As I mentioned in the sermon this week, sometimes the wonder of Ephesians 1 is overshadowed for us with our struggles with the idea of Predestination. And in a western culture where individual rights and freedoms are seen as self evidently true, trying to understand how God can be in control of history, and by implication, our future, is hard for us not to object to.
The most popular and perhaps natural way to get around this is to suggest that the election of Christians is in some way conditional. This view has been around for a long time and was pushed very hard by Jacobus Arminius (1560-1609) in response to the very formative and influential writings of John Calvin (1509-1564). Amongst other things, Arminius proposed that humans are equipped with a free will and that God in his foreknowledge chooses the elect knowing what their response to his grace will be. This particular view (Arminianism) is probably the majority view in protestant Christian circles today and was championed by some of the greats like John Wesley.
The difficulty with holding to this view is it’s very hard to support Biblically especially in view of passages like Ephesians 1; Acts 13:48; Romans 9-11; Matthew 11:25ff; John 6:35ff. Also, it seems hard to argue that we indeed have a free will. If anything, the Bible is clear that we have a depraved will. There is not a part of our mind or body that has not been infected and effected by sins power.
However, before you triumph our inabilities and God's sovereignty there is another mistake we can make on the other end of the spectrum as well. Christians over the years have used Predestination as a reason not to engage in evangelism and even prayer because God’s plan will (so they say) be realised whether we do anything or not. Some have called this view ‘Hyper-Calvinism’ – although it seems to bear little resemblance to Calvin’s theology in the matter. The difficulty with this position is the countless verses that urge us to act, to choose, to repent and to be responsible. Indeed if you have a close look at the context of Ephesians 1 and Matthew 11 you see this very clearly in view.
So what is the way forward? Well the Bible teaches clearly that Christians are responsible and elect and holds out unapologetically the reality of God’s sovereignty and human responsibility.
Don Carson affirms both these truths well in the following statements.
1. God is absolutely sovereign, but his sovereignty never functions in Scripture to reduce human responsibility.
2. Human being are responsible creatures – that is, they chose, the believe, the disobey, the respond, and there is moral significance in their choices; but human responsibility never functions in Scripture to diminish God’s sovereignty or to make God absolutely contingent.
If you take on what he is saying, then it quickly dispels some of the myths and the negativity surrounding Predestination. It also affirms what all Christians know and believe anyway, that is God can and does and indeed must work in and through us. I also think more importantly, that it captures the scope and truth of the Bibles position.
Still confused? Well like some other Christian teaching (The Trinity, the divine & human nature of Jesus) it is hard for us to logically hold some things all in our heads at once. But God can. He ensures his good will is done and secured; ye he does it in a way that never violates our responsibility to trust and follow him.
What this means, as I said on Sunday night, is that we should not be driven to confusion by Predestination, but rather be driven to comfort and joy. That seems the tone and part of Paul’s intent in Ephesians 1.
Suggested further reading:
Evangelism & the Sovereignty of God J.I.Packer
A Call to Spiritual Reformation , Chapter 9 D.A.Carson
Thanks Marcus for your talk last night, i was just really comforted and by what you said of God being both a God who is VERY GOOD and VERY IN CONTROL!
ReplyDeleteI must confess sometimes the Arminian take on pre-destination is in many ways really really attractive... it does seem to make sense of things!
But as i think about it I guess one question that keeps coming up for me is that if God didn't really 'pre-destine' people... Rather he just foreknew those who would choose him... Why does Paul bother to waste his words writing to the Ephesian's about it?
What's the point? What is his purpose of telling them this? What comfort does it offer? How does it spur them on in the gospel? Does it help them to better understand God? What problem does it solve for them?
Maybe i'm missing something but the conclusion i always come to is that if Paul is just saying 'God chose you because he knew you would choose him', apart from telling them that God can see into the future - it doesn't really offer anything particularly helpful...
On the other hand if 'pre-destination' is God actually choosing people before time... if that's what Paul is saying in Ephesians... then suddenly his words are of incredible comfort - suddenly God is in control, he says that God ALWAYS gets what he wants, a God who has chosen us and will hold on to us no matter what!
For the Ephesians living in the broken 1st Century world i reckon this would have been amazingly comforting thing to read... and what's more as a Christian living in this broken 21st century world, I find it incredibly comforting too!
Tim
I admit that Ephesians 1 isn’t the sort of passage from which one would come to Arminian conclusions. I am however an Arminian, due to the following logic:
ReplyDelete(1) God loves everyone (e.g. John 3:16). If God loves everyone he must therefore want the best for everyone. And the best thing that could happen to anyone is that they be saved and spend eternity with God. Therefore God wants everyone to be saved. 2 Peter 3:9 says this directly, “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”, as does 1 Tim 2:4. Jesus weeping over Jerusalem (Matt 23:37-39, Luke 13:34-35) also implies this.
(2) Jesus’ death is sufficient to pay for the sins of all who ever have lived and ever will live. (Isaiah 53:6, 1 John 2:2, 1 Tim 2:1-6, 1 Tim 4:10)
(3) According to Calvinist theology, God chooses who will be saved independently of anything that any human (except for Jesus) says, does, desires, chooses, etc, i.e. who is saved is entirely up to the choice of God. Passages like Ephesians 1 and Romans 9 support this.
Therefore by (1), (2) and (3), God wants everyone to be saved, it is within His ability to save everyone and He does all the choosing, so therefore everyone will be saved. But the Bible doesn’t really support Universalism. Therefore (1), (2) or (3) or the way I combine them must be incorrect. To suggest (1) or (2) are incorrect is absurd. I can’t see any flaw in my combining, which leaves (3). I am therefore an Arminianist and will remain so until someone convinces me that there is a flaw in my combining of (1), (2) and (3).
(I don’t however hold to all of classical Arminianism – my theological dictionary tells me that classical Arminianism teaches that Christ suffered for our sins but was not punished for our sins. I don’t think I agree with this.)
So what do I then do with the ‘P’ word? I go for conditional predestination (as opposed to absolute predestination), that God “foreknew” those who would choose Him and so He predestines them. Romans 8:28-30 offers some support to this understanding. (This is still logically OK with free will, as God created the universe including time and space, so He therefore can transcend time and space.) This understanding adequately explains passages such as Ephesians 1, however I admit that I haven’t worked out how it can adequately explain Romans 9, specifically verse 16.
As for the sovereignty of God, I don’t think that conditional predestination conflicts with it – God is sovereign, but in His sovereignty He chose to give us a choice as to whether we would choose Him or not.
(For an alternative take on the whole debate, you could take the parable of the weeds (Matthew 13:24-30,36-43) too far. The weeds seem to be or include those who are never saved and the weeds are put there by Satan, so it could be argued that the people who aren’t saved aren’t saved because Satan created them, not God. I came up with this interpretation myself and I have never heard anyone else argue for it, so it is almost certainly wrong.)
Peter Byron.
Peter said: (This is still logically OK with free will, as God created the universe including time and space, so He therefore can transcend time and space.)
ReplyDeleteI think this is an important point in the discussion. If God transcends time (is outside of time), then the whole perspective on this issue can be widened. I think the debate gets bogged down and tangled up by discussing the word 'predestine' from our own human perspective within space and time.
Interesting reading: http://www.skybooksusa.com/time-travel/timegod/qufrcsle.htm
Peter said: (As for the sovereignty of God, I don’t think that conditional predestination conflicts with it – God is sovereign, but in His sovereignty He chose to give us a choice as to whether we would choose Him or not.)
ReplyDeleteHi Peter - after reading your comments above on this issue i'd be interested to hear your take on what Paul goes on to say in Ephesians 2v8-9;
"For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast."
Surely, the Arminian view that it is us who choose God, would give us reason to boast?
Hi anonymous - I don't think that us choosing God would give us reason to boast, because it is God's grace that saves us, not our faith. Us having faith in God does not mean that we deserve to be saved, or that we have contributed some small part towards our salvation. Us choosing to have faith in God means that God then chooses to lavish His grace upon us - He doesn't have to, but He has promised that He will.
ReplyDeleteIn Ephesians 2:8-9 I understand the "this" to be referring to the "saved" - we are saved by the gift of God (i.e. grace), not by anything we have done, so we can't boast about it. If the "this" actually refers to the "faith", then yes that verse becomes problematic for an Arminianist.
(I should note that I am an Arminian based on my logic in my initial post, and I therefore interpret the passage as the "this" referring to the "saved" and not the "faith". However I believe this is a legitimate practice as we interpret the Bible in light of what the rest of the Bible says, not just the passage that we happen to be looking at.)
Hey thanks guys for adding your thoughts and comments and a few musings as well into this issue. I'm especially grateful for Peter being prepared to nail his 'colours' to the wall (though willing to be corrected if wrong) and also for others to be respectful and helpful in their responses.
ReplyDeletePeter's nuanced Arminianism still holds some problems for me but this is not an issue that disqualifies us from fellowship together. In our church there is going to be a range of opinions on some issues and as long as we seek to allow the Bible to inform our views we have gone a long way to enjoying that fellowship.
So, even though I'm more with John Calvin on this issue, Arminianists are more than welcome at Crossroads in the City!
I dislike the idea of predestination, but not because it attacks my free will. Hey, if that gets me into Heaven, I'm all for it.
ReplyDeleteThe problem I have is that, if God chooses who gets to Heaven, that must mean that-even if it's by omission-He chooses who goes to Hell.
I don't like what that tells me about Him.
le-messor I understand where you're coming from here but in Ephesians and elsewhere whenever the sovereignty of God is spoken of it's never to somehow diminish his glorious character or make him somehow 'dislikeable'.
ReplyDeleteYes by implication you could argue that if God chooses some for heaven, he must be choosing others for judgement. But this is not the tone nor the passion we read of in the Bible. God is grieved by our state and longs to forgive, God knows what we deserve and initiates plans in Christ to have what we deserve placed upon another. Jesus weeps and pleads with rebellious Jerusalem to repent and enjoy God's love and favour. In other words, he does not delight in punishing the wicked (even though it's right that he does) but rather works his will to save.
The problem for us in our thinking is why doesn't he save everyone? If he is so grieved by sin and judgement, why not predestine all to salvation? Again, I think the blog article is helpful here because once again we mustn't make human responsibility impotent here. We are never told of anyone becoming Christian 'against their will' nor are we given any hint that people are forced to rebel against God.
I know this still leaves us with some questions...lots of why? questions...but it keeps driving me back to the ultimate why question of why God chose the Cross in the first place, even before any of us had done right or wrong.
Such things I cannot fully discern nor are we given all we might like to know about God's ways in the Bible. But I do know at the end of time there will be no complaints about God being unjust or unfair or unreasonable.
His very character stands opposed to those things, so even in this area of God's sovereignty be assured he acts in his goodness and holiness.