And God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her, and moreover, I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall become nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.” Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said to himself, “Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?” And Abraham said to God, “Oh that Ishmael might live before you!” God said, “No, but Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him. As for Ishmael, I have heard you; behold, I have blessed him and will make him fruitful and multiply him greatly. He shall father twelve princes, and I will make him into a great nation. But I will establish my covenant with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this time next year.”
Genesis 17:15-21, ESV
Predestination is an unpopular doctrine with many believers today – some go so far as to question whether it is even biblical. In the NT, however, the Greek verb prohorizo (to predestine, to decide beforehand) is used six times, and has specific reference to God’s determining “everything in advance, both persons and things in salvation history, with Jesus Christ as the goal.” (TDNT) Predestination is often rejected (against the biblical text) because it is seen to undermine human responsibility or free will. Without question there is tension between the two, but to reject predestination on such grounds (to call it unbiblical) is to deny the teaching of the Word of God.
God’s predetermined plan for specific individuals can be seen even in the OT. God predetermined to bless Abraham and make him the father of many nations, even though Abraham had not yet set foot on his journey. God predetermined to fulfill His promise through Isaac, and accomplished His purpose even though Ishmael was Abraham’s firstborn, the fruit of his parents’ lack of faith in the power of God. God predetermined to bless Jacob, even though Esau preceded him in birth. God predetermined to use Joseph to deliver Israel’s family from famine, even though his brothers had intended harm:
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 50:8
That God predestines people and things is a glorious, mysterious truth. It underscores His sovereign control over His creation, highlights His plan to redeem for Himself a remnant from every nation, tribe, and tongue, and preserves man’s free choice and responsibility. To deny the doctrine of predestination is to forfeit the truth that God
works all things according to the counsel of his will.
Ephesians 1:11, ESV
8 February 2009 at 21:13
Good stuff, Scott. I am humbled at the sovereignty of God. In fact, when I really reflect on the fact that God chose me to be saved, I am truly amazed. Why would God do such a thing for me when I deserve to be thrown into the fire?
At any rate, I was doing our Wednesday night lesson with the youth, and I was talking about how God is the most happiest of all beings. And I was talking about how God always gets his way–that is, his will is always accomplished. Part of my text was Psalm 115:3: “Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases” (ESV).
My main thesis was that if God always does as he pleases, then he must be pretty happy about things. (Of course, I owe a lot to John Piper and his teaching on Christian hedonism to this insight.)
The point of my lesson was not to teach the sovereignty of God necessarily, but to teach that because God was supremely happy and confident and not worried about the future, we, too, could be supremely happy and confident about the future.
Nobody really objected to what I taught, but there were some questions like, “If God is supremely happy, and he does all that he pleases, then why is there so much evil in the world?” Good question, to say the least. I don’t think it set too well with one of the parents who were present during the Bible study. They weren’t mad or anything like that, but they were just thrown for a loop.
This brings me to my point. This whole “sovereignty of God thing” is very hard to reconcile with closely-held American beliefs… like free will, responsibility, for instance. That is to say, as Calvinists we may not be preaching or teaching on Calvinism per se, but it comes out in every other thing we teach. I was just talking about the happiness of God as a foundation for our security, happiness, etc., and so I’ve come to learn that my Calvinism WILL flesh itself out even when I don’t intend it to. So, I’m learning to be patient with the flock that I’ve been entrusted with and give doses of sovereignty a little at a time, or else the sheep will choke.
Anyway, great article, Scott. I’ll keep coming back.
In Christ,
Matthew