← Doctrine Matters with Kevin DeYoung
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Hello and welcome to Doctrine Matters, a weekly podcast exploring the rich theology of the Christian faith. Each week we want to take hold of one aspect of our faith and try to understand theological concepts that sometimes have been debated, controversial, or maybe just hard to understand. And hopefully we can look at them in a way that is clear, concise and accessible. The goal is that believers would be encouraged and edified and that God would be glorified so we can love him more, know him more, enjoy him forever. I'm Kevin DeYoung, your host and teacher, and this is Doctrine Matters.
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Let's pick things back up this week talking about this difficult topic. It's difficult intellectually, it can be difficult existentially, and that is related to God's sovereignty and God's decrees. Last week we talked about how God's decrees are simple and immutable, eternal, absolute. And yet at the same time, this does not mean that we don't have human responsibility, because we are not puppets. We do have wills that make choices. What we're affirming is that God has a will that is prior to our willing. So let's narrow in and talk about then, predestination. Predestination is a word in the Bible, so every Bible Christian has to believe it. Though we understand there are big differences on what we mean or what the Bible means by predestination. You can think of predestination perhaps as the larger category of God working all things after the counsel of his will. But we often use that term predestination with specific regard to salvation. Two other terms which are a little more narrowly focused are elections and reprobation. Election and predestination, often used interchangeably. But perhaps election is a little more narrowly focused, referring to God's choosing that God chooses those whom will be saved. Canons of Dort make a distinction, expounding on election and reprobation as two elements of divine predestination. So divine predestination let's think about election and predestination, or election and reprobation. So election is God choosing us unto salvation before the foundation of the world. We were chosen in Christ. Ephesians 1:4 chosen by God 2 Thessalonians 2:13 we were prepared as a gift from the Father to the Son, and then the opposite of this. So if some are chosen for eternal life, not according to anything we have done, this is not based on foreseen knowledge, says very clearly it is according to God's purpose for his own good pleasure. That's what is operative. Now. The the Flip side of this is reprobation, sometimes called double predestination. This is the belief that God not only predetermines those who will be saved, but also predetermines those who will not be saved. Admittedly, this is a hard doctrine. Romans 9:22. It is hard for. For us to accept that God has vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, or that the reprobate have been designated for condemnation, Jude 4. Or that they disobey the Word as they were destined to do. First Peter 2:8. Maybe we can understand election, that. Okay, that that's important, so that we don't have one iota of merit in this choice. And that is really at the heart of it. What is the ultimate reason why somebody believes and someone else doesn't? They're really only two answers. Either it's entirely of God, or there's some small little thing left to our freedom that is making the difference. You might still say, well, God is sovereign over the big stuff, and it's still by his grace, because I can't earn my salvation. But if you don't have divine election, you don't have predestination, then there's some little sliver. Why you believe and your neighbor doesn't believe is you made that choice. You were wise enough, smart enough, you made that choice according to your own free will, and they did not. And that would be a tiny little measure allowing us to boast we got something that someone else didn't. But of course, that's not how the Bible talks about salvation. It is entirely of grace from start to finish. It began in eternity with God choosing us in Christ. This doctrine is to make us humble and to put God at the center and not us. Now, when we talk about reprobation, it's. It's. We talk about as the opposite, the flip side of election. But there are some. Some differences. And one of those differences comes down to this distinction that reprobation has two parts, often called preterition and condemnation. Predication is the determination to pass by some and then condemnation, is the determin to punish those who are passed by. Now, why is this important? Preterition, condemnation? Well, this distinction safeguards that God's decree to punish the reprobate is not arbitrary. It's not without justice. It's not God saying, I am going to punish this person who does not deserve to be punished. No, rather it says that God decrees to pass by some and then maybe not quite a second act, but a second way of understanding this decree. A distinction is then condemned according to the sin that this person has inherited in Adam and the sin that they have committed in their own life. So no one is punished simply because of a decree, but rather the decree is to pass them over and then to punish them according to their guilt. The obvious question that everyone wants to ask after this, then, is, well, is predestination fair? How can it be that Romans 9 says, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad, God had determined to love Jacob and to hate Esau. This prompts questions about God's fairness, about our responsibility. And we don't have time to do a deep dive on Romans 9. But we do want to sketch out a response, because Paul anticipates that these are questions he knew were coming. And though we don't always find his answer satisfying, that says something that's wrong with us, not what's wrong with the Bible. What does Paul sketch out here in Romans 9? Well, in Romans 9, 14. So this is after saying about Jacob and Esau, Jacob, I've loved, Esau I've hated. Paul asks the question, is there injustice on God's part? And his answers, of course, are resounding, by no means. But notice, Paul does not defend God by appealing to human free will or by suggesting that election is based on God's foreknowledge or our choice. Instead, he argues, God is not unjust. That's the issue here. This isn't fair. God is being unjust by choosing what one for salvation and then passing over and condemning the other. Why is God not unjust? Well, Paul argues, because election displays the character of God and serves the purposes of God. And Paul makes these points in the same way. He quotes Scripture and then offers a summary. On the first point, Paul quotes from Exodus 33:19. God reveals Himself to Moses by announcing that he will have mercy on whomever he chooses to have mercy. For God to be God, he must be merciful and he must be sovereign. This is Moses saying, who are you? Show me, reveal yourself. And God reveals himself by saying, at the heart of what it means for me to be God is that I am merciful to whomever I want to have mercy. We may not like that response, but that's the Bible's response. That's what Paul says. God is not fair because election, reprobation say something about who God is, about his character, about his sovereignty, his ability to have mercy on whomever he wants to have mercy. And then the second point is the other side of that same coin. God not only has mercy on whom he will have mercy. He hardens whom he wants to harden. Demonstrates in Romans 9 God's righteousness in loving Jacob, but also his righteousness in hating Esau. Now, even if we take hate to be a kind of Semitic hyperbole, hate not in an implacable rage against Esau in a human, emotional way, but a choosing for salvation and then a choosing for destruction. When Paul quotes from Exodus 9:16, he's saying, God raised up Pharaoh for this explicit purpose of hardening Pharaoh's heart and having the occasion then to show God's power, saying, God is not unjust in this because he has mercy on who will have mercy. That is, we need to see God's sovereign mercy, but also because we need to see God's sovereign power. So he's dealing with this question, is it unfair? Is God unjust? And his answer is, basically, no, it's not unjust because it tells us what God is like. And Then second, Romans 9:19, Paul anticipates a second objection. If salvation is up to God, why does he still find fault with us? So the first question is really about God. Isn't this make God into a monster? And then the second question is, well, then how can God blame us? If this is all according to his sovereign choosing, then surely we're absolved of any responsibility. Now, notice Romans 9. Paul doesn't back down from this objection. And he doesn't deny that we are responsible for our choices and for our sins. Paul could have easily said here if it were the right answer. Well, hold on. Obviously we're responsible because we have free will. I remember when I was a freshman in college, I had to write a term paper on the problem of evil. Why do you have freshmen in college write a paper on the problem of evil? And even though I had been raised in the Reformed Church and I should have known better. Just the air that we breathe. I miss this. And I wrote the whole paper and I thought this is not a terribly difficult question. God gives us free will. That's why there's evil in the world. Because God lets humans have their own free choices and we choose bad things. But that's not the answer Paul gives here. In fact, he doubles down on this point about God's sovereignty. He says, we have no right to question God. God has every right to do what he pleases. And predestination serves a divine purpose. That's the point. Election and reprobation are not arbitrary exercises of divine power. They serve a good purpose in revealing the holiness of God. The power of God the glory of God. We would be unable to see and experience the full glory of God's mercy apart from the backdrop of powerful wrath. Now, it may seem like Paul has not really answered the original question, but he has. It may initially seem unsatisfying to us. Well, you didn't quite explain why this isn't unjust. And you haven't quite explained why I can still be blamed for my sin. Except that his answer is to put God in his place and to put us in our place. In other words, Paul measures God by the only two things against which God can be measured. He measures him against Scripture and against himself. Paul defends the righteousness of God by helping us see what righteousness is about. Righteousness is not about our fallible opinions of fairness or what we wish God were like. It is about God's character and God's purposes as they're revealed in the Bible. A final objection, just briefly, and if that's the kind of existential, theological, philosophical objection that Romans 9 deals with, a more popular level objection to predestination is simply to say, well, if you believe that, then you won't share your faith, you won't evangelize. If God is the one who chooses and all the elect and only the elect will be saved, why bother with a great commission? Calvinists don't believe in evangelism. Well, that's not true historically. Many of the greatest evangelists and missionaries in the modern era have been Calvinists. Theodore Frelinghuysen, William Tennant, Jonathan Edwards, so many of the leading voices in the first Great Awakening, George Whitefield. It's quite possible that George Whitefield is the greatest preacher in the English language in the history of the world. And he was a thoroughgoing Calvinist. John Elliot, David Brainerd, William Carey, Henry Martin, Adoniram Judson, Robert Moffatt, David Livingston, Robert Morrison were all pioneers in the modern missionary movement. They were all Calvinists. But even more important than history is the biblical logic. The Bible never says, well, God has mercy on whoever he wills, and therefore it doesn't matter if we share our faith. In fact, Paul goes from that in Romans 9 to then confessing, I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart, for I wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen, according to the flesh. Paul believes in election and reprobation in the strongest terms. And his heart was broken for the loss, which is why his heart's desire and prayer to God. In Romans 10:1 was that his fellow Jews might be saved. No, election doesn't prevent us from doing gospel ministry. It causes us to persevere in gospel ministry. It's why Paul in Acts 18 said, I'm not going to leave Corinth because God has some people here in this city. Paul tells Timothy, I endure everything for the sake of the elect. All that the Father gives to Christ will come to Christ, and whoever comes will not be cast out. That is our hope. Not that, well, you won't come if you're not elect. But rather election is the reason people can come. It's never the reason that someone is turned away. That's not what Jesus says. It's never that someone comes to Christ and Jesus says, sorry, you weren't elect. No, if you came to Christ, it's because you were elect. Far from a deterrent for sharing the Gospel, a firm belief in election provides evangelistic hope. We live in a disobedient, hard hearted world, but the Lord has elect sheep in the world among every nation. And though they may be far off now, one day they will hear their Master's voice and they believe so. Our task is to open our mouths and speak on behalf of the Good Shepherd. And because God is sovereign, we know and trust that some will hear and be saved
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You've been listening to Doctrine Matters with me, Kevin DeYoung, your host and teacher. If you'd like to learn more about the topics we talked about today, you can check out my book Daily Doctrine. It's available in print or audio from Crossway.org and you may want to talk to your pastor or a trusted friend who can recommend other good resources. The Doctrine Matters podcast is produced by Crossway, a non profit ministry that exists solely for the purpose of proclaiming the truth of God's Word through publishing gospel centered content. To learn more, visit Crossway.org until next week, I'm Kevin DeYoung and this has been Doctrine Matters. Thanks for joining us.