What Is the Doctrine of Predestination?

Summary

Doctrine Matters with Kevin DeYoung: What Is the Doctrine of Predestination?

In the March 25, 2025 episode of Doctrine Matters with Kevin DeYoung, hosted by Crossway, Kevin DeYoung delves into the intricate and often debated theological concept of predestination. This episode provides a comprehensive exploration of predestination, election, and reprobation, addressing both theological nuances and common objections. Below is a detailed summary capturing the key discussions, insights, and conclusions presented throughout the episode.

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1. Introduction to Predestination

Kevin DeYoung opens the discussion by acknowledging the complexity and existential weight of predestination, a doctrine that intersects deeply with the concepts of God's sovereignty and human responsibility.

Kevin DeYoung [00:45]: "This 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."

He sets the stage by distinguishing predestination from related terms, emphasizing its foundational role in Christian theology.

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2. Defining Predestination, Election, and Reprobation

The conversation narrows down to define and differentiate between predestination, election, and reprobation, drawing from biblical texts and historical theological positions.

Predestination is presented as the overarching category encompassing God's sovereignty in working all things according to His will.

Speaker 1 [01:12]: "Predestination is a word in the Bible, so every Bible Christian has to believe it."

Election is described as God's specific choosing of individuals for salvation, unlinked to any foreseen merit or action on their part.

Speaker 2 [02:26]: "Election is God choosing us unto salvation before the foundation of the world."

Reprobation, sometimes referred to as double predestination, is introduced as the counterpart to election, where God determines the eternal destiny of those not elected.

Speaker 1 [03:03]: "Reprobation...predetermines those who will not be saved."

The speakers reference the Canons of Dort to highlight historical distinctions between these doctrines.

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3. Theological Implications of Election and Reprobation

The speakers explore the theological ramifications of election and reprobation, particularly concerning human merit and divine grace.

Speaker 1 [03:34]: "What is the ultimate reason why somebody believes and someone else doesn't?...it's entirely of God, or there's some small little thing left to our freedom that is making the difference."

They emphasize that salvation is entirely a work of God's grace, negating any basis for human boasting or merit-based salvation.

Speaker 1 [04:21]: "It's entirely of grace from start to finish...This doctrine is to make us humble and to put God at the center and not us."

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4. Addressing Fairness and Justice in Predestination

A significant portion of the episode tackles the contentious issue of whether predestination is fair or just, especially in light of scriptural passages like Romans 9.

Paul's Response in Romans 9:

Speaker 1 [06:46]: "Paul argues, God is not unjust. That's the issue here."

The speakers summarize Paul's stance that God's sovereignty and mercy are central to understanding predestination, rather than human notions of fairness.

Speaker 2 [07:07]: "God is not unjust because he has mercy on whom he wills."

They highlight how Paul uses Scripture to demonstrate that God's decisions reflect His character and divine purposes, rather than arbitrary choices.

Speaker 1 [08:24]: "For God to be God, he must be merciful to whomever I want to have mercy."

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5. Human Responsibility and Divine Sovereignty

The dialogue progresses to reconcile human responsibility with divine sovereignty, addressing common objections about moral accountability.

Speaker 1 [10:31]: "Paul doesn't back down from this objection...he doesn't deny that we are responsible for our choices and for our sins."

They explain that Paul maintains human responsibility despite affirming God's sovereign choice, ensuring that individuals are accountable for their actions.

Speaker 1 [12:19]: "Paul measures God by the only two things against which God can be measured. He measures him against Scripture and against himself."

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6. The Role of Evangelism in Predestination

A prevalent objection is whether belief in predestination undermines evangelistic efforts. The speakers robustly counter this notion by citing historical and biblical evidence.

Speaker 2 [13:16]: "Calvinists don't believe in evangelism. Well, that's not true historically."

They reference notable Calvinist evangelists like George Whitefield and William Carey to demonstrate the compatibility of predestination with active gospel ministry.

Speaker 1 [14:02]: "Modern missionaries...were all Calvinists."

Furthermore, they argue that predestination actually fuels evangelism by assuring believers that God is actively at work in drawing His elect.

Speaker 2 [15:14]: "It's never that someone comes to Christ because you were elect."

Speaker 1 [15:41]: "Our task is to open our mouths and speak on behalf of the Good Shepherd."

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7. Conclusion: Predestination as a Source of Hope and Humility

Kevin DeYoung wraps up the episode by reiterating that understanding predestination fosters humility, gratitude, and a sense of divine purpose among believers. It underscores God's sovereignty and the assurance that salvation is rooted entirely in His grace.

Kevin DeYoung [16:30]: "Our hope and prayer is that this has been helpful to you as you look at Scripture and try to understand the best of our theological tradition as Christians."

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Key Takeaways

• Predestination: God's sovereign decree determining the eternal destiny of individuals.
• Election: The specific calling of individuals to salvation, solely based on God's will.
• Reprobation: The divine decision to pass over some for salvation, aligning with God's justice.
• Human Responsibility: Despite God's sovereignty, humans remain accountable for their choices and sins.
• Evangelism: Belief in predestination does not deter evangelistic efforts but instead motivates believers to share the Gospel with assurance in God's active role.
• Divine Character: Predestination reflects God's merciful and sovereign nature, going beyond human concepts of fairness.

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Notable Quotes

• Kevin DeYoung [00:45]: "This is related to God's sovereignty and God's decrees."
• Speaker 1 [03:34]: "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."
• Speaker 1 [04:21]: "This doctrine is to make us humble and to put God at the center and not us."
• Speaker 2 [07:07]: "God is not unjust because he has mercy on whom he wills."
• Speaker 1 [08:24]: "For God to be God, he must be merciful to whomever I want to have mercy."
• Speaker 2 [15:14]: "It's never that someone comes to Christ because you were elect."
• Kevin DeYoung [16:30]: "Our hope and prayer is that this has been helpful to you as you look at Scripture and try to understand the best of our theological tradition as Christians."

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This episode of Doctrine Matters serves as an in-depth resource for Christians seeking to understand the doctrine of predestination, balancing theological depth with practical implications for faith and practice.

Transcript

[Kevin DeYoung]

Hello, I'm Kevin DeYoung, pastor at Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina, and you are listening to Doctrine Matters. Each week on Doctrine Matters, we explore the rich doctrine of the Christian faith.

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We'll pull from the church's long history.

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Complex debates, and over the course of.

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The year, the hope is that we'll.

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Begin to frame out what is a clear, accessible, systematic theology, be looking at different Christian doctrines and their relationship to each other. And the hope, Lord willing, is we will grasp more and more the riches and the beauty of God's Word. Thanks for listening. Let's turn to this week's 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.

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We do have wills that make choices.

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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.

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Bible means by predestination. You can think of predestination perhaps as.

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The larger category of God working all.

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Things after the counsel of his will.

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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.

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On election and reprobation as two elements of divine predestination.

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So divine predestination let's think about election and predestination, or election and reprobation.

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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 2nd Thessalonians.

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2:13 we are prepared as a gift from the Father to the Son, and.

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Then the opposite of this.

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So if some are chosen for eternal life, not according to anything we have.

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Done, this is not based on foreseen.

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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.

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Is reprobation, sometimes called double predestination. This is the belief that God not only predetermines those who will be saved.

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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.

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Accept that God has vessels of wrath.

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Prepared for destruction, or that the reprobate.

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Have been designated for condemnation, Jude 4.

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Or that they disobey the word as.

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They were destined to do.

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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.

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Believes and someone else doesn't?

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They're really only two answers. Either it's entirely of God, or there's.

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Some small little thing left to our.

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Freedom that is making the difference.

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You might still say, well, God is.

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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.

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Why you believe and your neighbor doesn't.

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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.

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We talk about as the opposite, the flip side of election.

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But there are some, some differences. And, and one of those differences comes.

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Down to this distinction that reprobation has.

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Two parts, often called preterition and condemnation.

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Predurition is the determination to pass by some and then condemnation is the deter to punish those who are passed by. Now why is this important? Preterition, condemnation.

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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.

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Sin that this person has inherited in Adam and the sin that they have.

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Committed in their own life. So no one is punished simply because of a decree, but rather the decree.

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Is to pass them over and then.

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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.

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A deep dive on Romans 9.

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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?

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Well, in Romans 9, 14.

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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?

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And his answers, of course, are resounding, by no means. But notice, Paul does not defend God by appealing to human free will or.

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By suggesting that election is based on.

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God's foreknowledge or our choice.

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Instead, he argues, God is not unjust. That's the issue here. This isn't fair. God is being unjust by choosing one for salvation and then passing over and condemning the other.

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Why is God not unjust? Well, Paul argues, because election displays the.

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Character of God and serves the purposes of God.

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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.

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God reveals Himself to Moses by announcing.

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That he will have mercy on whomever.

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He chooses to have mercy. For God to be God, he must.

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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.

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Me to be God is that I am merciful to whomever I want to have mercy.

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We may not like that response, but.

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That'S the Bible's response.

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That's what Paul says.

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God is not fair because election, reprobation say something about who God is, about his character, about his sovereignty, his ability.

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To have mercy on whomever he wants to have mercy.

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And then the second point is the.

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Other side of that same coin, God not only has mercy on whom he.

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Will have mercy, he hardens whom he wants to harden. Demonstrates in Romans 9 God's righteousness in.

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Loving Jacob, but also his righteousness in hating Esau.

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Now, even if we take hate to be a kind of Semitic hyperbole, hate.

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Not in an implacable rage against Esau.

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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.

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Saying, God raised up Pharaoh for this.

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Explicit purpose of hardening Pharaoh's heart and.

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Having the occasion then to show God's.

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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.

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And then second, Romans 9:19, Paul anticipates a second objection. If salvation is up to God, why.

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Does he still find fault with us? So the first question is really about God.

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Isn't this make God into a monster?

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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.

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Now, notice Romans 9.

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Paul doesn't back down from this objection.

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And he doesn't deny that we are responsible for our choices and for our sins.

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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.

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Term paper on the problem of evil. Why do you have freshmen in college.

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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.

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I miss this.

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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.

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They serve a good purpose in revealing.

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The holiness of God, the power of God, the glory of God.

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We would be unable to see and experience the full glory of God's mercy.

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Apart from the backdrop of powerful wrath. Now, it may seem like Paul has not really answered the original question, but he has.

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It may initially seem unsatisfying to us.

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Well, you didn't quite explain why this isn't unjust.

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And you haven't quite explained why I can still be blamed for my sin.

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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.

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Paul defends the righteousness of God by helping us see what righteousness is about. Righteousness is not about our fallible opinions.

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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.

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And all the elect and only the elect will be saved, why bother with a great commission?

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Calvinists don't believe in evangelism. Well, that's not true historically.

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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.

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The first Great Awakening. George Whitefield. It's quite possible that George Whitefield is the greatest preacher in the English language.

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In the history of the world.

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And he was a thoroughgoing Calvinist.

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John Elliot, David Brainerd, William Carey, Henry Martin, Adoniram Judson, Robert Moffatt, David Livingston.

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Robert Morrison were all pioneers in the modern missionary movement. They were all Calvinists.

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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.

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In fact, Paul goes from that in Romans 9 to then confessing, I have.

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Great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart, for I wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ.

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For the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen, according to the flesh.

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Paul believes in election and reprobation in the strongest terms.

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And his heart was broken for the loss, which is why his heart's desire.

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And prayer to God in Romans 10:1 was that his fellow Jews might be saved.

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No, election doesn't prevent us from doing gospel ministry.

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It causes us to persevere in gospel ministry.

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It's why Paul in Acts 18 said.

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I'm not going to leave Corinth because God has some people here in this city. Paul tells Timothy, I endure everything for.

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The sake of the elect.

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All that the Father gives to Christ will come to Christ, and whoever comes will not be cast out.

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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.

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It's never that someone comes to Christ.

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And Jesus says, sorry, you weren't elect.

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No, if you came to Christ, it's.

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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.

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And though they may be far off now, one day they will hear their Master's voice and they believe.

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So our task is to open our mouths and speak on behalf of the Good Shepherd. And because God is sovereign, we know.

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And trust that some will hear and be saved.

[Kevin DeYoung]

Thanks again for joining us on Doctrine Matters. I'm your host Kevin DeYoung. Our hope and prayer is that this has been helpful to you as you look at Scripture and try to understand the best of our theological tradition as Christians. Please consider subscribing to Doctrine Matters and if this has been encouraging, consider passing it on to others. If you'd like to learn more about this week's doctrine, you can ask your pastor for good resources or check out my year long mini systematic theology book called Daily Doctrine. It's available in print or audio from crossway.

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[Kevin DeYoung]

The Doctrine Matters podcast is produced by Crossway. To learn more, visit crossway.

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