Can We Choose God Without Him First Choosing Us?
1 John 4:19
We love because he first loved us
There are two schools of thought in Christianity when it comes to predestination and free will, reformed theology (also known as Calvinism) and Arminianism, and whether or not you are aware of it, if you are a Christian, you subscribe to one of the two ideas. The major difference between the two ideas is Arminianism teaches that we can choose God without him first choosing us and that if he chooses us we can ignore him, where Calvinism teaches that we are not capable of seeking for God until he first changes our nature and that if God chooses us his grace is irresistible and those he calls WILL follow him. There are other differences between the two schools of thought, but the subject of predestination and irresistible grace is the biggest difference. Some people may label me a Calvinist, but for the record, I have never read a single thing that John Calvin wrote, and honestly, I don’t have any immediate plans to change that. I came to the conclusions I did based entirely on the Bible and not any commentary by any preacher or religious influencer.
For most of my life I fell firmly within the camp of Arminianism, but when I took it upon myself to determine God’s thoughts on predestination and free will from the word of God, the Holy Bible, I came to realize that there is undeniable evidence that, whether I want to believe it or not, God chooses whom he will, not based on our works but rather on his good will and pleasure, long before we ever existed. I think my biggest problem with believing God was the one doing the choosing is that I have always been plagued with the sin of pride, and as a result, I have always wanted to think that it was my idea, even if it isn’t.
I was born on the 4th of July and, as far back as I can remember, I have always been extremely patriotic and I have always been extremely proud of being an American, and that is something I will never apologize for. Most of my patriotism is due to the tremendous freedoms we enjoy here in America, and while freedom is a great thing, I think we can also sometimes place freedom on a pedestal and worship it as our God, if we are not careful. All people, but especially Americans, are obsessed with everything they do being their idea, and even if it isn’t their idea, they want to have the illusion that it is. In one of my favorite movies, and arguable one of the best movies ever made, Shane, there is an especially pertinent scene, and if I spoil some of the movie I am not sorry because it has been out since 1953 so you really should have seen it by now. Seriously, if you haven’t seen it, watch it after you finish reading this.
Shane, who is the protagonist of the film, is a gunfighter returning home to Wyoming to give up gun fighting in exchange for a simpler life and in hopes of rekindling the love of an old flame, Marian, only to find that she didn’t wait for him, is married and has a prepubescent son named Joey. When Shane rides into the area he is unaware of the fact that the homesteaders are being terrorized by a cruel and uncaring cattle rancher intent on running them out of the area, by whatever means necessary, up to and including bloodshed.
At first the homesteaders are welcoming to Shane, but when they see a group of the rancher’s men riding up in a cloud of dust they assume Shane is their hired gun. Wanting to have the upper hand before anything goes south, Joe Starett, the man who married Shane’s one time love, trains a gun on him and tells him to leave, to which Shane responds, “You mind putting that Gun down? Then I’ll leave.”
“What difference does it make?” Joe asked, “You are leaving anyway.”
Shane responded with the way most people feel, even when they don’t like to admit it, and said. “I’d like it to be my idea.”
“I’d like it to be my idea” is a phrase that a lot of us use as our guiding star, even if we don’t verbally or consciously acknowledge it. Even the recent movie Inception played on that idea where the goal was to not only plant an idea in someone’s head but make them believe that they had come up with it themselves because people are a lot more likely to accept something if they have the illusion that they are the one who came up with the idea. Some people, actually a lot of people, have that idea about salvation, and though I hate to admit it, I did as well for a while. Some people don’t want salvation unless they can think they chose God instead of God choosing them, as if they can in some way buy salvation and the affection of the eternal God by their own actions and “good works,” works which Isaiah says amount to no more than filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). Also, some people act like salvation isn’t worth having unless they can choose it for themselves, but nothing could be farther from the truth; there is nothing worthwhile to us than salvation.
Even though I have always had a personality inclined to follow orders, it has always infuriated me when I was told to do something that I was already doing or planning on doing, even if it was something I liked doing, often to the point of making me not want to do it at all. As I already admitted, I have always had a bit of a problem with pride, and since I have always been aware of it I have never made the gross error of thinking that I am humble. Somehow, getting paid for the work I do has never been enough and I always want to be appreciated for my work and given credit for it, and when I was younger I wanted to do something great, something that would change the world, not because I actually wanted to change the world, but rather because I wanted to be remembered for changing the world. I have since come to realize that it doesn’t matter if no one remembers my name when I am gone so long as I do all I can in this life to make sure people remember the name of Jesus.
I have always wanted to take credit for things I felt I accomplished and I have always wanted to think that I was completely free and that everything I did, both good and bad, was my decision and that I was not influenced by external forces, not even God. Such thinking is problematic and fallacious at best, and heresy at worst. When I look back at the course of my life, though I have made many decisions, some good and some spectacularly bad, almost all have been influenced heavily by external forces, despite the fact that the decision was ultimately mine to make. If I am honest, I can’t take complete credit for anything.
I have read through the Bible more than almost anyone I know, including a lot of the pastors I know and have known, but because of my pride, whenever I came across a verse that indicated, or outright said, that unless it was given to me by God I could not have faith and that, apart from God, I completely lacked the ability to choose anything but sin, I would ignore the verses or rationalize them to mean something entirely different. Don’t get me wrong, I always had the freedom to choose God, as do we all, but my sinful nature made it all but impossible to do so. I was not able to choose God until he changed my nature, and the same is true of all of us. If you were to put a tiger in a room with raw meat and fresh vegetables, the tiger would have the freedom to choose to eat the vegetables, but its nature would cause it to eat the meat and not even think about eating the vegetables. similarly, if you put a horse in a room with raw meat and fresh vegetables, though the horse would have the freedom to choose to eat whatever it wanted, its nature would cause it to choose the vegetables and ignore the meat, assuming of course that the horse was not psychotic or otherwise mentally ill.
When people ask me whether I believe in predestination or free will I say, “Yes.” The Bible makes the case for predestination and free will, and they are not contradictory, which I will explain. When God really wants to persuade us he does because it is impossible for God to fail. Sure, we can resist the grace of God, and the Bible has a lot of verses about people resisting the spirit, but when God truly wants to persuade us he knows exactly how to persuade any of the people he created and can overcome our skepticism and our reservations, and that is called irresistible grace. When God changes our nature it enables us to choose him and makes it difficult to not choose him, though we still have the freedom to not choose him we are no more likely to not choose him than a fish is to choose not to stay in the water.
God is completely sovereign, and that means he is also sovereign over salvation, and it since it is impossible for him to fail, when he wants to save someone he does. With God and salvation, or anything else, it is like what Yoda said to Luke Skywalker, “Do or do not. There is no try.” If God tried to save someone and was unable to convince them to choose him than that would, by default, mean that God failed, and a God that can be thwarted by man is no God at all. A lot of people say, when someone leaves the faith, or when they decide not to follow God in the first place, that the devil stole them away, however, if the devil could actually steal people away from God than that would mean that the devil bested God and that God failed, and a god that can be bested by a fallen angel could not be the Almighty God.
Jesus said (John 6:39), “And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.” This verse does not say “and this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall save most of those he has given me, only loosing some, and raise them up at the last day,” but rather that Jesus will lose NONE of those he has been given and that All of those he has been given will be raised up at the last day. If God wants to save someone and gives them to Jesus, there is no power that can stop him, and that in and of itself is an argument for “once saved always saved.”
The problem I have always had with reformed theology, oddly enough, is also my biggest problem with Arminianism, and that is the principle of irresistible grace. I have always thought that it seamed wrong somehow for God to choose a person and save them against their will, though logically that doesn’t make sense because I have never had a problem with saving a person from suicide or other harm against their will, and saving a person from hell is a much greater gift than saving a person from physical death or injury. I was also failing to realize that God is not choosing us against our will because he changes our nature, and while we have the freedom to choose the devil instead of him, our new nature makes us want to choose God. Of course, my major hangup with the principle of irresistible grace had always been that if we only go to heaven because God chose us, than that also means that those who go to hell, despite the fact that no one who doesn’t deserve it ever goes to hell, goes there because God did not choose them.
However, if we could choose God without him first choosing us than that would mean that we could take at least partial credit for our salvation, but the Bible is quite clear that it is a gift form God and that the only thing we can possible contribute to our salvation is the sin that made it necessary in the first place. "
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—
-Ephesians 2:8 NIV
Many religions either distort God by limiting his power, distort sin by making it less serious than it is, or both. A lot of religions and a lot of people will say that sin isn’t all that bad, we are not all that bad, and therefore we have the ability so aid in out salvation. Other religions say that grace and what Jesus accomplished on the cross is not enough and we must help to facilitate our own salvation by our own works. Both of those beliefs are blasphemous and wrong. Not only is God’s grace necessary, it is sufficient, and yes, sin is “that bad” and we are “that bad.” Romans tells us that it is God who justifies and that NOTHING can separate us from God’s love, including our own actions.
What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
-Romans 8:31-39 NIV
In Psalm 135 it tells us that God does whatever he wants and the chapter lists some of the mighty things he has done, so it would be a stretch, and a blasphemous on at that, to say that God wanted to save a person but was unable to, for whatever reason. Either God is sovereign and can do whatever he wants and is the ultimate God or he isn’t, and if he is, it means he is also sovereign over our salvation and if he wants to save us we are saved, end of story. If God can create everything than there is no logical reason to believe anything could prevent him from saving anyone he wants to save.
In John 10 says that God calls his own sheep and they follow him because they know his voice and that they won’t follow a stranger because they don’t recognize his voice. Notice that is says that the sheep WILL follow him, not that they may follow him. If there are any sheep who don’t follow the good Shepard it is because they are not his sheep.
“Very truly I tell you Pharisees, anyone who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.” Jesus used this figure of speech, but the Pharisees did not understand what he was telling them.
John 10:3-4 NIV
When Jesus fed the five thousand he asked his disciples a question, not because he was curious how they would respond, but to test them; he already knew exactly what he was going to do and the answer to his question did not change the outcome. Jesus was and is sovereign over the universe, and therefore was also sovereign over this conversation and event.
Some time after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee (that is, the Sea of Tiberias), and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the signs he had performed by healing the sick. Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples. The Jewish Passover Festival was near.
When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.
John 6:2-6 NIV
A lot of the rest of the case I will making for us humans not having the ability on our own to choose God until he first chooses us comes from John chapter 6, after Jesus gets to the other side of the lake and gives the sermon on how he is the bread of life.
When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”
Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”
Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?”
Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
So they asked him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? 31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”
-John 6:15-30 NIV
Jesus said the work God requires to be saved is to believe in him, but those who were asking Jesus for a sign did not actually believe in him, beyond his ability to provide free food, nor did they at that moment have the capacity to believe. From other passages in the Bible we know that we can’t even believe in God without God giving us faith as a gift. Hebrews 12:2 (NIV) tells us that Jesus is the “pioneer and profecter of faith” and the KJV says he is the “author and finisher” of our faith. If Jesus is the pioneer or the author of faith that means that it originated with him, not us, and that we only have faith because of him. Romans 12:3 (NIV) tells us that we only have faith that was allotted to us and we can’t even take credit for our own faith. “For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.” As we can clearly see from the next set of verses, even though some of the people saw the miracles performed by Jesus they still did not believe because they lacked the ability.
So they asked him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ ”Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” “Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.” Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”
-John 6:30-40
Jesus said, “But as I have told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. All the father gives me will come to me.” Jesus is plainly saying that the reason those who do not believe in him don’t believe in him, and can’t believe in him, is because the Father has not given them to him, but ALL of those who the father gives to him WILL come to him, not just some of them. This is strong evidence not just for us lacking the ability to come to God until he calls us but also the principle of irresistible grace.
Before I go on, I feel compelled to clarify what it means when someone subscribing to reformed theology says, “once saved always save,” and also what it doesn’t mean. When I was a teenager I asked a reformed pastor if I was predestined to eternal life would I still be saved if I pulled a gun and killed him, and the pastor responded that I would indeed still be saved, “And that is why I can’t believe in that doctrine” I said. What the pastor should have said is that if I were predestined and saved I would not want to murder him, or anyone else, because when God saved me he changed my nature, but since the pastor apparently didn’t know his own doctrine, or was otherwise unqualified to be teaching it, I came away with a gross misunderstanding of what reformed theology actually is.
To say “once saved always saved” does not mean that if we are saved we can live however we want, and in fact, living a Godless and sinful life is evidence that a person has not been saved in the first place. Once saved always saved means that if God wants to save you there is no power that can stop him, and when he saves us, while we will still commit some sin since we are living in a sinful and fallen world, we won’t give over our lives to reckless abandon to wanton sin. When Jesus says in John 6:39 that he will lose none that the father has given him he means it. If Jesus could lose some that the Father gave him than he would not be much of a savior and not much of a God. To believe that Jesus wants to save a person but is somehow unable is to believe that Jesus in impotent, ineffective and incompetent.
If we can lose our salvation that means that either Jesus can lose those the Father has given him or else he is choosing those whom the Father has not given him, and either view does not put Jesus in a very good light. Also, Jesus ONLY did the will of the Father and not his own will and therefore it would not be possible for him to choose those the Father had not given him, and since it is impossible for God to fail, Jesus can not lose those the Father gives him.
In John 6:40 Jesus says that it is the Father’s will for those who look upon the Son to be saved, but in verse 44 it says that NO ONE can come to Jesus UNLESS the Father draws him.
At this the Jews there began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?” “Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered. “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me. No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
-John 6:41-51
Notice that Jesus said that NO ONE can come to him UNLESS the Father draws him and that and ALL those who the are drawn to him WILL be raised up at the last day and that EVERYONE who has heard the Father and learned from him WILL come to him. Jesus says that the one who believes has eternal life, but he also makes it clear that we can ONLY believe if we are called by God and given the ability to believe. If we were able to believe on our own, and not through the gift of God, than we would be like the one who climbs over the fence instead of going through the gate, and such a one will never be accepted. No one should be upset that they did not come to faith on their own but rather eternally grateful that God had mercy on them and granted them saving faith. Mostly though, when people oppose reformed theology they do so because they can’t accept the fact that God could have saved everyone but instead only saves some, but the alternative would be that he tried to save all and failed to save the vast majority of humanity, and that does not make God look impressive or mighty.
Those who grumbled in verse 43 at the doctrine Jesus was teaching did so because they were not chosen and lacked the ability to believe it. I am not saying that a person has to believe in reformed theology to be saved, far from it, but what I am saying is that if you have saving faith in Jesus than you did not acquire it on your own but rather it was a gift from God
On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?” Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you? Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit e and life. Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.”From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.
-John 6:60-66
When Jesus preached this sermon there were a lot of people, even some of the disciples, who just could not accept what he was teaching and stopped following him, and those were the ones who had not been drawn to Jesus by the father. From the very beginning Jesus knew who would believe and who wouldn’t, and not just from the beginning of the conversation but the beginning of time. It would be a mistake to say that God looked through space and time and decided who he was going to call based on their actions and their belief because as we already learned, Jesus already knew what he was going to do and our actions did not determine the outcome but rather the decision God made before the foundation of the world determined our actions and our faith. If God was just looking through time to see who would believe, and basing his actions on that, than he is not all knowing but instead is learning, and that is not Biblical. It is impossible for God to learn something he doesn’t already know because he is all knowing and knows all there is, and all there ever will be, to know.
When people grumbled at what Jesus was teaching them he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.” It was at that moment when many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him, because they were not chosen, and because they were not chosen they simply could not believe what Jesus was teaching. Contrast that to the response of those who had been drawn to Jesus by the Father, namely the apostles.
“You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve.
Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.”
-John 6:67-69
The reason the apostle’s response was different than that of those who no longer followed him was because the were drawn to him by the Father and given the gift of faith, as explained in John 15:16 (NIV) “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.”
If the apostles brought people to Christ and salvation but they did not remain saved than they would not be bearing “fruit that will last.”
Everyone has traditions, and many traditions can be and are wholesome and uplifting, but we always have to test our traditions against the Bible and discard the ones that are in opposition to it. Many who have been brought up in Christianity were brought up to believe that we are saved because we chose God and that because we chose him he saves us, often with our help in the form of good works. The Bible tells an entirely different story though and says that we were chosen before we did any so called “good works,” even before the foundation of the world. We can’t even take credit for what little good we do as the Bible says, “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do,” (Ephesians 2:10).
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ. In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.
-Ephesians 1:3-14 NIV
We were not chosen because of anything we have done, or anything we can do, but because of God’s “will and his good pleasure.” It is all about God and not about us at all, and God has mercy on whom he will have mercy and chooses whom he will choose, not because of us, but because it will bring him glory. We were “predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory.”
I used to be greatly bothered by the verses in the Bible that say God loved Jacob but hated Esau (Genesis 33:9, Malachi 1:2-3, Romans 9:13-16) until I realized the great mystery isn’t why God hated Esau, who was obviously a vile sinner, but why he loved Jacob, who was obviously a vile sinner. The great mystery is not why God saves some and not others, the great mystery is why he saves any of us.
It is not as though God’s word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children. On the contrary, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” In other words, it is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring. For this was how the promise was stated: “At the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son.”
Not only that, but Rebekah’s children were conceived at the same time by our father Isaac. Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: not by works but by him who calls—she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses,
“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. For Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?” But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ ” Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?
-Romans 9:6-20 NIV
God chose Jacob over Esau long before they were born, long before Abraham was born, and even before the universe existed, before the foundation of the world, not because of anything they would do, but because God chose to do so to bring himself glory. Some people may ask why didn’t God just make us to have a nature not inclined to sin, but when they ask that question they are failing to remember that when God created man there was no sin and sin didn’t enter the world until man trusted someone other than God and chose to disobey God. People often then ask why then didn’t God create man without the ability to sin, and the short answer is because he didn’t want to, but a bit more in the way of explanation is that he wanted people, not robots.
I have been told that I am distorting the gospel by saying that only those whom God chooses will be saved, but I am not the one who said it, I am just taking God’s word for what it actually says instead of what I would like it to say. I have also been told that I am distorting the gospel of God by limiting the atonement, but we all limit the atonement unless we outright deny the existence of hell, the difference is how and where we limit it, and whether or not there is scriptural support for it. If Jesus truly died for every person who has ever been born than means he died for people who will spend eternity in hell, which by necessity means that his death and resurrection was insufficient to save them and that God sometimes fails at being God, which in and of itself is problematic doctrine at best and heretical blasphemy at worst. Calvinist limit the atonement to only those who God chose, but Arminianism limits the efficacy of the atonement by saying that God died for person x but that it still doesn’t matter, and in the end was not enough, because that person went to hell anyway, despite God’s best efforts. The important question is whether or not the way you limit the atonement consistent with the Bible and not just supported by your emotions; one in Biblical and the other is blasphemy.
When people say it isn’t fair for God to save some and not others, what they are really saying is they know better than God who should be saved and who should not. Basically, when we say God isn’t fair we are judging a perfect God by our deeply flawed standards. If God were fair and just none of us would be saved and we would all go to hell, which is what we all rightly deserve. The only reason something is good or bad is because God has said so as God determines what is good or bad and not us. The question then becomes not “why God saves some and not others?” but rather “why does he save any of us?”
No one actually wants what is fair and just from God, we all want his mercy and grace. People say that it isn’t fair for God to save some and not others when in reality, none of us deserve to be saved. If you were to give food to one homeless person are you evil for not giving food to all homeless people? Probably not, but depending on the motives behind feeding the one person it could be evil, but God’s motives are always pure and it is not evil for him to not save everyone, it is benevolent for him to save the ones he does.
I have had people ask me what is the point in praying for the lost if God chooses us instead of us choosing him, so I turn it around and ask, “What is the point in praying for the lost if God’s plan can be thwarted by man or the devil?”
God never sits up in heaven lamenting that he wasn’t able to save someone saying, “I really wanted to save Johnny. If only there were something more I could have done!” God can do whatever he wants, and if he wants to save someone they are saved.
I have noticed that whenever Armenians pray for their lost friends and family they pray like Calvinist. When anyone prays for the lost we do so because, deep down, we know that God is the one who saves and it has nothing to do with us, and if we didn’t believe that it would make no sense to pray for the lost and we would not pray that God would change their hearts. Again, we are all free to choose God or not choose God, just as a lion has the choice to eat the grass or the gazelle, but until God changes our nature to be inclined to choose him we will never do so. We are all dead in our sins without God and he has to make us alive, we can’t in any way shape or form do that ourselves. We are free to make our own choices, but we always choose according to our nature and our ability.
When we have friends who don’t believe in God and say that they can’t believe in God, even if they don’t know that it is true, what they are saying is true and they can’t believe until God changes their nature. If you can persuade someone into believing something than someone else can persuade them right back out of believing it. The only one who has the power of eternal persuasion is God, and we call that divine persuasion. The dead can’t bring themselves back to live and we can’t persuade ourselves into saving faith, even if it seems like that is what happened. The entire reason we even had the spark of belief and was in the right place to believe is because of the divine intervention of God. The best thing we can do for people who don’t believe is to pray for them, but of course we should also tell them about God because they can’t believe in a God they have not heard about, but when they turn their lives over to God he gets all the credit and glory, not us or the one who was converted.
Armenians say “if God is truly sovereign than what is the point of evangelism since he already decided who to save?” I always turn the question around and ask, “If God is not truly sovereign than what is the point of evangelism because that would mean that God could try his best to save someone and still fail because of forces outside of his control?” If God is completely Sovereign, which he is, there is nothing outside of his control and we have a 100% success rate with evangelism because it is not up to us but God and we just share the message and God saves all he wants to save.
Some people mistakenly think that if we are predestined than every action was chosen ahead of time and we can’t be held accountable for our actions, which is a dangerous distortion of the true gospel. God does not make us do anything, our sinful nature does, and God did not make us sinful, we made ourselves sinful. If you will recall, sin entered the world when our first parents disobeyed God by doing the ONE thing he told them not to do.
When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
-James 1:13-15
God does not make us do evil but rather he allows us to make our own choice and do the evil that is in our nature. Without the aid of God we are all depraved and the only time we do good things is because of God’s influence on our lives. God allows sinful humans to commit sinful acts and he uses those acts to bring about good, but he did not make us do those acts. When Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery they meant it for evil, but God meant it for good (Genesis 50:20).
A lot of people use John 3:16 as an argument against predestination because it says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life,” (NIV). The argument is that God gave his son for whosoever believes in him, which is true, God did give his son for anyone who believes, however, and it is a big however, not everyone has the capacity to believe. We can’t come to saving faith until we are called by God since he chooses us, not the other way around.
When we look at this verse in context, Jesus was talking to Nicodemus who was a leader of the Jews and he wanted to make sure that Nicodemus knew that he was going to die for all people groups and not just for the Jews because God predestined people from all nationalities and races to be saved, but this does not mean that Jesus died for every person who has ever and will ever live on earth.
The Bible teaches that Jesus is the propitiation for sin (Hebrews 2:17, Romans 3:24-25, 1 John 2: 1-2, 1 John 4:10), which means that he paid our sin debt in full. In order for Jesus to propitiate for sin that means he diverted the punishment for our sins away from us and onto him, but it is obvious that he did not propitiate for those who are in hell because they would not be made to spend eternity in hell if their debt was already paid. A bill collector would not come after you for payment if someone called them up and paid your debt for you, and hell is the ultimate debt collector.
If Jesus tried to propitiate for the entire world, meaning every man woman and child to ever exist on the earth, than the mere existence of hell means that he failed to save those he tried to save and did not divert the wrath of God away from the sinner and was bested by the devil or thwarted by insignificant humans, which would mean that he is not sovereign and is not much of a God.
If the atonement is truly a perfect atonement, and by perfect I mean saving all who God intended for it to save, than the only two explanations for people in hell is that those who are in hell are there because God chose not to save them, or else he was mistaken about the power of the atonement and is not much of a God. The first is explanation is Biblical, the second is heretical blasphemy.
Another verse that proves that what Jesus accomplished on the cross saves ALL of those who the Father calls to Jesus is in Matthew when the angel appeared to Joseph to tell him the child Mary was carrying was of God. Pay close attention, the angel said that Jesus WILL save HIS people from their sins, not that he might save his people from their sins or that he will try to save his people from their sins.
But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
Matthew 1:20-21 NIV
If Jesus paid for the sins of ever single individual human than there would be, and indeed could be, no hell because there would be no need for such a place as everyone would be saved, and that line of thought leads to universalism which teaches the heresy that all roads lead to heaven and salvation and Jesus was just one of the many ways to be saved. universalism is absolutely not Biblical.
Yes, the Bible says that Jesus died for the world, but in Matthew 24 Jesus said that before the temple was destroyed the gospel would be preached to the whole world, however, the temple was destroyed in year 70 of the Common Era but America was not discovered by the Europeans until 1492, so Jesus was clearly not saying that the gospel would literally be preached in every spot of land on the planet but rather that it would be preached to the gentiles and the cultures in the known world. Again, Jesus was speaking to a Jewish audience so he wanted to make it clear that he was going to die for Jews and Gentiles alike, not just Jews.
Another verse people like to try to use against predestination is Matthew 23:37, and the argument is that Jesus wanted to gather the children to him but the children were not willing, but a careful reading of the chapter reveals that Jesus wanted to gather the children to him but the leaders of the Jews were not willing. This verse, nor any other verse in the Bible, even slightly suggests that Jesus wanted to save people but he was unable. Over and over Jesus makes it clear that he is speaking to the leaders of the Jews, and over and over he pronounces woe upon them for trying to prevent the people from believing in and accepting the Messiah.
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.
“Woe to you, blind guides! You say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but anyone who swears by the gold of the temple is bound by that oath.’ You blind fools! Which is greater: the gold, or the temple that makes the gold sacred? You also say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it means nothing; but anyone who swears by the gift on the altar is bound by that oath.’ You blind men! Which is greater: the gift, or the altar that makes the gift sacred? Therefore, anyone who swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. And anyone who swears by the temple swears by it and by the one who dwells in it. And anyone who swears by heaven swears by God’s throne and by the one who sits on it.
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. Go ahead, then, and complete what your ancestors started!
“You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell? Therefore I am sending you prophets and sages and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town. And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Truly I tell you, all this will come on this generation.“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’”
-Matthew 23:13-37 NIV
Another verse that is commonly used as “evidence” that Jesus died for every individual is 1 Timothy 2:4 because it says, “who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth,” but this is another verse that when read in context clearly means all types of people and not all people.
I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people— for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people. This has now been witnessed to at the proper time. And for this purpose I was appointed a herald and an apostle—I am telling the truth, I am not lying—and a true and faithful teacher of the Gentiles.
1 Timothy 2:4 NIV
In the passage Paul is talking to poor people, again, context is important, and he tells them that they are to pray for kings and those in authority as well as the poor because God wants to save all type of people, and he also makes mention of the Gentiles, noting that the gospel is not just for the Jews. The passage says that Jesus is the mediator for all people, meaning all types of people, because if he was the mediator for the people who wound up in hell than he was not a good mediator, and again, it is impossible for God to fail.
A lot of people say that their problem with irresistible grace is that God would never command someone to love him, but anyone who says that is ignorant of scripture because the first great commandment is to love God, so obviously God can command us to love him.
“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.
-Matthew 22:36-38
Whenever anyone says that it is not fair that some people go to hell, the only reason that statement is true is that it is not fair that all of us don’t go to hell. Everyone who goes to hell deserves it, and everyone who doesn’t go to hell deserves it just as much. We are all willingly on a one way road to hell up until the moment when God intervenes and saves us from our own self-destructive behaviors. Hell is where we all belong and hell is where we are all headed until God calls us to himself, changes our nature, and offers us salvation.
The belief that we can choose salvation without God first choosing us robs God of his glory and gives us at least partial credit for our salvation, but anything that adds to or subtracts from the cross is heretical blasphemy. Anyone who wants to take credit for what God has done needs to immediately get off of his or her high horse and humble themselves before God and just be grateful for what he did, knowing full well that he didn’t have to and that they in no way deserved it.
One last verse I will talk about that critics of reformed theology like to use as a supposed proof that Jesus died to save every human, despite the troubling implication that it would mean that he tried and failed to save not just a few, but multitudes, is 2 Peter 3:9 “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance,” (NIV).
At first that verse appears to be the perfect trump card to “prove” that the atonement was for every single man woman and child to ever exist, but upon closer inspection, and when the verse is taken in context, it is clear that it is not at all what it means.
In the first verse of the epistle Peter makes it clear exactly to whom he is speaking, those who are already in the faith, “ Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours:”
As we move through the epistle we see that Peter reestablishes who he is speaking to and says, “Dear friends, this is now my second letter to you. I have written both of them as reminders to stimulate you to wholesome thinking. I want you to recall the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets and the command given by our Lord and Savior through your apostles,” (2 Peter 3:1-2 NIV).
It is abundantly clear that Peter is talking to and about those who are already in the faith and not those who have yet to hear and/or accept the gospel. At this point, Peter begins to address a concern held among the believers as to why the Lord had not yet returned, and this is where we arrive at the paragraph containing the verse in question:
But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare
-2 Peter 3:9-10 NIV
Peter is explaining to the church, not to non-believers, that the Lord is patient towards them so that none whom the Lord has called will perish. Jesus isn’t just taking his time, he is waiting for all future generations of Christians to come to faith. Everyone should find that encouraging.
This text has absolutely nothing to do with God’s sentiment towards the entirety of mankind, everywhere and for all time but rather, it’s a beautiful demonstration of God’s love for His people and their assurance of salvation. Jesus will return when every single one of his sheep have been returned to the fold. Every moment that the Lord doesn’t return is a reminder of God’s faithfulness to His elect. For a moment, pause and reflect on how amazing God’s love is for His people. He is delaying the ushering in of His eternal kingdom, in spite of all the world’s injustices and evils, to ensure that not one of His beloved is lost. Praise to His glorious grace!
If you Love God and want to serve him, “We love because he first loved us,” (1 John 4:19 NIV), not because you came to that place of your own volition. Everything we have, and everything we can ever hope to have, is a gift from God and we should be eternally grateful for it instead of trying to take partial credit.