternal election. So shall this doctrine afford matter of praise, reverence, and admiration of God, and of humility, diligence, and abundant consolation to all that sincerely obey the gospel. So, you know, the the theme there is that this doctrine, and we'll get into this, is meant to comfort believers. It's not meant to scare people.

SPEAKER_01 3:46

Yeah. You wonder why that wasn't the first point, maybe like a preface, right? To just to get everyone on the right um page and and you know, on a right posture of heart on how to address this. But we don't pretend to have all the answers to the questions and objections that will remove the difficulties that this doctrine of election poses. But we are held accountable to address it because it's in scripture, not because it's in the confession, but it's first in scripture. And in many places. In many places, and and we it would be to our detriment not to speak of it. So, Drew, let's define our terms here. What do we actually mean when we talk about predestination?

SPEAKER_00 4:26

Right. Well, so I don't know if every systematic theologian would agree with this, but I think for my part, uh I think that the doctrine of predestination is really subdivided into sort of two portions. The first one, which we really talked about at length last time, would be election, which is how we would think about the way that God saves us, right? As Calvinists, we think God saves us, and election is is how he chooses who he will who his remnant, how he chooses his remnant. And then the second part, which we'll discuss today, is this concept of reprobation, which is what we think about how God justly leaves sinners to to condemnation. And hard-bitten Reformed Presbyterians like us consider this phrase double predestination, which is what what how this doctrine gets tagged a lot to be a slur, right? So we're not going to to use that that framing in this episode, but we would say there are two parts to the doctrine of predestination, one being election and one reprobation. And so, you know, you you already read the the third section of chapter three of the confession, which I think puts it very succinctly that by the decree of God for the manifestation of his glory, right? Because it was for his glory, he predestines some to everlasting life and others to everlasting death. I should say he foreordains others to everlasting death.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

Yeah, so God decrees who shall be saved and who shall be left in their lost estate. And this determination is unchangeable. God's decision is not based on any condition, uh, who he foresees will be fulfilled in them, and the ultimate purpose, as the divine say, is for his glory. So let me say right up front that this is why the scriptures say things like the Lord knows those who are his, 2 Timothy 2 19. He knows those who are his because he has elected them. Numbers 16 5, when Moses says to Korah in his company in the morning, the Lord will show who is his, who is holy, who and will bring him near to him, the one whom he chooses, he will bring near to him. So this doctrine, although it's controversial, difficult, offensive, the idea that God is the one who determines who will and who will not be saved is one of the clearest teachings of scripture.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

Yeah. And another thing I want to uh this is maybe sort of out of out of our a non sequitur here, but one of the things those, especially these proof texts, but in general many of the proof texts for election demonstrate is that God knows those who are his, he knows us as people. The Bible's not suggesting that God knows in advance that we would choose him, which is a common Arminian perspective, right? God foreknew our our decision to choose him, and that's how he elected us. Which is sort of circular circular logic or you know, begging the question. But that's not how the how the scriptures present this. The scriptures present a God who knows people personally and knows them to be his, right? Who who he chooses the one whom he chooses he will bring near to him. It doesn't happen the other way around.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

Exactly. Exactly.

The Fairness Objection And Theodicy

SPEAKER_01 7:48

And yet many people see this as unfair.

SPEAKER_00 7:51

Why well I think it I So I know this is this this doctrine is a sticking point for people that come from a works righteousness background because it and I I also think that it strikes people as unfair that God could create some someone and never give them a quote unquote fair shot at salvation. I don't think that that I don't I don't think that's like unique to Calvinism, though. You know, if you're an Arminian and and uh there are thousands and thousands of unreached people groups who've never heard the the word of Christ from you know the beginning of of human civilization, you know, you do you think the Aztecs had a fair shot at at being saved? Like and when you ask an Arminian that question, they never give a good answer because they really don't have one. It's it's also it's uh I think it's also a large gap in their in their worldview, too. But you know, the it's not as though like all Christian traditions deal with this, the problem of evil. And it's not just Calvinism. This is sometimes phrased in a way that is called the Epicurean paradox, right? Which is a very R slash atheism way of challenging God's goodness, but I'm I'm gonna say it anyway. It's you know that it's often phrased like this if God is willing to prevent evil evil, but he's not able to, then he isn't omnipotent. Is he able but not willing, then he must be malevolent, you know. Is he both able and willing, then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing, then why call him God? Right? This was a Greek philosopher named Epicureus who came up with this in classical antiquity. And every theistic religion, including each branch of Christian thought, has wrestled with this problem, right? To phrase it a little more simply, if God exists, why does the world appear so imperfect? And that problem is not unique to Calvinism. Reddit atheists think that this is a super like deep and incisive critique of Christianity. Like they it's they don't know that we've been wrestling with this for like 2,000 years, and right we've come up with some pretty strong theodicy arguments, which is to say a defense of God's goodness as a theodicy. So Calvinism's answer to this question, to the problem of evil, I would say goes between the horns of the Epicurean paradox by attacking the idea that a God who chooses not to save some created beings is quote unquote malevolent. And I see that I see that argument that as a common attack on Calvinism, even from other Christian traditions, too, who presumably worship the same God that we worship and have the same scriptures, but they would say that, well, you the way you Calvinists interpret God, you know, your God must be a moral monster for creating some people purely as vessels of wrath. And I think that the response to that argument is exactly what Isaiah, Jeremiah, and St. Paul would all say, right? Who are you, O man? To answer back to God, will what is molded say to its molder, why hast thou made me like this? And in other words, the fact that the the the human response to the plain revealed truth, the biblical truth of God's sovereignty is to accuse God of monstrosity is proof of man's own self-idolatry and warped worldview. And if you inhabit a cosmology where you, you know, homo sapiens sapiens are the center of the moral universe, selfish man is is is the center of his own universe, then things can only be good or evil in relation to how much you might want or not want them to happen. And then if you're in that space, then it the idea of a God who disposes of all men according to his perfect will and sifts the wheat from the tares, that must surely seem monstrous to you if you are your own God. But if you rather inhabit a world where God Almighty is where he belongs, upon his throne, at the center of the universe, then when you consider God's eternal decree, I think you would be filled with a sense of awe at the mercy of a God who, through no merit of your own, would see fit to preserve you from the pet.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

Yeah, we put our hands over our mouth.

SPEAKER_00 12:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

Woe is me. But it's also interesting to me that in regards to atheists or unbelievers who object, that this is something people often push back against without really thinking it through. Because even though the doctrine of election gets criticized a lot, many of the same people criticizing it don't actually want what election gives. They object to the idea of people being chosen when they themselves show that they have no desire to be chosen. So if someone truly wants to turn from sin, desire holiness, desire to yield to the God of the universe, as you were speaking of, and uh genuinely belong to the maker of heaven and earth, that desire itself is evidence that God is at work in the heart. But if someone has no interest in repentance, no desire for Christ, no longing to belong to Him, then why take issue with those who have received that grace? Because with that grace comes responsibility. Think of Colossians 3, 12 through 13. Put on then as God's chosen ones. So we would say that speaks to election, right? Put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, bearing with one another, uh, forgiving each other as Christ has forgiven you. So election is unto salvation, but it also carries with it the responsibility to live in accordance with that privilege. So for the Red Eat Atheist, you know, the question is are you are do you have a desire to come to the one true God?

SPEAKER_00 13:48

I think they're they're, you know, yeah. I would say that they they they get mad about it because it implies that there's something wrong with the way they want to live. You know, it implies that there's something wrong with being your own little God.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

Yeah, you're so you're saying there's a proper way to orient your heart to God, and that is that he's on the throne and you are not, I am not.

SPEAKER_00 14:12

Yeah, I I mean I think that the that man's proper role in the world is of gratitude and worship, right? Immense gratitude and thankful adoration, and I think anything else is the clay speaking back to the potter. And that's obviously hard for the for people to swallow, or everyone would agree that with us, but you know, I I I've sort of I mean, I was raised in in the Calvinist tradition, so I've never really understood the and probably it's that's it's this is why I've never really understood these qualms, because I was raised with this abiding sense of of comfort from election because I was raised believing that I was elect, right? So for me it's always been a comfort, but you know, I suppose it's people from outside this tradition would look at this and be like, do they think I'm gonna go to hell? And I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

I think well no, I'm glad you said that because I was not raised in the Calvinistic tradition, I was raised in the Armenian tradition, and I I would say that one of the challenges with this doctrine is that we overly optimist are we are overly optimistic about mankind, what you were just speaking to.

Total Depravity And Why Grace Shocks

SPEAKER_01 15:25

In other words, we have a better opinion of ourselves and our abilities than is warranted, particularly spiritually. And we really don't grasp the doctrine of total depravity that is revealed in scripture. And so we forget that no one deserves anything but wrath and damnation. And that's what this confession is saying: that based on the teaching of Scripture, God gives to some what they deserve, while others he gives the unmerited gift of salvation. And those are the words of G. I. Williamson, student of John Gersner, when speaking of election. But it goes back to the scripture, right? What does Romans 3, 10 through 12 say? None is righteous, no not one. No one understands, no one seeks for God, all have turned aside, together they've become worthless. No one does good, not even one. So again, would you would you say one of their strong objections to this is that we have an overly optimistic view of who we are?

SPEAKER_00 16:27

Yeah. I mean, I cer I certainly think that Arminians and and other non-Calvinists don't have that same doctrine of total depravity, right? You know, for many their their Hamardiology is, I would say, incomplete. So they don't see you know, they would they would see that the the good works that non-Christians do as being you know coming from some some place of moral decency. You know, from their imag. But you know, we would say that when good th when human beings do things that are good for the common good, it's because of common grace. Right, exactly. It's not because human beings have have goodness in them, it's because God has goodness in him and he uses even our selfish desires to make good things happen. And I think a perfect illustration of this, of you know, how even things that that God works for good come from selfish moral intuitions is like anytime anybody donates money to a hospital, they always want to get their name put on something. Oh, yeah, I know, I know.

SPEAKER_01 17:37

I walk by those names every day as a chaplain.

SPEAKER_00 17:39

And you wonder what's the point of giving money? Is it to help people or is it to get your name put on something? And if there's I think if there's even an inkling of that selfishness of I want to be remembered, I want to be acclaimed, I want to be worshipped a little, then your motive for giving that donation was not pure. Now, of course, the Arminians would say, well, there was some, you know, there was some good in the motive, and you may, you know, maybe it's a sinner can have both sinful motives and and pure motives. I don't know. I mean, let's not the the we could that'll be episode four of episode fourteen. We're gonna try to do this in in two episodes.

SPEAKER_01 18:21

It may stretch into three, but I think what we're arguing here is that to help us understand the doctrine of election and reprobation, we do need that biblical view of mankind, and that causes us to be much more sober about ourselves than we tend to like as Westerners or Americans. An illustration that shows the depth of the depravity of the human heart. I think one of the best illustrations is a story about Malcolm Muggeridge, the famous British journalist. When he's on assignment in India, he went to a river for a swim, and as he entered the water, his eyes fell on a woman that was bathing. And he felt an impulse to go to her and seduce her, just as King David did when he saw Bathsheba, and temptation was storming his mind, he began swimming towards her. The words of his wedding vows were coming to his mind, but he responded by just swimming faster. The voice of a lorment that called out, Stolen water is sweet, and he wham swam furiously still. But when he pulled up near the woman and she turned, Muggridge saw she was a leper, and he wrote, This creature grinned at me, showing a toothless mask. His first reaction was to despise her. What a dirty, lecherous woman, he thought. But then it crashed on him that it was not the woman who was lecherous, it was her his own heart. And that's the teaching of the Bible about the moral and spiritual condition of all men and women. Our hearts are corrupt, our minds are depraved, and our desires are enslaved to the passions of sin. And so when God passes over some, that's what he's passing over. And and when a person sees that, and someone would say, Well, that's a very low view of man. But what we want people to see, and Richard Phillips writes about this in his book, What's So Amazing About the Doctrines of Grace, is that we hold to the worst possible view of man, and therefore we exercise the highest possible reliance on God's grace. If the question is, how bad am I really? we answer much, much worse than you have dared to think. And so it's against the backdrop of that terrible news about man and sin that we begin to see the good news of the gospel as something far more wonderful than we could ever imagine.

SPEAKER_00 20:49

Yeah, and there there is a point there that, you know, total depravity. I don't actually think total depravity is the worst possible view of man for what it's worth. I think like like some of the materialistic worldviews, which would phrase uh that is say that that man isn't made in God's image, he's essentially just a bag of acid and bone. That's worse.

SPEAKER_01 21:10

We're not saying man is worth less. Yeah. We're not saying that at all.

SPEAKER_00 21:13

We think man has moral value and is made in the image of God. It's uh Francis Schaefer quote. What you you put you wrote this down here. I'm gonna steal your quote. Though the Bible says men are lost, it does not say they are nothing, right? So we have moral value. It's just that we are completely warped by our sin and by the temptations of Satan. The world, the flesh, and the devil.

SPEAKER_01 21:37

Yeah, that's right. So so let's look at you know some of the arguments that people will make to say you guys are crazy about this election and reprobation thing.

Biblical Proof Texts Beyond Romans

SPEAKER_01 21:49

How can it be possible? You're taking scripture out of context. What do they say when they say that?

SPEAKER_00 21:55

They would say you Presbyterians only read Romans, don't they? Friend who who visited my house a while ago and saw I was doing a Bible study in Romans and gave me guff about it. And like I've heard, you know, I have separate many Catholic friends and they're always joking about how Presbyterians only read Romans. I'm like, well, you know, if you would love to discount what St. Paul says in Romans because it destroys the entire basis of your theology.

SPEAKER_01 22:24

Well, give us some verses that are from Romans to this.

SPEAKER_00 22:26

Well, the yeah, if if we're to look elsewhere in the Bible, I mean what Paul says in Romans, which I I read about shall the clay say to the potter. I mean, that's also in Isaiah and Jeremiah, right? That so Paul's quoting from the prophets about that that idea that the the clay shouldn't speak back to the potter, but it also says in Jude, for certain men have crept in unnoticed too long ago, were marked out for condemnation. Ungodly men who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. It's in Jude 4.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

So marked out for condemnation.

SPEAKER_00 23:00

Yeah. I don't know how you can read that as anything other than a proof text for reprobation, right? But in in 1 Thessalonians 5 9, it says, For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. God appointed us to salvation. The implication, of course, is that some are appointed to wrath, right? Proverbs 16:4, the Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

I don't know how you screwed around that one.

SPEAKER_00 23:32

Yeah. Well, all the Proverbs 16 in general is like absolutely replete with predestination proof texts, and we've mentioned a couple of them last time. And then in so, you know, unless lest people say this is a Pauline thing, and Paul and James, of course, had separate theologies, and you know, they love this nonsense as though the apostles weren't all on one page. Here's one from Peter, of course, the rock upon whom God built his church in first Peter 2, 7 through 9. So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. They stumble because they disobey the word as they were destined to do. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. So look, guys, first Pope says predestination is real, so checkmate. Catholics. Maybe we should cut that.

SPEAKER_01 24:40

And somebody might think, well, you know, again, I think, well, okay, how do we get how do people get around this? You know, and I think it's more okay, just read it real fast or say it doesn't mean that, you know, bury your head in the sand. But ultimately, we are responsible to address these things because the Holy Spirit thought it good to put it in Scripture.

SPEAKER_00 24:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:59

And and yes, we address it with humility, yes, we address it as the divine said with a sobriety, but we have to address it. Let me go back to that verse you you used in first from first Peter, and there's a it's a glorious word that's given there. And Charles Spurgeon, when he's when he's speaking of that, he he says, We are chosen of God and precious. That means then we are chosen forever. For God changes not the objects of his election. Those whom he hath ordained, he hath ordained to eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of his hand. And so it is worthwhile to know ourselves elect, believer, Christian, for nothing in this world can make a man more happy or more valiant than the knowledge of his election. Christ said to his apostles, Rejoice not in this, but rejoice rather that your names are written in heaven. So just as we as we tr you know go through the difficulties, just a quick reminder, this is a beautiful, comforting doctrine.

SPEAKER_00 26:12

Yeah, I think so. So help us That's how it was intended when Calvin wrote this. When Calvin first laid this down, he he thought people were people were gonna be really psyched about this.

SPEAKER_01 26:24

And then before Calvin Paul, right. Yeah, true, yeah. And and and Jude and uh and Peter and the writer of Proverbs. But uh help us make an important

Asymmetry And Why God Is Not Author

SPEAKER_01 26:35

distinction here. When we say that God predestines some to life and others to death, are we saying he works in the exact same way in both cases?

SPEAKER_00 26:43

Right. No. So so there there is extra nuance here, which bears discussing, because as we can see from the witness of scripture above, I think it's plain that God predestinates some to eternal life and he foreordains others to everlasting death, but he does these things in in different ways, or you could say in an asymmetric way, right? So we believe that God is the primary cause of the faith that saves unto life, but he's not the primary cause, which is to say, the author of that sin unto death. So to suggest that God dispenses with the elect and the reprobate in the same manner is is committing to a doctrine that that's called sometimes called equal ultimacy, which is the kind of the cornerstone doctrine of what's sometimes called hyper-Calvinism, which we alluded to last time. We probably could do an entire episode about hypercalvinism where it goes wrong, but suffice it to say, we don't we don't agree with this equal ultimacy or with the the implications of hyper-Calvinism because we think it implies that God is the author of sin. And I also do think, and I think there's an evidence historically that it led to a kind of fatalism which was would thwart evangelism across the globe.

SPEAKER_01 27:57

Yeah, we did touch on that in the last episode, the the missionary to India, William Carey, when he's uh kind of discouraged to go and and do that because God will save who he wants. Uh, but the means, God used him as a means. And so we believe in evangelism, and really election doesn't in any way forbid evangelism or or or put a wet blanket on it, it actually gr grants a greater zeal because our our confidence is in the Lord who has chosen and who we don't know. We don't you know I think it was Spurgeon who said, you know, it's not like someone has a stripe on uh their back that says elect, that we look and see who's the elect, no, we're to preach the gospel to all. And that's a means that God uses to bring his people to himself.

SPEAKER_00 28:46

Yeah, so so we know that we can out we get the follow-up question then would be well, how does God treat the elect differently? And the Westminster Confession, chapter three, section six says, God hath appointed the elect unto glory, and so hath he by the eternal and most free purpose of his will foreordained all the means thereunto. So to put that in in modern English, we we would say God is the primary cause of the faith that's saving us unto life, and he has foreordained all the means by which we will come to salvation. So this is one of the reasons why Calvinists, for example, are so often will disclaim their their any role in their own salvation. We say, Not I but Christ, right? Yet not I but through Christ in me. Uh but then in section seven, the confession says that because God extendeth or withholdeth mercy as he pleaseth for the glory of his sovereign power over his creatures, then he chooses to pass by those who are not elect and to ordain them to dishonor and wrath for their sin to the praise of his glorious justice. Paraphrasing a little there. But so we would note the language here that God passes by those who are not elect. So according to the typical Calvinist systematic theology, and and according to, of course, the Westminster Standard, which we're reading from and to which we hold, God does not actively will that the reprobates sin. And this idea was also called preterition. It's a this was the sort of the predominating predominating explanation about how reprobation works at the time that the Westminster Assembly was happening. And preterition is a reference to a rhetorical term. It comes from the Latin. So, like for an example of preterition, you if you're in an argument, you're in a political debate with someone and you'd say, Well, I won't say anything about my opponent's you know financial misdeeds, right? You're implying there's a whole bunch of financial misdeeds. That's preterition. So in the theological context, preterition is is to condemn an opponent by passing over, right? To condemn someone by passing over the details of their families. So so when God saves the elect, he does it by direct means. But when he condemns the wicked, he does it through secondary and tertiary means, right? He would allow them to fall into the clutches of Satan, demonic possession, or give a person over to the hardness of their heart, which we see him do several times in scripture, and he does that with Pharaoh. God uh allows the wicked to fall into destruction by secondary causes. And crucially, when God passes some people by, it's not because of their merits or the demerits of the of the person that's being passed by. Right? So if if election is unconditional, which means that it's not because of anything we've done, then logically it would follow that the reverse of election or or preterition being passed by is also not conditional. It's it's also not because of anything that these people have done. Right? However, when God is condemning people who have sinned, it's because of their sin. Right? The reason men fall under the judgment of God is because they're sinners, and they don't fall under his judgment just because they're not elect, right? I have heard an analogy here, you know, like uh an analogy of a cancer cancer patient

Justice, Mercy, And Sproul’s Framework

SPEAKER_00 32:16

or a cancer ward. Somebody comes into the cancer ward and gives a cure to half the patients, those patients that get the medicine recover and those who don't get the medicine die. What would you say that the people who died had died of? Did they die of cancer or of not taking medicine? Right? Of course we would say they had died of the cancer. And it's the same with sin and God's mercy, right? Men are judged for their sins and they're not they're not judged for their non-elect status.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

Yeah, that that's a that's a very important point. Yeah. And that would clear up a lot of misunderstanding.

SPEAKER_00 32:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:51

Men are left in their sins. And it's their sins, it's not God. And as the Westminster Confession has already said, God is not the author of sin.

SPEAKER_00 33:01

Yeah, R. C. Sproul, I can't recall exactly which book this is. I think it's chosen by God. In one of his one of his books on Reform Theology, he he makes a distinction between justice and non-justice, or what he would call unjustice, and he divides unjustice into two categories, right? Mercy and injustice. So Sproul would say, and and the Westminster Divines would say that the elect get mercy and the non-elect get justice, but nobody gets injustice because that's would be impossible from God because God is just. So for there to be mercy, there must be justice. For mercy to mean anything, it it has to be given to people in place of justice. And so, you know, even I think even the Catholics would say that. They would maybe come at it from a slightly different position. But even St. Thomas Aquinas said that something along the lines of like mercy without justice is like moral dissolution or something. And so basically, if if you're giving mercy but you're not showing justice, then that there's no moral accountability there. You're not holding anyone accountable. You're just not following the rules. Right.

SPEAKER_01 34:20

And I and I think you're right that that does come from R. C. Sproul and his work Chosen by God, which he also has a teaching series on. And I would we would encourage our listeners to uh refer to that as Sproul said things in a much more way that could be understood more than I could ever do. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 34:39

I call I I call listening to R. C. Sproul. This is I'm I'm a millennial, so I say all kinds of, you know, weird kind of thing. I say I call it getting sproll pills. You need to go and get sprawl pills.

SPEAKER_01 34:49

It makes things so clear. Yeah, he's great. But uh Sproul does say that a sovereign God relates to a fallen world in four ways. Could be in one of these four ways, right? I think this helps show the various views. First, God could provide no opportunity for salvation. So so God just decides to give no fallen person, none of us, any opportunity to be saved and simply judge everyone justly.

SPEAKER_00 35:15

Which is what he does to the fallen angels, for what it's worth.

SPEAKER_01 35:18

Two, he could provide only an opportunity for salvation for all or some with no guarantee. So God could make salvation possible. He's an equal opportunity redeemer so that everyone or some people could be saved, but without ensuring that anyone actually will be saved. That's Arminian, right? That's Pelagianism.

SPEAKER_00 35:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:43

Yeah. Pelagian and Arminian. Salvation's a possibility. Jesus dying on the cross made salvation a possibility, but didn't actually affect salvation for anyone.

SPEAKER_00 35:52

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 35:52

Who's going to vote for Jesus? Three, God intervenes to ensure the salvation of everyone, also known as universalism. So God works in every person's heart, they are brought to faith and saved, and in the end, everyone will be saved, and some universalists believe even the devil will be saved, and this is rank heresy, right? Rob Bell, former Pentecostal minister Carlton Pearson, they were universalists. So then the fourth is what we're speaking of, and that is to intervene to ensure the salvation of some. That is what Scripture calls the elect. God sovereignly chooses and effectually works in the hearts of some people to ensure that their salvation comes to pass, and that includes passing over others, and then we would call this the Augustinian or Reformed view. And and Sproul says this so beautifully. In terms of the other three options, he says that lurking behind all of them is this assumption that God, if he really is going to be good, a good God, must be merciful. And that's one of the greatest pitfalls in Christian thinking, Sproul says. As soon as your mind tells you that God must be merciful or that God ought to be kind, as soon as you think for a second that God is obligated to be merciful, a bell ought to go off in your head and alert you to the fact that you're not thinking about mercy anymore. Because by definition, the big difference between mercy and justice is that mercy is never, never, never obligatory. Mercy by definition is something God doesn't have to do. It's something that God does voluntarily, freely. But as soon as we think he owes us mercy, we're not thinking about mercy anymore. Justice can be owed, but mercy is never obligatory.

SPEAKER_00 37:45

Yeah. Yeah. A mercy that's owed is no mercy at all.

SPEAKER_01 37:53

And then there's no beauty of salvation.

SPEAKER_00 37:55

Yeah. It's purely license license, then, right? God a God that is obligated to show mercy at all is just a God of licentiousness.

SPEAKER_01 38:04

Right. I would imagine there's no need to praise God. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:08

So this is a really succinct and excellent way of making this argument that I've Again, you know, we could have disappointed people in RC's roles lectures. Yes. Chapter 3. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:27

So, Drew, help us connect the dots here. If mercy is never owed, but justice is, how does that help us understand what Paul is getting at, particularly in Romans 9?

God’s Revealed Will Versus Decree

SPEAKER_01 38:38

And uh just to frame that for our listeners, Romans 9 is really a key passage for this whole discussion. Because it's there that Paul directly addresses God's sovereign freedom in showing mercy and executing justice, making clear that God has mercy on whom he wills and harden whom he wills, all for his glory. So help us understand that.

SPEAKER_00 38:58

Well, I I mean I I can't really help you understand it any more than Paul could, and just to say what Paul says, right, that in Romans 9, 22 and 23, God decrees destruction for some in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he's prepared beforehand for glory. So in some way, the apostle is saying, God's glory is shown by his mercy to us, the elect, and it's not meaningful unless he's also shown his justice. And so when God saves the elect, he's showing that aspect of his divine personage which is merciful. When he condemns the reprobate, he's showing that aspect of his divine personage, which is just. And without justice, there can't be mercy.

SPEAKER_01 39:44

So so here's a common objection. Someone says, Well, God clearly wants to save everyone based on passage like 1 Timothy 2.4, which says, Who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth? Or 2 Peter 3 9. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. How do we respond to that? Because certainly we agree with the verses. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:17

Well, so of course, you know, the the Arminians and other non-monergists, monargy just being the idea that monergism is the idea that that God is this only one who saves, right? As opposed to synergy, which is the idea that there's some right union of God and man together, which is involved in self salvation. And so other non-monergists, they they would believe that God saves some and condemns others, right? Because all are not saved. But they would say that God wants to save everyone, and they would quote those two verses in particular, and they would reject the Calvinist interpretation of these verses. Which is, you know, we would say that these verses simply tell us that God they tell us about God's revealed will, which is that He invites and commands every person to repent and to come to Christ for salvation, but they don't tell us anything about God's secret decrees regarding who will be saved.

SPEAKER_01 41:13

Right. And so it's it's right to preach the gospel to all. And and when we do that, we are doing that on the basis of 2 Peter 3 9 and 1 Timothy 2 4.

SPEAKER_00 41:24

Yeah, and of course John 3.16. Exactly. Right. But I think there's there is a major difference. And and for what it's worth, I honestly don't think I don't think that the Arminian fully grasps the implications of this

Assurance Of Salvation And Perseverance

SPEAKER_00 41:44

either. Or maybe they do, but it we'll we'll talk about that. But there's a major difference when we think about these traditions more broadly, including the Arminians and the Roman Catholics, because at the Council of Trent they they rejected the idea that you can have real assurance of salvation. They s in session six, chapter nine of the Council of Trent's documents, they say no one can know with a certainty of faith that he has obtained the grace of God, right? Faith isn't sufficient to give you a certainty of salvation, right? The implication there from their perspective is that the church has to be involved in your salvation for you to have the the church, the big sea church, the Catholic Church, has to be involved for you to have assurance of salvation. And Arminians wouldn't say it in those terms because they don't agree with the Big Sea Catholic Church. You know, Arminians like we'll commonly call Catholics. They're all Arminians. They're not Arminians are Arminius was a Dutch Reformed guy, right? So that's a branch off the Reformation. But the Arminians would would would ground our assurance of salvation in something kind of unstable, this sort of the ongoing exercise of human free will, continuing to choose God regularly, because many of them don't believe in perseverance of the saints either. And so they would say that if you if you sin again, they need to be saved again. So they're grounding your assurance of salvation in your own changeable heart rather than in the unchangeable election of God. And so by contrast, the reformers have always affirmed, based on what the scripture says, that believers can have true assurance, not because of ourselves, right, knowing our failings and flaws, but because God doesn't break his word. God's purpose can't fail, God's work can't be undone, the sealing of the Holy Spirit can't be broken. So since God's plan can't be changed and his promise can't fail, the canon of Dort would put it this way the calling according to his purpose cannot be revoked. The merit of Christ, as well as his interceding and preserving, cannot be nullified, and the sealing of the Holy Spirit can neither be invalidated nor wiped out. So believers can have certainty regarding their election and salvation because God is the one doing it.

SPEAKER_01 43:58

Yeah, that's right. That's what section eight speaks to when it says, be assured of their eternal election. And then, of course, the divines are going to have a whole chapter on assurance of salvation and perseverance.

SPEAKER_00 44:10

And that's why we think of this as a positive doctrine. But I'm going to quote the great Wayne Grudom, Reformed Baptist.

SPEAKER_01 44:26

This is from a systematic theology? I think it is, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:30

The Arminian objects to the idea that God has a secret and a revealed will, right? That's the Calvinist explanation for what's going on in 1 Timothy 2.4, right? It's that, well, you know, God says everybody needs to repent, but you know, he has a secret, a secret decree about who will and will not be saved that we can't know. And the Arminian would object to that. There's a specific Arminian theologian that he's quoting here. They would say it's an exceedingly paradoxical notion of two divine wills regarding salvation. But the Arminian never really answers the question of why all are not saved from an Arminian perspective. And ultimately, they they also have to say that God wills something more strongly than he wills the salvation of all people, because if he did will the salvation of all people most strongly all would be saved. And Arminians would claim that the reason why everyone's not saved is that God wishes to preserve the free will of man more than he wishes to save everyone. But this I think is also making a distinction in two aspects of the will of God. On the one hand, he wills that all would be saved, but on the other hand, he wills to preserve man's absolutely free choice. And of course, there's no proof text for that because it can't be found in scripture, which is not something Wayne Graham says. That's something I'm adding. But in fact, he he he has to will that second thing more than the first, or everyone would be saved. So the Arminian also has to say that 1 Timothy 2, 5 and 6, and 2 Peter 3, 9 don't say that God wills the salvation of everyone in an absolute or an unqualified way. They too must say that the verses only refer to one kind or one aspect of God's will. So here's the difference between the Reformed and the Arminian conception of God's will. We both agree that God's commands in Scripture reveal to us what He wants us to do, and we both agree that the commands in Scripture invite us to repent and trust in Christ for our salvation. And so therefore, in one sense, we both agree that God wills that we be saved. It is the will that he reveals to us explicitly in the gospel invitation. But both sides must also say that it's something else that God deems more important than saving everyone. And reformed theologians would say that God deems his own glory more important than saving everyone, and that according to Romans 9, God's glory is furthered by the fact that some are not saved. Paul says that. So in a reformed system, God's highest value is his own glory, and in an Arminian system, God's highest value is the free will of man. And these are two distinctly different conceptions of the nature of God. I I think, and Wayne Grudom thinks, that the Reformed position has more explicit biblical support than the Arminian position does. But, you know, that's at the end, this is me now, not Wayne Grudom. At the end of the day, I think that the main difference, the the they're just different priors, different preconceptions. We think that God is ordering history for his own purposes and his own glory. They think that God is ordering history for for us. And that's a a big that's just a we're talking past each other at that point, I don't think. And I would also normative claims.

SPEAKER_01 47:58

Yeah, no, that's just a very clear distinction. And I'd also say that I think the Arminian position leaves that door open for open theology.

SPEAKER_00 48:06

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:07

Which is uh Arminianism on steroids. Maybe that's not the best way to explain it, but it it gets into even uh gets into heresy. That God is just waiting to see what man is going to do. And so he's responding to man. Yeah. And he doesn't know what tomorrow holds because tomorrow we have to make decisions. And he's gonna react react to us.

SPEAKER_00 48:31

Yeah, or that his foreknowledge is conditional and everything. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:35

And and that kind of thing is seeped into our Arminian theology. It's seeped into the church, open theology. That's a whole nother. Sorry.

SPEAKER_00 48:45

Well, yeah, and I was gonna say that there's there's a lot of I mean, it's not as though Calvinism, when it's divorced from a I think a right understanding, can can also lead to error, right? I mentioned earlier the universalists, those that's the Puritans when they encountered the reality that their kids didn't appear to be having real conversion experiences, they within a couple generations decided that, well, God must be saving everybody, and we can't totally see the mechanism how, but like we can't wrestle with the fact that our kids might go to hell and they don't appear to be being saved and they're not baptizing their own kids. So I guess universalism. Yeah. So every every tradition, I think Divorced from Christ. Divorced from scripture from scripture. If you if you if you lose sight of scripture and you lose sight of Christ, yeah, then you're in you're in you're in trouble.

SPEAKER_01 49:38

So some to sum up the Westminster Assembly's teaching on this issue, although God forordained some to destruction, as Paul says in Romans 9 22, vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, this destruction is not an arbitrary decision which God makes, but rather the just consequence which comes from the creature's sinful rebellion against God. We also need to remember that God could treat all human beings, rebels, as we are, like he treats rebel angels, which is to say he cast them into the cast them into the fire of hell without exception. We find that in 2 Peter 2, 4 through 19. And he would be perfectly justified in doing so. But because he loved us, he saved a remnant for his own glory. We were all broken vessels, deserving the cosmic scrap heap, but the potter chose to save some. And in going back to Sproll, he would say that because of human nature, what we really want is to choose our own way instead of God's way. So when God saves some, he chooses them against their will, and when he passes over others, he allows them to continue to choose what they really want, which is sin, and to continue to rebel against him.

Human Choice, God’s Influence, And Real Agency

SPEAKER_00 50:48

Yeah, and so another Wayne Grutham quote here someone might object and say, Well, if a choice is caused by God, right? We believe God is the prime mover. If a choice is caused by God, you know, even though it might look like it's voluntary and it's willed by us, it's it's not a real or a genuine choice if it's caused by God because it's not absolutely free. And this is one of a common Arminian objection. And I think in some sense it's also a common Catholic objection, although they have this idea of provenient grace where God has to reach out to you before you can accept him. But once again, I think we we have to challenge the assumption that a choice has to be absolutely free in order to be genuine or valid, right? No choice, no choice is made in a vacuum. No choice is absolutely free. No one wakes up and makes a completely free choice, particularly not about something as life-changing as deciding to turn away from your sin and embark on this the path laid out for you by Jesus Christ of Nazareth, which is a path of thorns, right? So nobody is making a a free choice in any condition because of the rules of causality, right? You are born with this set of biases and preconceptions, and so no choice is is ever really free. And w but but regardless choices can still be genuine and still be valid and still be our choices. So that's what that's what Calvinists think is that the choices we make, although they are influenced by many factors, and ultimately, although they're providentially foreordained, they're still our choices. If God makes us in a certain way, again quoting Grutum, and then tells us that our voluntary choices are real and genuine choices, then we must agree that they are. God is the definition of what is real and genuine in the universe. By contrast, we might ask where Scripture ever says that our choices have to be free from God's influence or control in order to be real or genuine choices. It does not seem that Scripture ever speaks in this way.

SPEAKER_01 52:56

I don't want my choices to be from free from God's influence or control. Right? I mean, that's the prayer of our hearts, Lord intervene, Lord move upon me, Lord direct me to yourself, Lord keep me from evil. Yeah, lead us not into temptation. Yeah, I love that I love that challenge, uh the assumption you gave there that a choice must be absolutely free in order for it to be genuine or valid. Uh reminded me of the example in Matthew 9 9 when Jesus sees a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, Follow me, and he rose and followed him. There was nothing in Matthew to explain his sudden willingness to believe and follow Jesus. Instead, we would say his answer is seen in the irresistible grace of God as the Holy Spirit applied Jesus' call with sovereign and divine power in Matthew's heart.

SPEAKER_00 53:57

Amen.

SPEAKER_01 53:58

And so what we are saying as we look at this doctrine is that no one answers the call of the gospel by his own volition. He answers because with man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. And we answer because God chose us, and the sovereign God has extended his almighty power to change our hearts through the gospel. Ezekiel said, I will give you a new heart, a new spirit I'll put within you. God said this in Ezekiel 36 26, I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. Jesus said in John 6 37, All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. So the doctrine of election is showing that our acceptance before God depends alone upon his gracious granting and imputing to us the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ. Our salvation is not based upon our worthiness, our meritorious works, it rests completely upon the free gift of God's grace in Jesus Christ. And in that prolonged quote that we gave a few minutes back from Sproull may remind us of 1 Corinthians 4 7. What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it? The doctrine of election is helping us to see that no human being might boast in the presence of God. Cornelius Venema says, if we deny the truth of unconditional election, then we must ultimately say that the reason some are saved is due to a quality that distinguishes them from others. That could be foreseen faith, the humility to trust in Christ, the wisdom to accept the truth of God's word, a virtuous life, so on and so on. God's purpose of election in Christ expresses the truth of the gospel of salvation by grace alone. That is not based upon any human merit. That's what the doctrine of election is saying. So as we bring this to a close today, we want to be very clear.

Gospel Invitation, Promises, And Closing Exhortation

SPEAKER_01 56:06

We are all called to repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Fallen sinners are not saved simply because God is elected to save them. Though God's gracious purpose is the ultimate reason believers are saved, this purpose is ordinarily affected through the ministry of the gospel. Jesus says, Whoever comes to me, I will never cast out. And that's our heart, that you will come to Christ in faith and trust and receive that promise. Let us close with John 10, 27 to 28. My sheep hear my voice, my sheep, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. Let us hold fast to these promises. Amen. Thank you for joining us today in this prolonged talk on election. This is probably going to be an hour long. And we're not even uh offering a subscription service. This is a this is free, just like the gospel.

SPEAKER_00 57:05

Sit up the Patreon for extra long extra long episodes.

SPEAKER_01 57:09

The Lord bless you. Thank you for joining us.