God: Not the Author of Sin
Is God the Author of Sin?
To state that God is the “Author of Sin” is to declare that God is the efficient cause of evil. This is, as Jonathan Edwards noted in his classic work, On the Freedom of the Will, something which is “a reproach and blasphemy.” Edwards stated emphatically that God was in no way whatsoever “the Agent, or Actor of Sin, or the Doer of a wicked thing.” He argues, instead, that God permits sin and at times does not restrain it. Nonetheless, He simultaneously disposes events in such a manner as to bring about “wise, holy, and most excellent ends and purposes.”
Reformed Confessions
Historic documents from the Reformed tradition – confessions, catechisms, and canons, all deny that God is the author of sin. The delegates from the Synod of Dort, speaking of the heated issue of reprobation, make in plain in the Canons that this doctrine in no way makes God “the author of sin,” which is “a blasphemous thought!” The Westminster Confession of Faith and the Baptist Confession of Faith (1689/Second London Confession) are identical in asserting:
God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.
Both confessions go on to declare:
Although in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first cause, all things come to pass immutably and infallibly; so that there is not anything befalls any by chance, or without his providence; yet by the same providence he ordereth them to fall out according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently. God, in his ordinary providence maketh use of means, yet is free to work without, above, and against them at his pleasure. The almighty power, unsearchable wisdom, and infinite goodness of God, so far manifest themselves in his providence, that his determinate counsel extendeth itself even to the first fall, and all other sinful actions both of angels and men; and that not by a bare permission, which also he most wisely and powerfully boundeth, and otherwise ordereth and governeth, in a manifold dispensation to his most holy ends; yet so, as the sinfulness of their acts proceedeth only from the creatures, and not from God, who, being most holy and righteous, neither is nor can be the author or approver of sin.
This is not unlike the earlier Baptist Confession (1646/First London Confession), which states:
God had decreed in Himself, before the world was, concerning all things, whether necessary, accidental or voluntary, with all the circumstances of them, to work, dispose, and bring about all things according to the counsel of His own will, to His glory: (Yet without being the author of sin, or having fellowship with any therein) in which appears His wisdom in disposing all things, unchangeableness, power, and faithfulness in accomplishing His decree…
Consistency on this matter is shared by the Belgic Confession, which insists:
We believe that this good God, after he created all things, did not abandon them to chance or fortune but leads and governs them according to his holy will, in such a way that nothing happens in this world without his orderly arrangement. Yet God is not the author of, nor can he be charged with, the sin that occurs. For his power and goodness are so great and incomprehensible that he arranges and does his work very well and justly even when the devils and wicked men act unjustly.
The Second Helvetic Confession, in addressing the cause of sin, condemns Florinus. Florinus defended the position that God is the author of evil. For this, he was rightly denounced by Irenaeus. The confession clearly maintains, in agreement with St. Augustine:
It is expressly written: “Thou art not a God who delights in wickedness. Thou hatest all evildoers. Thou destroyest those who speak lies” (Ps. 5:4 ff.). And again: “When the devil lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44). Moreover, there is enough sinfulness and corruption in us that it is not necessary for God to infuse into us a new or still greater perversity. When, therefore, it is said in Scripture that God hardens, blinds and delivers up to a reprobate mind, it is to be understood that God does it by a just judgment as a just Judge and Avenger. Finally, as often as God in Scripture is said or seems to do something evil, it is not thereby said that man does not do evil, but that God permits it and does not prevent it, according to his just judgment, who could prevent it if he wished, or because he turns man’s evil into good, as he did in the case of Joseph’s brethren, or because he governs sins lest they break out and rage more than is appropriate. St. Augustine writes in his Enchiridion: “What happens contrary to his will occurs, in a wonderful and ineffable way, not apart from his will. For it would not happen if he did not allow it. And yet he does not allow it unwillingly but willingly. But he who is good would not permit evil to be done, unless, being omnipotent, he could bring good out of evil.” Thus wrote Augustine.
St. Augustine
Jerome Zanchius, a strict predestinarian writing “Observations On the Divine Attributes” in his Absolute Predestination, follows St. Augustine’s thinking in regard to the nature of sin and its ‘cause’. He confesses that God “created, preserves, actuates and directs all things,” but that this does not mean, “that God is therefore the cause of sin, for sin is nothing but anomia, illegality, want of conformity to the divine law (1 John iii. 4), a mere privation of rectitude; consequently, being itself a thing purely negative, it can have no positive or efficient cause, but only a negative or deficient one, as several learned men have observed.”
St. Augustine taught that all things created by God are good; evil is not good; therefore, evil was not created by God. He added that since God created everything, and He did not create evil, that evil is not a ‘thing’. In dealing with the questions, “From where does evil come?,” and, “Why does evil exist?”, the Doctor of Grace answers, “Evil has no positive nature; but the loss of good has received the name ‘evil.’’” He observes that evil always injures, and such injuries are always a deprivation of good. “All which is corrupted is deprived of good,” he wrote. In other words, evil is equivalent to moral black hole, a nothingness which results when goodness is removed. St. Augustine observed that the choice made by Adam and Eve in Eden was a turning away from the good, that is, from the greater good to a lesser “good.” “For when the will abandons what is above itself, and turns to what is lower, it becomes evil—not because that is evil to which it turns, but because the turning itself is wicked.” Evil is, therefore, the act of choosing the lesser good, or choosing that which God has forbidden (even though it involved the good thing which He created). St. Augustine teaches the source of evil – choosing this lesser good – is in the free will of the persons, declaring, “free-will was the cause of our doing ill,” and, that evil was a “perversion of the will, turned aside from…God.” St. Augustine holds not only that God created free creatures, but also that His wisdom entails the greatest amount of good possible (i.e., plenitutde). Therefore, God has allowed evil for a time, and is neither its author nor its victim.
The Cry of Hyper-Calvinism
Modern hyper-Calvinists are not unlike Friedrich Schleiermacher, who mocks St. Augustine’s teaching that God gave good creatures the freedom of will to do evil. Schleiermacher holds that a good being would never sin, even if it were free to do so. He claims that evil would then have to create itself ex nihilo. Schleirmacher, like the modern hyper-Calvinists, errs in believing that evil is a ‘thing.’
While many hyper-Calvinists claim adherence to the historic Reformed confessions, they have ignored the clear statements made within them in regard to God not being the author of sin. Those who stand within the stream of Reformed orthodoxy are generally maligned by hyper-Calvinists. For example, Francis Cheung declares that many Reformed Christians hold “unbiblical traditions and irrational assumptions,” and are “too quick to say, ‘No, God is not the author of sin,” when “questioned on whether God is the ‘author of sin.’” He castigates the likes of Reformed stalwarts, such as A. A. Hodge, R. L. Dabney, and W. G. T. Shedd, for “trying to give man some power of ‘self-determination,’ and some kind of freedom…” To disagree with Cheung on this point is, in his estimation, to “stupidly chant” about making God the author of sin. Ignoring Christian wisdom as found in the Early Church Fathers and the historic Reformed documents, Cheung has no qualms about claiming that God is the author of sin. He claims, “The truth is that, whether or not God is the author of sin, there is no biblical or rational problem with him being the author of sin.”
With a quick sweep, he denounces the “popular Reformed answer” as a “defective” answer to “satisfy human standards of fairness and righteousness.” He claims the “biblical approach” to this question is to “rebuke man for questioning and objecting in the first place.” For Cheung and other hyper-Calvinists, God is the efficient cause of both natural and moral evil, and freedom, in any meaningful sense, is dismissed. He claims God causes and controls all desires, including sinful ones. He pronounces St. Augustine’s position as incorrect and inconsistent, and, against the vast array of Reformed confessions and theological writings, Cheung claims his position is the only “coherent and defensible position,” and is the true “Calvinism.” Others “must rather quickly retreat into mystery and paradox,” whereas he declares boldly that sin is “enslaved to God” and the two are enmeshed in such a way that to affirm anything else is “dualism.” In regard to “freedom,” Cheung warns his readers, “Do not let ignorant people confuse or deceive you.”
While Cheung dismisses giants of the faith and ignores the entire gamut of Reformed confessions, he claims that he is not a hyper-Calvinist because (in his thinking) he isn’t a fatalist and believes the gospel is to be proclaimed to all (despite denying the “well-meant offer”). Nonetheless, he attacks historic, orthodox Calvinists (A. A. Hodge, in particular) for being nothing more than “Arminians and Open Theists” in their theological application, and charges them not with holding “inconsistent Calvinism,” but holding something which “is not Calvinism or Christianity at all.”
Conclusion
As I’ve noted previously, hyper-Calvinistic theology claims that God is the author of sin and evil, and that human beings have absolutely no will whatsoever. It is a system which exceeds the boundaries of Calvinistic and Christian orthodoxy, and is generally marked by a narrow, condescending spirit. In my opinion, the responsibility of Reformed Christians is to pray for individuals who hold to this theology while seeking to win them away from it. It is also our responsibility to denounce it emphatically as a non-Calvinistic/non-Reformed system which exceeds the boundaries of Christian orthodoxy.
Every Roll of the Dice in Las Vegas
In 1998, Dr. John Piper presented a session at the annual Jonathan Edwards Institute entitled, “Jonathan Edwards on the Decrees of God.” During the course of his presentation, Dr. Piper draws on Edwards to discuss how God is sovereign over all things, including evil, yet without being the author of sin. This presentation is reproduced with permission.
Fourteen years ago Charles Colson wrote, “The western church – much of it drifting, enculturated, and infected with cheap grace – desperately needs to hear Edwards’ challenge. . . . It is my belief that the prayers and work of those who love and obey Christ in our world may yet prevail as they keep the message of such a man as Jonathan Edwards.” That conviction lies behind The Jonathan Edwards Institute and behind this conference. And I certainly believe it.
Most of us, having only been exposed to one of Edwards’ sermons, “Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God,” do not know the real Jonathan Edwards. We don’t know that he knew his heaven even better than his hell, and that his vision of the glory of God was just as ravishing as his vision of hell was repulsive – as it should be.
Most of us don’t know:
- that he is considered now, by secular and evangelical historians alike, to be the greatest religious thinker America has ever produced
- that he not only was God’s kindling for the Great Awakening in the 1730′s and 1740′s, but was also its most penetrating analyst and critic
- that he was driven by a great longing to see the missionary task of the church completed, and that his influence on the modern missionary movement is immense because of his Life of David Brainerd
- that he was a rural pastor for 23 years in a church of 600 people
- that he was a missionary to Indians for 7 years after being asked to leave his church
- that, together with Sarah, he reared 11 faithful children
- that he lived only until he was 54 and died with a library of only 300 books
- but, nevertheless, his own books are still ministering mightily after 250 years.
But not as mightily as they should. Mark Noll, who teaches history at Wheaton and has thought much about the work of Edwards has written:
Since Edwards, American evangelicals have not thought about life from the ground up as Christians because their entire culture has ceased to do so. Edwards’s piety continued on in the revivalist tradition, his theology continued on in academic Calvinism, but there were no successors to his God-entranced world-view or his profoundly theological philosophy. The disappearance of Edwards’s perspective in American Christian history has been a tragedy.
One of the burdens of this Conference, and certainly one of the burdens of my life, is the recovery of a “God-entranced world-view.” “Evangelicals Seeking the Glory of God,” in my understanding, means “evangelicals seeking a God-entranced world view.” But what I have seen over 18 years of pastoral ministry and six years of teaching experience before that, is that people who waver with uncertainty over the problem of God’s sovereignty in the matter of evil usually do not have a God-entranced world view. For them, now God is sovereign, and now he is not. Now he is in control, and now he is not. Now he is good and reliable when things are going well, and when they go bad, well, maybe he’s not. Now he’s the supreme authority of the universe, and now he is in the dock with human prosecutors peppering him with demands that he give an account of himself.
But when a person settles it Biblically, intellectually and emotionally, that God has ultimate control of all things, including evil, and that this is gracious and precious beyond words, then a marvelous stability and depth come into that person’s life and they develop a “God-entranced world view.” When a person believes, with the Heidelberg Catechism (Question 27), that “The almighty and everywhere present power of God . . . upholds heaven and earth, with all creatures, and so governs them that herbs and grass, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, meat and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, yea, all things, come not by chance, but by his fatherly hand” – when a person believes and cherishes that truth, they have the key to a God-entranced world view.
So my aim in this second message is to commend to you this absolute sovereign control of God over all things, including evil, because it is Biblical, and because it will help you become stable and deep and God-entranced and God-glorifying in all you think and feel and do.
And when we set our face in this direction, Jonathan Edwards becomes a great help to us, because he wrestled with the problems of God’s sovereignty as deeply as anyone. And I want you to know how he resolved some of the difficulties.
So my plan is to lay out for you some of the evidence for God’s control of all things, including evil. Then I will deal with two problems. 1. Is God then the author of sin? 2) And why does he will that there be evil in the world? I will close with an exhortation that you not waver before the truth of God’s sovereignty, but embrace it for the day of your own calamity.
1. Evidence of God’s Control
First, then, consider the evidence that God controls all things, including evil. When I speak of evil, I have two kinds in mind, natural and moral. Natural evil we usually refer to as calamities: hurricanes, floods, disease, all the natural ways that death and misery strike without human cause. Moral evil we usually refer to as sin: murder, lying, adultery, stealing, all the ways that people fail to love each other. So what we are considering here is that God rules the world in such a way that all calamities and all sin remain in his ultimate control and therefore within his ultimate design and purpose.
If you are wondering whether there is a connection between this message and the one I gave this afternoon (on the foreknowledge of God), there is. The denial of God’s foreknowledge of human and demonic choices is a buttress to the view that God is not in control of evils in the world and therefore has no purpose in them. God’s uncertainty about what humans and demons are going to choose strengthens the case that he does not plan those choices and therefore does not control them or have particular purposes in them.
For example, Gregory Boyd, in his book God at War, says, “divine goodness does not completely control or in any sense will evil.”
Jesus nor his disciples seemed to understand God’s absolute power as absolute control. They prayed for God’s will to be done on earth, but this assumes that they understand that God’s will was not yet being done on earth (Mt. 6:10). Hence neither Jesus nor his disciples assumed that there had to be a divine purpose behind all events in history. Rather, they understood the cosmos to be populated by a myriad of free agents, some human, some angelic, and many of them evil. The manner in which events unfold in history was understood to be as much a factor of what these agents individually and collectively will as it was a matter of what God himself willed.
In other words “the Bible does not assume that every particular evil has particular godly purpose behind it.”
This is diametrically opposed to what I believe the Bible teaches and what this message is meant to commend to you for your earnest consideration.
1.1 Evidence that God Controls Calamity
Consider the evidence that God controls physical evil – that is, calamity. But keep in mind that physical evil and moral evil almost always intersect. Many of our pains happen because human or demonic agents make choices that hurt us. So some of this evidence can serve under both headings: God’s control of calamities and God’s control of sins.
Life and death
The Bible treats human life as something God has absolute rights over. He gives it and takes it according to his will. We do not own it or have any absolute rights to it. It is a trust for as long as the owner wills for us to have it. To have life is a gift and to lose it is never an injustice from God, whether he takes it at age five or age ninety-five.
When Job lost his ten children at the instigation of Satan, he would not give Satan the ultimate causality. He said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, And naked I shall return there. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the name of the LORD” (Job 1:21). And, lest we think Job was mistaken, the author adds, “In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong” (Job 1:22 RSV).
In Deuteronomy 32:39 God says, “There is no god besides Me; It is I who put to death and give life. I have wounded and it is I who heal, And there is no one who can deliver from My hand.” When David made Bathsheba pregnant, the Lord rebuked him by taking the child. 2 Samuel 12:15 says, “Then the LORD struck the child that Uriah’s widow bore to David, so that he was sick . . . . Then it happened on the seventh day that the child died.” Life belongs to God. He owes it to no one. He may give it and take it according to his infinite wisdom. James says “You do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. . . . You ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that’” (James 4:14-15; see 1 Samuel 2:6-7).
Disease
One of the calamities that threatens life is disease. In Exodus 4:11, God says to Moses, when he was fearful about speaking, “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him dumb, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD?” In other words, behind all disease and disability is the ultimate will of God. Not that Satan is not involved; he is probably always involved one way or the other with destructive purposes (Acts 10:38). But his power is not decisive. He cannot act without God’s permission.
That is one of the points of Job’s sickness. When disease happened to Job, the text makes it plain that “Satan . . . afflicted Job with sores” (Job 2:7). His wife urged him to curse God. But Job said, “Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity” (Job 2:10). And again the author of the book commends Job by saying, “In all this, Job did not sin with his lips.” In other words: this is a right view of God’s sovereignty over Satan. Satan is real and may have a hand in our calamities, but not the final hand, and not the decisive hand. James makes clear that God had a good purpose in all Job’s afflictions: “You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose (telos) of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful” (James 5:11). So Satan may have been involved, but the ultimate purpose was God’s and it was “compassionate and merciful.”
This is the same lesson we learn from 2 Corinthians 12:7 where Paul says that his thorn in the flesh was a messenger of Satan, and yet was given for the purpose of his own holiness. “To keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me – to keep me from exalting myself!” Now, humility is not Satan’s purpose in this affliction. Therefore the purpose is God’s. Which means that Satan here is being used by God to accomplish his good purposes in Paul’s life.
There is no reason to believe that Satan is ever out of God’s ultimate control. Mark 1:27 says of Jesus, “He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey Him.” And Luke 4:36 says, “With authority and power He commands the unclean spirits and they come out.” In other words, no matter how real and terrible Satan and his demons are in this world, they remain subordinate to the ultimate will of God.
Natural disasters
Another kind of calamity that threatens life and health is violent weather and conditions of the earth, like earthquakes and floods and monsoons and hurricanes and tornadoes and droughts. These calamities kill hundreds of thousands of people. The testimony of the Scriptures is that God controls the winds and the weather. “He called for a famine upon the land; He broke the whole staff of bread” (Psalm 105:16). We see this same authority in Jesus. He rebukes the threatening wind and the sea, and the disciples say, “Even the wind and the sea obey Him” (Mark 4:39, 41).
Repeatedly in the Psalms God is praised as the one who rules the wind and the lightning. “He makes the winds His messengers, Flaming fire His ministers” (Psalm 104:4). “He makes lightnings for the rain, [he] brings forth the wind from His treasuries” (Psalm 135:7). “He causes His wind to blow and the waters to flow . . . Fire and hail, snow and clouds; Stormy wind, fulfilling His word” (Psalm 147:18; 148:8; see 78:26). Isaac Watts was right, “There’s not a plant or flower below but makes your glories known; and clouds arise and tempests blow by order from your throne.” Which means that all the calamities of wind and rain and flood and storm are owing to God’s ultimate decree. One word from him and the wind and the seas obey.
Destructive animals
Another kind of calamity that threatens life is the action of destructive animals. When the Assyrians populated Samaria with foreigners, 2 Kings 17:25 says, “Therefore the LORD sent lions among them which killed some of them.” And in Daniel 6:22, Daniel says to the king, “My God sent His angel and shut the lions’ mouths.” Other Scriptures speak of God commanding birds and bears and donkeys and large fish to do his bidding. Which means that all calamities that are owing to animal life are ultimately in the control of God. He can see a pit bull break loose from his chain and attack a child; and he could, with one word, command that its mouth be shut. Similarly he controls the invisible animal and plant life that wreaks havoc in the world: bacteria and viruses and parasites and thousands of microscopic beings that destroy health and life. If God can shut the mouth of a ravenous lion, then he can shut the mouth of a malaria-carrying mosquito and nullify every other animal that kills.
All other kinds of calamities
Other kinds of calamities could be mentioned but perhaps we should simply hear the texts that speak in sweeping inclusiveness about God’s control covering them all. For example, Isaiah 45:7 says God is the “The One forming light and creating darkness, Causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the LORD who does all these.” Amos 3:6 says, “If a calamity occurs in a city has not the LORD done it?” In Job 42:2, Job confesses, “I know that You can do all things, And that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.” And Nebuchadnezzar says (in Daniel 4:35), “[God] does according to his will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, ‘What are you doing?’” And Paul says, in Ephesians 1:11, that God is the one “who works all things after the counsel of His will.”
And if someone should raise the question of sheer chance and the kinds of things that just seem to happen with no more meaning than the role of the dice, Proverbs 16:33 answers: “The lot is cast into the lap, But its every decision is from the LORD.” In other words, there is no such thing as “chance” from God’s perspective. He has his purposes for every roll of the dice in Las Vegas and every seemingly absurd turn of events in the universe.
This is why Charles Spurgeon, the London pastor from 100 years ago said,
I believe that every particle of dust that dances in the sunbeam does not move an atom more or less than God wishes – that every particle of spray that dashes against the steamboat has its orbit, as well as the sun in the heavens – that the chaff from the hand of the winnower is steered as the stars in their courses. The creeping of an aphid over the rosebud is as much fixed as the march of the devastating pestilence – the fall of . . . leaves from a poplar is as fully ordained as the tumbling of an avalanche.
When Spurgeon was challenged that this is nothing but fatalism and stoicism, he replied,
What is fate? Fate is this – Whatever is, must be. But there is a difference between that and Providence. Providence says, Whatever God ordains, must be; but the wisdom of God never ordains anything without a purpose. Everything in this world is working for some great end. Fate does not say that. . . . There is all the difference between fate and Providence that there is between a man with good eyes and a blind man.
1.2 God’s Control over Moral Evil
Now consider the evidence for God’s control over moral evil, the evil choices that are made in the world. Again there are specific instances and then texts that make sweeping statements of God’s control.
For example, all the choices of Joseph’s brothers in getting rid of him and selling him into slavery are seen as sin and yet also as the outworking of God’s good purpose. In Genesis 50:20, Joseph says to his brothers when they fear his vengeance, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive.” Gregory Boyd and others, who do not believe that God has a purpose in the evil choices of people (especially since he does not know what those choices are going to be before they make them), try to say that God can use the choices that people make for his own purposes after they make them and he then knows what they are.
But this will not fit what the text says or what Psalm 105:17 says. The text says, “You meant evil against me.” Evil is a feminine singular noun. Then it says, “God meant it for good.” The word “it” is a feminine singular suffix that can only agree with the antecedent feminine singular noun, “evil.” And the verb “meant” is the same past tense in both cases. You meant evil against me in the past, as you were doing it. And God meant that very evil, not as evil, but as good in the past as you were doing it. And to make this perfectly clear, Psalm 105:17 says about Joseph’s coming to Egypt, “[God] sent a man before them, Joseph, who was sold as a slave.” God sent him. God did not find him there owing to evil choices, and then try to make something good come of it. Therefore this text stands as a kind of paradigm for how to understand the evil will of man within the sovereign will of God.
The death of Jesus offers another example of how God’s sovereign will ordains that a sinful act come to pass. Edwards says, “The crucifying of Christ was a great sin; and as man committed it, it was exceedingly hateful and highly provoking to God. Yet upon many great considerations it was the will of God that it should be done.” Then he refers to Acts 4:27-28, “Truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur” (see also Isaiah 53:10). In other words, all the sinful acts of Herod, Pilate, of Gentiles and Jews were predestined to occur.
Edwards ponders that someone might say that only the sufferings of Christ were planned by God, not the sins against him, to which he responds, “I answer, [the sufferings] could not come to pass but by sin. For contempt and disgrace was one thing he was to suffer. [Therefore] even the free actions of men are subject to God’s disposal.”
These specific examples (which could be multiplied by many more instances) where God purposefully governs the sinful choices of people are generalized in several passages. For example, Romans 9:16: “So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.” Man’s will is not the ultimately decisive agent in the world, God is. Proverbs 20:24: “Man’s steps are ordained by the LORD, How then can man understand his way?” Proverbs 19:21: “Many plans are in a man’s heart, But the counsel of the LORD will stand.” Proverbs 21:1: “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will.” Jeremiah 10:23: “I know, O LORD, that a man’s way is not in himself, Nor is it in a man who walks to direct his steps.”
Therefore I conclude with Jonathan Edwards, “God decrees all things, even all sins.” Or, as Paul says in Ephesians 1:11, “He works all things after the counsel of His will.”
2. Two Questions
And I pose two questions as an evangelical who is seeking the glory of God, and who longs for a Biblical, God-entranced world-view. 1) Is God the author of sin? 2) Why does God ordain that evil exist? What are the answers that Jonathan Edwards gave to each of these questions?
2.1 Is God the Author of Sin?
Edwards answers, “If by ‘the author of sin,’ be meant the sinner, the agent, or the actor of sin, or the doer of a wicked thing . . . . it would be a reproach and blasphemy, to suppose God to be the author of sin. In this sense, I utterly deny God to be the author of sin.” But, he argues, willing that sin exist in the world is not the same as sinning. God does not commit sin in willing that there be sin. God has established a world in which sin will indeed necessarily come to pass by God’s permission, but not by his “positive agency.”
God is, Edwards says, “the permitter . . . of sin; and at the same time, a disposer of the state of events, in such a manner, for wise, holy and most excellent ends and purposes, that sin, if it be permitted . . . will most certainly and infallibly follow.”
He uses the analogy of the way the sun brings about light and warmth by its essential nature, but brings about dark and cold by dropping below the horizon. “If the sun were the proper cause of cold and darkness,” he says, “it would be the fountain of these things, as it is the fountain of light and heat: and then something might be argued from the nature of cold and darkness, to a likeness of nature in the sun.” In other words, “sin is not the fruit of any positive agency or influence of the most High, but on the contrary, arises from the withholding of his action and energy, and under certain circumstances, necessarily follows on the want of his influence.”
Thus in one sense God wills that what he hates come to pass, as well as what he loves. Edwards says,
God may hate a thing as it is in itself, and considered simply as evil, and yet . . . it may be his will it should come to pass, considering all consequences. . . . God doesn’t will sin as sin or for the sake of anything evil; though it be his pleasure so to order things, that he permitting, sin will come to pass; for the sake of the great good that by his disposal shall be the consequence. His willing to order things so that evil should come to pass, for the sake of the contrary good, is no argument that he doesn’t hate evil, as evil: and if so, then it is no reason why he may not reasonably forbid evil as evil, and punish it as such.
This is a fundamental truth that helps explain some perplexing things in the Bible, namely, that God often expresses his will to be one way, and then acts to bring about another state of affairs. God opposes hatred toward his people, yet ordained that his people be hated in Egypt (Genesis 12:3; Psalm 105:25 – “He turned their hearts to hate his people.”). He hardens Pharaoh’s heart, but commands him to let his people go (Exodus 4:21; 5:1; 8:1). He makes plain that it is sin for David to take a military census of his people, but he ordains that he do it (2 Samuel 24:1; 24:10). He opposes adultery, but ordains that Absalom should lie with his father’s wives (Exodus 20:14; 2 Samuel 12:11). He forbids rebellion and insubordination against the king, but ordained that Jeroboam and the ten tribes should rebel against Rehoboam (Romans 13:1; 1 Samuel 15:23; 1 Kings 12:15-16). He opposes murder, but ordains the murder of his Son (Exodus 20:13; Acts 4:28). He desires all men to be saved, but effectually calls only some (1 Timothy 2:4; 1 Corinthians 1:26-30; 2 Timothy 2:26).
What this means is that we must learn that God wills things in two different senses. The Bible demands this by the way it speaks of God’s will in different ways. Edwards uses the terms “will of decree” and “will of command.” Edwards explains:
[God's] will of decree [or sovereign will] is not his will in the same sense as his will of command [or moral will] is. Therefore it is not difficult at all to suppose that the one may be otherwise than the other: his will in both senses is his inclination. But when we say he wills virtue, or loves virtue or the happiness of his creature; thereby is intended that virtue or the creature’s happiness, absolutely and simply considered, is agreeable to the inclination of his nature. His will of decree is his inclination to a thing not as to that thing absolutely and simply, but with reference to the universality of things. So God, though he hates a things as it is simply, may incline to it with reference to the universality of things.
This brings us to the final question and already points to the answer.
2.2 Why Does God Ordain that there Be Evil?
It is evident from what has been said that it is not because he delights in evil as evil. Rather he “wills that evil come to pass . . . that good may come of it.” What good? And how does the existence of evil serve this good end? Here is Edwards’ stunning answer:
It is a proper and excellent thing for infinite glory to shine forth; and for the same reason, it is proper that the shining forth of God’s glory should be complete; that is, that all parts of his glory should shine forth, that every beauty should be proportionably effulgent, that the beholder may have a proper notion of God. It is not proper that one glory should be exceedingly manifested, and another not at all. . . .
Thus it is necessary, that God’s awful majesty, his authority and dreadful greatness, justice, and holiness, should be manifested. But this could not be, unless sin and punishment had been decreed; so that the shining forth of God’s glory would be very imperfect, both because these parts of divine glory would not shine forth as the others do, and also the glory of his goodness, love, and holiness would be faint without them; nay, they could scarcely shine forth at all.
If it were not right that God should decree and permit and punish sin, there could be no manifestation of God’s holiness in hatred of sin, or in showing any preference, in his providence, of godliness before it. There would be no manifestation of God’s grace or true goodness, if there was no sin to be pardoned, no misery to be saved from. How much happiness soever he bestowed, his goodness would not be so much prized and admired. . . .
So evil is necessary, in order to the highest happiness of the creature, and the completeness of that communication of God, for which he made the world; because the creature’s happiness consists in the knowledge of God, and the sense of his love. And if the knowledge of him be imperfect, the happiness of the creature must be proportionably imperfect.
So the answer to the question in the title of this message, “Is God less glorious because he ordained that evil be?” is no, just the opposite. God is more glorious for having conceived and created and governed a world like this with all its evil. The effort to absolve him by denying his foreknowledge of sin (as we saw this afternoon) or by denying his control of sin (which we have seen this evening) is fatal, and a great dishonor to his word and his wisdom. Evangelicals who are seeking the glory of God, look well to the teaching of your churches and your schools. But most of all, look well to your souls.
If you would see God’s glory and savor his glory and magnify his glory in this world, do not remain wavering before the sovereignty of God in the face of great evil. Take his book in your hand, plead for his Spirit of illumination and humility and trust, and settle this matter, that you might be unshakable in the day of your own calamity. My prayer is that what I have said will sharpen and deepen your God-entranced world view, and that in the day of your loss you will be like Job who, when he lost all his children, fell down and worshipped, and said, “The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the name of the LORD.”
By John Piper © Desiring God
Theology on Thursday
Dr. Michael S. Horton is the J. Gresham Machen professor of apologetics and systematic theology at Westminster Seminary California, host of the White Horse Inn (a national radio broadcast), editor-in-chief of Modern Reformation magazine, and the author of numerous books, including The Gospel-Driven Life, Christless Christianity, Putting Amazing Back Into Grace, and God of Promise: Introducing Covenant Theology. He also contributed an important article to R. C. Sproul’s Tabletalk magazine several years ago, entitled, “Reformed Theology Vs. Hyper-Calvinism“. Today’s edition of Theology on Thursday is a reproduction of this outstanding article.* * * * *
Before the average believer today learns what Reformed theology (i.e., Calvinism) actually is, he first usually has to learn what it’s not. Often, detractors define Reformed theology not according to what it actually teaches, but according to where they think its logic naturally leads. Even more tragically, some hyper-Calvinists have followed the same course. Either way, “Calvinism” ends up being defined by extreme positions that it does not in fact hold as scriptural. The charges leveled against Reformed theology, of which hyper-Calvinism is actually guilty, received a definitive response at the international Synod of Dort (1618–1619), along with the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms.
Is God the Author of Sin?
The God of Israel “is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he” (Deut. 32:4–5). In fact, James seems to have real people in mind when he cautions, “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God,’ for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one” (James 1:13). Sin and evil have their origin not in God or creation, but in the personal will and action of creatures.
Scripture sets forth two guardrails here: On one hand, God “works all things after the counsel of his own will” (Eph. 1:15); on the other, God does not — in fact, cannot — do evil. We catch a glimpse of these two guardrails at once in several passages, most notably in Genesis 45 and Acts 2. In the former, Joseph recognizes that while the intention of his brothers in selling him into slavery was evil, God meant it for good, so that many people could be saved during this famine (vv. 4–8). We read in the same breath in Acts 2:23 that “lawless men” are blamed for the crucifixion, and yet Jesus was “delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God….” The challenge is to affirm what Scripture teaches without venturing any further. We know from Scripture that both are true, but not how. Perhaps the most succinct statement of this point is found in the Westminster Confession of Faith (chap. 3.1): “God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass;” — there’s one guardrail — “yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creature; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established,” and with that, the second guardrail. The same point is made in the Belgic Confession of Faith (Article 13), adding that whatever God has left to His own secret judgment is not for us to probe any further.
Is the Gospel for Everyone?
Isn’t it a bit of false advertising to say on one hand that God has already determined who will be saved and on the other hand to insist that the good news of the Gospel be sincerely and indiscriminately proclaimed to everyone?
But didn’t Christ die for the elect alone? The Canons of Dort pick up on a phrase that was often found in the medieval textbooks (“sufficient for the world, efficient for the elect only”) when it affirms that Christ’s death “is of infinite worth and value, abundantly sufficient to expiate the sins of the whole world” (Second Head, Article 3). Therefore, we hold out to the world “the promise of the gospel … to all persons … without distinction ….” Although many do not embrace it, this “is not owing to any defect or insufficiency in the sacrifice offered by Christ upon the cross, but is wholly to be imputed to themselves” (Second Head, Articles 5–6).
Here once again we are faced with mystery — and the two guardrails that keep us from careening off the cliff in speculation. God loves the world and calls everyone in the world to Christ outwardly through the Gospel, and yet God loves the elect with a saving purpose and calls them by His Spirit inwardly through the same Gospel (John 6:63–64; 10:3–5, 11, 14–18, 25–30; Acts 13:48; Rom. 8:28–30; 2 Tim. 1:9). Both Arminians and hyper-Calvinists ignore crucial passages of Scripture, resolving the mystery in favor of the either-or: either election or the free offer of the Gospel.
Grace for Everybody?
Does God love everybody, or is His kindness simply a cloak for His wrath — fattening the wicked for the slaughter, as some hyper-Calvinists have argued?
Scripture is full of examples of God’s providential goodness, particularly in the Psalms: “The Lord is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made …. You open your hand; you satisfy the desire of every living thing” (Ps. 145:9, 16). Jesus calls upon His followers to pray for their enemies for just this reason: “For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matt. 5:44). Christians are supposed to imitate this divine attitude.
The doctrine we are talking about has come to be called “common grace,” in distinction from “saving grace.” Some have objected to this term (some even to the concept), insisting that there is nothing common about grace: there is only one kind of grace, which is sovereign, electing grace. However, it must be said that whatever kindness God shows to anyone for any reason after the fall, can only be regarded as gracious. Once again, we face two guardrails that we dare not transgress: God acts graciously to save the elect and also to sustain the non-elect and cause them to flourish in this mortal life. While it is among the sweetest consolations for believers, election is not the whole story of God’s dealing with this world.
When we, as Christians, affirm common grace, we take this world seriously in all of its sinfulness as well as in all of its goodness as created and sustained by God. We see Christ as the mediator of saving grace to the elect but also of God’s general blessings to a world that is under the curse. Thus, unbelievers can even enrich the lives of believers. John Calvin pleads against the fanaticism that would forbid all secular influence on Christians, concluding that when we disparage the truth, goodness, and beauty found among unbelievers, we are heaping contempt on the Holy Spirit Himself who bestows such gifts of His common grace (Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2.2.15).
Is Calvinism a License to Sin?
The first thing we need to say, with Martyn Lloyd-Jones, is that if we are never accused of preaching antinomianism (that is, grace-as-license), we probably have not preached the Gospel correctly. After all, Paul anticipates the question, “Shall we then sin that grace may abound?” precisely because his own argument from 3:9 to this point has pressed it: “Where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more” (5:21). At the same time, some Reformed Christians, especially those liberated from legalistic backgrounds, seem to end Paul’s argument at Romans 5:21, concluding, in effect, “God likes to forgive, I like to sin — the perfect relationship!”
The difference between being accused of antinomianism (literally, anti-law-ism) and being guilty as charged is whether we are willing to follow Paul on into chapter 6. There the apostle answers this charge by an announcement of what God has done! At first, this would seem to favor antinomians, since they place all of the emphasis on what God has done and reject, or at least downplay, the importance of imperatives. Yet in fact, what Paul announces is that God has accomplished not only our justification in Christ, but our baptism into Christ. His argument is basically this: being united to Christ necessarily brings justification and regeneration, which issues in sanctification. He does not say that Christians should not, or must not, live in sin as the principle of their existence, but that they cannot — it is an impossibility. That they do continue to sin is evident enough, especially in chapter 7, but now they struggle against it.
The fathers at Dort recognized the charge that the Reformed doctrine “ leads off the minds of men from all piety and religion; that it is an opiate administered by the flesh and the devil,” and leads inevitably to “libertinism” and “renders men carnally secure, since they are persuaded by it that nothing can hinder the salvation of the elect, let them live as they please” (Conclusion). Yet they would neither surrender the comfort of justification by Christ’s righteousness imputed nor of sanctification by Christ’s resurrection life imparted. Perfection of sanctification in this life is impossible, but just as impossible is a condition known today as the “carnal Christian.” One is either dead in Adam or alive in Christ. Again, some wish to resolve this mystery: either we can be free from all known sin, as John Wesley taught, or we can be in a state of spiritual death, as antinomianism teaches. However satisfying to our reason, such an easy resolution in either direction ignores the clear teaching of Scripture and robs us of the joy of such a full salvation.
So the two guardrails on this point emerge from the fog of legalism and antinomianism: justification and sanctification are not to be confused, but they are also not to be separated.
In addition to these other charges, Reformed theology is often regarded as “rationalistic” — that is, a system built on logic rather than on Scripture. However, I hope we have begun to see that the real rationalists are the extremists on either side of these debates. The wisdom of the Reformed confessions is that they refuse to speculate beyond Scripture and insist on proclaiming the whole counsel of God, not simply the passages that seem to reinforce one-sided emphases. It is not a question of where the logic should lead us but where the Scriptures do lead us. It might be easier to resolve the mystery in simple, either-or solutions, but such a course would certainly not be safer. So let us too strive to read all of the Scriptures together, keeping a sharp lookout for those guardrails!
© Tabletalk magazine (2005). Reproduced with permission.
Book Review: ‘If God Is Good’
Not long ago WaterBrook Multnomah Books sent me a copy of If God Is Good: Faith in the Middle of Suffering and Evil for review. It is the first volume I’ve ever read from best-selling author Randy Alcorn, but after reading this book, Lord willing it will not be the last. The founder and director of Eternal Perspective Ministries presents an exceptionally well-written work addressing the nature of God’s absolute goodness, knowledge, and power in light of the existence of evil and suffering.
Alcorn launches the work by discussing the problems posed by evil and suffering in general, and then moves forward by providing a biblical explanation of their origins. He deals straightforwardly with the depraved fallen nature of human beings, and points masterfully to Jesus Christ as humanity’s only hope in a world filled with evil and suffering. The entire work, which is saturated with Scripture, is characterized by dealing boldly with the issues at hand and directing people constantly to Christ. This is one of the reasons I appreciate this book so much. As Alcorn continues, he poses problems for non-theists and tackles the arguments proposed by agnostics and atheists. He confronts the objections raised by the likes of Bart Ehrman, Christopher Hitchens, and Richard Dawkins fearlessly. I believe this section will prove quite helpful to those who have been challenged particularly by the emotionally charged arguments of this trio.
Alcorn contends ably not only against non-theistic objections related to these issues, but also with unbiblical solutions proposed within the Church to answer these inquiries. He addresses the distortions of the “prosperity gospel,” the myth that Christians never suffer, and the “Christian” attempt to limit divine attributes to explain the issues at hand. Unlike many authors who contend against such unbiblical teachings, Alcorn never comes across as condescending. Rather, he counteracts these teachings in a manner found throughout the book – providing a foundational biblical theology with a sense of strong, compassionate pastoral care. He demonstrates how theology is interwoven; delving into important related areas such as the characteristics of God, free will, the existence of heaven and hell, and the nature of justification, sanctification, and glorification. Alcorn doesn’t flinch as he argues that God not only permits evil and suffering, but utilizes them for the good of human beings and for His own glory. The material presented isn’t ivory-tower theology presented merely for the sake of argument, but pastoral theology interlaced with real-life accounts of people who have been upheld by God’s grace during times of tremendous difficulty. Among the accounts, Alcorn includes the grave personal struggles he has faced.
The 492 pages of text may be intimidating to some, but they shouldn’t fear because this book is written in an easy-to-understand style with a general audience in mind. Anyone who picks up this volume will benefit from one of the very best works ever written on the subject. Randy Alcorn has masterfully written a piece which not only provides substantial support for believing in the existence of God, but also encourages Christians to persevere in the faith knowing that God is involved actively in the lives of His children – even as they suffer. I benefited greatly from reading If God Is Good, and trust you will as well. I give it my very highest recommendation.
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Please consider scoring this review at Blogging for Books.
Are You Superior?
This post continues to deal with questions raised by Kevin Jackson on his blog, Wesleyan Arminian. The questions examined today deal generally with the doctrine of election. Mr. Jackson inquires:
Historically, areas with Caucasians have been more Christian. If Unconditional Election is true, why does God show an apparent preference for Caucasians?
Have areas with Caucasians really been more Christian? If the doctrine of election isn’t true, then is Mr.l Jackson implying that Caucasians are naturally wiser or spiritually superior than non-Caucasians? I doubt it. What of the vast numbers of believers throughout the ages in Africa and Asia? I believe Mr. Jackson’s question is posed from a simplistic reduction which fails to consider the whole of history. From my Calvinistic point of view, I rejoice in the Father giving the Son “dominion, and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him; His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom the one that shall not be destroyed” (see Daniel 7:13-14; Psalm 2:7-8). One of the songs praising Christ throughout eternity will be: “You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, for You were slain, and by Your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and You have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth” (emphasis added, Revelation 5:9-10). Because election is true, all peoples will praise God for all eternity for their redemption through Christ.
Do you ever doubt that you are elect?
One might ask of any Christian, whether Calvinist or non-Calvinist, “Do you ever doubt your salvation?” No doubt this is an issue for every believer, and part of the reason the Apostle John wrote his first epistle. He declares, “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:13). He speaks of confessing sin, living righteously, loving fellow believers, and so forth throughout the epistle. These are marks of knowing God. The Apostle Peter informed believers in his second epistle to diligently pursue faith, virtue, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love (2 Peter 1:5-7), declaring that if these things abound in one’s life, he or she will “be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” (v. 8). When these things are lacking, one may doubt his or her salvation (v. 9). St. Peter encourages all believers, in light of these things, to “be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble” (v. 10). One may doubt one’s salvation (election), but in the case that happens, one is commanded by Scripture to diligently pursue certainty about the matter.
How do you know whether God wants you to be saved or not?
God’s disposition toward all is one of mercy and kindness. God commands all people in all places to repent (Acts 17:30). Scripture declares, “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). The doctrine of election does not negate God’s merciful disposition, or His promise to forgive any sinner who turns to Christ Jesus in faith.
Why did God choose you? How do you avoid feeling proud that God loves you and not someone else?
On the one hand, I don’t know. It remains a mystery to me. It is not because I deserve salvation, or because I was wiser or more intelligent or more humble or more faithful than other sinners. I’m deserving of nothing but condemnation and wrath, yet God has been gracious and merciful. Salvation is solely on account of Jesus Christ alone. There is no room for feeling proud or boastful. The Apostle Paul certainly understood this as he wrote to the Corinthians:
“For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’” (1 Corinthians 1:26-31)
Why Not All?
Today we continue with answering “Questions for Calvinists.” Recently Kevin Jackson, who posed these questions, noted graciously on his blog that I’m an “irenic Calvinist” and stated his appreciation for me “taking the time and effort to respond.” I hope that while we may disagree over particular doctrinal matters, and sharply so, that we would demonstrate the grace of God which we claim to cherish. All too often this is lacking in theological discussions, particularly on blogs. The questions from Kevin’s list under consideration today are these:
- If “Irresistible Grace” is true, why doesn’t God save everyone?
- I hope that everyone goes to heaven, does this mean I love more than God does?
- Does it trouble you that God deliberately leaves most people in a state of inability, and that their damnation is unavoidable?
These questions are interwoven, probing matters related to both God’s love and His justice. The first question, in my opinion, contains the implication that God has left things entirely in the hands of those with absolute free will. This is believed to be the explanation of why everyone is not saved. In other words, it is believed that if God is truly loving, and chooses to limit His sovereignty, then He can still desire everyone’s salvation while not imposing it upon anyone.
As I’ve noted previously, God is Himself love (1 John 4:8). He loves simply because He chooses to do so (Deuteronomy 7:6-7), not because He is under any external constraint to do so. There is nothing within rebellious creatures to merit the love and mercy of God. Nonetheless, God is compassionate, kind, generous, and good to even the most stiff-necked rebels. His matchless love is poured out upon sinners, even unrepentant ones, day after day. The Lord Jesus Christ has commanded His followers to love our enemies “in order that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45). The Lord makes it plain that God the Father loves even those who stubbornly set themselves against Him in enmity. God’s attitude toward the non-elect is not one of unmitigated hatred. His offers of mercy and the call of the gospel to all who hear are sincere expressions from the heart of our loving and gracious Creator. He takes pleasure, not in the death of the wicked, but in their turning from their wickedness and finding life (Ezekiel 18:23; 33:11).
The Apostle Paul, dealing with a similar question, answered why not all Jews believed the gospel and were saved if, in fact, Jesus is the Messiah and the gospel is true. St. Paul spoke of his “great sorrow” and the “unceasing anguish” in his heart because of Israel’s unbelief (see Romans 9:1-3). Certainly no one could say that St. Paul’s heart was more compassionate than that of God Himself, especially when we see that the Lord Jesus wept over unbelieving Jerusalem (Luke 19:41-44). Interestingly enough, it is after this confession that the apostle discusses the doctrine of election. Some were tempted to believe that that if the gospel were true, and Christ were the Messiah, that God’s word had failed because the Jews, in large part, were rejecting Christ and the gospel (Rom. 9:6).
St. Paul argues that election is not based upon foreseen works (Rom. 9:10-11); that it doesn’t make God unjust (Rom. 9:14-15); that believing the gospel is not based merely upon the human will or individual exertion (Rom. 9:16-18); and that God’s sovereignty does not negate human responsibility (Rom. 9:19-24). The ultimate reason some are left in their rebellious unbelief is because desires to “show His wrath and to make known His power,” because this also makes “known the riches of His glory” (Rom. 9:22-23). Unbelieving law-breakers are not victims of a capricious, arbitrary deity. Rather, they receive exactly what they desire – to remain in their own willful rebellion, separated from God’s blessings in Christ Jesus.
The Canons of Dort rightly declare, “Since all people have sinned in Adam and have come under the sentence of the curse and eternal death, God would have done no one an injustice if it had been His will to leave the entire human race in sin and under the curse, and to condemn them on account of their sin” (see Rom. 3:19; 3:23; 6:23). They go on to assert, “But this is how God showed his love: he sent his only begotten Son into the world, so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” The delegates at Dort noted the wrath of God remains on those who do not believe the gospel, while “those who do accept it and embrace Jesus the Savior with a true and living faith are delivered through him from God’s anger and from destruction, and receive the gift of eternal life.” Echoing the Apostle Paul, Dort proclaims that the “cause or blame for this unbelief, as well as for all other sins, is not at all in God, but in man.”
Calvinists do not believe that God is the author (cause) of sin. Neither do we believe that people are merely unsuspecting pawns in a cosmic chess game. Those at Dort, discussing reprobation, remarked that God has dealt “passively” with some rebels, leaving them to that which is “their own fault” and “have plunged themselves.” They are condemned and punished because they have been “left in their own ways and under His just judgment” in order that God’s justice might be manifested.
The delegates at Dort also dealt wisely with the question of reprobation, telling those “who do not yet actively experience within themselves a living faith in Christ or an assured confidence of heart, peace of conscience, a zeal for childlike obedience, and a glorying in God through Christ,” that they should not be “alarmed at the mention of reprobation.” Rather, they should “diligently” listen to God’s word and attend to the means of grace since they “desire fervently” to be saved by grace. This is because “our merciful God has promised that He will not snuff out a smoldering wick and that He will not break a bruised reed.” Anyone genuinely concerned about the state of his or her soul may trust that God will not turn them away, but receive them because of His grace through Jesus Christ. Damnation is avoidable for those who truly desire to embrace God in faith through Christ. Those who prefer their sin to the Savior will be left to freely pursue their desires.
Fair questions for Mr. Jackson and other non-Calvinists is not unlike the ones he has asked. If God is completely loving, then why does He send people to Hell? Is God powerful enough to overcome the most stubborn sinner and subdue his heart so that he believes? If so, then why doesn’t He do this for all? Isn’t universalism the greatest display of God’s love and goodness to a sinful world? I believe Mr. Jackson, and other Bible believing evangelicals, will respond to such questions in a fashion similar as the delegates of Dort.
What is God’s Will?
In offering brief responses to Questions for Calvinists, today we examine the issue of God’s will. The question posed is this:
If God’s hidden will sometimes conflicts with his revealed will, how can you trust what he says?
Non-Calvinists and Arminians often contend with the Calvinists who insist that God has “two wills” – His hidden will and His revealed will – arguing essentially that this turns God into a schizophrenic deity whose promises are undermined and whose Word becomes uncertain. Of course, the Calvinistic position is no different than what Luther taught in The Bondage of the Will regarding the matter. It seems that many Christians become confused when speaking about “God’s will.” This, I believe, is because they utilize the term with a uniform meaning. When Scripture addresses God’s will, however, it speaks about it in three different ways.
God’s Decretive Will
First, Scripture affirms God’s decretive will. This is equivalent to God’s sovereignty, or hidden will. The Baptist Confession (1689) states the doctrine this way:
God hath decreed in Himself, from all eternity, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeably, all things, whatsoever comes to pass; yet so as thereby is God neither the author of sin nor hath fellowship with any therein; nor is violence offered to the will of the creature, nor yet is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established; in which appears His wisdom in disposing all things, and power and faithfulness in accomplishing his decree.
An example of this is found in Proverbs 21:1, which declares, “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; He turns it wherever he will.” Divine sovereignty neither negates the responsibility of the king (“nor is violence offered to the will of the creature”), nor is God’s purpose thwarted. As the Apostle Paul puts it, God “works all things according to the counsel of His will” (Ephesians 1:11). While God is not the author of sin, nothing comes to pass without His permission. The prophet Isaiah wrote, “For the Lord of hosts has purposed, and who will annul it? His hand is stretched out, and who will turn it back?” God, through the prophet, also declared, “Remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all My purpose,’ calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country. I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it.” (Isaiah 46:9-11) The prophet Habakkuk struggled with, yet submitted to, this aspect of divine sovereignty when God declared He was raising the Chaldeans against His people to chastise them and would then hold the Chaldeans responsible and judge them for their acts. God is always in charge, and human beings are always responsible.
God’s Preceptive Will
While God’s decretive will is often hidden from us until after it comes to pass, His preceptive will has been revealed clearly to us. The Lord’s precepts, or commands, are revealed to us through His written word, particularly His law. It is God’s preceptive will that no one murder or steal, that we love our enemies, that we repent of our sins and trust Christ alone for salvation, etc. This aspect of God’s will is revealed not only in Scripture, but is also impressed upon each conscience (e.g., Romans 1). Individuals never have the right, though they have the power, to violate God’s preceptive will. No one is able to say rightly, “I did this because God made me do it,” though many attempt to excuse their sin this very way.
God accomplishes His decretive will infallibly even while His perceptive will is violated. The ultimate example of this is the death of the Lord Jesus. Was it God’s will that Jesus Christ be murdered? Yes. And no. It was part of His decretive will (“God gave His only begotten Son”), but not part of His perceptive will (“Thou shalt not murder”). Judas Iscariot and Pontius Pilate accomplished God’s decretive will, yet they did so of their own free will and will be held responsible for their choices. This is exactly what we see in Acts 2 in the Apostle Peter’s proclamation at Pentecost that Jesus Christ was “delivered by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God, [whom] you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death” (Acts 2:23). They were responsible for the murder of Christ, which was a violation of God’s preceptive will, yet God accomplished His decretive will through their wickedness.
God’s Will of Disposition / Two Wills of God
The Scripture also speaks of God’s will in reference to His disposition. This has to do with God’s attitude. He declares, “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live” (Ezekiel 33:11). God desires sincerely that people would turn away from their sin and turn to Him through Christ.
This brings us to the matter of the “Two Wills of God Doctrine” in particular. This doctrine is related specifically to the affirmation of Holy Scripture that God “desires for all men to be saved” (1 Timothy 2:4) while simultaneously holding that God has unconditionally elected an innumerable amount of individuals to salvation. Some (i.e., Clark Pinnock, Fritz Guy) contend this belief is illogical, asserting a form of divine schizophrenia rather than sound biblical exegesis. In spite of such criticism, the distinction must stand because this is what is revealed in Scripture. Even I. Howard Marshall, featured in Pinnock’s The Grace of God, the Will of Man: The Case for Arminianism, confesses in his essay, “Universal Grace and Atonement in the Pastoral Epistles”:
“To avoid all misconceptions it should be made clear at the outset that the fact that God wishes or wills that all people should be saved does not necessarily imply that all will respond to the gospel and be saved. We must certainly distinguish between what God would like to see happen and what he actually does will to happen, and both of these things can be spoken of as God’s will. The question at issue is not whether all will be saved but whether God has made provision in Jesus Christ for the salvation of all, provided that they believe, and without limiting the potential scope of the death of the Christ merely to those whom God knows will believe.”
As noted previously, God willed both that Jesus Christ should be put to death (decretive will) and that no one should murder (preceptive will). It was prophesied through Isaiah that the Christ would be “stricken, smitten by God….It was the will of the LORD to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief” (Isaiah 53:4, 10). While God is not the author of sin, He ordained that sinful acts – the betrayal by Judas Iscariot, who was possessed by Satan himself, the animosity of Herod, the political expediency of Pontius Pilate, and the mob shouting for the blood of Jesus Christ – would result in the crucifixion of Christ Jesus. The disciples recognized this as they prayed (Acts 4:27-28):
“For truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever Your hand and Your plan had predestined to take place.”
So, was it God’s will for Judas Iscariot to betray His Son? Yes (decretive will) and no (preceptive will). This is not unlike what we see in the Revelation. We know that it is God’s will that all obey Him (preceptive will), yet in relation to the ten kings who work with the beast in rebellion against God, Scripture declares the Lord put “it into their hearts to carry out His purpose by being of one mind and handing over their royal power to the beast, until the words of God are fulfilled” (Revelation 20:17). Is it God’s plan for people to rebel against Him? Yes (decretive will) and no (preceptive will). The same might be said of Pharaoh, whose heart God hardened. It was God’s (preceptive) will that Pharaoh should let His people go, yet it was also His (decretive) will to harden Pharaoh’s heart so that he would not let His people go (Exodus 4:21; 8:1). Was God then, the author of sin? No, the sin belonged fully to Pharaoh (Exodus 10:17). After the Exodus, God willed for people to treat the Israelites with kindness and respect, yet when Israel reached Heshbon, King Sihon refused to grant them safe passage (Deuteronomy 2:26-27). The ultimate reason was that God “hardened his spirit and made his heart obstinate, that He might give him” into the hand of Moses (Deuteronomy 2:30). Again, we see Scripture speaking of God’s will in more than one way.
This brings us more directly to the doctrine of election. I’ve heard it stated from several pulpits that the reason the Lord Jesus spoke in parables was to make His message understandable to ordinary people. The Lord declares, however, that He spoke in parables “so that they may…not perceive, and may…not understand” (Mark 4:11-12). God hid something He revealed to others. The disciples had “been given the secret of the kingdom of God,” but for those “outside,” they were spoken to in parables “lest they should turn again, and be forgiven” (Mark 4:11-12). So, is it God’s will for those outside to be forgiven or not? Yes and no. God commands and desires all people everywhere to repent (Acts 17:30; 1 Timothy 2:4), yet He has predestined only His people to salvation (Romans 9:6-23; Ephesians 1:3-12). No one remains lost because they have not been chosen. People face judgment because of their own willful rebellion against God and their refusal to repent of their wickedness (Colossians 3:6), and for their own list of evil deeds (Revelation 20:12-13).
Conclusion
There are no contradictions in Holy Scripture, but there is a great deal of mystery – which makes many uncomfortable because they think they have the ability to explain everything in the Bible. If the Apostle Peter admitted portions of Scripture are difficult to fully comprehend (2 Peter 3:16), we should not presume complexity is absent in regard to the things God has revealed. Our task, as Christians, is to be faithful to that revelation and affirm all that is written. We may believe everything that God has promised to us because He is “faithful and true,” and He never breaks a single promise (Joshua 21:45; 2 Corinthians 1:20). This God, who alone is absolutely sovereign, truly wise, and altogether good, may be trusted fully because He has the ability and determination to cause “all things to work together for our good” (Romans 8:28).
William Weeks on the Divine Decree and Human Responsibility
William R. Weeks (1783-1848) served as a Congregational pastor in Paris Hill, New York, and was an influential minister within the Oneida Association. William B. Sprague, author of Lectures on Revivals, declared Weeks “an able and faithful minister of Jesus Christ.” Concerned greatly with authentic revival and biblical evangelism, he was also known for his defense of Reformed theology. Charles G. Finney, caricatured Weeks terribly as an “anti-revival man.” In his Memoirs, Finney charged Weeks falsely with teaching that “God made men sinners,” and had the right “to send them to hell for the sins he had directly created in them, or compelled them to commit by the force of omnipotence.” Many others followed Finney’s lead and language. John Frost, a devout follower of Finney, dubbed Weeks “the Orthodox Devil on Paris Hill.” Many people within Weeks’ own congregation were influenced by such invective, and the minister was forced from the Paris Hill pastorate. Years later, B. B. Warfield complained of the “undeserved contempt” Finney showed for Weeks, noting his “memory has been sedulously defamed ever since.” Nonetheless, some of Weeks’ sermons are still extant. I commend to you his Nine Sermons on the Decrees and Agency of God (free on NOOKbook). Today a portion of one of his sermons, expounding Ephesians 1:11, is presented.
SERMON V / EPHESIANS 1.11 – “Who works all things after the counsel of His own will”
Objection: It is said, that if this doctrine is true, and God decrees and causes whatever takes place, then men cannot possibly help ‘doing as they do, in all cases. And so, if they are finally damned, they are damned for doing, what they cannot, help. And when God requires them to do otherwise than they do, he requires an impossibility which is manifestly unjust and cruel.’
Answer: It is granted that to punish men for doing what they cannot help, or to require of them impossibility, would be manifestly unjust and cruel. But this God does not, do. He requires no more of men than, they are able to perform; and he punishes them only for doing those things which they could and ought to have abstained from doing. When we speak, in common language, of ability and inability, can and cannot, possible and impossible; we always have reference to men’s power and faculties of body or mind, and not at all to their inclinations. If a man has all the power, and faculties of body and mind which are necessary to do a thing, we say he is able to do it, whether he is willing or not. His ability and his willingness are different things, perfectly distinct. A man may be able to perform a piece of work, which he has no heart to perform, and which he is totally unwilling to engage in. And again, a man may be perfectly willing to do that which is not in his power, that which is entirely beyond his strength. One man may be able to march to the field of battle, but totally unwilling. And another may be perfectly willing to march to the field of blood, but through bodily infirmity may be unable. Ability and willingness must both unite in the same person, before he will perform any thing, but they are perfectly distinct, and our willingness constitutes no part of our ability.
It is true that willingness is sometimes styled moral ability; but it is evidently in a figurative and improper sense. According to the usual and proper meaning of the term, men are able to do everything which they have bodily and mental strength sufficient to do, whether they are willing to exert that strength, and do the thing or not. Now, although God cannot justly require of men more than they are able to do, that is, more than they have bodily and mental strength sufficient to do, if they were so disposed; yet he may, and does, justly require of them many things which they have no disposition to do, many things which they are totally unwilling to perform. And though men cannot be justly punished for not doing those things which they are unable to do, yet they may be justly punished for not doing those things which they are able, but are unwilling to do. Men are able to comply with the invitations of the gospel, that is, they have all the bodily and mental powers that are necessary to do it, and God may justly require them to do it, whether they are willing or not; and if they do not comply, he may justly punish them for their disobedience. And his making some willing and others unwilling does not interfere with the ability of any. Those who are unwilling are just as able as those who are willing, and are as justly required to comply.
To substantiate the objection, it must be made to appear, that God imposes some constraint upon men, so that they cannot do the things he requires, even though they are willing, and desirous of doing them. This is taken for granted in the objection. This is the real meaning of the phrase, doing what they cannot help. The meaning is, that they desire and endeavor to do otherwise, but have not the necessary bodily and mental strength. If they had, they should do, otherwise. They would, but cannot. But the fact is directly the reverse. They can, but will not. They have the necessary bodily and mental strength, but have no willingness. And this, God is not bound to give them. Should any say, that God cannot justly require of men any more than he gives them a willingness to do, as well as bodily and mental strength, this would abolish all law, and destroy the distinction between right and wrong. For if God cannot require of men any more than he makes them willing, as well as able, to do, then, since they always do what they have both strength and will to accomplish, he cannot justly require of them any more than they actually perform. And if they always do all that he requires, there is no such thing as sin in the world. It is right, therefore, for God to require of them all that they have powers and faculties sufficient to perform, all that they are able to do; and if they fail of complying through unwillingness, it is right that they should be punished. But men have all the powers and faculties necessary to comply with the invitations of the gospel, and all the commands of God, and want nothing but a willingness. They can comply, but will not. When, therefore, God punishes them for not complying, he punishes them, NOT for what they could not help, but solely for refusing to do what they could but would not.
Berkhof on the Divine Decree
The works of Louis Berkhof (1873 – 1957), a Reformed systematic theologian, have been influential in countless seminaries and Christian colleges throughout North America. A graduate of Calvin Theological Seminary and Princeton Theological Seminary, he served as a local church pastor prior to joining the faculty of Calvin Seminary where he taught for nearly forty years and also served as its president. The author of twenty-two books, including History of Christian Doctrines, he is most well-known for his Systematic Theology. In the second part of Systematic Theology, he delves into the divine decree in Chapter 8.
Berkhof defines the decree of God as “His eternal plan or purpose, in which He has foreordained all things that come to pass.” This covers every work of God in creation and redemption, “and also embraces the actions of men, not excluding their sinful deeds.” This means that the entrance of sin into the world was “certain,” but “it does not make God responsible for our sinful deeds.” Berkhof notes, “His decree with respect to sin is a permissive decree” (emphasis added). The theologue goes on to note that God’s decree is established in wisdom (Ephesians 3:9-11), and that human beings do not always understand it. Established in eternity, it is “effectual, so that everything that is included in it certainly comes to pass” (Isaiah 46:10). It is “all-inclusive, embracing the good and the wicked actions of men, Eph. 2:10; Acts 2:28,” and “contingent events, Gen. 50:20.” Berkhof notes, again, “With respect to sin it is permissive” (emphasis added).
The noted theologian recognizes there are objections to the doctrine of the decrees, noting three in particular: 1) It is inconsistent with the moral freedom of man; 2) It makes people slothful in seeking salvation; and 3) It makes God the author of sin. In regard to the first objection, Berkhof states, “The Bible clearly teaches not only that God has decreed the free acts of man, but also that man is none to the less free and responsible for his acts, Gen. 50:19, 20; Acts 2:23; 4:27-29. We may not be able to harmonize the two altogether, but it is evident from Scripture that the one does not cancel the other” (emphasis added). Contending with the second objection, he declares that while some may feel that “if God has determined whether they will be saved or not, it makes no difference what they may do…this is hardly correct, because man does not know what God has decreed respecting him. Moreover, God has decreed not only the final destiny of man, but also the means by which it will be realized. And seeing that the end is decreed only as the result of the appointed means, it encourages rather than discourages their use.” With respect to the third objection, Berkhof maintains, “the decree merely makes God the author of free moral beings, who are themselves the authors of sin. Sin is made certain by the decree, but God does not Himself produce it by His direct action. At the same time it must be admitted that the problem of God’s relation to sin remains a mystery which we cannot fully solve” (emphasis added).
20 Questions for Calvinists
The organizers of the Southwest Alabama Bible Conference 2011 have included a link on their website which poses “20 Questions for Calvinists.” The link takes one to Kevin Jackson’s blog, Wesleyan Arminian (a bit curious, since an understandable link is also provided to Malcolm Yarnell’s piece, “Neither Calvinists nor Arminians but Baptists”). Perhaps the link exists because the organizers have failed to study the questions (and Calvinist’s answers) themselves, or because, like Jackson, they continue to operate under the assumption of stereotypes. Nonetheless, as a Calvinist and as a theologian, I humbly submit the following answers in response to the queries raised. My intention is to provide brief answers which can be comprehended, and I will gladly answer any follow-up questions which may be raised by those reading them. This initial post examines the first two questions.
1. If sovereignty means that God freely and unchangeably ordains whatsoever comes to pass, why does evil exist?
This is not merely a question for “Calvinists,” but for all Christians. All orthodox Christians throughout the ages have affirmed divine sovereignty, along with His goodness. The question posed here is the essential inquiry brought forth by those who refuse to acknowledge the existence of God. In the pages of Holy Writ, the Almighty declares:
“I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please…. What I have said, that will I bring about; what I have planned, that will I do.”
(Isaiah 46:9-11)
If this divine declaration is true (and what orthodox Christian would deny it?), then why does evil still exist? Because, ultimately, it was part of God’s purpose and plan. The third chapter of the Baptist Confession (1689) declares not only that God has “decreed in Himself, from all eternity…whatsoever comes to pass,” but also that He is “neither the author of sin…nor is violence offered to the will of the creature, nor yet is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away.” Simply because God has decreed a matter does not necessarily mean that He gives moral approval of that matter. Joseph’s brothers, for example, sold him into slavery because of their envy. Years later, fearing for their lives after their father’s death, they told Joseph that Isaac requested that he spare their lives. Joseph remarked, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today” (Genesis 50:20). God did not approve the evil, but He did ordain it in order that His good purposes might stand – not only sparing a multitude of lives during famine, but also of keeping His Word. He told Abraham that His descendants would be slaves in Egypt, but that He would deliver them after 400 years (Genesis 15:13).
While evil had absolutely no part in God’s original creation, it was ultimately part of His plan. Even before creation, God decided rebellion against Him would be permitted, but that He would work to overthrow that anarchy through the work of His Son, Jesus Christ. This is why, in part, the Son is called the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8), and that God chose His children in Christ “before the creation of the world” (Ephesians 1:4-5). God alone is absolutely omniscient and entirely good. He grasps all contingencies, and knows ultimately what is best in ways we cannot begin to fathom. If God failed to know the end from the beginning, He would not be God.
The alternative to the orthodox Christian view of God’s omnipotence and omniscience, which is gaining in popularity, is Openness theology (aka Process theology). Openness theology denies that God knows the future exhaustively. While it claims to be orthodox because it is Trinitarian, the denial of God’s omniscience is nothing less than the ancient heresy known as Socinianism. This unbiblical view is not acceptable for those desiring to remain Christian in their theology and worldview.
2. Where did evil first come from? Did it in any way originate from God?
Again, this is not merely a question for “Calvinists,” but for all Christians. As noted in the answer to Question 1, God is not the author of sin. When God created the universe, He saw that it was all “very good” (Genesis 1). God’s creation included the great archangel, Lucifer, and the angels who followed him in rebellion (Revelation 12:4). Though God created these beings as “good,” they nonetheless declared war against God and abandoned Heaven as their home (Jude 6). Their rebellion did not catch God by surprise. In fact, the Apostle Paul points out that it is by Jesus Christ, God the Son, that “all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by Him and for Him” (Colossians 1:16; see Ephesians 6:12). Everything – including the devil and his minions – were created by God and for God. Through His redemptive work, Christ Jesus is able to conquer this evil and display the greatness of His holy character – including His power, wisdom, and love.
The Scriptures tell us about the entrance of evil into the world (Genesis 3), but its origin is a mystery. How could evil, with no prior existence, take hold of beings which were created “good”? Quite honestly, the answer is never given in Scripture, and it is for God alone to know. Christians have historically refused to malign God, as did Epicurus, as either impotent or malevolent. Rather, we have proclaimed consistently that God is omnipotent, good, and wise. We echo the Apostle Paul, who proclaimed in Romans 11:34-36:
Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His counselor?” “Or who has given a gift to Him that He might be repaid?” For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever. Amen.
Theology on Thursday
I mentioned recently that I signed up for the ‘Blogging for Books’ program offered by WaterBrook Multnomah Books. Last month I began reading the first book sent to me from Multnomah – Randy Alcorn’s If God Is Good: Faith in the Middle of Suffering and Evil, and will post a review on it after I have finished reading it. It is a rather lengthy work, with 494 pages of text. I have not been disappointed with it in the least. Today’s edition of Theology on Thursday comes from Chapter 38 – “How God Uses Suffering for Our Sanctification” (pp. 404-405):
We cannot understand evil and suffering without understanding creation, the Fall, and redemption. While we often don’t grasp the purposes of a particular event or affliction, we understand that suffering exists because evil exists. God promised death would follow disobedience, and a world of death means a world of suffering. In Romans 6:23, we must understand the phrase ‘The wages of sin is death’ to appreciate the one that follows: ‘But the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ To grasp redemption’s meaning, we must see the devastation of the sin from which God redeems us.
Suffering, as sin’s consequence, points us back to sin’s ugliness. How horrible should we expect suffering to be? As horrible as sin. No less. People’s suffering from natural disasters, diseases, wars, and accidents demonstrates sin’s horrors. If life in a fallen world didn’t sometimes show us such dreadful consequences of sin and its curse, we might look at sin and wonder, ‘What’s the big deal?’ Without a sense of the misery it produces, we’d have no motive to turn from it.
Theology on Thursday
One of the finest theological pieces I’ve read regarding the doctrine of God’s benevolence is D. A. Carson’s The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God. Taken from lectures given in 1998, it is a brief work (a mere 77 pages of text) which is easy to read while retaining its profundity. Dr. Carson gives five reasons he believes the doctrine of God’s love is difficult. First, most people take their notions of God’s love from ideas outside of Holy Scripture. Second, many truths about God which are harmonious are believed to be incompatible by many people within the culture (and the Church). Third, a syncretistic and pluralistic view of the divine which emphasizes sentimentality is undergirded by postmodernism. Fourth, much of what is believed by people within the Church is this postmodern, sentimental view of God. Fifth, the Church portrays the doctrine of God’s love as simple, passing over critical distinctions which actually make it difficult.
Dr. Carson erects this work around four themes: the distortion of God’s love, that fact that God is love, God’s love and sovereignty, and God’s love and wrath. He mines from the Scriptures to deliver a clear message as to what God’s love involves and what it does not, defending the compatibility of apparent contradictions in God’s character. In doing this, he discusses how God’s love and sovereignty are both instrumental in His dealings with human beings. I recommend this work to you with the utmost confidence it will benefit both mind and soul. It may be read online for free.
Theology on Thursday
One of the best works dealing with practical theology in relation to the doctrines of grace (aka “Calvinism”) is Terry L. Johnson’s When Grace Comes Home. Today’s edition of Theology on Thursday includes excerpts from this work dealing with three areas of Christian living: worship, humility, and adversity. Johnson does a superb job demonstrating that doctrine is meant not only to be believed, but lived.
Worship
“Calvinists accept the apparent contradictions of God’s sovereignty and human responsibility. We admit that we cannot reconcile these two principles. But we think that the Bible teaches both truths, so we teach both. If you try to reconcile one truth to the other you will compromise one or the other. ‘Why reconcile friends?’ Spurgeon asked. What do we do with them? We bow in worship. This is exactly what Paul does. . . . Nothing will cause you to bow in worship like the conviction that God is sovereign. . . . Knowing that this is the God with whom I have to do, I’ll be more careful about Sunday worship. I’ll also be more serious about life generally, knowing that one day I will stand before such a God. Maybe before, I toyed with the things of God. No longer. Now I become much more careful to live in conformity with His commands. . . . Your soul will crave and demand worship that is God-centered, that is filled with high praise and lowly confession, and characterized by a spirit of reverence and awe for the almighty Trinity.”
Humility
“A proud, condescending Christian, and especially a proud, condescending Calvinist, is a contradiction in terms. If one who has grasped the meaning of the doctrines of grace is proud, he is not a true Calvinist. He may have accepted a philosophy that resembles Calvinism. He may have been converted to a Reformed way of life, or a Reformed ‘world and life view’, but he is not a Calvinist. A true Calvinist is one who has been born again by the Spirit of God, who has seen his personal filth and corruption, who has fled to Christ, and knows better than anyone that it is only by the grace of God that he is saved. He has nothing to boast in. He has nothing to be proud about. . . . Converts to Calvinism will often look back with disdain on their former views, and when they hear others continuing to express them, they look with disdain upon them, and are quick to refute their every word. In their zeal, they quickly forget how recent their own ‘conversion’ has been, and how long they continued in error. They can appear to be arrogant and insensitive. They strike others as ‘know-it-alls’, and are unpleasant to be around. Understand this problem though we may, we still must say that this arrogance can only be a temporary aberration brought on by a ‘convert’s zeal’. Quickly should he return to the normal state of mind, which is profound humility. Here is why: the doctrine of election. . . . If he is truly convinced of the truth of the doctrines of grace, there can be nothing of pride in him.”
Adversity
“From our point of view, much of the discussion of ‘the problem of pain’ and suffering gets started on the wrong foot. . . . There is a tendency to begin with the assumption of human innocence. Adversity then is viewed as an unfair or unjust intrusion into the life of one who is undeserving. This is implicit in almost all of the popular discussions of the subject. . . . The Biblical place to begin any consideration of suffering is not with innocence but guilt. . . . The response of God to the sin of Adam and the sins of his progeny is judgment. God promised death ‘in the day that you shall eat of it’. . . . In the meantime, life consists of multiple mini-judgments which are visited upon us because of the sin of Adam and our own sins, as previews of the final judgment. These mini-judgments, because they fall short of eternal death in hell, are, in effect, gracious stays of execution. . . . Strict justice lands each of us in hell. Anything less than that – sickness, injury, poverty, hunger, or heartbreak – is mercy. . . . Instead of saying that some are innocent sufferers, [Jesus Christ] says that everyone deserves to suffer in this way. He warns that ‘unless you repent, you will all likewise perish’. In other words, it is not that they were worse than others, but this is what every sinner deserves and will get unless he repents. Jesus focuses not on the tragedy that has befallen the few, but on the grace by which the majority are spared. . . . The remarkable thing is not that there is pain but that there is pleasure. Once one understands the doctrine of the Fall and of the depravity of man the philosophical problem is not that of explaining why God allows suffering but why He shows mercy and grace. . . .
First, if there is a God, what happens must be His will. If anything happens that is not His will, He is not God, and we are in trouble. . . . What an omnipotent God foreknows and permits, He wills and ordains. Second, events either have God-given meaning or they have no meaning at all. . . . Finally, we come to the answers in Romans 8. The wonder of our adoption and eventual glorification lead Paul to speak of the path to glory which is the path of suffering. . . . Then comes the crown jewel of Bible promises: ‘And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose’ (Rom. 8:28). . . . Many times, even most times, we won’t know what good God is bringing from adversity. That is not the critical thing. The critical thing is knowing that God is good and He meant it! When you lost your loved one, He meant it. When you were afflicted with disease, God meant it. When you were hit with financial reversals, God meant it. He promises to bring good from it. Now you must trust Him. . . . Only when we understand that God has ordained our suffering can we begin to make sense of it. Only then can we be certain that He has a purpose in it. When tragedy comes, when adversity strikes, we will not be shaken. Yes, we will cry. Yes, we will grieve. But we will move on confidently knowing that God is on His throne, that we are in His hand, that our circumstances are His doing, and He is working them for our good.”
Theology on Thursday
Last month I bumped into an old buddy of mine, the Rev. Chris Marley. Rev. Marley has served as the pastor of Miller Valley Baptist Church in Prescott, Arizona, since 2003.
When we were chatting, he asked if I worked with any study groups who would be interested in studying The Attributes of God, written by A. W. Pink. I answered in the affirmative, and Pastor Marley and the congregation of Miller Valley were extremely gracious in sending 20 copies of the book to me for distribution to the Band of Brothers study group. Our group just began meeting on a monthly basis. Last week, during our initial monthly gathering, I distributed copies of Pink’s work and we agreed to read the first four chapters prior to our next meeting.
After reading the first four chapters over the weekend, I have yet to determine whether Pink’s style is more like a sledgehammer or a jackhammer. Pink (1886-1952), who served as a pastor for congregations in Colorado, California, Kentucky, and South Carolina, seems to utilize each paragraph to pound away at theological conceptions with which he disagrees. Much to his credit, he employs Scripture to uphold beautiful (and often difficult) doctrines related to the attributes of God. Today’s edition of Theology on Thursday is an excerpt from the third chapter, “The Knowledge of God.” While I do not agree with all Pink pens, his work contains a great deal of encouragement for the Christian which I appreciate deeply. Pink writes:
God is omniscient. He knows everything: everything possible, everything actual; all events and all creatures, of the past, the present, and the future. . . . Nothing escapes his notice, nothing can be hidden from him, nothing is forgotten by him. . . . The apprehension of his omniscience ought to bow us in adoration before him. Yet how little do we meditate upon this Divine perfection! Is it because the very thought of it fills us with uneasiness? How solemn is this fact: nothing can be concealed from God! “For I know the things that come into your mind, every one of them” (Ezek. 11:5). . . .
. . . To the believer, the fact of God’s omniscience is a truth fraught with much comfort. In times of perplexity he says with Job, “But he knoweth the way that I take” (23:10). . . . In times of weariness and weakness believers assure themselves, “He knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust” (Ps. 103:14). In times of doubt and suspicion they appeal to this very attribute, saying, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts: in the way everlasting” (Ps. 139:23-24). In time of sad failure, when our actions have belied our hearts, when our deeds have repudiated our devotion, and the searching question comes to us, “Lovest thou me?”, we say, as Peter did, “Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee” (John 21:17).
Here is the encouragement to prayer. There is no cause for fearing that the petitions of the righteous will not be heard, or that their sighs and tears shall escape the notice of God, since he knows the thoughts and intents of the heart. . . . an infinite Mind is as capable of paying the same attention to millions as if only one individual were seeking its attention. So too the lack of appropriate language, the inability to give expression to the deepest longing of the soul, will not jeopardize our prayers, for “It shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear” (Isa. 65:24). “Great is our Lord, and of great power; his understanding is infinite” (Ps. 147:5). . . .
The perfect knowledge of God is exemplified and illustrated in every prophecy recorded in his Word. In the Old Testament are to be found scores of predictions concerning the history of Israel, which were fulfilled to their minutest detail, centuries after they were made. In them too are scores more foretelling the earthly career of Christ, and they too were accomplished literally and perfectly. Such prophecies could only have been given by one who knew the end from the beginning, and whose knowledge rested upon the unconditional certainty of the accomplishment of everything foretold. In like manner; both Old and New Testament contain many other announcements yet future, and they too “must be fulfilled” (Luke 22:44), must because foretold by him who decreed them. . . .
The infinite knowledge of God should fill us with amazement. . . .The infinite knowledge of God ought to fill us with holy awe. Nothing we do, say, or even think, escapes the cognizance of him with whom we have to do: “The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good” (Prov. 15:3). . . . The apprehension of God’s infinite knowledge should fill the Christian with adoration. The whole of my life stood open to his view from the beginning. He foresaw my every fall, my every sin, my every backsliding; yet, nevertheless, fixed his heart upon me. Oh, how the realization of this should bow me in wonder and worship before him!
Warning in the Whirlwind
This past Wednesday (Aug. 19) a tornado struck downtown Minneapolis, where delegates to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America are meeting for the ELCA’s 2009 Churchwide Assembly. The National Weather Service, who predicted thunderstorms for that afternoon, were caught completely by surprise. No severe thunderstorm warnings or tornado warnings were in effect when the whirlwind whipped through the area. The tornado hit at around 2:00 p.m., just as delegates began debating a denominational report on homosexuality. Part of the debate centers on whether or not the ELCA will permit practicing, non-celibate homosexuals to serve as ministers. The roof of the Minneapolis Convention Center, the site of the assembly, was damaged severely, the 90-year-old steeple of the Central Lutheran Church building was broken off and split, and large tents which were set up to serve a meal to the delegates were shredded.
The Rev. Dr. John Piper, who resides in the city and serves as the teaching pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, stated on his blog the day after the storm that the tornado was a “gentle but firm warning to the ELCA and all of us: Turn from the approval of sin.” Citing the words of Christ Jesus as He warned about those killed by the tower of Siloam (Luke 13:4-5), Piper declared all calamities, whether “in Minneapolis, Taiwan or Baghdad”, should be viewed as warnings from God to repent. He called upon the ELCA: “Reaffirm the great Lutheran heritage of allegiance to the truth and authority of Scripture. Turn back from distorting the grace of God into sensuality. Rejoice in the pardon of the cross of Christ and its power to transform left and right wing sinners.”
Many will sneer at Piper’s words. Some will claim God has no wrath, that His benevolence alone is shed abroad to the whole of humanity. Others will claim notions of God’s existence and activity in any manner whatsoever is out of touch with reality. Personally, I encourage people to heed the very real warning in the whirlwind experienced on Wednesday afternoon.
Theology on Thursday
The best book I’ve ever read on missiology (the theology of missions), bar none, is John Piper’s Let the Nations Be Glad!: The Supremacy of God in Missions. Dr. Piper, senior pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, earned a doctorate in theology from the University of Munich. In Let the Nations Be Glad!, Dr. Piper draws on key biblical texts and the lives of missionary heroes to demonstrate that worship is the ultimate goal of the Church, and that true worship fuels the Great Commission. He also addresses subjects interrelated to missions, such as the role of prayer, universalism (the belief that all will ultimately be saved), and annihilationism (the belief that Hell is not eternal). I recommend the work highly, and hope today’s edition of Theology on Thursday will whet your appetite. Dr. Piper writes in the first chapter, “The Supremacy of God in Missions Through Worship”:
Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever.
Worship, therefore, is the fuel and goal of missions. . . . The goal of missions is the gladness of the peoples in the greatness of God. “The Lord reigns; let the earth rejoice; let the many coastlands be glad!” (Psalm 97:1). “Let the peoples praise thee, O God; let all the peoples praise thee! Let the nations be glad and sing for joy!” (Psalm 67:3-4).
But worship is also the fuel of missions. Passion for God in worship precedes the offer of God in preaching. You can’t commend what you don’t cherish. . . . Missions begins and ends in worship. If the pursuit of God’s glory is not ordered above the pursuit of man’s good in the affections of the heart and the priorities of the church, man will not be well served and God will not be duly honored. . . . Where passion for God is weak, zeal for missions will be weak. . . .
God is central and supreme in his own affections. There are no rivals for the supremacy of God’s glory in his own heart. God is not an idolater. He does not disobey the first and great commandment. With all his heart and soul and strength and mind he delights in the glory of his manifold perfections. . . .
God is calling us above all else to be the kind of people whose theme and passion is the supremacy of God in all of life. No one will be able to rise to the magnificence of the missionary cause who does not feel the magnificence of Christ. There will be no big world vision without a big God. There will be no passion to draw others into our worship where there is no passion for worship.
God is pursuing with omnipotent passion a worldwide purpose of gathering joyful worshipers for himself from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. He has an inexhaustible enthusiasm for the supremacy of his name among the nations. Therefore let us bring our affections into line with his, and, for the sake of his name, let us renounce the quest for worldly comforts, and join his global purpose.
Election and Evangelism
While serving in a Baptist pastorate in Oklahoma, an influential couple visited me in the study over concerns with my theological convictions. They said something to the effect, “You’re a ‘chosen before the foundation of the world’ person, but we’re ‘whosoever will’ people.” I replied, “You don’t understand. It’s not an either-or, but a both-and. I’m a both-and type of person. I believe in election and evangelism, in predestination and ‘whosoever will’.” Unfortunately, they still didn’t understand. Part of the problem was that they heard many high profile leaders within the denomination denounce the doctrines of grace and those who affirm them as being unconcerned with the lost and with the task of evangelism. Though the couple had often heard from the pulpit that we must work for the advance of the gospel, though they witnessed the first adult missions team sent out from the church in nearly three decades, and though their pastor replaced the outdated, sun-bleached tracts in the foyer and encouraged members to utilize them weekly, they were unconvinced. The influence of high-profile personalities proved too steep for them. Vociferous pleas from such leaders as Adrian Rogers, Johnny Hunt, Jack Graham, Steve Gaines, Elmer Towns, Ergun Caner, and others, added with the vocal opposition of local associations and colleges , has proven too steep for many average laymen. Nonetheless, it is my hope that the internet, with its vast amount of information available at an individual’s fingertips, will be utilized by laymen and others to know what “Calvinism” actually asserts and what “Calvinists” actually believe and practice. It is with this hope that I provide an excerpt from J. I. Packer’s classic, Evangelism & the Sovereignty of God (InterVarsity Press, 1961). Dr. Packer writes about what the belief that God is sovereign in grace does not affect. I hope, even if you don’t embrace the doctrines of grace, that you will read with open eyes and an open heart. Dr. Packer, himself a “Calvinist”, asserts on behalf of historic Reformed theology:
The belief that God is sovereign in grace does not affect the necessity of evangelism. Whatever we may believe about election, the fact remains that evangelism is necessary, because no man can be saved without the gospel. . . . They must be told of Christ before they can trust Him, and they must trust Him before they can be saved by Him. Salvation depends on faith, and faith on knowing the gospel. God’s way of saving sinners is to bring them to faith through bringing them into contact with the gospel. In God’s ordering of things, therefore, evangelism is a necessity if anyone is to be saved at all. . . .
The belief that God is sovereign in grace does not affect the urgency of evangelism. . . . The world is full of people who are unaware that they stand under the wrath of God: is it not similarly a matter of urgency that we should go to them, and try to arouse them, and show them the way of escape? . . . The non-elect in this world are faceless men as far as we are concerned. We know that they exist, but we do not and cannot know who they are, and it is as futile as it is impious for us to try and guess. . . . Our calling as Christians is not to love God’s elect, and them only, but to love our neighbour, irrespective of whether he is elect or not.
The belief that God is sovereign in grace does not affect the genuineness of the gospel invitations, or the truth of the gospel promises. . . . The fact remains that God in the gospel really does offer Christ and promise justification and life to ‘whosoever will’. ‘Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ As God commands all men everywhere to repent, so God invites all men everywhere to come to Christ and find mercy. . . .
The fact that the gospel invitation is free and unlimited—‘sinners Jesus will receive’—‘come and welcome to Jesus Christ’—is the glory of the gospel as a revelation of divine grace. . . . Some fear that a doctrine of eternal election and reprobation involves the possibility that Christ will not receive some of those who desire to receive Him, because they are not elect. The ‘comfortable words’ of the gospel promises, however, absolutely exclude this possibility. As our Lord elsewhere affirmed, in emphatic and categorical terms: ‘Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.’ . . .
The belief that God is sovereign in grace does not affect the responsibility of the sinner for his reaction to the gospel. . . . A man who rejects Christ thereby becomes the cause of his own condemnation. . . . The unbeliever was really offered life in the gospel, and could have had it if he would; he, and no-one but he, is responsible for the fact that he rejected it, and must now endure the consequences of rejecting it. . . . The Bible never says that sinners miss heaven because they are not elect, but because they “neglect the great salvation”, and because they will not repent and believe.
Criswell on Calvinism: “The Bible Kind of Salvation”
The first church I visited when I moved to Texas was the First Baptist Church of Dallas. I wanted to hear W. A. Criswell preach, and had the privilege of hearing the “Godfather of the Conservative Resurgence” proclaim God’s Word. Though I’ve been told quite often that I’m not a “real” Southern Baptist because of my convictions regarding the doctrines of predestination and election (generally claimed as “unbiblical”), I doubt that anyone would question the credentials of Criswell. In his sermon, “The Bible Kind of Salvation,” Dr. Criswell makes it plain what the Bible teaches regarding God’s work in redemption. The fourth segment of this sermon is especially poignant, as Dr. Criswell discusses the doctrine of election and evangelism If you watch only one segment, watch it.
1. “We are corpses…. By nature set in a fallen direction. . . . A corpse cannot will itself to be born anew. It is dead. A corpse doesn’t see. . . . It cannot choose. It cannot see, it cannot hear, it cannot think, it cannot understand, it cannot understand. It is dead.”
2. “God did it. . . . God gives the heart repentance. . . . Faith is a gift from God Himself.”
3. “I have come into the great truth of the mercy and grace and the elective calling of God. . . . There is an effectual calling of the Lord. There is a general call…a universal call. . . . There is an effectual call, an elective call.”
4. “What?! Can God make me become a Christian? I tell you, ‘Yes!’ for herein rests the power of the Gospel. It does not ask for your consent, but it gets it. It does not say, ‘Will you have it?’ Christ says to you, ‘You shall be saved!’ He makes your will turn around.”
HT: Tom Ascol
The Doctor is IN
Joe asks, “Dr. Galyon, I would like for you to explain the ‘2 Wills of God Doctrine’, provided you subscribe to it.”
Thanks for the fantastic question, Joe. I not only hold to the ‘2 Wills’ doctrine, but actually affirm that when the Scripture is speaking of “God’s will,” it points to three areas. I’ll explain, then give an explanation of the ‘2 Wills’ to which you refer.
I believe many Christians become confused when they speak about “God’s will.” Though it was “before my time,” Doris Day sang a popular tune entitled, “Que Sera, Sera” (“Whatever will be, will be”). That tune reflects a sense of fatalism, which is quite depressing (and unbiblical). Some believe that Calvinism takes the Doris Day approach and teaches, in effect, an Islamic view of the divine will with absolutely no sense of human responsibility. That is not the case, however.
Scripture speaks about God’s will in three different manners. First, it affirms God’s decretive will. This is equivalent to God’s sovereignty, or hidden will. The Baptist Confession (1689) states the doctrine this way:
God hath decreed in Himself, from all eternity, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeably, all things, whatsoever comes to pass; yet so as thereby is God neither the author of sin nor hath fellowship with any therein; nor is violence offered to the will of the creature, nor yet is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established; in which appears His wisdom in disposing all things, and power and faithfulness in accomplishing his decree.
An example of this is found in Proverbs 21:1, which declares, “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; He turns it wherever he will.” Divine sovereignty neither negates the responsibility of the king (“nor is violence offered to the will of the creature”), nor is God’s purpose thwarted. As the Apostle Paul puts it, God “works all things according to the counsel of His will” (Ephesians 1:11). While God is not “the author of sin,” nothing comes to pass without His permission. The prophet Isaiah wrote, “For the Lord of hosts has purposed, and who will annul it? His hand is stretched out, and who will turn it back?” God, through the prophet, also declared, “Remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all My purpose,’ calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country. I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it.” (Isaiah 46:9-11) The prophet Habakkuk struggled with, yet submitted to, this aspect of divine sovereignty when God declared He was raising the Chaldeans against His people to chastise them and would then hold the Chaldeans responsible and judge them for their acts. God is always in charge, and human beings are always responsible.
While God’s decretive will is often hidden from us until after it comes to pass, His preceptive will has been revealed clearly to us. The Lord reveals His perceptive will to us through His written word, particularly His law. It is God’s perceptive will that no one murder or steal, that we love our enemies, that we repent of our sins and trust Christ alone for salvation, etc. This aspect of God’s will is revealed not only in Scripture, but is also impressed upon each conscience (e.g., Romans 1). Individuals never have the right, though they have the power, to violate God’s preceptive will. No one is able to say rightly, “I did this because God made me do it,” though many attempt to excuse their sin this very way.
God accomplishes His decretive will infallibly even while His perceptive will is violated. The ultimate example of this is the death of the Lord Jesus. Was it God’s will that Jesus Christ be murdered? Yes. And no. It was part of His decretive will (“God gave His only begotten Son”), but not part of His perceptive will (“Thou shalt not murder”). Judas Iscariot and Pontius Pilate accomplished God’s decretive will, yet they did so of their own free will and will be held responsible for their choices. This is exactly what we see in Acts 2 in the Apostle Peter’s proclamation at Pentecost that Jesus Christ was “delivered by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death” (Acts 2:23). They were responsible for the murder of Christ, which was a violation of God’s preceptive will, yet God accomplished His decretive will through their wickedness.
The Holy Bible also speaks of God’s will in reference to His will of disposition. This has to do with God’s attitude. He declares, “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live” (Ezekiel 33:11). God desires sincerely that people would turn away from their sin and turn to Him through Christ.
This brings us to the matter of the “Two Wills of God Doctrine” about which you inquire. This doctrine is related specifically to the affirmation of Holy Scripture that God “desires for all men to be saved” (1 Timothy 2:4) while simultaneously holding that God has unconditionally elected an innumerable amount of individuals to salvation. Some (i.e., Clark Pinnock, Fritz Guy) contend this belief is illogical, asserting a form of divine schizophrenia rather than sound biblical exegesis. In spite of such criticism, the distinction must stand because this is what is revealed in Scripture. Even I. Howard Marshall, featured in Pinnock’s The Grace of God, the Will of Man: The Case for Arminianism, confesses in his essay, “Universal Grace and Atonement in the Pastoral Epistles”:
“To avoid all misconceptions it should be made clear at the outset that the fact that God wishes or wills that all people should be saved does not necessarily imply that all will respond to the gospel and be saved. We must certainly distinguish between what God would like to see happen and what he actually does will to happen, and both of these things can be spoken of as God’s will. The question at issue is not whether all will be saved but whether God has made provision in Jesus Christ for the salvation of all, provided that they believe, and without limiting the potential scope of the death of the Christ merely to those whom God knows will believe.”
As noted previously, God willed both that Jesus Christ should be put to death (decretive will) and that no one should murder (preceptive will). It was prophesied through Isaiah that the Christ would be “stricken, smitten by God….It was the will of the LORD to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief” (Isaiah 53:4, 10). While God is not the author of sin, He ordained that sinful acts – the betrayal by Judas Iscariot, who was possessed by Satan himself, the animosity of Herod, the political expediency of Pontius Pilate, and the mob shouting for the blood of Jesus Christ – would result in the crucifixion of Christ Jesus. The disciples recognized this as they prayed (Acts 4:27-28):
“For truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever Your hand and Your plan had predestined to take place.”
So, was it God’s will for Judas Iscariot to betray His Son? Yes (decretive will) and no (preceptive will). This is not unlike what we see in the Revelation. We know that it is God’s will that all obey Him (preceptive will), yet in relation to the ten kings who work with the beast in rebellion against God, Scripture declares the Lord put “it into their hearts to carry out His purpose by being of one mind and handing over their royal power to the beast, until the words of God are fulfilled” (Revelation 20:17). Is it God’s plan for people to rebel against Him? Yes (decretive will) and no (preceptive will). The same might be said of Pharaoh, whose heart God hardened. It was God’s (preceptive) will that Pharaoh should let His people go, yet it was also His (decretive) will to harden Pharaoh’s heart so that he would not let His people go (Exodus 4:21; 8:1). Was God then, the author of sin? No, the sin belonged fully to Pharaoh (Exodus 10:17). After the Exodus, God willed for people to treat the Israelites with kindness and respect, yet when Israel reached Heshbon, King Sihon refused to grant them safe passage (Deuteronomy 2:26-27). The ultimate reason was that God “hardened his spirit and made his heart obstinate, that He might give him” into the hand of Moses (Deuteronomy 2:30). Again, we see Scripture speaking of God’s will in more than one way.
This brings us more directly to the doctrine of election. I’ve heard it stated from several Baptist pulpits that the reason the Lord Jesus spoke in parables was to make His message understandable to ordinary people. The Lord declares, however, that He spoke in parables “so that they may…not perceive, and may…not understand” (Mark 4:11-12). God hid something He revealed to others. The disciples had “been given the secret of the kingdom of God,” but for those “outside,” they were spoken to in parables “lest they should turn again, and be forgiven” (Mark 4:11-12). So, is it God’s will for those outside to be forgiven or not? Yes and no. God commands and desires all people everywhere to repent (Acts 17:30; 1 Timothy 2:4), yet He has predestined only His people to salvation (Romans 9:6-23; Ephesians 1:3-12). No one remains lost because they have not been chosen. People face judgment because of their own willful rebellion against God and their refusal to repent of their wickedness (Colossians 3:6).
There are no contradictions in Holy Scripture, but there is a great deal of mystery. If the Apostle Peter admitted portions of Scripture are difficult to fully comprehend (2 Peter 3:16), we should not presume there is no complexity regarding the things God has revealed. Our task, as Christians, is to be faithful to that revelation and affirm all that is written.
