The very practical doctrine of Predestination

The very practical doctrine of Predestination

The very practical doctrine of Predestination

For many Christians—even those who believe in it—Predestination is not something to be talked about. It causes trouble. It creates arguments and division. It also happens to be an enormously valuable truth from God that we ignore to our loss.

BY TONY PAYNE



Anyone have any suggestions what we should study next?" you ask the assembled members of your Wednesday night Bible study, after your recent edifying six weeks in Titus. There is the usual silence, followed by the annual suggestion from someone that Revelation would be good. You take that one with a polite ‘Uh-huh’, and hope for something else. Someone else suggests a minor prophet. "Easier than Revelation", you think to yourself, but the deafening silence that greets this idea makes you think twice. Then Roger, the quiet one with the intense eyes, says, "I would like to do some studies on predestination and election".

There is another deafening silence as everyone in the group casts their minds back to those tortured all-night debates at youth camp, the confusion, the disagreement, and the feelings of depression afterwards. What were those words at the end of Titus? Something about avoiding stupid controversies and dissensions?

"I think we’ll go with some Psalms", you breezily announce, and there is a collective sigh of relief.

Predestination, as a doctrine, has long been in need of a good publicity campaign. Say "Predestination" and many Christians think: narrow, hard, cold doctrine, only held by wintry-hearted fundamentalists. Predestination is treated by many these days as a theological skeleton in the cupboard. It is something that they may own up to accepting when pressed, but are unwilling to talk about, and certainly unwilling to give any prominence to. It is a doctrine to be kept under a bushel, such is its alleged capacity for causing confusion, trouble and disagreement.

Yet there are many reasons why predestination is not only important as a truth to be learnt and taught, but of immense practical use in our Christian lives and ministries. It may not be the first thing we explain to an unbeliever when he asks, "Good sir, what must I do to be saved?” but it should nevertheless be a regular and prominent part of our church lives. Let me offer seven reasons why this is the case.

1. Predestination is clearly taught in Scripture. Here is not the place to rehearse in detail the biblical evidence for predestination. The passages to examine include Ephesians 1, Romans 8 and 9, John 6, Acts 13:48, and so on. To summarize the truths found in these and many other passages, we would be hard pressed to come up with a better statement than the Anglican 39 Articles:

Predestination to Life is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby (before the foundations of the world were laid) he hath constantly decreed by his counsel secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honour. Wherefore, they which be endued with so excellent a benefit of God be called according to God’s purpose by his Spirit working in due season: they through Grace obey the calling: they be justified freely: they be made sons of God by adoption: they be made like the image of his only-begotten Son Jesus Christ: they walk religiously in good works, and at length, by God’s mercy, they attain to everlasting felicity. (Article XVII)

In one sense, the very fact that God’s sovereign grace is taught in Scripture is good enough reason for us to learn it and teach it. Scripture is the school of the Holy Spirit (as Calvin put it) in which nothing is omitted that is necessary to know, and nothing is taught that is not useful and expedient. To suppress or censor what the Holy Spirit saw fit to publish would seem a dangerous thing to do. This is especially so because the biblical writers often use predestination and election as the basis of practical exhortation and instruction, as we shall note below.

2. Because it is so offensive to us, and yet is taught in Scripture, predestination humbles us before God. There are few doctrines in the Bible more antagonistic to human pride than predestination and election. It is not a doctrine we would have invented to make ourselves feel better. By placing salvation, even to the point of our own responsiveness, into the hands of a sovereign gracious God, predestination removes the last vestige of our pride. It emphasizes how utterly lost and dead we were until God in his kindness made us alive, and it puts God’s decision to perform this spiritual resurrection back into eternity. Before we had so much as drawn our first breath in the world, let alone done anything to recommend ourselves, God had already chosen us in Christ to be his adopted sons.

The contemplation and acceptance of predestination, then, is a great aid to humility before God. It silences the indignant questioning of our hearts. When we find ourselves asking, "Why doesn’t he save everyone?” we hear in reply the humbling words of Romans 9: "‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.’ So it depends not upon man’s will or exertion, but upon God’s mercy." And when we say in reply, "But if the choice is his, why are we still to blame?” the word comes again, "Who are you, a man, to answer back to God?”

3. Predestination is therefore a useful guide to Christian maturity. Accepting the doctrines of God’s sovereign grace, including predestination, requires both an ability to reflect on the Bible, and a humility which trembles before God’s word. It can be helpful, therefore, as a practical indicator of spiritual growth.

If we are looking for people to take responsibility in our church or Christian fellowship—to appoint a youth group leader, or a Bible study leader, or even a new pastor—discussing predestination with them is a useful thing to do. It is a quick way to gauge their ability to think theologically, and to submit to God. If someone accepts and loves the doctrine of predestination, then one could be fairly confident that he or she would also grasp the substitutionary atonement, and other important doctrines.

Let me be clear about this—I am not speaking of merely academic or intellectual maturity. It is not as if acceptance of predestination is a kind of spiritual scout badge that we can sew onto our cap and be proud of. Nor does understanding predestination automatically usher one into a new level on the spiritual pecking order. What a travesty that would be of the humility that the doctrine should inspire! What I am speaking of is a maturity in understanding God and his ways, and submitting to them, that is of powerful practical importance in our Christian lives.

4. Because predestination draws our minds to God’s complete sovereignty in our salvation, it comforts us, and stimulates praise and thanksgiving. This is one of the great practical uses to which the doctrines of predestination and election are put in Scripture. In the face of all the trials, dangers and uncertainties of our lives, the opposition, the stuttering of our own confession of Christ, and the weakness of our faith, it is of enormous encouragement that God is stronger than all these things. He will shield us by his power until we reach the imperishable inheritance, and so we rejoice, even in trials (1 Pet 1:3-6). If he is for us, who can be against? Who can separate us from his loving, sovereign grace, whereby he predestined, called, justified and glorified us (Rom 8:28ff).

Against the uncertainties of our own performance, and the violence of the opposition we face (spiritual and temporal), predestination stands as a rock of certainty. As the 39 Articles put it, it is "full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to godly persons, and such as feel in themselves the working of the Spirit of Christ, mortifying the works of the flesh, and their earthly members, and drawing up their minds to high and heavenly things".

If we want our own lives, and the life of our church, to be more confident in the face of weakness, and louder in rejoicing, praise and thanksgiving to God, then we should teach predestination.

5. Predestination is the basis for dealing with suffering. If we gladly accept, on the basis of predestination, that God is fully in control of our salvation, then we will be able to deal with the most difficult trials and tests that come from his hand to discipline us and to conform us to the image of Christ (again see Rom 8:28ff.). Those who have understood the full extent of God’s sovereign grace to us can rejoice in the face of suffering. We will not rail against him, or accuse him, or think that he has deserted us. This is Don Carson’s point in his fine book on suffering, How Long, O Lord? He argues that Christians need to be equipped with the doctrines of God’s sovereignty (of which predestination is an integral part) before they encounter suffering. We need to be armed and ready for the time when our trust in God will be tested. Or to put it another way, we need to learn to swim before the deep waters rise over our heads.

It is interesting to note, in relation to this, the problems that the charismatic movement has with suffering. Because it is basically Arminian,1 in teaching and emphasis, charismatic theology finds it very hard to place suffering under the sovereign hand of God. Instead, it tends to see suffering as the work of the devil and his minions. Thus, the charismatic response to suffering is very often to attempt to drive out the evil spirits or demonic influences that are causing it, to bind Satan and claim healing, or whatever it might be. The emphasis of the charismatic movement on demonization and deliverance ministries is closely tied with their failure to understand and embrace predestination.

6. Predestination is the basis for godly ministry, evangelism and prayer. Ever since Wesley (and no doubt before), some Christians have claimed that believing in predestination kills off any desire to evangelize, to serve God, even to pray. "If all is decided beforehand", they argue, "then what’s the point? Whether we preach or not, God will irresistibly save his elect. We might as well pack up and go home." In his famous reply to Wesley, Whitefield gave the obvious answer:

O dear Sir, what kind of reasoning— or rather sophistry—is this! Hath not God, who hath appointed salvation for a certain number, appointed also the preaching of the Word as a means to bring them to it? Does anyone hold election in any other sense? And if so, how is preaching needless to them that are elected, when the gospel is designated by God himself to be the power of God unto their eternal salvation? And since we know not who are elect and who reprobate, we are to preach promiscuously to all.

In fact, we could go further than Whitefield and say that not only is evangelism and ministry perfectly safe under predestination, it is in fact at its most healthy. When we believe that the response of those who hear is in God’s hands, and that he will draw his people to himself, then we are free to present Christ crucified clearly and faithfully, and leave the rest to God. We are not tempted to manipulate, to coerce, to preach merely ‘for response’ rather than to preach the truth plainly. Nor are we tempted to think that special techniques or methods or programs are the key. Much of the church growth movement can be categorised as Arminian in flavour for this reason. By emphasizing the need for certain techniques and programs as the way to gain converts and grow churches, it tends to place the responsibility for soul-winning in the wrong hands. It makes it basically a management exercise, rather than the activity of God who ignites the dry, dead soul with the flame of his Spirit. Those who thoroughly trust in God’s sovereign predestining power can continue with the work that God has given us to do—to preach and teach, to pray, to exhort and encourage with all diligence and love—knowing that it is God who will provide the growth. The same is true of prayer. Prayer for our non-Christian friends is only really possible if we believe in the sovereign power of God to change people’s hearts. A belief in God’s sovereignty will drive us to pray and pray and pray, that God would use our words and actions to bring his people to himself.

7. Predestination is thus an important basis for cooperation in ministry. The ministry built on a thorough understanding of predestination will look different to a ministry based on Arminianism. They will of course be similar in some respects, but the differing emphases will have their effect. Putting it crudely, the Arminian will always be tempted to emphasise human response and contribution, and this will affect what he or she does in ministry. We should make sure, then, that those we want to work closely within the work of the Lord are of common mind on this question. When we appoint or select anyone for responsibility in our fellowships, we should make sure they share an understanding of the doctrines of grace.

There are doubtless other areas we could explore in which a belief in God’s sovereign electing grace is of practical use. We have not spoken of the effect it has on planning (as in James 4:13-15), nor of how it stimulates godliness and holiness of life (as in Col 3:12-13). These are matters for readers to pursue themselves.

Predestination is not the first and most central of all doctrines; it is not something to be obsessed with. Yet it is a clear biblical doctrine of great practical importance and benefit for our Christian lives and ministries. Time perhaps to bring our predestinarian skeletons out of the closet, dust them down, and put them to good use. As the always quotable Calvin says:

Those who shut the gates that no one may dare seek a taste of this doctrine
wrong men no less than God. For neither will anything else suffice to
make us humble as we ought to be nor shall we otherwise sincerely feel
how much we are obliged to God. And as Christ teaches, here is our only
ground for firmness and confidence: in order to free us of all fear and
render us victorious amid so many dangers, snares, and mortal struggles,
he promises that whatever the Father has entrusted into his keeping will be
safe (Jn 10:28-29).

1. Those Christians who do not believe in predestination and election are often called 'Arminians', after Jacob Arminius, a late 16th century champion of the this view.