A couple of Sundays ago after service, I went up to a man whom I haven’t seen in quite some time and struck up a conversation. A few months ago, I noticed that he and his wife were no longer members of our congregation. This gentlemen (I estimate) is approximately 10-15 years older than I, and for the most part, he looked the same as I remembered. I asked him how things were going and what he’s been up to. His immediate response was telling. Without any prompting he said, “Well, I’ve been doing a lot of reading, especially on Calvinism and I’m having a hard time believing it.” He then went on to say that this is one of the reasons why he hasn’t been in church; that is, because the local church my wife and I belong to regularly preach the doctrines of grace. I then responded by saying that Calvinism is basically built upon the doctrine of God’s sovereignty. I then asked, “What about Calvinism is it that you don’t like? Do you think that God is in charge of salvation?” He then said, “I don’t think God is totally sovereign in determining who gets saved or not. I don’t think there are any elect or not because we all have free will and anyone can choose whether or not to be saved.”
Of course, I paraphrased the conversation but that was the basic jist of our interaction. I tried to ask as many questions as possible to get into the heart of the matter, but providence did not allow it. Alas, I ended our conversation with a question. That question was, “If God isn’t in charge of your salvation, then who is?” That is to say, if someone were to believe that God is not sovereign in salvation, then that means God is not God. By implication that means you are in charge of your salvation, since you are the one who is in ultimate control of your eternal destiny.
Accordingly, in this post I will provide a brief explanation of the doctrine of the sovereignty of God. Specifically, I will exposit the Scriptures to explain that God is sovereign in salvation. Finally, we will take the idea than man is sovereign in salvation and then take that argument all the way to its natural conclusion: that idea does not lead to freedom or hope but only utter ruin and despair.
Definition
I will begin with biblical theology. The Bible is overflowing with the revelation that God is sovereign. And what does it mean when we say God is sovereign? The New Oxford American Dictionary defines sovereign as a “supreme ruler” or one who “possesses supreme or ultimate power.” Basically, when the typical person thinks of “God” they think of an all-powerful monarch who answers to no one but Himself. For a non-exhaustive list of relevant Scriptures, see I Chronicles 29:11-12; II Chronicles 20:6; I Samuel 2:6; Isaiah 14:24, 45:7, 46:9-10, 55:8-11; Jeremiah 27:5, 32:27; Job 23:13, 42:2; Psalm 103:19, 115:3, 135:6; Proverbs 16:4, 16:9, 16:33, 19:21, 21:1; 21:30; Ecclesiastes 7:13-14; Lamentations 3:37; Daniel 4:35; Matthew 28:18; Romans 8:28, 9:18; Colossians 1:16-17; Ephesians 2:10; and I Timothy 6:15.
Furthermore, Genesis 1:1 tells us that God existed before creation, and creation exists because of God. Thus, God is not sovereign in a theoretical sense “somewhere out there.” He is a Ruler who is in charge of all of our material reality. This explains why the Bible never qualifies God’s sovereignty because it is not limited to space or time. In contrast to natural rulers, God is sovereign over everything, everywhere, all the time.
Hence, the biblical rule is that God is sovereign. In what follows I will refer back to “the rule” repeatedly so keep it in the back of your mind for this lesson. Every credible idea or concept must obey the rule. Consequently, if an idea doesn’t obey the rule and suggests that God is not sovereign, then that idea contradicts the Bible. If an idea contradicts the Bible, which is God’s Word, then that idea contradicts God. If an idea contradicts God, Who is sovereign, what that idea is really saying is that God cannot be God. This is very dangerous territory. So, the short version of this perilous chain is that if God is not sovereign, then God is not God.
The implication of the rule specific to salvation is also very simple: Salvation is of the Lord (Jonah 2:9; Psalm 37:39). The only thing we can do for God is bring Him our sins. He takes care of everything else.
As I was speaking with man after church, I kept thinking to myself, “God told us this would happen.” What I mean by that is not that I had a dream or a vision about that exact scenario. What I mean is that in the Scriptures God told us that when confronted with the doctrine of the sovereignty of God in salvation, may turn away. In John 6:26-71, Jesus is teaching. A central theme in His teaching is that God is sovereign in salvation: therefore, eternal life is not something one chooses or earns, but is received by faith in Christ. Salvation is therefore Christocentric in that it is both made possible by Him and the faith one receives from God—by the work of the Spirit—is focused on Christ.
For example, in John 6:27 Jesus says:
Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that lasts for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you, for on Him the Father, God, has set His seal.
And then in verse 29 He says:
This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.
In verses 35-37 Jesus says:
I am the bread of life; the one who comes to Me will not be hungry, and the one who believes in Me will never be thirsty. But I said to you that you have indeed seen Me, and yet you do not believe. Everything that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I certainly will not cast out.
When Jesus concludes His discourse, the text explains to us the response of the disciples.
Verses 59-65 say:
These things He said in the synagogue as He taught in Capernaum. So then many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, “This statement is very unpleasant; who can listen to it?” But Jesus, aware that His disciples were complaining about this, said to them, “Is this offensive to you? What then if you see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh provides no benefit; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit, and are life. But there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray Him. And He was saying, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.”
In the preceding verses, Jesus was teaching at length about the biblical truth of sovereign grace: that is, God is in charge of salvation and thus, one receives salvation by trusting in God’s appointed Messiah, Jesus. But even more, coming to Christ is never merely a human achievement (see John 6:37, 39, 44-45), it is a gift from God. As I have written many times before, Jesus tells Nicodemus in John 3:3 that unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Just as you and I played no role in our natural birth, we also play no role in our spiritual birth which is a monergistic work of God. Truly, people are justified by faith, but that faith is not a work; it is a divine gift and we are caused to have faith by the Spirit (Ephesians 2:8-10).
The next thing Jesus says in John 6:66 is telling:
As a result of this many of His disciples left, and would no longer walk with Him.
As a result of what did many of His disciples leave? As a result of Jesus making clear what discipleship meant, many were not ready to receive life in the way He taught. You see, men have always found Christ-centered salvation offensive because it means then that I play no role, I have no merit, and I have no room to boast. It also means that I cannot save myself and must rely totally on the grace of God.
It must also be said that the sovereignty of God in salvation goes deeper than being in charge of saving people now. In fact, what the Bible teaches—and one of the doctrines Calvinism is best known for—is the idea of predestination. That is, God doesn’t save people here and now as if He flips a coin to decide. Rather, before the world began, God predestined those who would be saved. So what is predestination?
Predestination
In Ephesians 1:3-12, the apostle Paul writes the following:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will, to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory. (emphasis mine)
Predestination refers to the sovereign choice of God. The English word predestination is translated from the Greek word proozizō, meaning “to determine beforehand” or “to decide in advance.” Predestination is a combination of the prefix pre and the word destination. A destination is a place that you’re going, and pre means before. So as it pertains to time, predestination means a decision has been made of where you are going before you even take your first step. Of course, the agent of predestination, or the One who decides, is God. As the text says, “He chose us … according to the kind intention of His will … according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will.” Because God is timeless and eternal, this decision happened, “before the foundation of the world.”
People tend to use the word predestination as it pertains to God making a decision beforehand about the destinies of people. Properly speaking, predestination refers to the predetermination of everything. The term election is the most technically accurate term as it applies to those people chosen by God to be saved. Election, then, is a type of predestination that pertains specifically to salvation. God predestined, for example, for Earth to be located between Venus and Mars. Earth, however, was never elected because the Earth is not a person. Because it was predetermined that Moses would be elected, Moses was therefore saved. Election is a subset of predestination, and election is more restrictive.
In Systematic Theology, Wayne Grudem defines election as “an act of God before creation in which he chooses some people to be saved, not on any account of any foreseen merit in them, but only because of his sovereign good pleasure.” Election is an important concept because it clarifies the start of God’s grace in dealing with particular individuals. That is, and as we shall learn, before creation, God chose to bring salvation to specific people. Election signals that before we were even born, God’s grace was already in effect and had a predetermined plan for our lives. The burning question, then, I would have for my friend whom I talked to after service is this: If you don’t believe in election, then why does God make a distinction between the elect and the non-elect? For example, see Matthew 24:24, 31; Mark 13:20, 27; Luke 18:7; John 6:37; Acts 13:48; Ephesians 1:4-5; Colossians 3:12; II Timothy 1:9, 2:10; Titus 1:1, Revelation 13:8.
Peter begins his first epistle by addressing his letter “To God’s elect” (I Peter 1:1) and later refers to the same group as a race “chosen” by God (I Peter 2:9).
Furthermore, in Luke 18:7 the text says:
Now, will God not bring about justice for His elect who cry out to Him day and night, and will He delay long for them?
II Thessalonians 2:13 says:
But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth.” (emphasis added).
And in Romans 8:33 the text says:
Who will bring charges against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies.
In Romans 8:33, Paul is asking a rhetorical question. He’s saying, “Who can accuse those who are saved if God is the One who declared them righteous?
The why and how of predestination
The next question that arises is why does God predestine some people for salvation? The simplest answer is that God is God, and the universe works according to His purpose. II Timothy 1:8-9 says:
God, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity.
Because God is sovereign, these are the types of calls that He makes. The Bible does not offer a precise description of how God chooses, and thus this is a secret thing that belongs to the Lord (Deuteronomy 29:29). What is clear is that He predestined us “according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us.” In other words, predestination is initiated by God and is freely given to us. There isn’t anything that we do that affects our destiny, so our salvation is not conditional on our actions. If our destiny was conditionally based on our actions, what does that imply? That implies that God makes a decision based upon what I do. If that is the case, then God isn’t sovereign. And if God isn’t sovereign, then God isn’t God.
Election is in fact unconditional, meaning it is not subject to any conditions. Unconditional election simply refers to the fact that the basis of our election has nothing to do with God seeing something in us that’s worthy. If God left salvation up to us—whether it be based on worthiness or deeds—then that would be cruel because no one would be saved. Why? Because of sin. Human beings are both born in sin (Psalm 51:5) and are naturally predisposed to sin (Jeremiah 17:9; Romans 3:10-11, 23; Ephesians 2:1-3; I Corinthians 2:14). The Bible teaches us again and again that left up to ourselves, we would all not choose God because of our depraved nature. This is exactly why we need God’s help. And, Isaiah 43:7 tells us why human beings were made (to glorify God), and thus God’s glory stands above human choice.
In fact, the idea that we can choose to follow Christ is predicated on the idea that our natural nature is not corrupted and that we are born “okay.” In the 5th century, a man by the name of Pelagius touted this idea, but orthodox Christianity has since labeled him a heretic. Pelagius began with the premise that God could not command us to do anything that we are incapable of executing. Thus, because of our “free will,” we are morally responsible for our actions. This, of course, rejects what the Bible teaches us about original sin: none are good by their own merit (Romans 3:10-11), and because of the original sin of Adam in the Garden of Eden, sin entered the world and infected everyone for all time (Romans 5:12). Consequently, as a result of our fallen nature, we are incapable of choosing Christ because that’s not what we want. This is why we need to be born again and have a divinely-gifted new nature that wants to serve the Lord.
Predestination is predicated on the foreknowledge of God and is executed based exclusively on the will of God. How do we know this? This brings us to what Reformed theology calls the “golden chain of salvation.” The golden chain logically answers the question of what is the precise order by which people are saved. This process involves predestination. Romans 8:29-30 says:
For those whom [God] foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.
So, our salvation begins with the foreknowledge of God. All those whom God foreknew, He predestined. All those whom He predestined, He called. All those whom He called, He justified. And all those whom He justified, He glorified. (Glorification refers to being raised from the dead in new imperishable bodies, having eternal life, and being in heaven with the Lord forever.) Foreknew comes from the Greek word proginōskō, meaning, “to know beforehand.” The Bible tends to make a distinction between mentally “knowing” a person and a profound, intimate affection for them.
The foreknowledge of God, then, is much more than simply being aware of the choice someone will make. It involves a deeper sense of a person’s sincere heart condition. So, God knows much more than “the facts” about the choices we make. He knows us on a personal level. Many opponents of predestination say that it is God’s knowledge of the “facts” of our choices beforehand that compels Him to choose some over others. A serious relationship, just like marriage, involves much, much more than the facts of the matter. In fact, God is a loving God, and love tends to act against “the facts” and what is reasonable. If God just knew “the facts” of our humanity, He would be compelled to choose no one because of the overriding “fact” of sin.
Hence, what Romans 8:29-30 does say is that our predestination is preceded by God’s foreknowledge. What this text does not say is that God’s foreknowledge is conditional on something. Our salvation, then, begins with God, not us. In fact, when we place Romans 8:29-30 in the context of Romans chapter 8, we discover a general theme of the sovereignty of God. Thus Paul writes, “God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose … God is the one who justifies” (emphasis added; verses 28 and 33).
So, what does this all mean? It means that all those in this life who will ever have faith and believe God have faith and believe God because they have been predestined. Romans 8:29-30 reveals that we have faith because we were first elected. Election is causal; therefore, election causes the faith necessary for salvation. Faith does not cause someone to be elected.
Jacob and Esau
The sovereignty of God in salvation is classically depicted in the Book of Genesis in the story of Jacob and Esau.
Romans 9:10-16 says:
And not only this, but there was Rebekah also, when she had conceived twins by one man, our father Isaac; for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls, it was said to her, “The older will serve the younger.” Just as it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be! For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.
Paul makes our understanding of predestination very simple by citing a classic example. Jacob and Esau were twins. They were brothers. They shared the same womb. So before they did anything, and before they even had the ability to choose, God’s purpose is what predetermined the outcome of events—and the outcome of events was independent of either brother. Also, twin brothers are as similar as you can get. The implication was that if there was something in Jacob that God saw was “good,” then He should have also “seen” that same good thing in Esau. This isn’t the case. And the reason God’s purpose predetermined the outcome of events is simply that God is sovereign. And again, if God is not sovereign, then God is not God.
Now you may be saying to yourself, “That’s not fair!” Well, in our finite understanding, that may give the impression of unfairness, but in God’s dispositional will, He is “patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance” (II Peter 3:9). In Ezekiel 33:11, God also says, “I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways! Why then will you die, O house of Israel?” Ultimately, God desires that everyone come to know the truth (I Timothy 2:4), but this is not reality.
To address the question of fairness, Paul writes the following in Romans 9:20-24:
On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles.
Justice is very fair. God’s justice says that because of one sin, the irrevocable penalty is death. Fair justice says that a violation of one of God’s commandments buys you a ticket to eternal damnation. But guess what? God is also gracious and merciful, and the grace and mercy He offers aren’t fair at all. God doesn’t have to give us His grace, but He does. God doesn’t have to show us mercy, but He does. If mercy is “deserved” then it’s not, by definition, mercy. John Doe is not inherently better than Susie Q if he is elect because nothing in him made him “more worthy.” Beloved, salvation is not fair and if one ever were to demand fairness from God, then they would in essence ask that redemption be revoked.
Paul asks in Romans 9:14, “What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there?” Of course not. God could have not chosen both Jacob and Esau, and that would have been perfectly fair and perfectly just. People who dispute unconditional election use it as fuel to label God as unrighteous, but this is a view that is man-centered, not God-centered. In a man-centered view, things have to make sense to me. Here, God can’t truly be sovereign because my choice matters. Here, God isn’t God. In a God-centered view, God is sovereign and God is God. God could have elected no one and thus saved no one. What He chose to do out of kind intention is to save some.
You may also say that predestination seems offensive. That’s because it is. Predestination turns people away. Consider again what Jesus—who implicitly confirms predestination—says in John 6:43-44, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.” So who draws? God does. What does draw mean? It comes from the Greek word helkyo, meaning to “draw by inward power, to compel.” Notice that “him” is not active in this verse; he is a passive recipient and is drawn by the Father. Also notice that if God compels someone and His grace is resistible, then the person has more power than God. In this case, God is not sovereign, and therefore, God is not God.
Paul drives the point home when he paraphrases Exodus 33:19 and reiterates what the Lord explained to Moses: “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion.” Election does not “depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.” (Romans 9:16)
Beloved, in the end, many people reject God’s sovereignty because they feel as if they are losing something if God’s will is supreme. But is not God’s will supreme because He is God? As Thomas Watson once preached:
“If we lose on earth, as long as God lives, our reward is not lost. I cannot be poor as long as God is rich. Whatever we lose for God we shall find again in Him.”
Of course, what we find in God is true liberty. One of the greatest lies ever told is that freedom is choosing whatever I want to do. Truly, in said case a man is free but he is also free to inherit all the consequences of his decisions. True freedom is found in doing God’s will which leads to a stillness of soul, a clean conscience, peace and eternity.
Conclusion
As I hope I have demonstrated, the Bible makes clear the doctrine of the sovereignty of God and this includes His sovereignty in salvation. And, based upon what the Scriptures say, God must be sovereign in salvation for salvation to be effective. That is, because of our fallen nature, no one is capable of choosing God or mustering up faith in Christ based on their own willpower. Consequently, God chose us unconditionally and Christ thus went to the Cross specifically for the elect. At some point in a member of the elect’s life, they are caused to be born again by the Spirit. The hope-infusing and comfort-saturated foundation this now gives us is that because our salvation is in God’s hands, nothing and no one can ever take it away: it is unchanging and eternal like God Himself. Even more, God not only saves people, but He also stays with them and preserves them until the end (See Philippians 1:6; James 1:2-4, 12; Galatians 6:9; Revelation 14:12; Hebrews 10:36).
Allow me now to go back to the conversation I recanted at the beginning. My friend said, “I don’t think God is totally sovereign in determining who gets saved or not. I don’t think they are any elect or not because we all have free will and anyone can choose whether to be saved or not.”
Here then are a few questions I have for my friend and for anyone who thinks that our will is the ultimate determinant in salvation. If the human will is powerful enough to simply choose God, then why don’t more people follow Christ? After all, if what’s at stake is forever and whether you go to heaven or hell is based on your decision, they why don’t more people chose to live forever? Why does real life preach to us time and time again that people continually make choices that are bad for them? If they constantly pursue bad choices for earthly things (the lesser thing), then why would that change for heavenly ones (the greater thing)? What lessons do you believe God was teaching us in giving us the historical account of Adam and Eve in Eden? They had every advantage possible and were at liberty to either listen to God’s Word or choose what seemed good to them. And what did they choose to do?
If a person can choose God does that not also mean they can un-chose Him? Does that not mean that I am forced to trust in myself for my own salvation, making me my own Messiah? What does that say about Christ? How reliable is your hope or assurance if it relies on you: one who changes constantly and is irreversibly moving closer to death? The Bible reveals to us that even the heroes of the faith were fallen, broken people who made bad choices and left to themselves would self-destruct. Does that not make God cruel if He merely made salvation possible and then left it all up to us? Is Jesus waiting in heaven right now hoping people will choose Him?
Beloved, if God isn’t in charge of your salvation, then who is?
I will close with one of the most powerful passages that testifies to the sovereignty of God. It is a Davidic prayer preached to the assembly of workers who were building the Temple in Jerusalem. In I Chronicles 29:10-13 David says:
Blessed are You, Lord God of Israel our father, forever and ever. Yours, Lord, is the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory, and the majesty, indeed everything that is in the heavens and on the earth; Yours is the dominion, Lord, and You exalt Yourself as head over all. Both riches and honor come from You, and You rule over all, and in Your hand is power and might; and it lies in Your hand to make great and to strengthen everyone. Now therefore, our God, we thank You, and praise Your glorious name.
Today’s post spoke much about predestination and election. For those interested WCSK Episode 2.6 from January 23rd and 30th 2016 (one episode in two parts) goes into much greater detail and biblical analysis of the doctrines. You can find those episodes on this site or on the podcast.
Dr. C. H. E. Sadaphal