Category Archives: Election & Predestination

Vessels Prepared for Destruction

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PottersfreedomExcerpt from Dr. James White’s book “The Potter’s Freedom” (pages 211-214):

For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.” So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires. Romans 9:17-18)

The example of Pharoah was well known to any person familiar with the Old Testament. God destroyed the Egyptian nation by plagues so as to demonstrate His might and power in the earth, and key to this demonstration was the hardening of Pharoah’s heart. Before Moses had met with Pharoah the first time God told him:

When you go back to Egypt see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders which I have put in your power; but I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. (Exodus 4:21)

It was God’s intention to bring His wrath upon the Egyptians. God’s actions were not “forced” by the stubborn will of the Egyptian leader. God said He would harden Pharoah’s heart, and He did. Listen to the impudent response of this pagan idolater to the command of Moses:

And afterward Moses and Aaron came and said to Pharoah, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘Let My people go that they may celebrate a feast to Me in the wilderness.'” But Pharoah said, “Who is the LORD that I should obey His voice to let Israel go?” (Exodus 5:1-2)

Is this not what God said He would do? Will someone suggest that Pharoah’s heart is “soft” here? No indeed, and Moses well knew that God was behind this for when the Pharoah then increased the work load of the Israelites, Moses complained to God in Exodus 5:22. Why complain to God if, in fact, God had nothing to do with it and it was all just a matter of the Pharoah’s “free will choice”?

This provides the background of Paul’s citation of Exodus 9:16. The portion of truth that here stings the pride of man is this: it is more important that God’s name is magnified and His power made known than it is that any single man get to “do his own thing.” Pharoah was surely never forced to do anything sinful (indeed, God probably kept him from committing many a sinful deed). He acted on the desires of his wicked heart at all times. But he is but a pot, a creature, not the Potter. He was formed and made and brought into existence to serve the Potter’s purposes, not his own. He is but a servant, one chosen, in fact, for destruction. His destruction, and the process that led up to it (including all the plagues upon Egypt), were part of God’s plan. There is simply no other way to understand these words.

Paul then combines the fact that God showed undeserved compassion and mercy to Moses (Exodus 33) with God’s hardening of Pharoah’s heart (Exodus 5) and concludes that whether one is “mercied” or “hardened” is completely, inalterably, and utterly up to God. The verbs here are active: God performs these actions. He “mercies” whom He wills and He hardens whom He wills. The parallel between “mercy” and “hardening” is inarguable. We may like the “mercying” part more than the hardening, but they are both equally a part of the same truth. Reject one and you reject them both. There is no such thing as preaching God’s mercy without preaching God’s judgment, at least according to Scripture.

The passage reaches a crescendo in these final verses:

You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?” On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it? (Romans 9:19-20)

Paul knew well the objections man presents to the words he had just penned. If God has mercy solely based on His good pleasure, and if God hardens Pharoah on the same basis, all His own glory and honor, how can God hold men accountable for their actions, for who resists His will? Paul’s response is swift and devastating: Yes, indeed God holds man accountable, and He can do so because He is the potter, the one who molds and creates, while man is but the “thing molded.” For a pot to question the Potter is absurd. These words cannot be understood separately from the fundamental understanding of the freedom of the Sovereign Creator and the ontological creatureliness of man that removes from him any ground of complaint against God. Though already devastatingly clear, Paul makes sure there is no doubt left as to his point:

Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles. (Romans 9:21-24)

The Potter’s freedom pulses through these words, flowing inexorably into the sea of sovereignty, rushing any would-be proponent of free will out of its path. God has the perfect right to do with His creation (including men) as He wishes, just as the Potter has utter sovereignty over the clay. Just as God had demonstrated His wrath and power by wasting idolatrous Egypt, so too He demonstrates He wrath upon “vessels of wrath prepared for destruction.” Are these nations? Classes? No, these are sinners upon whom God’s wrath comes. They are said to have been specifically “prepared for destruction.” That is their purpose.

Why are there vessels prepared for destruction? Because God is free. Think about it: there are only three logical possibilities here. Either 1) all “vessels” are prepared for glory (universalism); 2) all “vessels” are prepared for destruction; or 3) some vessels are prepared for glory and some are prepared for destruction and it is the Potter who decides which are which. Why is there no fourth option, one in which the pots prepare themselves based on their own choice? Because pots don’t have such a capacity! Pots are pots! Since God wishes to make known the “riches of His grace” to His elect people (the vessels prepared for mercy), there must be vessels prepared for destruction. There is no demonstration of mercy and grace when there is no justice.

The vessels of wrath, remember, like being vessels of wrath, would never choose to be anything else, and they detest the vessels that receive mercy…

5 Hours on the Dividing Line

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As you might already be aware, for the last couple of weeks I have had the distinct honor and privilege of hosting Dr. James White’s “Dividing Line” broadcast while he was away on a ministry trip to Europe. For those of you would wish to have all five youtube videos at one internet link, view here they are:

Hour 1. “Law and Gospel.”

Hour 2. “The Five Solas of the Reformation.”

Hour 3. The “T” in the TULIP, “Total Depravity:

Hour 4. The “U” in the TULIP, “Unconditional Election.”

Hour 5. The “L” in the TULIP, “Limited Atonement.”

Why Doesn’t God Extend His Saving Grace To All?

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“We may ask, no doubt, why God does not extend his saving grace to all; and why, if he sends it to some only, he sends it to just those some to whom he sends it rather than to others. These are not wise questions to ask. We might ask why Christ raised Lazarus only of all that lay dead that day in Palestine, or in the world. No doubt reasons may suggest themselves why he raised Lazarus. But why Lazarus only? If we threw the reins on the neck of imagination, we might possibly discover reasons enough why he might well have raised others, too, with Lazarus, perhaps many others, perhaps all the dead throughout the whole world. Doubtless he had his reasons for doing on that great day precisely what he did. No doubt God has his reasons, too, for doing just what he does with his electing grace. Perhaps we may divine some of them. No doubt there are others which we do not divine. Better leave it to him, and content ourselves. facing, in the depths of our ignorance and our sin-bred lack of comprehension, these tremendous realities, with the altitude of Paul: ‘O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out!’ Or may we not even rise to the great consenting ‘Yea!’ which Christ has taught us: ‘Yea, Father, for so it was well-pleasing in thy sight!’ After all, men are sinners and grace is wonderful. The marvel of marvels is not that God, in his infinite love, has not elected all of this guilty race to be saved, but that he has elected any. What really needs accounting for — though to account for it passes the powers of our extremest flights of imagination — is how the holy God could get the consent of his nature to save a single sinner.”

B. B. Warfield

Mercy, Justice and Injustice

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In this excerpt from his teaching series “The Parables of Jesus,” Dr. R.C. Sproul distinguishes mercy from injustice.

Mercy vs. Injustice from Ligonier Ministries on Vimeo.

Transcript

Now I’m going to draw a little circle here on the board. And this circle represents the concept of justice. Now everything outside this circle can be put in the negative category of non-justice—that which is not justice, but is non-justice. For purposes of illustration, I’m going to put a little boundary there, put another circle out here, and everything in this circle out here is non-justice. But there’s more than one kind of non-justice. Here we have a non-justice that is injustice, and that is unrighteous and evil. Right?

Over here we have grace, or mercy. Is there anything evil about grace? Of course not. Is there anything wicked about God’s being merciful? No. When God is gracious He does not commit an injustice; He does commit a non-justice.

So what happens is for those whom He elects and saves sovereignly, receive His grace. Those who do not receive His grace receive what? His justice; exactly what they deserve. Now, do we really believe that God is sovereign in His grace? Paul goes on to answer this question, is there unrighteousness in God?—God forbid, by no means!

Did not God say to Moses, “I will have mercy over whom I will have mercy”? God sovereignly has the right to be generous in His mercy to one without being required to give it to the other.

For whom did Christ die? (Debate)

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Dr. James White v. Dr. Michael Brown

In reflecting on this “debate” Dr. White wrote:

First, I am somewhat uncomfortable with the term “debate” in this instance, for a number of reasons. This might be one of those times where “discussion” is really the better term. The actual interaction time was limited, only about 53 minutes total, after which time our discussion was driven by the audience in the main. And though we both attempted to be as brief and concise as possible, still, without specific time controls, complete equality was not possible to obtain. And particularly in the second discussion we (I think quite properly) had more actual personal interaction on a pastoral level.

Whatever term we choose to describe the discussions, they were most certainly unusual for most of Christian television anywhere in the world, and in Europe in particular. While there may be lots of panel discussions recorded for broadcast, this kind of open and honest disagreement based upon the highest view of Scripture and inspiration, by two participants, both of whom have studied the biblical languages (Michael being the expert in Hebrew, and I having the advantage in Greek), is certainly not your normal fare on what is called Christian television. On that level alone I am very pleased that these programs will be available for viewing for at least the foreseeable future.

This is not the first time Michael and I have demonstrated that you can disagree strongly and still do so respectfully…

Regarding the Atonement Discussion

I did all I could to start the debate on the right foot, which is hard to do in less than five minutes. But I focused upon what must be the heart of any such discussion: the vital relationship between the extent of the atonement and the divine intention of the atonement. This element, together with 1) the covenantal nature of the death of Christ as the very ground and source of the New Covenant and, 2) the intimate, necessary, and glorious nature of Christ’s high priestly role and hence the connection of atonement and intercession, formed the heart of my argument. I believe a fair analysis of the encounter would confirm that these arguments were not undercut by anything Michael offered. Instead, it was plain to me that his opening arguments were based not on the provision of a biblical doctrine of atonement, but upon a general denial of particularity in salvation itself. He focused far more upon emphasizing “all” passages than upon providing any kind of positive doctrine of intentionality or accomplishment in atonement. This was not a failure on Michael’s part, it is the nature of non- Reformed soteriology in general. It simply does not go deeply into the biblical revelation at this point, for the deepest most illuminating texts on this topic (Romans 8, the Hebrews chapters) are all connected to sovereignty, election, priesthood and intercession. This is why Michael was forced (and this, to me, was the deciding moment in the debate) to divide, conceptually and practically, the atoning work of the High Priest and the intercessory work. So, Christ dies for every individual, even for those already under God’s judgment, but Michael sees how impossible it is to keep that priestly work unified, so he denied that Christ is interceding for those who are already under judgment. Now if he could just follow that thought to its conclusion and see the power of it! Instead, he seemed to wish to deny the fact that even in Israel you had the physical offspring of Abraham and the spiritual offspring of Abraham, and that it is the remnant (???????), those who are of faith, who were in view in the sacrifices and the priestly ministrations. So he wished to insist that the sacrifice of atonement on the day of atonements was for all of Israel, and hence potential in nature. I disputed this on a few accounts, but time did not allow an in-depth discussion.

I would simply point out that 1) the offering in Leviticus 16 is limited to the covenant people of God; it did not make atonement for the Egyptians or Moabites or Assyrians. It was, by nature, covenantal and hence “limited”;

2) there is good ground for arguing for a limitation even within the Old Covenant context based upon the obedience and faith of the remnant of Israel (many bore in their bodies the covenant sign but were not of the remnant as they were not of faith); but most importantly

3) the New Testament text makes the limitation explicit in the phrase ???? ?????????????? ?? ????? ?? ???, those drawing near to God through Him (Hebrews 7:25). In any case, the powerful argument based upon Christ’s high priestly ministry, together with the inarguable fact that the ones for whom the sacrifice is offered and the ones for whom the High Priest intercedes are identical, was clearly presented and defended. I truly wonder how many who heard that program heard about these wondrous truths for the first time? What a privilege to have the opportunity to proclaim them!

Of course, if someone in the audience does not remain focused upon the topic, they may well be distracted by the other issues raised, especially by the audience interaction. Texts such as 1 John 2:2, 1 Timothy 4:10, etc., which I have discussed in depth in my published works, again show that the primary objection to particular redemption is found in a rejection of particularity as a whole, i.e., in objections to election. I can only hope that those who found those objections weighty will take the time to dig into the interactions Michael and I had previously on those topics.

Here then is Part 1:

Part 2: Questions and Answers

Election: Conditional or Unconditional?

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In an article entitled pick me: Unconditional Election” Clint Archer writes:

Everyone who believes the Bible does believe in election. Ooh, them be fight’n words. Let me explain…

The Greek word for elect means chosen or called out from a group. Used eighteen times by six NT authors. Yes, even in the NIV. So it cannot be ignored or denied. The debate pivots only on the matter of election being conditional or unconditional.

Arminians say ‘I owe my election to my faith.’

Calvinists say ‘I owe my faith to my election.’

One says God elects those who will believe. The other says God elects, so they will believe.

I’m not putting words in their mouths. In the Articles of Faith of the National Association of Freewill Baptists, Article 9 states:

God determined from the beginning to save all who should comply with the conditions of salvation. Hence by faith in Christ men become his elect.”

i.e., your salvation is conditional on your faith.

So, does God elect you and therefore give you faith that saves, or does he recognize those who have faith, and therefore elects to save them? These questions must be answered by God’s word.

Is election conditional upon faith?

Let me ask you this: Did God, according to the Bible, chose you before or after you had faith?

Ephesians 1:4-5 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will…

Pop quiz: Did God choose you at the time you believed in Jesus, or before? Let me make it easier: did he chose you before or after you were born? “…even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world …”

God chose who he would save before they believed in Jesus, before they repented, before they prayed a prayer, before they were born, or before the world was created. (To be clear, I’m not saying he saved them before they had faith, only that he chose them to eventually be saved before they had faith.)

Election cannot be conditional on faith, because it happens before you believe and before you are born.

Romans 9: 11-13 though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad- in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of his call- she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

Why do Arminians not tap out when they read Romans 9?

Let me start by asserting categorically that Arminians are believers. They believe in grace by faith alone, they trust in Jesus alone to save them. But the explanation of how that happens they base on their experience and emotional reactions, instead of on Scripture. They say, ‘I remember choosing God. I’m not just a robot!’ And they feel that the doctrine of election makes God out to be callous in that he doesn’t elect everybody, and they say that predestination makes us puppets with no free will. They fear that the doctrine will dampen evangelism and curtail missions.

But all of these are straw men arguments. No true Calvinist is fatalistic or indifferent to evangelism and missions. History proves otherwise. Think of Charles “the Soul-winner” Spurgeon, Jonathan “Spark of Revival” Edwards, George “the Evangelist” Whitefield, George “Orphan Savior” Mueller, and our contemporary champions of missions, John “Let the Nations Be Glad” Piper, John “Grace Advance” MacArthur. Time would fail to mention Westminster, every Puritan, and Sproul, Lloyd-Jones, Stott, Machen, Mohler, Dever, Mahaney, and pretty much everyone whose sermons inspire a love for deep doctrine and evangelism. Oh, and I forgot one…Paul.

Romans 8: 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son,…

How do Arminians side-step foreknowledge and predestination?

The way Arminians get around it is to postulate that, ‘God looked down through the corridors of time and elected those whom he saw would believe in Jesus of their own free will; he then elected them based on the condition of their faith. That is predestination.’

I.e. God knew who would choose him, and the responded by choosing them first.

Two problematic speed bumps hinder that view: 1) what the word foreknew means. The Greek word progvwsis or foreknow used 5x in the NT, means ‘to intimately know beforehand.’

It is not used to speak of a prediction, but of a pre-ordination. What does that mean? Listen to one of the other clear uses of foreknowledge…

Acts 2:23 this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.

Jesus’ death was man’s doing, but it was the “definite plan of God.” Foreknowledge = plan. God didn’t predict that Jesus would be crucified; God ordained that Jesus would be crucified for our sins. It wasn’t a response to what he knew we would do to Jesus, it was the master plan all along. So was your salvation! So, that is the first problem with the “corridors of time” theory. It’s not what foreknow means. There is another problem…

2) The logical fallacy. Arminians say God knew who would choose him, so he chose them. But this mocks God’s use of language. It’s verbal gymnastics of RobBellian proportions to say that.

Charles Spurgeon explains:

God gives faith, therefore He could not have elected them on faith that he foresaw. There shall be twenty beggars in the street, and I determine to give one of them a shilling; but will anyone say I determined to give that one shilling, because I foresaw that he would have it? That would be talking nonsense.

When Arminians, say that “God foreknew who would elect him, so he elected them,” they reverse the meaning of election. That’s analogous to saying “Shakespeare knew MacBeth would kill king Duncan, so he wrote the play that way.” If he knows that is how it will turn out, and he writes the play, that is the same as saying he made it turn out that way.

Loraine Boettner agrees:

Foreknowledge implies certainty and certainty implies foreknowledge. If God knows the course of history, then history will follow that course as certainly as a locomotive on its tracks.

What about free will?

The Bible doesn’t say there is no free will. It says your will is only free to choose what it is able to choose. (What Luther called the Bondage of the Will; your will is bound to choose sin.) Like a leopard who has free choice to elect eating the vegan salad or the juicy tourist. Its free will is spring-loaded to choose according the nature of a carnivore.

Remember what we learned in Despicable Me: the Doctrine of Total Depravity? …

Jer 13:23 Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then also you can do good who are accustomed to do evil.

I am can choose between Coke and Diet Coke. But I can’t choose to fly like a bird.

One of the grammar lessons my mom used to drill home to me was the difference between may and can.

‘Mom, can I have a cookie?’

‘I don’t know can you? Is it too big for your mouth? Oh, you mean “May I have a cookie?”’

I thought, why do I need to know that? Turns out it’s important in theology.

It’s not a matter of may a person choose Christ (everyone in the world may come to Christ at any moment to be saved); the question is can they choose Christ (are they able to without help)?

Here’s what the Bible says…

John 6:44 No one can [is able to] come to me unless the Father draws him. (see also 37 …all the Father gives me will come.)

Is 46:9-11 …I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass.

John 6:44 No one can come to me unless the Father draws him. [Which comes first, coming or drawing?]

1 Cor 1:28-29 God chose what is low and despised in the world, … so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

Election gives all credit to God.

Matt 13:10-11 Then the disciples came and said to him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” And he answered them, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.

Apparently God decided who should respond and who not.

Acts 13:48 And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.

A crowd heard Paul’s preaching and who believed? Those “appointed to eternal life.”

Clincher: John 15:16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit.

Jesus elected his apostles, so apparently their free will was not consulted.

Your objection might be this: I don’t believe that God would chose some and not all. That’s fine, but don’t say “I don’t believe in election.” Say, “I don’t believe the Bible.”

A Response to the Foreknowledge View of Election

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A response to Dr. Gaines (1)

In a full program covering a number of issues, Dr. James White begins an examination of Dr. Steve Gaines’ sermon on the sovereignty of God from back in September. It is a very useful response to what is known as the “foreknowledge view of election” (the idea that God chooses people in eternity past based on His knowledge of their future actions in time – looking through the corridors of time He sees certain people responding positively to the gospel and then elects them on that basis). Dr. White shows this to be a completely unbiblical position. The response to Dr. Gaines’ sermon begins around the 1 hour mark of the show:

A response to Dr. Gaines (2)

As Dr. James White noted on his blog. “We continued our review of the September 8th sermon by Dr. Steve Gaines, and also noting the disastrous results of refusing to recognize the difference between the prescriptive will of God and the decretive will of God.”

Response (3)

Dr. White writes, “Continued our review of Pastor Steve Gaines’ sermon on election from 9/8/2013 today. Started off, though, with about 20 minutes on the will of God, the divine decree…”

Response (4)

James writes, “Had to start off with a little Caner news (specifically, materials from the police report of the criminal complaint Ergun Caner tried to use to stop us from giving our presentation in Lindale last year). The wave of documentation continues to grow and grow, and the shrill attacks of Caner and his defenders (Lumpkins, Rogers, Penn, et al) only show they well know the truth. But I got through that fairly quickly and managed to finish up my review of Pastor Steve Gaines’ sermon from September of 2013.”