Chris Arnzen’s recent interview with me on Iron Sharpens Iron focused on handling objections to Sovereign Election and is now posted online at this link.
Objections to Sovereign Election
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Category Archives: Election & Predestination
Ten Great Quotes from ‘Chosen by God’
Tim Challies000 copies! It has been invaluable in helping me, and so many others, navigate a very tricky topic. Here are 10 great quotes drawn from its pages.
What predestination means, in its most elementary form, is that our final destination, heaven or hell, is decided by God not only before we get there, but before we are even born. It teaches that our ultimate destiny is in the hands of God.
If there is one single molecule in this universe running around loose, totally free of God’s sovereignty, then we have no guarantee that a single promise of God will ever be fulfilled.
God is free. I am free. God is more free than I am. If my freedom runs up against God’s freedom, I lose. His freedom restricts mine; my freedom does not restrict his.
The assumption many of us make when we struggle with the Fall is that, had we been there, we would have made a different choice. We would not have made a decision that would plunge the world into ruin. Such an assumption is just not possible given the character of God. God doesn’t make mistakes. His choice of my representative is greater than my choice of my own.
Total depravity is not utter depravity. Utter depravity would mean that we are all as sinful as we possibly could be. We know that is not the case. No matter how much each of us has sinned, we are able to think of worse sins that we could have committed. Even Adolf Hitler refrained from murdering his mother.
Before God pronounces a deed “good” he considers not only the outward or external conformity to his law, but also the motivation. We look only at outward appearances; God reads the heart. For a work to be considered good it must not only conform outwardly to the law of God, but it must be motivated inwardly by a sincere love for God.
People do not seek God. They seek after the benefits that only God can give them. The sin of fallen man is this: Man seeks the benefits of God while at the same time fleeing from God himself. We are, by nature, fugitives.
Most non-Reformed views of predestination fail to take seriously the fact that fallen man is spiritually dead. Other evangelical positions acknowledge that man is fallen and that his fallenness is a serious matter. They even grant that sin is a radical problem. They are quick to grant that man is not merely ill, but mortally ill, sick unto death. But he has not quite died yet. He still has one tiny breath of spiritual life left in his body. He still has a tiny island of righteousness left in his heart, a tiny and feeble moral ability that abides in his fallenness.
Unless we conclude that every human being is predestined to salvation, we must face the flip side of election. If there is such a thing as predestination at all, and if that predestination does not include all people, then we must not shrink from the necessary inference that there are two sides to predestination. It is not enough to talk about Jacob; we must also consider Esau.
We must never underestimate the importance of our role in evangelism. Neither must we overestimate it. We preach. We bear witness. We provide the outward call. But God alone has the power to call a person to himself inwardly. I do not feel cheated by that. On the contrary, I feel comforted. We must do our job, trusting that God will do his.
Universality and Particularity
John Calvin, chapter 22:
Section 10. THE UNIVERSALITY OF GOD’S INVITATION AND THE PARTICULARITY OF ELECTION
Some object that God would be contrary to himself if he should universally invite all men to him but admit only a few as elect. Thus, in their view, the universality of the promises removes the distinction of special grace; and some moderate men speak thus, not so much to stifle the truth as to bar thorny questions, and to bridle the curiosity of many. A laudable intention, this, but the design is not to be approved, for evasion is never excusable. But those who insolently revile election offer a quibble too disgusting, an error too shameful.
I have elsewhere explained how Scripture reconciles the two notions that all are called to repentance and faith by outward preaching, yet that the spirit of repentance and faith is not given to all. Soon I shall have to repeat some of this. Now I deny what they claim, since it is false in two ways. For he who threatens that while it will rain upon one city there will be drought in another [Amos 4:7], and who elsewhere announces a famine of teaching [Amos 8:11], does not bind himself by a set law to call all men equally. And he who, forbidding Paul to speak the word in Asia [Acts 16:6], and turning him aside from Bithynia, draws him into Macedonia [Acts 16:7 ff.] thus shows that he has the right to distribute this treasure to whom he pleases. Continue reading
Election and Evangelism
In an article entitled “Election and Evangelism: Friends, Not Foes” Dr. Sam Storms writes:
When I hear people object to the doctrine of unconditional election they don’t typically direct my attention to a particular passage of Scripture that they believe teaches conditional election. Instead, they insist, for example, that unconditional election is inconsistent with any meaningful call to evangelistic outreach. “Why should I preach or share or in other ways make known the gospel of Jesus if God has already determined from eternity past who will ultimately be forgiven and granted entrance into the eternal kingdom? Why should I put my life at risk in taking the gospel to foreign, unreached people groups if God is finally sovereign over who does and does not believe?”
I understand the reason for this kind of thinking and I do not take it lightly or casually dismiss it as the misguided musings of a typical Arminian. Our Arminian brothers and sisters have a genuine concern for the integrity of gospel proclamation and intercessory prayer for the lost souls of the world. And so must we who identify as Calvinists.
What I find especially interesting is that instead of answering such questions in the sort of straightforward way we might prefer, the NT authors prefer to describe evangelistic fervor and the unqualified universal appeal of the gospel alongside and in virtually the same breath with the reality of divine sovereignty. It never seems to strike them as in the least inconsistent or contradictory to affirm both truths side by side.
One of the places we see this is in the ministry of Jesus himself. In Matthew 11:25-26 Jesus declared: “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.” He then tells us that “no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (Matt. 11:27).
This is precisely at the point where some assume Jesus’s next words would be something like this: “You who are elect, and you only, I now invite to believe in me and follow me. After all, why would I extend such an invitation to those whom the Father didn’t give me in eternity past? They alone are the ones for whom I will lay down my life and the only ones whom the Father, through the Spirit, will draw to faith in me” (see John 6:37-40, 64-65).
But much to the surprise of everyone, Jesus immediately extends this universal and indiscriminate appeal: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28). Evidently there was no conflict in the mind of Christ between, on the one hand, the sovereign and distinguishing choice of the Father to grant knowledge of the Son to some but not others and, on the other hand, the universal offer of eternal life and spiritual rest. You and I may wrangle over the two, insisting that the truth of one necessarily precludes the truth of the other, but Jesus had no such problem.
Yet another place where this dual emphasis is found is in the words of the apostle Paul to Timothy. He exhorts his young spiritual son to remember Jesus as risen from the dead in spite of the fact that he, Paul, is “bound with chains as a criminal” (2 Tim. 2:9). The reason for this is that although the messenger is in jail the message continues to flourish and spread. Then he says this:
“Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory” (2 Tim. 2:10).
Paul believes that some hell-deserving sinners have been chosen by God; they are his elect people. He also knows that the only way the elect can enter into the experience of salvation “with eternal glory” is through conscious faith in Jesus. Therefore, he is determined to endure incredible pain and hardship and even imprisonment so that he might spread the truth of the gospel everywhere. The fact that people are “elect” does not lead him to say: “Whoo! That takes a load off my mind. I can ease off the gas pedal of gospel proclamation and stop praying so fervently for people now that I know with certainty that God has chosen some for eternal life. Furthermore, I can stop behaving in the sort of way that leads to chains and imprisonment.” No, instead he confidently persists in preaching and willingly embraces suffering precisely because he knows that such are the means by which God will bring the elect to saving faith in Christ.
Some might assume that if the doctrine of election didn’t lead him to cease praying and preaching then surely his belief in the necessity of praying and preaching would lead him to reject the doctrine of election. But that’s not what happened. At no point does Paul or any other NT author reason like this: “Well, if I have to preach the gospel for people to be saved I can only conclude that there is no such thing as unconditional election. The only thing that counts is that people make a choice.” Instead, Paul is determined to endure great suffering and hardship precisely “for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain” salvation (2 Tim. 2:10a).
In other words, his commitment to suffer so that the gospel might spread and be made known does not mean that no one has been chosen before the foundation of the world to believe it. Rather, it means that he and others like Timothy are the ordained instrument through which God is pleased to save the elect.
Let me cite just one more example. After preaching in Corinth, Paul was opposed and “reviled” (Acts 18:6) by the Jewish community there. He left town determined to take the gospel to the Gentiles. But Jesus appeared to him one night in a vision and said, “Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people” (Acts 18:9b-10).
Paul’s response to this revelation from Christ was not to say: “That doesn’t make any sense, Jesus. If you’ve got many elect people in Corinth then they will undoubtedly come to faith in you regardless of whether or not I or anyone else preaches to them. I’ve got better things to do with my life and time than to preach unnecessarily.”
No, instead “he stayed a year and six months [in Corinth], teaching the word of God among them” (Acts 18:11). Again, we may not be able to grasp how these two truths are compatible, how the reality of unconditional election actually requires rather than precludes gospel proclamation and intercessory prayer, but God nowhere asks or expects us to. He asks and expects us to preach and pray, confident that such are the means by which he is pleased to bring his “people”, the elect, to eternal salvation in Christ.
Understanding 1 Timothy 2:4
Chapter 10 of my book “Twelve What Abouts.”
WHAT ABOUT 1 TIMOTHY 2:4?
How can Sovereign election be true when 1 Timothy 2:4 clearly says that God “desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth”?
In the previous chapter, in doing so, be lost forever. Once again, much could be said for this interpretation. Yet once again, I believe a close examination of the text itself points us in a different direction, which I will seek to outline here.
Before I do so, let me just say that it is entirely possible to go for many years without asking questions about a text of Scripture because we assume we have already understood it. This is the very hallmark of tradition. Blind to our own assumptions we see no need to look at the text objectively and see if our understanding of the text can be verified by the text itself. However, if we take a deep breath and summon up the courage to ask the simple question, “What does the context tell us about the use of the word “all” here in this text?” I believe we will come away with the correct interpretation. Actually, it is absolutely vital we do this because context tells us how a word is being used.
THE MEANING OF THE WORD “ALL”
The word translated “all” in 1 Timothy 2:4 is the Greek word “pas.” As I also mentioned in the last chapter, sometimes the word “all” refers to all people everywhere. On other occasions it means “all kinds” or “all classes or types” or “all within a certain type or class.”
In the same letter, written obviously by the same author, Paul, we read the very familiar words of chapter 6 and verse 10, “For the love of money is the root of all evil…” (KJV).
More modern scholarship recognizes that the word “pas” sometimes means “all” and sometimes means “all types” or “all kinds,” depending on the context in which it is found. Therefore the ESV translation of 1 Timothy 6:10 is “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils.” The NASB says, “For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil…” The NIV reads, “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.” Again, the Greek word “pas” can mean “all types” or “all kinds.”
I mention this because when we examine 1 Timothy 2:4, I believe the word “all” is being used in a similar sort of way, referring to “all types” of people. I say this based on the context.
Here is the passage in 1 Timothy 2:1-4: Continue reading
Look at the Book: Romans 8:28-30
Part 1: Romans 8:28 is one of the most important and most treasured verses and promises in the Bible. In this lab, Dr. John Piper begins a series of three labs pulling apart the critical pieces in these twenty-four words for understanding and embracing our sovereign and good God.
Romans 8:28, Part 1 // All Things Work Together for Good from Desiring God on Vimeo.
Part 2: The Bible makes promises to those who love God. But how do we know if we do? In this lab, John Piper digs into the relationship between saving faith and loving God. He goes on to show why and how God works all things for good for those who love him.
Romans 8:28, Part 2 // Do You Love God? from Desiring God on Vimeo.
Part 3: When God calls a man or woman, what happens? In this lab, the third of three labs focused on Romans 8:28, John Piper draws in several other verses to try and understand the call of God. He explains why those who love God should rest secure in his sovereign care.
Romans 8:28, Part 3 // Called According to God’s Purpose from Desiring God on Vimeo.
Part 4: In this lab, John Piper tackles the next verse in Romans 8 – verse 29. The phrase “foreknown by God” has caused significant controversy and conflict within Christianity. Did God simply know ahead of time that we would believe, or did he choose who would believe?
Romans 8:29 // Foreknown by God from Desiring God on Vimeo.
Part 5: A promise as mind-blowing as Romans 8:28 needs massive faith-sustaining truth underneath it. Romans 8:30 lays out a process in which God exalts Christ by bringing ungodly people to glory. In this lab, John Piper offers assurance in God’s invincible plan of salvation.
Romans 8:29 // Conformed to the Image of Christ from Desiring God on Vimeo.
Romans 8:30 // Predestined, Called, Justified, Glorified from Desiring God on Vimeo.
Election – Shai Linne
Peep it son, no need to run from the truth
We need to come to understand Ephesians 1
We see in love the Father predestined
We seem to have a problem with the doctrine of election
We keep stressin’ and leave guessin’ leadin’ to depression
Because it’s God’s love we question
Well sit back and take a deep breath in
And exhale, let’s set sail, the word of God is refreshin’
Let’s be real with it, the Bible obviously talks
about predestination so we gotta deal with it
I’ll be a fake attorney by His grace and mercy
And present my case so let’s take a journey for the sake of learning
First turn to Romans 8:28-30
Zoomin’ in on verse 29, read the first line
“Those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to
the image of His Son”- Exhibit #1
People try to use an argument lacking common sense
Concerning the foreknowledge of God thinking the logic fits
Dudes are saying He looked out into the future ages
With illumination seeing all that would choose salvation
And those men were chosen by God because they chose Him
But that’s not what the passage has spoken
It says those He foreknew He predestined
If he foreknew everybody, is everybody predestined?
Is everyone His object of affection?
If so, then what’s the point of the doctrine of election?
It’s spiritual but let me make it plain so u see the miracle
And praise His Name instead of taking His grace in vain
It isn’t complicated, we all evaded the God that made us
And traded in His truth for a lie
Worshiping what God created more than God who is glorified
Corroborated our death, our lives are an abomination
But if the Father’s aim is to bestow mercy
Then it’s not to say that He was obligated but that God is gracious
As God’s enemies we deserve to be crushed
We’re dirty enough to be eternally cursed and turned into dust
And if he did it He would be perfectly just to murder me but
He decided to show mercy to us
I didn’t choose God, God chose me
Gave me a new heart and it wasn’t because I was holy
But if I chose G-O-D then God owes me, the only reason
I first walked thru them church doors is
Psalm 65 verse 4, why do I know God?
Matthew 11:27 says it best and
Those that have been predestined keep pressin’
It’s a deep message, I only see blessin’ in election
‘ma see the blessin’, yo it’s not even a question
How God in His perfection wrote the doctrine of election
(shai linne)
God in His perfection wrote the doctrine of election
Cause He’s sovereign, there’s no question and that got some people stressin’
But no option but election can account for our protection
Godly direction or perfected bodily resurrection, yo!
Don’t let the thinking of modern men fool ya
God does what He wants- that’s what it means to be Sovereign Ruler
It’s deep but not complicated- with complete confidence I’ll state it:
Peep it- it’s how God has always operated
He’s the greatest, fam- His amazing plan made His hand
Save the man Abraham from a pagan land
Who can argue with the people that God chooses?
Israel and not Egypt, Peter and not Judas
Humanly speaking, it should have been Saul and not David
The inheritance should have been Esau’s and not Jacob’s
The truth it speaks brightly so you can see rightly
A huge, mighty God who chooses the least likely
Still some contest it as a phony doctrine
But if we’re really dead in sin, predestination is the only option
With reservations they fume inside
There’s hesitation because it’s devastating to human pride
This truth is the sober kind that you’re prone to find
In passages like Romans 9- it’s so divine it’ll blow your mind
We are the clay and we’ve been formed by the Potter
None can come to the Son unless they’re drawn by the Father
“But God draws everybody” That’s what some cats say
It can’t be that way because all who are drawn are raised on the last day
Because of original sin and all of our despicable deadness within
Election must be unconditional then
Some people say that we were drowning in the ocean
Barely floating until God threw us the rope then
Our free will helped us as we groped
Our faith is the hand that grabbed the rope and God put us back in the boat
Nope! Without apology I deny that analogy
Reality- we were dead at the bottom of the sea
I was a swollen corpse with hope no more
Until Jehovah the LORD dove from the shore to the ocean floor
Yeah, I was a corpse and I smelled like it
I’ll keep it simple, why did God choose me? Because He felt like it!
He brought me out, not an act of my volition
Breathed life into my lungs and didn’t ask for my permission
Throughout the Bible there’s major examples of this
Pages of passages like the raising of Lazarus
Rather than debating the Master’s gift
We should be happily praising His magnanimous saving of savages
It’s time we see God’s sovereignty and His primacy
His holy dynasty running things by divine decree
Why does He choose some and not others to see Jesus?
Our God is in the heavens- He does whatever He pleases!
Some Quotes on Sovereign Election
“After giving a brief survey of these doctrines of sovereign grace, I asked for questions from the class. One lady, in particular, was quite troubled. She said, ‘This is the most awful thing I’ve ever heard! You make it sound as if God is intentionally turning away men and women who would be saved, receiving only the elect.’ I answered her in this vein: ‘You misunderstand the situation. You’re visualizing that God is standing at the door of heaven, and men are thronging to get in the door, and God is saying to various ones, ‘Yes, you may come, but not you, and you, but not you, etc.’ The situation is hardly this. Rather, God stands at the door of heaven with His arms outstretched, inviting all to come. Yet all men without exception are running in the opposite direction towards hell as hard as they can go. So God, in election, graciously reaches out and stops this one, and that one, and this one over here, and that one over there, and effectually draws them to Himself by changing their hearts, making them willing to come. Election keeps no one out of heaven who would otherwise have been there, but it keeps a whole multitude of sinners out of hell who otherwise would have been there. Were it not for election, heaven would be an empty place, and hell would be bursting at the seams. That kind of response, grounded as I believe that it is in Scriptural truth, does put a different complexion on things, doesn’t it? If you perish in hell, blame yourself, as it is entirely your fault. But if you should make it to heaven, credit God, for that is entirely His work! To Him alone belong all praise and glory, for salvation is all of grace, from start to finish.” – Mark Webb
“The verb ‘elect’ means to select, or choose out. The biblical doctrine of election is that before the Creation God selected out of the human race, foreseen as fallen, those whom he would redeem, bring to faith, justify and glorify in and through Jesus Christ. This divine choice is an expression of free and sovereign grace, for it is unconstrained and unconditional, not merited by anything in those who are its subjects. God owes sinners no mercy of any kind, only condemnation; so it is a wonder, and matter of endless praise, that he should choose to save any of us; and doubly so, when his choice involved the giving of his own Son to suffer as sin-bearer for the elect.” – Dr. J. I. Packer
“I do not come into this pulpit hoping that perhaps somebody will of his own free will return to Christ. My hope lies in another quarter. I hope that my Master will lay hold of some of them and say, “You are mine, and you shall be mine. I claim you for myself.” My hope arises from the freeness of grace, and not from the freedom of the will. Free will carried many a soul to hell, but never a soul to heaven.” – Charles Haddon Spurgeon
“God chooses us, not because we believe, but that we may believe…” – Augustine (354-430)
“We give our hand to every man that loves the Lord Jesus Christ, be he what he may or who he may. The doctrine of election, like the great act of election itself, is intended to divide, not between Israel and Israel, but between Israel and the Egyptians, not between saint and saint, but between saints and the children of the world. A man may be evidently of God’s chosen family, and yet though elected, may not believe in the doctrine of election. I hold that there are many savingly called, who do not believe in effectual calling, and that there are a great many who persevere to the end, who do not believe the doctrine of final perseverance. We do hope the hearts of many are a great deal better than their heads. We do not set their fallacies down to any willful opposition to the truth as it is in Jesus but simply to an error in their judgments, which we pray God to correct. We hope that if they think us mistaken too, they will reciprocate the same Christian courtesy; and when we meet around the cross, we hope that we shall ever feel that we are one in Christ Jesus.” – C. H. Spurgeon
“If any man doth ascribe of salvation, even the very least, to the free will of man, he knows nothing of grace, and he has not learnt Jesus Christ aright.” – Martin Luther
“To know that from eternity my Maker, foreseeing my sin, foreloved me and resolved to save me, though it would be at the cost of Calvary; to know that the divine Son was appointed from eternity to be my Savior, and that in love he became man for me and died for me and now lives to intercede for me and will one day come in person to take me home; to know that the Lord ‘who loved me and gave himself for me’ (Gal 2:20) and who ‘came and preached peace’ to me through his messengers (Eph. 2:17) has by his Spirit raised me from spiritual death to life-giving union and communion with himself, and has promised to hold me fast and never let me go – this is knowledge that brings overwhelming gratitude and joy.” – Dr. J.I. Packer
“I believe the doctrine of election, because I am quite certain that, if God had not chosen me, I should never have chosen Him; and I am sure He chose me before I was born, or else He never would have chosen me afterwards; and He must have elected me for reasons unknown to me, for I never could find any reason in myself why He should have looked upon me with special love.” – C. H. Spurgeon Continue reading
Divine Election
This outstanding message by Dr. James Montgomery Boice comes from the 1997 Ligonier National Conference “Essential Truths of the Christian Faith.” It is superb!
MP3 found here.
What Does Predestination Mean for the Non-Elect?
Daniel Hyde the question we are faced with is what of the rest of humanity? Reformed theology typically confesses what is known as double predestination. The Canons of Dort (CD) define this doctrine as “the express testimony of sacred Scripture that not all, but some only, decease are elected, while others are passed by in the eternal decree” (CD 1.15).
This is a very serious confession. Let me focus our hearts on the biblical teaching before addressing two practical struggles this doctrine can bring up.
Is this Doctrine Biblical?
I begin with whether this doctrine is biblical because Scripture is the foundation upon which our faith stands. This is also the reason why those who deny this doctrine deny it: they don’t think it’s in Scripture. Let me survey several biblical passages to show that it is.
First, when Jesus gave His bread of life discourse He said, “whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” Yet, He also said to the crowds: “you have seen me and yet do not believe” (John 6:36). Why didn’t they believe? “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out” (John 6:37). Do you understand what Jesus said? To those hard-hearted people Jesus explicitly said to them that the Father gave to Christ some to be saved and not others. In other words, some were chosen while others were left in their hard-heartedness, unable to come to Christ.
Second, most likely the most famous passage is in Romans 9. There Paul made contrast between the historical figures of Jacob and Esau. Then he made the theological affirmations that God loved Jacob while Esau was hated; Jacob was chosen while Esau was not. These brothers stood as illustrative examples of what is true of all humanity.
Third, in 1 Thessalonians 5:9 Paul comforted believers living in dark times: “For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.” There are those who are comfortable in their own safety saying, “There is peace and safety” (1 Thes. 5:3), who are also described as children of the night and the darkness (1 Thes. 5:5), and who are said to be asleep in the days in which we live (1 Thes. 5:6, 7). These were destined for wrath; but we believers have not been.
Fourth, in 1 Peter 2:4 Peter said that we came to Christ, that is, we believed in Him. In contrast, he said in verse 7 that some do not believe, citing Psalm 118 that says like a stone Jesus was rejected by the builders. Verse 8 then cites Isaiah 8, declaring Jesus is a stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that causes offense to them. Peter continues, “They stumble because they disobey the word”—this is the word of the gospel back in 1 Peter 1:23-25—“as they were destined to do.”
Finally, in Jude 4 we learn that false teachers were a part of the plan of God to affect the church: “For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation.”
So is this doctrine biblical? Yes. A simple reading of Scripture shows that not only are some chosen to salvation in God’s eternal purpose, but some are not. Those Scripture passages that teach God’s election of a particular people unto salvation also teach God’s non-election of others.
This is where a distinction is helpful to understand this. Preterition is God’s passing over some when He choose others. Condemnation is God’s actual consigning the passed over to eternal punishment. Condemnation, therefore, is subsequent to preterition. In other words, election and reprobation are not precisely parallel, as God’s positive choice in grace is what makes us elect, while His withholding of grace by passing by means that others will be left in their sins and because of that are therefore condemned by God.
Some detractors of reprobation say that it is debilitating to the Christian life. Let me address the two common pastoral issues this doctrine often creates.
1. What if this Doctrine Frightens Me?
It’s easy for some of us who are affected with the struggle of seeing life as a glass half empty to hear a doctrine like reprobation and to live in doubt, but there are different categories of people who hear this doctrine and have a difficult time with it.
First, there are believers who have a living faith in Christ, are assured in their souls, have peace of conscience, and desire to be obedient to the glory of God. Yet even these believers are not completely assured at all times. Reprobation may bring this out in their minds and hearts. The answer is making perpetual use of the means that God has appointed for working His grace in you—the Word, the sacraments, and prayer.
The second kind of believer is the one struggling with ongoing sin. Are you beset by some sin that is keeping you from a stronger relationship with Christ? You should not be afraid when you hear of reprobation because in His mercy, God has promised that He will not quench the smoking flax nor break the bruised reed (Isa. 42:3), that is, the struggling believer.
Finally, there is a category of hearer that needs to be worried when this doctrine is mentioned. It’s not believers who need to be worried but those who have wholly given themselves over to the cares of the world and the pleasures of the flesh. If this is you, reprobation should be fearful; but its mention is also the opportunity to repent and believe in Jesus Christ.
2. What if My Child Dies?
A second practical problem is how reprobation relates to infants who die? The caricature described in the Canons of Dort is that those who hold to a doctrine of reprobation believe “many children of the faithful are torn, guiltless, from their mothers’ breasts, and tyrannically plunged into hell” (CD, Conclusion).
Not only was this question a huge issue in the seventeenth century when about 25% of children died in childbirth and then another 25% of those who lived died before age five, but for us, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) anywhere from 10–25% of all clinically recognized pregnancies will end in miscarriage.
So how does the doctrine of reprobation relate to this struggle? The Scriptures teach us as believers that our children are covenant children. The children of at least one believing parent are holy (1 Cor. 7:14) not because they are sinless but because they belong to God’s set apart people. The Lord made His covenant with Abraham and his children (Gen. 17:7). When David found out his child died, he ceased weeping and fasting and arose in confidence that while his son would not come back to him, one day David would see him (2 Sam. 12:23). Where? In the presence of God. David prayed as a covenant member that when he was in his mother’s womb it was the Lord who was forming him and who knew him (Ps. 139). Moving into the New Testament we see that nothing changes. Jesus and the apostles inherit this outlook on children and never say anything to abolish or revoke it. Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 19:14). On Pentecost Peter said God’s promise was to those who believed and their children (Acts 2:39). Paul addressed children in Ephesians 6:1 as they would have been present in the covenant community when this letter was read.
Does this mean all human life that dies in its infancy is in heaven? Whereas Scripture gives us confidence about the children of believers, it is silent about the rest. Great men have personally believed that all infants dying are saved, such as C.H. Spurgeon, Charles Hodge, and B.B. Warfield. So what do we say about aborted life, miscarried life, or precious children of non-believers who die tragically before their life can even get going? We say that God is a good, gracious, and just God and that He will do what is right. We can trust Him.
In the end, what both the doctrines of election and reprobation teach us is that we have a totally sovereign God who is perfectly good. In the end, He will be glorified for His justice but especially His grace, love, and mercy.