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CHAPTER 15
THY WORD IS TRUTH:
Some
Summaries concerning Truth and Philosophy
in the Predestinative Field, Displaying the Divine Majesty and
Wonder of His word and works.
In the matter of predestination and freewill, it is well to summarise the situation. Let us look at it from various angles, perspectives, and discern its multi-faceted splendour.
First, as shown in the work, Predestination and Freewill, there is no meaning to freedom (cf. SMR Ch. 5 and in particular the latter part), except when the God who made man is the basis of it, the cause and the maintainer. If there is no basis for its provenance, then there is no explanation. Philosophy then as normal over times, simply squelches in interminable discourse and self-contradiction, now this, now that, contending futilely. That is natural; without the Maker, nothing works, either in terms of how it got here or how or why it works. Philosophy becomes a beggar, and no one can throw it a logical tip.
As shown in SMR, the evidence requires God, and the Bible as His word. why, or what works. Omit the salary and it is hard to pay for food! This is all separately shown and mutually coherent, and in the end, this is unique to biblical teaching and explanation, as noted in *1 below. What however of the solution from the Bible in the freedom and destiny area ? It is necessary to learn from God what He has to say, to clarify this issue.
We are not looking either to presume into the form of God, the way in which He moves, or to presume equally by failing to observe the facts of the case, as He reveals them. All must be taken and applied, in this model as in any other; and the fact that this biblical depiction is more than a model, does not alter that fact that it is one. It therefore must be seen in its mutual elements as required for the point.
The Lord has made it clear as in Proverbs that there is no obfuscation, obscurity in His word, limit to its clarity or obscuration of its declaration (Proverbs 8:8). Mysteries of wonder are not shabbiness of conception, ultra-light penetrations, but He has revealed even the DEEP things of God, and to contradict this, though common, is unbiblical (I Cor. 2).
With this is the fact that not only is the divine nature of God clear, as presented to man in the creation, but it is manifest, obvious (Romans 1:17ff.). The natural exhibits contain their own pointedness and testimony; in addition, the divine revelation shows what is unknowable from nature, that is the personal nature of God, His dispositions and His will, except for the presence of a holy God and the certainty of His testimony.
Neither the Gospel nor the form of God is discoverable by reason, but the fact of God is, and the certainty of the presence of His speech is likewise. The flaw is man's situation is man's and not God's; while the exposure of God is double, and not nil; the work both of the word of God and His work alike speak, and they speak beyond all idolatry, with all clarity, and with no ground for either autonomy or bewilderment in man. Liberty however is not the same as autonomy.
THE ARRANGEMENTS OF GOD
The arrangements of God do not allow man to be autonomous, a free agent controlled by none. He is free but not autonomous. He can act this way or that, even concerning the very nature of His being, being invited to change with the power of the One who invented freedom in this universe and knows how effectually to make it work. But there are conditions for operation, and one is this, that God has made the situation, and man has failed in it and needs rescue, which God is most willing to provide. Such we learn from His word.
When therefore, God speaks of His love for mankind, He makes it clear firstly, that it is for the entire world (that is, in the context of God plus the world including man, as in John 3). It is not a preselection of any kind which limits man, so that he is merely a cypher , nor is he artificially dressed up as responsible in these matters of God and sin and salvation and grace and mercy and divine kindness, but in fact involved in some kind of determinism. There is no deception by Him who is the truth. The truth however of His speech needs to be realised.
The Lord makes it clear in John 3:15ff. and elsewhere that man is responsible for jibing out of the wind of truth, aligning wrongly, and because of this, he is condemned when despite this zeal of love God has for the world, he does not participate. Thus the wrath of God abides on him (John 3:36), and in case any obscurity remained in any mind, man is told here that the basis, ground, cause of his attaining to this deplorable and deadly condition lies in his preference for evil. That is a small 'h', for what in that case is a big man!
THIS, says God in His divine revelation is WHY man, being loved, is not found saved in such numbers as might appear; this the rationale of a lostness in man, that does not avoid the pit. If he so prefers, this he so gets (cf. Proverbs 1). There is no dictatorship as to coming and being saved; man's preference is operative even here. When finally lost, it is because he prefers evil and does so. That is John 3:19 ín its intimation.
As Spurgeon points out, God does not make persons of such a construction that their plan, purpose, situation, is being made for the purpose of inhabiting hell, by their construction. Amazing things are said and implied by many in terms of the implications of their mistakes about the word of God, in terms of 'mystery'. The mystery of God does not lie in obscurity, but in light, and in His light we see light, and as the Psalm declares, so it is. How the Lord could be so wonderful, gracious, loving, profound, maker of man's mind and will, lover of mankind has the mystery of magnificent marvel, but not of obscurity. There is nothing to challenge reason but much to astound the soul and spirit of man. Light is His nature, and darkness has no place in Him at all (Deuteronomy 32:3-4, I John 1:5).
Man has however got himself into a situation. He has from the very first, severed from the clear will, simple test and relationship-provision provided by God Romans 5). In seething disgrace, he elected to depend on the word of a snide character whose love for God is like the love of much of this world for Israel, that is, focussed by its absence. Preferring to trust in the attribution of evil to God, direct from the adversary, the devil, the first pair listened as he played a tune inducing spiritual stupor and mistrust. They yielded to hope for great things to be obtained by giving glory to their own will and to discernment past the trusting relationship in the One who made him able to trust and to examine evidence. Does a voice of evil surpass the call of the Creator of whatever is available ? Is a mechanic to be trusted above the Maker ? Is man reliable, himself, without that Maker!
Hence man and his race
fell, into a condition humanly irreparable, but divinely well within His
power who made the fallen relic.
THE UNTENABLE SITUATION
Man's condition as he stands now, it is untenable. His spiritual pathology is profound. It is inherited, and fouls even his power to see that he might choose that he might escape. That escape is therefore divinely made, in various ways. First it is dependent on the will of God, that is, it is there because God has a heart of such desire for mercy; He is like that. His name is of this merciful testimonial. It is there - and this way of mercy is called the Gospel, contained in the word of God - because He has uttered it, not merely thought it. HE has made it plain, and acted, so that it is applicable to all, though not preferred by a category who inherit the consequential wrath of God.
Further, it is His divine disposition and desire, inclination and penetrating longing that man repent and use the offer of mercy in the Gospel. He laments when this is not done as shown repeatedly in the Old Testament and the New (as in Isaiah 48, Matthew 23:37, Jeremiah 48:30-38), and is not magisterially unmoved. In fact, in this context, Christ wept.
Nevertheless, with mercy avoided by man, the wrath is as sure as its continued provocation (as in II Chronicles 36, Psalm 78), and breaches man where mercy is despised - by MAN, and not at the outset by God. With Him, it is the opposite. He WOULD have all to be saved. More than this, He would have all both in heaven and on earth to be reconciled to Himself. That is is autobiographical assurance of NO BIAS. If there is anyone, it applies to that one. ALL is emphasised, the challenge is repeated. Please enter (Matthew 22, John10:9, Luke 21:42ff.).
It is vain for theologians or others to tell Him that this is nonsense, or to imply the contrary. Sovereignty is the certainty that His will, ways, works, desires will be implemented. He has His plans. They do not alter, but implement His desires. His desire is for all. Being sovereign simply means in this, that it is not a vain desire; it works in its own way. Love is not dictatorial, but yet profound.
So specious are some theorists, the views of some theologians, that they seek to turn all of this into a set-up where God does not have any interest in some as it were, in the orphanage of lostness, where to select ANY is a ground for gratitude. It is indeed, but not to desire the rest, as a divine attitude, this is not only different, but contrary to His word. Indeed, He is to be praised for having interest in some however, and some declare, that is that. Yet He is to be praised further for His desire for all. He did not have to have an interest in any, and some simply assert this as the cover for the case.
That however is flat contradiction of the word of God to the contrary.
It then becomes obvious that there are situations within pathology, and beyond it. This is helped by the fact that this, this also, God actually indicates expressly. Thus before sin blinded man's relevant appreciation of God, before pathology pronounced its costly consequences to the moral crime of the first pair, themselves seduced and abhorrent in arrogance and futility. Amid this development, we have revealed this datum, that God CHOSE His won. When was this or in what situation ?
First let us be clear. Since it is a matter of grace, and not desert, for a desecrated race, obviously God has to do the choosing. Since God has His own desires and love of mercy and reconciliation for ALL, heaven or earth, and that through the blood of the Christ (Colossians 1:19), it is apparent that this is not a trick. It is a task. His desire is for ALL! He is emphatic and dramatic, and His lament is for those lost, still lost, lost in negativity, in negation of the love and provision of God, or in their interest, or in both.
How is man responsible ? Man's accountability relates to his creation in the image of God, and misuse of that image's privileges. As in Adam, it was the simple case, so the situation in terms of responsibility is preserved, as is the love of God toward ALL, though they be fallen.
How does this cohere ? It is quite simple. God does not choose in
terms of the fallen will of man, as in John 1:12, but in terms of divine
knowledge of each and all, in His own light, which is just that light which
Christ exhibited; for His is the definitive exhibition on earth, of God in
heaven, always operative and at one with His Father, as on earth, so in heaven,
as now, so before all ages, as in answering prayer, so in choosing (as in
Ephesians 1:4). He is God; and it is not surprising at
all, that AS GOD He both knows and acts. God makes an infinite difference,
Himself being infinite in power and knowledge. He does it in this, and He does
it in all; and that is but one reason why it is essential to know Him and not
just share adventitious chatter.
THE DYNAMIC DELIVERANCE THAT MATCHES THE UNTENABLE
He Himself did not become a man in terms of pathology and ignorance, but love took action with purity. In the form of God, indeed, He took that of a man, but before that, even prior to incarnation, He has chosen His own; and as Christ is both equal with God, as incarnate word of God (Philippians 2), and God (John 5:19ff., 8:48), therefore all that He declared and showed about God, is as true as God is.
Being God as man in Jesus the Christ, He was in principle present when God, before the foundation of the world (by the pre-incarnate Christ as in Colossians 1:15ff.) chose His own people, each person, from among mankind (Ephesians 1:4). Sin was not the criterion before man sinned, nor were its inhibitions the constraints; but knowledge of each one, in divinely perceptive knowledge, this proceeded.
It is sometimes necessary to remind that God neither ceases to be nor to operate AS GOD whatever un-splendid and inconsistent notions many may sometimes fall into. He is the ultimate operator and the Creator. Taking humble form for a sacrificially saving work does not delete Him, but brings Him close, willingly sustained in vulnerability, but not nullity. He is as He was and always will be, GOD.
The Trinity can turn on or off systems, cancel powers, abort operations by contrary action, employ direct power. If man, a mere creature as biblically exposed, can make such expansive and creatively controllable systems as he does, how much more his Maker, who has neither overlord in person or in principle, has the entirety at His own call, in this case, to manifest the wonder of grace and mercy, and this amid liberty and eternal life (I John 1).
Indeed, even for man, making a system does not in itself make you yourself subject to it. Thus, invoking laws above an electrician may not by mere man be caused not to apply, but this is not so with the maker of electricity, its sources and its components, with God for whom its very existence is by appointment in terms of His own principles of procedure, all within His direct and indirect power. Methods of divine intervention vary as do the winds; but these are effectual winds. Man is not only foreseen as if free, for it is far more. He is foreseen, here a person beyond mere systems, but granted use of many of them, with a myriad of options, that yet linger far short of constituting him a god! Foreknown before sin, he is hence apart from all spiritual superiority on the part of some*2, where the realities of liberty toward God are not biased by construction, but liberty is sanctioned, impelled, imparted and may be seen operative as per model for man.
No one has excuse. None will be lost through mere misadventure. God does not damn X because Y failed. He is not mono-thought, or bankrupt in wisdom. What is lost is what declines the Lordship of God, because life was not made for ultimate transition of sinners into god, but into refuse, refusniks who ignore the glory and the cost and the ready availability of pardon through the wonder of the grace of the sacrificial Christ, ready for the resurrection by His power. Scorn divine aid, and being subject to voluntary relationship to God, and what can you expect for your self-elevating pains, unrealistic presumption and anti-grateful psychological gyrations.
In terms of revelation then, even of the deep things of God (I Cor. 2:9-13), we learn that God chose some among mankind, before man was either made or fallen. He KNEW His own (II Timothy 2:19). HE is not blinded. His love, His laments, His protestations repeatedly heralded throughout the Bible (cf. SMR Appendix B), all are clear and are His heart's expression, not sound effects irrepressible by some system of control. It is the normative, not the despotic robotic, which applies when the Maker is in view. If He chooses, for example, He can readily quash the guilt of sin and hence the applicability of its judgment, and for this He has provided most amply by transferring those pangs and that death to His own, only begotten and willing Son. In mercy, thus has He obtained freedom for the repentant receivers of this divine benevolence. Isaiah 55 trumpets this.
Thus the accuracy
and the adequacy of the revelation of God in His only begotten Son and eternal
word are also clear. Christ who OFTEN would have gathered the straying chicks
(Matthew 23:37),
was in part stopped by one thing, contrary to His divine desire. God in form as
God or as reflected in the form of a man as Christ, had and has an
unchanging nature (completeness does not need completion), and
what it was, this divinity with faithful reality, the Lord expressed.
"Before Abraham was, I am," said Jesus Christ. HE spoke, and attested the
truth. This then
becomes true of Himself, and not of someone else instead. This, with His
bi-testamentally attested love and desire for the human race, before time was, and before creation,
Jesus exhibited.
His very nature, Christ depicts.
THE DIVINE LOVE IN ITS ASTOUNDING GENESIS AND WONDER
In that pre-creation situation, that of foreknowing His own then, His word tells us, He chose some, and He did it in terms of desire for all (Colossians 1:19ff., John 3:15ff.). It is necessary to REMEMBER what God has chosen to say. Lack of ultimate divine desire was NOT the negation feature; it was (John 3:19), lack of acceptance, before sin was, or had been committed, before the fall, before the differentiation of sinners into better and worse, before the category became a ruling and ruinous feature in man. In man and not in God was this departure. Such is the divine model for man, a responsible and relevantly responsive being, one if fouled in time, then not so at the outset.
Further, He explains directly in John 3, that in loving the world, to the uttermost, and personally, He provides an express reason for not saving all of it, and this lodges in the preference otherwise of those among mankind. It shows. He declares. He is not manipulable, to be sure; but His love is not limited to quanta! ALL things in heaven and earth, He stresses, as if the dead might hear, THESE are the objects of His desire for reconciliation with Himself (Col.1:19ff.) and the dynamic is love (John 3), not for some particle, but for mankind, the creation, those in darkness, that they might see light, and so fulfil His love. He would have ALL come to a knowledge of the truth, His word proceeds (I Timothy 2). His love laments prodigiously, at the use by man of his own power to dismiss, in so doing. You can see results of dismissal by man read out, and the divine loathing; but the cause is as He has said. HAS GOD SAID ? is the ploy of Satan. HE HAS said!
Further, He explains directly in John 3, that in loving the world, to the uttermost, and personally, He provides an express reason for not saving all of it, and this lodges in the preference otherwise of those among mankind. Since the original choosing was before the circumscription of man's powers in this matter, before the fall of man, before he was ever made or fell, before even our form of time, it is apparent that this is not operative upon the love of God like a blindfold. HE KNEW; indeed He FOREKNEW His own. It was not a faux responsibility they had, but a true one. No one can get to hell except in disregard of the dead and raised body of the Saviour, Jesus Christ.
There are no technical problems with the Lord, a fact overwhelmingly shown in the subtle script and brilliant crypts of the construction of our directive DNA, at the physical level. He is not a waffler but a worker, not double-tongued by singular in clarity, to be believed not in some things, but in all, not subject to convenient distillations from His word, but authorising ALL of it, not to be standardised by the limits of the thoughts of man, but to be regarded in terms of His OWN exposure of His own thoughts, not a mini-godlet, but the God of all limits and their removal, conditions and their imposition, penetration and its modes.
In His SO knowing, as God, wh
o they were, His own, not manipulated but as Psalm 110 declares, volunteers, or before time, those clearly before His eternal sight as kites in the wind, the principles stated to be true of Him are operative. It is not God who lies. Love is rebuffed by desire on the part of man, and this in the end accords as at the beginning, with what is the heart for each; for man is not designed a conditioned entity, but in the image of God, who is as far from this as is possible, being THE condition on which ALL depends, and using this power to create freedom for whatever, as He willed, and did. Thus reductionist views of mankind proceed from this squalid dismissal of God, which however alters nothing but the destiny of the dismissive! and the validity of their vain excuses. If anyone prefers to make a god after his/her own heart, it is indeed futile to groom it to conform to your own infirmities!
Some He relinquishes from what might have been the battalions of grace-saved souls. They are known not to be His, despite His stated desire and stipulated approach. It being the truth, nothing alters it, and therefore what so disposed in heart to love God, will do so though all creation attacks; and those not so foreknown, will not believe though possessing every privilege. This is not compulsion from without, but disposition from within, not subjugation to necessary rebellion, but revolt into it. God is very gracious, and will be so, He declares, when He hears your cry,
For the people shall dwell in Zion at Jerusalem; you will weep no more.
He will be very gracious to you at the sound of your cry.
When He hears it, He will answer you.
So He moves on to Isaiah 32, in the presence of the returned Messiah, whose mission is to all, not only to Israel in its particular location. Isaia
h 42:6 and 49:6 show the Gentiles as equally included in the ultimacies, and the divine benevolence. It is one Gospel, but there are two outcomes.
The Lord is
tender-hearted, and though betrayed, assaulted and crucified, resurrected
He is not befuddled, His judgments are sure, His grace sufficient, His depths
amazing and the grandeur of His splendour is the more obvious since His mission
for man.
BIAS MAY EXCLUDE GOD FROM MAN. BUT NOT VICE VERSA
As to mankind, this race in form are not made loaded, like bowls. They are not only responsible, as known by God, but where applicable, responsible for sheering away from grace as an operative ground of salvation, departing from its offers, its transformations and its truth. They are then doubly dead. They inherit sin when coming into this world, and they inherit condemnation on the display of what they are, have been, of what is the underlying and God-known nature of their desire. They jib. In generic pattern, many are called; but not chosen, like the chicks that Christ would have called under His wings, but who were not willing (Matthew 23:37). Why do they not come ? Freedom is its (necessary) basis, in terms of responsibility. That is the model envisaged, made and given power to act, the in principle reality of man, from which he yearns for this or that, envisages and acts. Defiled it is, but not deleted.
As free, in this model, and foreknown, not by their coming actions but by God's knowledge, they are responsible, even though that liberty is known only to God, in its outcomes and nature. Soiled and spoiled in due course, it is still the original heritage and eventual restoration (II Corinthians 5:17ff.). They are not devised as non-God in mode or pattern, like robots or self-driving and constrained oddities, but as those who being in His image, can fall. This they not only could do, but were seen as those so casting themselves in person, each one where they would. Divine foreknowledge is precise; it is apt, accurate, omniscient, true and just.
This last brings up a crucial point. It is not enough to have someone considering making liberty for a created image-bearer, like man, to provide liberty, hence meaning, responsibility and objective duty. A conceivable power might make someone to execute various useful purposes, and not have the welfare and development of that party spiritually, in mind, or certainly not altogether. Love in the heart of the Maker is the difference; and as I John 4:7-10 and Calvary instruct us, God is love. No contrary action to it in its depths and heights, motivates Him. Love cannot be imitated; it must for purity be genuine. That is one reason why the WAY in which God provided man with salvation is so crucial.
Where else is there the Saviour who out of love that neither extorts nor impels for selfish interests, saves those who receive Him! It is indeed love which makes the world go round; but since a faux love, pretended or formal, is often substituted for the love of God without notice, the difference in this odium toting world is obvious, remarkable, predictable.
Thus in unique love, with unique power, with Creator's knowledge and heart's desire, God has acted, provided, foreknown and in accord with that finding, predestined all, including those chosen IN HIM, before sin came to smash the magnificent equipment. It is like a car, known before an accident, and known for what it is.
Thus they are not in this, controlled, but the outcome speaks. They are not impelled, but the dynamics occur and are apparent. They are chosen, but not as an over-ride, for God WOULD HAVE ALL. It is not He whose underlying desire makes some cast-aways.
They are not REALLY unfree in some delusive deviation from God's statements. They are in the same boat as Adam and Eve, though the case has changed in its format. It is GOD who chooses them in terms of the GOSPEL which God also chose, but the choice is in terms of the divine and operative principles and the preferences of God, which includes this human responsibility. The data on how the divine sight sees this before this our kind of time was invented as on this earth is not needed to be known, for apologetics. It is enough that He states His power to know and foreknow, that this is not merely rationally defensible as coherent, but indefeasible and indefectible.
This divine choice is not even based on works to come, since this is excluded in
Romans 9. It is not what you are given to have and so to do which is the
question, but the state of your heart toward God, as directly discerned by God.
No one earns the way in (Romans 3, Ephesians 2).
EARNING RIGHTS IN WAYWARD MAN
MAY PURCHASE A PLACE IN HELL
What is to be earned, what may be earned if so chosen, is the rite and right to enter hell (John 3:36). Consider: look at what God conceived, and did, and how, and why, and for what; and then at its rejection and its meaning. Love is an outstanding and a beautiful thing; to be touched by its reality is a privilege, and by its perfection in Christ, in purity, payment and yearning for you, has a texture of splendour which rejected, the more so when the need for its offering is both desperate and crucial, almost cripples the mind with horror. Judgment then enters, not by man but by God. In additional mercy, man may furiously reject, but later repent, return to the Lord and at last, come to know Him.
There are dangers in double-dealing (Hebrews 6 and 10), the door is there, the invitation and the enablement in divine desire, so that no creation can prevent what God provides from attaining that select result which comes from love received or rebuffed. Nothing can befuddle or disorient God. HE knows.
In Biblical Christian Apologetics, it is shown in analytical terms how this divine project might most reasonably operate, that is, His foreknowledge. Thus, a presentation may be given, as has here been given*1, as sufficient to show that there is no problem for reason in understanding the divine data. In fact, this solves the whole predestination and freewill problem so vexatious in philosophy. There is a deterministic element, when sin directs, a debasing fall, and this is in general a driving force when the precious and proper relationship with God is missing. As in Psalm 1, then the STANDING of man is such that without God, and turned from Him, he is like the chaff which is blown away. Despite any potential self-importance, He becomes as the Psalm shows, a midget misfit.
His dignity is gone; his devices relevant are fouled; his condition is that of one under judgment. His need is rescue. The means are at divine desire. That desire is present. The Gospel is paid for and preached (Romans 3:23ff., Galatians 1, 3, 5). The means are adequate. The pollution phenomenon in man, though fatal in time, does not distort divine vision. In essence, sin, not slighted but not sighted in supernal wisdom, in this foreknowledge, becomes inoperative before time, to the all-discerning divine vision. That is, it is seen without obscuration as in a fog. The truth itself concerning the soul is witnessed rather as with a search light that is indefectible.
As declared in Romans 4:16-17, in speaking of the faith of Abraham in the presence of God, the word of God has this, that God "gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did." Man is not placed as sinless and estimated in foreknowledge; for he is uncreated. It is an hypostasis, an envisagement, a calling to the divine mind, while man since Adam and Eve is always in a position of sinner till glorification, though many are redeemed from sin's sovereignty, cost and looting. Moreover, the damages, the cost, is always likewise relevant to actual man, since sin does cost, and the love of the Redeemer for the utterly lost exhibits the nature of the love, its perfection, that no cost alters it.
Accordingly, the whole matter is understood beyond man's own limitations that sin patronises, and situational smog, before time produced it. It is apprehended and comprehended by God. It is His performance of His desire that is wrought and known before the obfuscations of man, both on him and by him. There is nothing left out. There is nothing unreal.
The laws of the universe, these surge on. They are part of a test situation, where the realities are not lost sight of by God. God remains able, as at creation, to do as He pleases (Psalm 115). If He wants to provide power to cancel out consequences, in a given sequence, invest new power to institute results, like a child in charge, at the last account, of his own small train set, by extending his hand, He may (II Corinthians 5). God does not have to stop the universe in order to use the power for its institution to act in it as He may wish at any time, just as for man in parallel, he might use fertiliser or weed killer. It is no breach to give $1000 to a nephew. It does not wreck 'the system'. It does however have results for the nephew. These are not mysterious. You act as an intruder into a situation; you do not need to recreate finance to do so. With the Lord, that however is just another possibility, held in check by His own intent and provisions as revealed in His word.
Indeed, every
conversion is a miracle. Every one is wrought by divine grace, in terms of a
graciously derived Gospel, in terms of a loving heart, which is His own, and
His divine desire for
reconciliation with Himself of all in heaven and earth as in Colossians 1:19ff..
Each is based on a divine knowledge as apt for God, and it involves
responsibility on the part of man, for the free disposition of his heart as
known to God, not in terms simply of man's will when
on earth, distorted, framed, but in STATED terms of God's knowledge of the truth
about Him, in the very face of the divine desire in love for mercy.
GRACE DOES NOT ASK FOR HELP, BUT PROVIDES IT
There is nothing superior in composition about the response of man as discerned by God in His foreknowledge, when it reveals His own people, each one. If there were, then man as foreseen would not have the liberty which man as such was demonstrably given at the first, when challenged in a test concerning the truth (Genesis 3). He would instead be seen as biased by construction, a failed creation because of bungling, not sin, this constituting an invasion in terms of models, from the domain of the sin-ridden deterministic model.
Confused in this mix-up, it is lacking in all truth, justice, wisdom, understanding, relevance. Man way is a FREE disposition because that is what God is able to provide as freedom's inventor for this universe. He can make it work, and it can make man responsible in the midst of his own prioritisations, evaluations, inhibitions, exhibitions and desire. Confusing models, plans, perspectives when comparing them is indeed noxious, an elemental failure and foundering point for many; but it is logically vain and invalid. We proceed instead in terms of a consistent contrast, distinguished by the fact that it works.
It is best to listen to God and to adopt EACH one of His divine principles. It is all of grace. Man is responsible not in some mysterious and self-contradictory way, but in very reality. This is derived from the knowledge of God, and not from distortion. If therefore any person does not want God, it is not ultimately because of disease, but despite divine desire. God does not make what is scheduled of necessity to breach the illimitable divine desire, which His very nature of love will not use distortive force to accomplish.
The Father knows who are His and so appoints (John 6:65). Man comes as appointed, some being otherwise scheduled (I Peter 2:7-9). It is all therefore not only of grace, but of truth, in both of which Jesus Christ was the acme, as appointed. Those loving to parade as determined and not free in themselves, are right in part. Their deliberate obfuscation is free, and damnation is attainable. They are wrong in part in their assertion; for their liberty is divinely known past a current condition, just as a pianist's powers may be known, past a current condition of paralysis. This does not baffle understanding, but exhibits it.
Divine understanding in the Bible, as shown in Predestination and Freewill, covers the only possible ground for liberty, and accounts for its many manifestations as in human guilt and disposition of thought with known grounds, and intertwining considerations for selective and prioritised consideration. It is shown no less in the testimony of truth as truth, in anti-God modelling, through confusion, since these have no truth, and yet propose to speak it concerning their own contentions.
How to explain such confusion ? It is the natural and normative in man coming out despite his disease, like someone with a broken leg attempting to walk. He attempts because he was able, and is intrinsically able. His impulse is thus understandable; but it does not work. Philosophy without God is left only tantrums and tedium, both here and more broadly.
indeed, even it is a testimony to man's nature, when the chosen model of many in these matters, EXCLUDES truth, in what they affirm to BE truth.
All is accounted for. Nothing is left out. It comes from taking seriously what GOD SAYS and ALL of it, and not hiding in the distortion of this or that, but being fearless in enterprise, so that customary errors in deference to God, and for His glory, are avoided. To fear God is a clean thing. It is apt, like admiration for a fire. It does not breed carelessness.
TEXTUAL FIDELITY NOT HUMAN INVENTIVENESS
IS THE ULTIMATE GROUND DOCTRINE
In the end, Calvin for example, in saying in his Institutes on Matthew 23:37, that when Christ spoke as in Matthew 23:37, He was REALLY distancing from the actualities in the mind of the Father; and this is gross abuse of Christology. Jesus Christ was doing what the Father was doing in the SAME WAY (John 5:19ff.), and any attribution of such crucial difference in very heart and principle, between them, is simply an acknowledgement that for SOME reason or other, Christ is not such that he who has seen Him has SEEN the Father. It is a woeful distortion that here comes from the Institutes. One has to ask, Have you not known HIM! (as Christ did toward Philip - John 14). It was a tender question, but a necessary one.
There is no need for such extravaganzas, appalling in distortion of divine declaration. You don't need to invent a new christ, a new church*3, or grossly ignore or deny any biblical statement; but the opposite (cf. Psalm 119:20, 32, 42, 44, 47, 86-88,160). You need to heed.
There is PROFOUND need to be accurate and faithful in every part of the word of God, and to take EACH divine statement as it comes, not in the function of a suppressor, or distorter, so that man becomes the author of the word of God, and SO inherits unsolvable problems; but heeding and applying faithfully. The word of God is more accurate and enduring than any formulation of man, more penetrating and does not wait upon truth's divulgement, but IS IT! That is why using it faithfully solves*3all philosophic problems, including this one. That is just one of its self-testimonies. It is crucial, unique and penetrating; it solves riddles and gives understanding.
NOTES
On the particular
matter of predestination and freewill, see the intimate coverage of these issues
in the 7 volume work,
HEPTAD,
to mention but one field, and in overall application on other issues, in
LIGHT DWELLS WITH THE LORD'S CHRIST.
Freedom, being unset and unconstrained by pre-conditions where it operates, and in the respect it is affirmed, lets love bloom. We constantly find alliances taken or left, with this an operative claim. Romance may be bogus, but it may not. It may be constrained by desire, good or bad; but in that case, it is internally disabled. When however it is operative, as in the model in the Bible so perfectly exhibited by Adam and Eve, and so perfectly rendered effectual through divine foreknowledge, then there is just the situation God declared. Failure to come to Him is therefore a responsible matter (as in John 3:19); refusal to come to Him on His gracious terms is a real impediment, and can come to being a finale (John 3:36).
On the other hand, those who posit some kind of divine dispersion for freedom, as if God could not execute in foreknowledge the kind of desire in all its purity, that He had for choice in heart on the part of the one loved, a desire which is His, we are left not only with a contradiction of these biblical conditions, implying a God making and despatching eternally from His presence some without option or choice, but by His will imperiously not poignantly. It is then as if the basis and divine character behind His will meant nothing, and there is also then need to consider a further defect in their construction or theological model. In the hidden mystery idea, as if this were all that is divulged. Is it not then some X-factor (or combination) which therefore is operative ? Such a model leads to it. The mystery however in the love of God is not how it applies but how it could be so great and pure, and this it is His very nature, not a matter of unreason but glory.
God reasons, and is not irrational. It is not a matter of seeming - for faith often faces that, as when Noah built the ark. Its God-based actions can appear foolish to the uniformed. It was then really MOST reasonable, but only faith seeing the need to come, could and did rationally but faithfully provide in such a case. The love of God is as fresh as daphne, majestic as the heights, better founded than the oceans, restrained in gracious concern, willing to pay in prodigious amplitued (John 3:15ff.). It is most active, but not stupefied by the folly found.
God not only exhorts (Proverbs 1) and laments when His desire is not taken by the party loved (Isaiah 48:15ff., Luke 19:42, Matthew 23:37, Jeremiah 48, Ezekiel 33:11), but He even stipulates His wishes in principle in sites such as shown in SMR Appendix B, and their ground as in I John 4:7ff., John 3:16ff.. You can contradict God; but not by way of interpretation.
Where any freedom in man is deemed inoperative at the final level, that it is rather a matter of the greater suitability for choice leading to that choice, with some X-factor in the one sought being what is to the divine wisdom so, problems naturally arrive. It then implies a matter of merit of the most acutely discerned kind, merit differential as a basis for divine selection (cf. To Know God ... Ch. 1 as marked, and *2 ). It becomes what seems best to save by Him, when statedly ALL are desired (Colossians 1:19ff.). That however is most emphatically condemned as a concept operative here in Romans 3:23ff., Ephesians 2:1ff. and Galatians 1-5, to name but a few. It should of course be noted that it is not the intention of the theologians which is here to the point, but the implications, even if unintended.
The Presbyterian Church of Australia, in terms of Confession and added 'Declaratory Statement', not unlike the original Bible Presbyterian Church, has handled this whole matter very well. Action to annul the latter inferentially in its provisions have been shown in their falsity before (cf. Possess Your Possessions Volume 10, Ch 6, and Mercy Outdistances Judgment Ch. 13). It has been a grievous mutation of the Church. That is one reason why the Australian Presbyterian Bible Church can continue on in harmony with the unchanged and unviolated Constitution of 1901 of the PC of Australia.