Bulletin One Hundred and Seventy Seven

WHERE THE WATERS MEET

PREDESTINATION AND FREEWILL

10 Points in Survey

1. Foreknowledge knows those who are God's and those not so (e.g. Romans 8:28ff.).

2. It  is God's choice (Ephesians 1:4, II Timothy 1:9, John 1:13).

3. In so doing, He used His own principles (e.g. Colossians 1:19). These include those of supervening grace. The Fall of mankind exhibits how deep is that grace (Genesis 3:15).

4. So He selects (Ephesians 1:11), just as from the first this grace is not compulsory in intrusion but beautiful in availability. Those who reject it will remain both without God and without intake into the eternal domain of divine mercy.

5. But none will be condemned irremediably to hell for simple ignorance of the Saviour and of His redemption offer, in whom such grace inheres and who pays for its achievements (Matthew 20:28, John 15:21-25 - cf. No. 8, below).

6. They will nevertheless of course richly deserve such condeknation; but such is not grace,, let alone free grace - Romans 3:25ff., Ephesians 2:1-8, Romans 2:12,16. God is full of grace, not running on empty (John 1:14), and may be summarily demarcated as love, such is its plenitude (I John 4:16). But then, for that matter, ALL  have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 6:23), and none is saved without the intervening operation of the God of all grace (I Peter 5:10, Ephesians 2:8, Romans 3:21-22). Many of these are awakened and justified, despite their dire plight as if spiritual philanderers (Mark 14:66ff., Hebrews 6:1-6).

Thus there are the two tableaux: man facing law and man facing the LORD,  who would have all persons come to the knowledge of the truth; but 'will' certainly does not mean force, an omission in this area, as exhibited in the word of God so often (Matthew 23:37, Luke 19:42).

7. Various degrees of original righteousness showing as promptings towards better things may still occur in the lost, but not at the radical level required for any meritorious salvation through mankind's own efforts (Romans 2:14). Grace rules and rules out boasting on the part of those chosen (Romans 3:27)!

Similarly, foreknowledge does NOT rule out the effects of human prayer during a lifetime, for someone's conversion, as relevant, since this is not part of any works of the one in view, but FOR him/her; it is simply part of the characteristics of that soul  that it is susceptible to the impact of such prayer, which is a free feature of its  functioning, and an individual result.

Rather, it incorporates them, for it is knowledge of truth, and that is always applicable. There is no darkness in or for God.

8. Yet at the end, as in John 15:21-25, this ignorance fails in itself to secure their damnation - God SO loved the world ... John 3:16 that He took the most extreme measures consistent with  purity: and desires to save what and whom love's labour may. This is wrought  without making force in effect a substitute for love or compulsion for grace (Matthew 23:37ff., Luke 19:42ff., II Timothy 1:9, 4:10, Ezekiel 33:11, Ephesians 1:4, Isaiah 48:15ff.).

9. Hence, in the end, as with those who heard the offer of salvation in Him, so with those who failed to have done so, free salvation surrounds, suffuses and secures many as seen in two aspects.

i) It concerns those foreknown (not as mere foreknowledge of future events - Romans 9:11) but chosen  in terms of the disposition of the human will before time (Ephesians 1:4, II Timothy 1:9) even was formed as an operative category,  or existence in this world or sin in man. He at that stage existed only in the mind of God..

ii) It concerns simultaneously those swamped by the divine guilt-quashing grace held in reserve and which was to come (Romans 2:16, Revelation 5:12, 13:8,Matthew 23:37, John 3:16, 19, Ephesians 1:4).

It is to be as it comes to be, and so it transpires in that final day in which God "will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my Gospel" (Romans 2:16); and nothing will be hidden, but all will be laid bare. 

As to category i) God having foreknown their souls before creation, sin or fault, and done so in truth, desiring all, exposing all and knowing all, by whatever procedure He will, enables the soul's most intimate desire to be realised, as it seeks Him with all the heart as in Jeremiah 29:11-13, and finds Him.  This is as He declares it, as opposed to their rejecting Him as in Matthew 23:37, there statedly  because they had another preference.

10. In John 15:21-25 is found the divinely made statement in harmonious terms with His often cited and attested approach to salvation; and there some such step as in number 9 above appears to have place. It is then that the final judgment occurs when the books, including the book of life are opened (Revelation 20:11-15). None comes without his or her heart, and many remain alien (Matthew 7:15).

FOLLOW THE WORD IF YOU WANT TO UNDERSTAND IT:
A NECESSARY CAUTION

It should be emphasised that Biblical Christian Apologetics may present ways in which foreknowledge can occur in the Lord: that is, the operation of clearly stated principles that God affirms of Himself; but that  in any reference to the mode of carrying out such principles, how items work together in Him is presented here only as exhibition of the complete harmony of divine principles, and ultimately the form of predestination and freewill, in the divine ascaription; and thus resolution for Apologetics is not to be confused in all points with operative principles. No one hsa licence to intrude into the MODE of the operation of principles  divine in nature; nor has any equally licence to ANNUL or ADD to elements that the Lord direcly reveals.

What right has any mere mortal, summarised in sin, to limit John 3:16, as if the inspired statement in that place through the apostle John were some sort of excessive adcvertising presentation of the Lord's love, and not utterely true and accurate. On the contrary, it is declared that theeir is a vast love in God and one on which He has acted in salvation, amd its height is such that ANYONE is free relartive to it, no limits, thus a sublime and  worldwide thing not only in distribution but actual availability to all.

Having only some related to this benignity, as in Calvin, as shown  in my Predestination and Freewill thesis,  with his horrible decree, as he calls it: this is of an entirely different order,  being not nearly so impressive, drastic and penetrating, intense, immense and  not delivered to "the world", a term which has a clear demarcation, but  only to a part of it, in that theologian's crimping and cvramping of the applicatiaon of the corss, in wild contradiction of Colossians 1:19 and its parallels. 

Certainly, it does not include  hell, a rejection resultant, which is conceived as judged, but it does include what it specifies, involving a complete lack of exclusion zones in the vivid and vigorous application to all as to one, whatever the outcome, known from eternity, of dismissal. It surely will occur to many some day that what God means is just what He says.

Thus, that is what He means, not some foreignly conceived delimited zone in and of the world, as if it were that God so  loved a part of the world that whosoever (of that part) believed would be so received, That not what is written and it is the opposite in type of scope: it is limited and not made available. If it meant that, therefore, it would be misleading. Never let such direct implication be used of the nature of His divine statements.

Similarly iis any in the congregation of sinners (that is on earth 'mankind')  to be excluded from the direct declaration of God in Colossians 1:19, this time through the apostle Paul. That statement ? it is that "it  pleased the Father  ... by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace by the blood of the cross." In this statement there is not only relative to THIS love, a total coverage of the field, but one as categorical as exhaustive, its operation even with repetition, being "through Him".

It is not some remote oddity, but as it were, a direct, emphatic, dramatic and totally impactive and extensive statement, even including heaven as well as earth, in terms of  the nature at the level of salvation, of what God would like, of what the Lord would have. But He will not dip from the reality and sincerity of love, which in itself for Him, would in itself be failure. In such a domain, after the Fall, however, it is HE who does the actual choosing  (Ephesians 1:4), though these crucial divine principles are caused to apply in His doing so.

Yet opportunity for rejection in truth is provided, so that because their deeds were evil, since they preferred darkness to light, they did not avail themselves of the opportunity (John 3:19, another refugee verse excluded from exclusivistic models). God is simply not like that, and defines in His own words, the difference. Present before time, and sin, and indeed even before creation itself occurred in the activities of God (Ephesians 1:4) in the mind of God, His own were known. Nothing could occlude their position, no pathology could intrude at will: GOD KNEW^*2.

It is accurate. History exhibited this prior discernment and God did the choosing. Nothing would depend on the pathological paths and waywadrd ways of man. But God chose according to His stated principles of which Colossians 1:19 is one. What right have sinners, or indeed has anyone, to adjust the mind of God in direct contradiction of this, His (emphatic, dramatic, inclusive) statement, and the other indications indeed, such as His grief as in Isaiah 48, Matthew 23:37 and Luke 19:42ff., and lamentation that they chose amiss alike in Luke as in Isaiah 48:15ff..

And who is gifted to countermand Christ's most direct statement in John 15:23ff, to the effect that those to whom He spoke would "have no sin" - that is within the context of discussion,  NOT then being set to inherit judgment IF they had not heard His words or perceived His deeds. The equivalent of rejection has to occur on the part ofa those who go to hell. God is fair, gracious, loving in vast scope, and while receiving no hypocrisy, will not exclude because He forgot or unaccountably declined relevantly to love. It is not a distant  love, but one in the context of having made peace through the blood of the cross and desiring that all be reconciled to Him, whether in heaven or on earth.

Calvin with his waywardness at this point as far astray as was Arminius with his failure to match John 1:12-13 in his thought. One work of theology is to show all scriptures, all the word of  God in the authorised written form to mankind, in harmony, as befits any authority; and one to  avoid is changing it, let alone derailing its thrust as if one were lightly writing a Summer poem, rather than exhibiting the sense, meaning, harmony of the word of the living God concerning the work, crucial to  our race, of His crucial love for mankind.

On all sides, the Bible as it were rises up in horror at the clashes which the Calvinist use of a diversity between will of the Father and that of the Son in this matter, in ruinous Christology, as shown in the same site in the noted thesis. (See also John 5:19. 16:15).

NOTE

It is of course an irony, far from exquisite, that those who delight in presenting their reformations, as if this in some way had ultimate authority, should in Australia (PC  of  Australia) as in the dictation Assembly in the early  nineties, have made the Westminster Confession the standard and criterion in practice. Assuredly not. Why ? It is because that very Confession, charming in its modesty, effectually forbids any use of itself in this way.

For example in Chapter XXXI, it gives reason why synods and councils are having often erred, are "not to be  made the rule of faith". They are simply to  be a 'help'. Christ Himself spoke vehemently on this topic, this traditionalism focussing man, and his bravado and intrusion (Mark 7:7ff.). If even international councils may not be so used, how much more are Assemblies of a denomination to be  deprived of such loftiness and lordliness.

On this, see also Confession Chapter I, VI, XX, II, and XXV, V.

The purity, singularity and sufficiency of the Bible in these things is a paramount element of the Confession, and that rightly: only what is there put or by NECESSARY IMPLICATION found from it, may be humbly followed.