Summer in the Systematics: Theology Proper (Part 6)

Transcript

JRS 16
08/07/2022
Summer in the Systematics: Theology Proper (Part 6)
Selected Verses
Jesse Randolph

Alright, well if you can believe it, we are already into our sixth session of “Summer in the Systematics,” our summer-long survey of “Theology Proper,” the doctrine of God. And what a great reminder with that last song that we were all singing together, “God of Calvary.” That’s so important to remember when we are studying the doctrine of God, when we are studying the types of topics we are looking into. Some of these can get a bit ethereal. Some of these can get a bit heavy. But let’s not forget that this God is the God who most supremely manifested Himself at Calvary so that sinners like us can have a chance at being reconciled to Him through the blood of His Son Jesus Christ. Amen? Alright.

Well, over the past two Sunday evenings we’ve been in this two-part miniseries on the attributes of God, the perfections of God. What we’re going to do tonight is move into an entirely different subject, related to Theology Proper, under the heading of Theology Proper, and that would be the knowledge of God. The knowledge of God. Now, one way to think about those words, “the knowledge of God,” is to think of them in terms of how we come to know God. How we come to know God, our knowledge of God. We covered that topic, how we come to know God, what we called there “the knowability of God” in an earlier lesson several weeks ago. I’ve forgotten how many weeks ago it’s been. You’ll recall from that earlier lesson that we learn of God, we draw our knowledge of God, chiefly through the Scriptures. Surely there’s this thing called natural revelation, general revelation, which we looked at. But where we get the most clear revelation from God today in the Church Age would be the Scriptures. Not through philosophical reasoning and argument. Not through personal experience. But through the Scriptures.

For instance, we know that God exists not because of the cosmological argument advanced by William Lane Craig and others. Not because of the teleological argument. Not because of the moral argument promoted by Anselm and others, and not because of the ontological argument. But instead, we know that God exists because of what God has revealed about His existence in His Word. So we know He exists.

We also know who God is. We don’t know who God is because of some transcendental or mystical experience we believe we had with Him. Not because of our own preconceived notions about who we think He is or who He ought to be. No, we know who God is based on what God has revealed about Himself in His Word. So that’s one way to define the phrase “the knowledge of God”—to describe that He is knowable and can be known by us, His creatures.

Another way to think about this phrase, right here, the knowledge of God, is in terms of what God Himself knows. And that is our topic for tonight. Our topic is what does God know. Now I probably could just say “everything” and we could have a real short Sunday evening service, right? Let’s dive a little deeper. What is within God’s knowledge base? What are the things with which He is familiar? I’ve already kind of alluded to it, but the spoiler alert here is He knows everything! And if only the answer were that simple. I mean I do actually believe the answer is that simple, but what’s happened is that over a couple of centuries of church history, many different ideas and many different people and many different theologies have muddied the waters on this subject. I’m hoping to provide some degree of clarity to this topic of what does God know, what’s His knowledge base, in our time tonight.

To start with, we need to begin with this statement: God knows all things because He has decreed all things. God knows all things because He has decreed all things. Because God has set into motion all that has ever happened, is happening, or will happen in this world. And because everything that has happened in this world is happening exactly as God has foreordained that it would, God necessarily knows all that has happened, all that is happening, and all that ever will happen. He is omniscient over the the past, the present, and the future.

And where am I getting this idea from? That God is omniscient over everything, past, present, and future, that knows all things past, present, and future? I’m getting it from what we know about the decree of God. The decree of God. If you’re taking notes tonight, that’s the first blank on your worksheet by the way. The decree of God. That would be heading one on page one of your worksheet.

Now when we speak of the decree of God, we are recognizing that at a point in eternity past, there was a singular act in the infinite mind of God—a decree concerning all things, all future things, circumstances, people, ideas, etc., that would ever come to pass. See, the world is not a chaotic mess though sometimes it may seem to us that it is that way. The universe is not disordered and random as some secular scientists might have us believe. No, everything and everyone that has ever been, is, or ever will be, has been decreed by God. This is not, by the way, some abstract philosophical or theological statement that I’m presenting tonight. Rather, we see this concept of people, events, and circumstances having been eternally decreed by God in various places throughout Scriptures.

Here are just a few. Psalm 2:7, “I will surely tell of the decree of the Lord.” Psalm 139:16, “in Your book were all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them.” We’re going to see many of these verses have these synonymous words for a decree or a plan or counsel that all relate to this same concept of God having eternally decreed everything. Job 14:5, our “days are determined.” Acts 2:23, “this Man,” speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ, “delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.” Romans 8:29, “For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son.” Ephesians 3:11, “This was in accordance with the eternal purpose,” another synonym there, “which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Now we could go on and on but each of these individual Scriptures ultimately trace back to what is stated here in Ephesians 1:11. God “works all things after the counsel of His will.” That’s going to be sort of our anchor verse for tonight when we speak of the eternal and fixed decree of God. It’s all coming from Ephesians 1:11, God “works all things after the counsel of His will.” This is a referring to God’s singular and once-and-for-all decree of all that would ever come to pass.

That’s what A. W. Pink noted. He noted that “The decree[] of God relate[s] to all future things without exception; whatever is done in time, was foreordained before time began. God’s purpose was concerned with everything, whether great or small, whether good or evil.” He continues though and says, “But with reference to the latter,” meaning He decreed what was good and, in a sense, what was evil, “we must be careful to state that while God is the Orderer and Controller of sin, He is not the Author of it in the same way that He is the Author of good.” I’m going to leave that one hanging there because in a future lesson we’re going to address this second part of what Pink is saying here as we go through the very important topic of the existence of evil in the world in the presence of a world that’s been created by a perfectly good and holy God.

But for now, the main point I want you to grab on to is that everything on this planet, everything in this universe, everything in our lives, whether we consider it to be good or bad, has in some way been foreordained by God. He has foreordained the date of your birth. The country in which you were born. The city in which you were born. The schools you would attend. The cross-country moves you would make. The friends you would make. The spouse you would marry. The children you would have. The grandchildren you would have. The aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews you would have. He has foreordained the paths you’ve walked. The conversations you’ve had. The tears you’ve cried. The joys you’ve experienced. The grief you’ve walked through. The pain you’ve endured. And every other feeling or experience in between. He has foreordained the color of your eyes. The color of your skin. The number of wrinkles on your forehead. The number of hairs on your head. And every other detail related to your physical constitution. He has foreordained how your existence here on earth will wind down and eventually end. The loss of certain physical faculties. The loss of certain mental faculties. The weakening of muscles. The brittle bones. The sagging skin. The nurses, the doctors, the hospice workers. The death rattle, the final moments of light, the final moments of breath, and the final moments of life. He has foreordained it all. He has decreed it all.

Again, A.W. Pink is helpful on this point. Get used to me saying A. W. Pink tonight on this topic. “God did not merely decree to make man, place him upon the earth, then leave him to his own uncontrolled guidance. Instead, He fixed all the circumstances in the lot of individuals, and all the particulars which comprise the history of the human race from commencement to close. Our days are numbered, and so are the hairs of our heads.”

Now, I don’t know who all comes to Sunday evening service but I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that for some of you what I’m saying right now might be a little hard to receive. It might be grating against what you want to believe about God. Especially if you’ve been raised in a country like ours, the United States, where human liberty and freedom and voting is so highly treasured and valued. We like to raise our hand and have a determining say in what happens in our lives. The idea that God has already predetermined each of the various details of the days of our lives might make us uncomfortable. You might not like it because you like the idea of liberty, and you like the idea of freedom, and you like the idea of free will. And so, what I’m saying up here tonight might, to some of you, be presented as troublesome or bothersome or even offensive. For others, the ideas I’m about to present here tonight will be a caricature. You may link me with others who have taught similar truths in church history, and you’ll be tempted to resort to labeling or name-calling rather than humbly submitting yourself to what the Scriptures plainly teach. And so for others, the ideas I am going to present here will lead you to a place of fatalism. You’ll hear these truths wrongly. You’ll assume that nothing you do here on earth matters. That your existence doesn’t matter. That your life and what you do with it doesn’t matter because it’s already all been decided by God anyway. Well, your life does matter. Your life matters greatly. And what you do with your life matters. The ideas that will be presented tonight, what they should be doing in all our hearts this evening is bringing us to a place of awe and worship of our all-wise, all-knowing, all-powerful God. So, if you might be tempted to fall into any one of those groups or categories what I’d like you to do is this. Wait. Listen. And humble yourselves according to the Scriptures.

Let’s get back to God’s decree. What do we know about God’s decree? Specifically, the over-arching decree mentioned here in Ephesians 1:11, where it says God “works all things after the counsel of His will.” What do we know about this decree that’s being referred to here in Ephesians 1:11? Now we’re going to note a few characteristics of this decree in some of these slides you’re going to see.

First, we know that God’s decree is eternal, meaning it is from before the beginning of time. Paul calls God’s decree, His plan, His “eternal purpose” in Ephesians 3:11. He also tells us, that is, Paul tells us, that “God predestined,” or decreed, “before the ages.” In the context here it says that He would save His people. We also know from Ephesians 1:4 that all of this occurred, and was decreed “before the foundation of the world.”

See, what these passages testify to is the truth that God’s decree is not temporal. Rather it is atemporal, pretemporal. It sits outside of time, meaning it’s eternal. It’s an eternal decree. God is not shifting or changing with His decree in time to account for events that happen in time. Putting a more practical, finer point on it, God is not wringing His hands up there in heaven like a nervous movie-goer watching a suspense film or a nail-biting sports fan to see how it's all going to end. No, there is no such thing with God. He’s not wondering how it is all going to play out. God does not adapt His eternal decree to fit with what actually unfolds. And the reason He does not do that and does not need to do that is because He is all-wise, He’s all-knowing, and He’s all-powerful. And what He has decreed is what will actually unfold. As James says in James 1:17, “there is no variation or shifting shadow” with God. And we’ve seen this verse already a few times in this study, God Himself says, “For I, the Lord, do not change.”

What these passages suggest, and their import here is to suggest as some open theists… I don’t have time to get into all of that tonight. But Greg Boyd would be a prime example of an open theist. To suggest as some of these open theists -- or they also have the process theology, process theologians -- to suggest that God is in process and adapted to change in time -- for those theologians to suggest that God’s decree is not eternal but instead that His decree is subject to changes and updates in time would actually suggest that God’s knowledge is limited, that He adapts, that He increases in knowledge, that He grows wiser as the years go on. But that would be an offensive misrepresentation of who God actually is. As we’ve seen in previous lessons, God is infinitely and eternally all-wise, and all-knowing, and all-powerful. And not only that, He is immutable, He is unchanging. Which makes complete sense because there is no way to change perfection. See, God is not ignorant of future events. And He does not change His eternal decree to fit with human events as they unfold. No, His decree is eternal. It is eternally fixed. The story, if it can be called that, will play out exactly as God has decreed that it will play out.

So, we know that His decree is eternal. We also know that God’s decree is wise. His decree is wise because He is perfect deity. God is the perfect embodiment of wisdom. Indeed, He possesses perfect wisdom. The wisdom He possesses perfectly, as James 3:17 would say, is “the wisdom from above.” He’s the perfect embodiment of the wisdom from above. As the all-wise God, when He established His eternal decree in eternity past, God chose the best possible means to accomplish His perfect ends.

Now, because we are not all-wise, because we are not all-knowing, of course we often struggle with and wrestle with how God is -- in our individual and limited circumstances in this little blip called eternity that we all live in, in time that we live in (excuse me) -- how He’s accomplishing His perfect ends through the means of our lives. We especially wrestle with this in our hurts, in our difficulties, in our griefs, in our trials. But that is exactly what He is doing. He’s working through those things according to His eternal decree. He is accomplishing His perfect, wise, and eternally decreed ends through the harms and through the hurts and through the scars and through the trials that He allows us to go through.

Of course, because we are finite and not infinite in knowledge, it’s usually only through the backward-looking perspective of providence that we can get to a place where we have a clearer understanding of what it was that God was doing and why He was doing it. It’s then, as we look in the proverbial rearview mirror, the many unknown details start to get filled in as God gives us a clearer sense, but not a perfect sense, of the details of how our life fits in with His eternal decree. And that’s when, like the psalmist, we can say something like this, Psalm 104:24, “O Lord, how many are Your works! In wisdom You have made them all.” Or we can be like Paul in Romans 11:33, saying “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!” But whether or not we ultimately get to the place of acknowledging and accepting the wisdom of God’s eternal decree and whether or not we ultimately end up praising Him like Paul does here for what He has decreed, the reality is that He has decreed all things and has done so with perfect wisdom.

Here’s the next thing we need to know about God’s eternal decree. It is free. The decree of God is free. To say that the decree of God is free means simply this: God is not, and has not been, and would not be influenced or informed by anything or anyone when He set forth and issued His eternal decree. He was alone when He made His eternal decree. His decree was made before the foundation of the world. And that means that the determinations He made in making this decree were not shaped by any external influences. He had no advisors. He had no consultants. He was free, in and of Himself -- again, He is perfection -- to decree, just as He was free, in and of Himself, to not decree. He was free to decree one thing and not decree another. He had total and unfettered liberty in decreeing what He decreed. This idea (and again, I’m not just riffing up here and speculating) of God having absolute freedom to decree what He decreed is found in places like Isaiah 40:13-14. This is right before the verses we read in the evening Scripture reading. Isaiah 40:13-14, “Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord, or as His counselor has informed Him? With whom did He consult and who gave Him understanding? And who taught Him in the path of justice and taught Him knowledge and informed Him of the way of understanding?” The implied answer here of course is, “no one.” God had absolute liberty and freedom when He decreed what He decreed. He shares His glory with no one. He shares no credit for what He has eternally decreed.

Here's the fourth one about the decree of God. The decree of God is singular. Now you’ll come across certain theologians and theological writings and in fact, we’re going to see a couple of them a little bit later in this lesson, who will lay out the case for there being multiple decrees of God. Frankly, I don’t see it. The testimony of Scripture is quite clear that there is a singular, fixed decree. Look at the singular nature of the nouns here used when we talk about the decree of God or the counsel of God. “I will surely tell,” Psalm 2:7 says, “of the decree,” singular term, “of the Lord.” Acts 2:23, we’ve seen these already, “this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.” Ephesians 3:11, “This was in accordance with the eternal,” singular, “purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Each of these references is to a singular plan. A singular purpose. A singular decree. Decreed by God in eternity past. God the Father—that’s who is being referred to, by the way, in Ephesians 1:11 when it says, “according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will.” God the Father eternally decreed everything in a singular degree. That means He did not covenant with other members of the Godhead to accomplish His aims and His ends. For instance, that would mean there is no biblical support for a supposed “covenant of redemption” where God the Father and God the Son supposedly “covenant” before the foundation of the world as to who would be saved. No, what the Scriptures state and what the Scriptures support is that God, as in God the Father, decreed all things that would come to pass, including who would be saved. And so, for those things that have been decreed to come to pass, they will. In fact, come to pass according to “the counsel of His will.” So the eternal decree is singular.

Here’s the next one, I think it’s the last one. The decree of God is immutable and efficacious. In the same way that nothing could influence God’s sovereign decree in eternity past, nothing can change His perfect decree in time either. Psalm 33:11, “The counsel,” that would be another synonym for decree, “of the Lord stands forever, the plans of His heart from generation to generation.” God answers to no one for what He has decreed, and nothing will interfere with what He has decreed actually taking place. Job 42:2, “I know that You can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.” Whatever God has decreed, which means that whatever will happen, will actually come to pass. Isaiah 46:10 is crystal clear on this point. “My purpose,” this is God speaking, “will be established, and I will accomplish all My good pleasure.”

So that’s a bit about the divine decree. It’s an important topic to note and file away as we unpack this important topic of the knowledge of God. Our next topic in this session on the knowledge of God is related to this topic of the divine decree. We’ll establish the relationship a little bit later. And that’s the topic of God’s foreknowledge. The foreknowledge of God. Here’s the basic idea, the basic principle. God foreknows all that will happen because He has decreed all that will happen. He has foreordained it. God’s foreknowledge, in other words, is rooted in His divine decree—what we’ve just gone over. God hasn’t merely seen the map of all that will happen in the future and approved it. No. He’s the one Who sketched out the map. He’s the Divine Cartographer, so necessarily He knows all that will ever take place.

But here’s the interesting thing. Whereas God’s divine decree provides the foundation for all that will ever take place in human history, the term “foreknowledge” that we’re getting into right now in the Bible is actually not used in such broad terms. Rather, in Scripture, the term “foreknowledge” is limited to people. It is people whom God is said to foreknow, not necessarily events or actions although we have just seen that God foreknows or that God decrees all events and actions by way of His divine decree. But that word “foreknowledge,” as we look through it in Scriptures, the word specifically “foreknowledge” is limited to people.

But let’s see what I mean here by foreknowledge scripturally being limited to persons, starting -- here it is again, three times now -- Acts 2:23, “this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.” The focus of God’s foreknowledge in this passage is not the act of crucifixion, an event, rather it’s on the Man, the Christ, being referred to here. Or consider Romans 8:29, “For those whom He foreknew,” there’s that foreknowledge term, “He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son.” It’s not what God foreknew that is in view here. Instead, it’s those whom God foreknew. Foreknown people are at the heart of this passage. Or Romans 11:2, “God has not rejected His people whom foreknew.” Again, the focus here is on people, and people alone. Last is 1 Peter 1:1 and 2, which refers to early believers who had been “chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father.” Why am I belaboring this point that God foreknows people as people? Well, I bring it up because it takes us right to a doctrine that many people, sadly, I would say, like to avoid. But it’s a doctrine that we can’t avoid. And it’s a doctrine none of us should have a desire to avoid because it’s true, it’s important, and it’s revealed in Scripture. I’m talking about the doctrine of election.

Now, let’s zoom out for just a second because we’re about to wade into some territory over which a lot of ink has been spilled and a lot of controversy has been generated. This matter of the doctrine of election. Before we go any further with this topic though, we need to get our terminology straight. We’ve already looked at the concept of God’s decree. We’ve seen that God’s decree forms the basis for everything that we’re about to go over. As we’ve seen, everything, everything is rooted in God. And everything is rooted specifically in His eternal decree. So, as we go through these next concepts that I’m about to go through I don’t want you to lose sight of their grounding in God’s decree. And the topics, the concepts that I’m going to go through now are those of predestination, election, and reprobation. We’re going to go over these one by one.

Starting with what is predestination? Well, in one sense it is true that God in accordance with His eternal decree predestines all that comes to pass. We’ve already looked at that as we’ve unpacked the various nuances of His eternal decree. The fact that God predestines or foreordains everything that happens in the world. It all happens according to the perfect plan, the perfect decree of God. But the term “predestination” also has a narrower meaning, a narrower definition. And it’s frankly, the one we think of most often when we hear this term. According to this narrower definition the word “predestination” means that God has predestined or foreordained that some people would be elected unto salvation while He has also predestined that others, what we know as the reprobate, would be passed over as they are allowed to receive judgment for their sins. This matter of predestination in this narrower sense of God’s predestining the salvific [salvation] state of individuals stands on two legs. The doctrine of election and the doctrine of reprobation.

Let’s talk about election first. What does election mean, biblically? I appreciate this definition from MacArthur and Mayhue in their “Biblical Doctrine.” Now here we see it. And I want to sort of take a little side tour here and see they reference the decree of election. And there are other theologians, like I said earlier, who will sort of parcel up the eternal decree into these miniature sub-decrees as though there are multiple decrees. I believe biblically, scripturally, through this use of the singular terms that we just went through, that there is a singular decree that touches upon all sorts of different topics and issues. But I would actually disagree with MacArthur and Mayhue here on this idea of there being a separate decree of election and a separate decree of reprobation and separate decrees of various other matters. I think the Scriptures support a singular decree like we’ve already talked about.

That being said, the rest of the quote is helpful. “The decree of election is the free and sovereign choice of God, made in eternity past, to set His love on certain individuals, and, on the basis of nothing in themselves but solely because of the good pleasure of His will, to choose them to be saved from sin and damnation and to inherit the blessings of eternal life through the mediatorial work of Christ.” Now MacArthur and Mayhue aren’t making up this doctrine out of thin air. This is really an encapsulation of what we see all over the Scripture.

Bear with me as we’re going to go through several of these texts just rapid fire here. Ephesians 1:4-5, “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.” Ephesians 1:4-5. And then there’s Romans 8:29-30, “For those whom He 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.” Then there’s Romans 9 “So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, ‘For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.’ So, then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.” And then there’s 2 Thessalonians 2:13, “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.” Those are just the passages that clearly use the terms for foreordaining or predestining or choosing. In addition to those verses, which reflect the reality clearly that God has elected certain people unto salvation, there are many other references in the New Testament to God’s people being elect or chosen.

Here are a few more, rapid fire. “So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience,” Colossians 3:12. Titus 1:1, “Paul, a bond-servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the faith of those chosen of God and the knowledge of the truth which is according to godliness.” 1 Peter 1:1-2, “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who reside as aliens, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father.” 1 Thessalonians 1:4, “knowing, brethren beloved by God, His choice of you.” Romans 8:33, “Who will bring a charge against God’s elect?” Luke 18:7, “will not God bring about justice for His elect who cry to Him day and night, and will He delay long over them?” 2 Timothy 2:10, “For this reason I endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen, so that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus and with it eternal glory.”

See, God, remember, who never changes, has always been a God who elects, who appoints, who chooses. He chose Abraham to accomplish His purposes. Right? Genesis 18:19. He chose Isaac over Ishmael. He chose Jacob over Esau. He chose the entire people or nation of Israel to be a special recipient of His divine love and blessing as we see in Deuteronomy chapter 7. And carrying it over to the New Testament era, this same, unchanging God elects certain individuals unto salvation.

Now a natural and necessary question this raises is this. On what basis does God elect some people unto salvation? Making it a little more accessible, why does God elect some and not others? The Scripture is clear. God chooses people according to His sovereign good pleasure and will. God chooses people according to the sovereign and good pleasure of His will. Put another way, God’s choice is unconditional. It’s unconditional. It’s not about us. It’s about Him and His will.

We see this going all the way back to the Old Testament, this unconditional choice that God makes. This choice He makes according to the good pleasure of His will back with Israel. Deuteronomy 7:7-8, “The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all the peoples,” speaking to Israel here, “but because the Lord loved you and kept the oath which He swore to your forefathers, the LORD brought you out by a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.”

We see this same unconditional nature of God’s choice of His people in the New Testament. Ephesians 1:5, “He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself,” and here’s the key, the answer, “according to the kind intention of His will.” These passages clearly teach that God chooses people not on the basis of their works, or their deeds, or their inherent goodness, but rather according to His sovereign pleasure, as mediated through His divine decree. Not on the basis of how worthy or lovely they are but rather on the basis of how merciful and loving He is. Not because of them, but because of Him.

Now, not everyone, I acknowledge this, would agree with what I’ve just articulated. In fact, there’s a major theological belief system, Arminianism, that would be at odds with what I have just stated and where we would stand as a church. Arminianism is named after its founder, a sixteenth-century Dutch theologian named Jacob Arminius. And this system rejects this idea of unconditional election. The Arminian view takes the position that -- in appointing some people to salvation, what we would call the doctrine of election, while passing over others, what we would call the doctrine of reprobation -- God looks down the corridors of time. And seeing that there would be some who according to their own free will and whatever residual goodness might still be in them choose to follow Him in faith and seeing that there would be others who in accordance with their own free will would choose not to follow Him in faith, God based on His view down that corridor of time makes His decision to choose the former but not the latter. In other words, it’s a conditional election that Arminian theology advocates. It’s a view which sort of presents God as sort of “hedging His bets” by choosing only those who He knew would accept His offer of salvation. It’s sort of like the scrawny sophomore who doesn’t have the courage to ask a popular cheerleader to the homecoming dance until he hears from a friend that she wants him to ask her. So then he asks her. Maybe not the best reference but it’s how I like to think of it.

There are many reasons though why the Arminian position gets it wrong as it relates to God, the manner which God elects people unto salvation. I’m going to rattle through a few of these and you’ll see them on the screen here as to why the Aminian position gets it wrong. For one, the Arminian view wrongly suggests that God learns things. But this is impossible, as we have already established, because God is omniscient. God is all-knowing. There are no “corridors of time” that God either does look down or needs to look down to figure out His next steps or to figure out His going-forward game plan. We have to remember that not only is God all-knowing, but He lives in one eternal present. So even if we could conceive of the idea of Him “looking ahead” down some hypothetical “corridors of time” what He would look ahead toward is what He has already sovereignly ordained and decreed from before the foundation of the world. In other words, what He would see is what He already knows. What He would see is what He has already declared. What He would see is what will already surely come to pass.

Here’s a second flaw. The Arminian view repudiates what Scripture teaches about man’s total depravity. See, underlying the Arminian view is the belief that there is some remnant of good in man and with whatever goodness he possesses man might somehow be able to choose God. But that’s not what Scripture teaches. Scripture paints a far different and frankly, far more bleak picture of man and his abilities. Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?” Or Romans 3:10-12 carries this same idea forward. “There is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God; all have turned aside,” look at these terminal comprehensive, inclusive terms, “together they have become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even one.” No one, in that condition, can choose God. And because all suffer from the same disease, namely, spiritually dead hearts that are inclined only to wickedness, no one has ever chosen God.

Third, the Arminian view undermines the doctrine of salvation by grace alone. See, by rooting God’s election in man’s foreseen “faith” rather than exclusively in God’s sovereign will and pleasure man’s choice, so to say, to exercise his “free will” to trust in Jesus becomes, in one sense, under this system the cause of His salvation rather than God and God alone being the cause of His salvation. But this completely undermines what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1:27 through 29, “. . . God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God.” If man, by way of his so called “free choice” is the one who chooses God where does the cause for boasting lie? In man! But if we embrace what the Scripture teach that all choosing, all electing, all predestining is rooted in God notwithstanding how vile and wicked and undeserving we are, where is our boast? In God!

Number four, the Arminian view undermines the freedom and the liberty and the independence of God. Specifically, in His eternal decree to appoint some, and not others unto salvation. Because what this (meaning the Arminian teaching) ultimately does, is attempt to wrestle away from God what He has already appointed and decreed by forcing Him to choose certain people unto salvation based on what He later discovers in individual people. In other words, this teaching refuses to recognize the plain teaching of Scripture that God’s elective choice is rooted in His divine pleasure. He chooses whom He wants to choose. He elects whom He wants to elect. He saves whoever it is He wants to save. We may not like it. But what we like or what we choose or would choose ultimately doesn’t really matter. To borrow from Paul in Romans 9:20-21, clay knows it is clay and it has no right to shake its fist at or talk back to the potter.

Fifth, the Arminian view reverses the logic of what Scripture teaches about the order of salvation. You see, nowhere does Scripture say that God foresaw sinners who would believe in Christ and on that basis, predestine them, or appoint them, unto salvation. To the contrary, all we do see, and all that Scripture consistently teaches is that God singled out certain people to be the beneficiaries and recipients of His sovereign grace and favor. And based on His sovereign grace and favor, based on His sovereign will, His sovereign pleasure, His sovereign purpose He determined to bestow on them the gift of faith.

The Arminian corridors of time view, which is really a conditional view of election, makes God’s foreknowledge of our believing in Him the cause of our election and salvation. And so, if we were to accept this view, it would make, in a sense, believing a meritorious act giving sinners, like us, a ground for boasting, “Look what I chose.” But Ephesians 2:8-9 outright denies us the ability to do that. “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

Scripture plainly teaches that God foreknew people. “Those whom He foreknew,” Romans 8:29, “He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son.” And it’s important to get our wording straight here. You know, going back to what we’ve just discussed, it’s not that God foreknew people in the corridors-of-time sense and based on what He foreknew about them He elected them. It’s actually the other way around. “Those whom He foreknew,” as it says here in Romans 8:29, refers to those whom He elected in eternity past according to His eternal decree. He foreknows them because He has elected them, consistent with that decree.

A.W. Pink again is helpful. He says, “God foreknows what will be because He has decreed it. It is therefore a reverse order of Scripture, putting the cart before the horse, to affirm that God elects because He foreknows people. The truth is, He foreknows because He has elected. This removes the cause of election from outside the creature, and places it in God’s own sovereign will. God purposed in Himself to elect a certain people, not because of anything good in them or from them, either actual or foreseen, but solely out of His good pleasure.”

Again, MacArthur and Mayhue are helpful on this point, referring to Romans 8:29, they note this. “When Paul declares that God has foreknown individuals, he is indicating that God has determined to set his electing love and favor on them, setting them apart for an intimate, personal, saving relationship with him. To foreknow is to ‘forelove.’ ” They continue and say, “In this sense, both the foreknowledge of Romans 8:29 and the predestination Paul brings up in the next phrase are simply synonyms for God’s election. Predestination speaks of election from the perspective of God’s sovereignty, while foreknowledge speaks of election from the perspective of his love.”

Back to the big idea. Ephesians 1:4 says, “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.” “He,” God the Father, “chose us in Him,” meaning God the Son, “before the foundation of the world.” But why? Why has God chosen whom He has chosen? Why did He choose me? Why did He choose you? I have no idea. What I do know is that God’s choice proceeds not from anything in us or anything from us. Rather, it proceeds solely from His good and sovereign pleasure. Election, and the salvation it brings, is a matter of grace. Our election, like our salvation, is entirely unmerited. It is purely a gracious gift from God. So what do we do? This lesson brought to you by A.W. Pink. “The apprehension” he says, “of God’s infinite knowledge should fill the Christian with adoration. The whole of my life stood open to His view from the beginning. He foresaw my every fall, my every sin, my every backsliding; yet He fixed His heart upon me. Oh, how the realization of this should bow me in wonder and worship before Him!”

Alright, so we’ve addressed election and foreknowledge and predestination all under this broad heading of tonight’s lesson, “God’s Knowledge.” Now, this often and I think naturally leads to this question. If God has elected some to salvation, does this mean He has elected others to damnation? And this lands us on the doorstep of our final topic for tonight, the doctrine of reprobation.

Now Scripture is clear that there are those, there are some, who are on a path to destruction. Matthew 7:13, “the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.” Matthew 25:46, “These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” So how are we to understand how those who end up on that wide path to destruction got there? That’s where the doctrine of reprobation comes in. As I mentioned earlier, reprobation is the second leg of the two legs of the doctrine of predestination, election and reprobation. The doctrine of predestination addresses not only God’s decision to elect some unto salvation. It also addresses to His decision not to elect others and thus to leave them to the destruction that their sins deserve. See, this decision by God is rooted in this broader, singular, eternal decree we’ve been talking about tonight.

So, what is the doctrine of reprobation? MacArthur and Mayhue, again, they separate it out as a separate decree which I would disagree with and say that “The decree of reprobation is the free and sovereign choice of God, made in eternity past, to pass over certain individuals, choosing not to set his saving love on them but instead determining to punish them for their sins unto the magnification of his justice.” Louis Berkhof is similar. He says, “Reprobation may be defined as that eternal decree of God whereby He has determined to pass some men by with the operations of His special grace, and to punish them for their sins, to the manifestation of His justice.”

What are these guys talking about? This is how it works. For the elect, as an act of mercy, God actively intervenes in their lives as He removes them -- us, if we’ve trusted in Christ -- He removes us from the path of destruction that we were once on and actively works faith in their life. For the non-elect, though, also known as the reprobate, it’s different. God does not work sin or unbelief in their heart in the way He works belief in the heart of the elect. That would be what theologians call “double predestination” which we would reject. No, that sin and unbelief that’s in the person’s heart is already there. So, rather than actively consign them to judgment by placing sin in their heart, God passes them over as part of His eternal decree. Robert Lightner is right on target when he says this. He says “God does not take the responsibility for men going to Hell. He did not predetermine that they should go there; He merely passed by them and left them in their lost estate for which they are responsible.” In other words, the elect receive mercy. The non-elect receive justice as they receive the judgment and condemnation their sins, and any sin, ultimately deserves.

Now there are two points that need to be made about this doctrine of reprobation. First, and I’ve already kind of alluded to this, it is important to note that God does not operate in the exact same way in election as He does in reprobation. There is, in fact, asymmetry between the two. What theologians have called “unequal ultimacy.” See, God works actively in carrying out His decree of election, but He acts passively, more passively, in carrying out His decree of reprobation. Now this isn’t mere theological speculation by me. This isn’t theologizing. We actually see it in the grammar and the texts of Scripture. For instance, here’s Romans 9:23 where we see God here “mak[ing] known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy.” The grammar of this statement, “mak[ing] known the riches,” and that’s referring to God’s election, that’s in the active sense. This passage has an active sense to it in the Greek grammar. God is actively working faith in His election. But if you back up a verse to Romans 9:22, it says here God has “endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction.” Now these words, which speak to those being passed over, being reprobation, are actually written in the passive voice. So we have active voice when it refers to God’s elect in Romans 9:23 but we have the passive voice when it refers to the reprobate in Romans 9:22. So just based on grammar in these verses, it is showing us that God does not function in the exact same way in election as He does in reprobation, unequal ultimacy.

Second, we have to remember the bigger picture idea here which is that all have sinned. All stand condemned. All are deserving of hell. It’s not as though there’s any sense in humanity of moral neutrality or moral goodness. No, all have sinned. None does good. None is righteous. Romans 3:10 through 12 again, “There is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God; all have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even one.” That means that in passing over some, the reprobate, God cannot be charged with unrighteousness because all are guilty and God is not obligated to show grace or mercy to any.

Well, I suspect I’ll get a couple questions tonight. Maybe even a couple e-mails. That’s a bit about God’s knowledge. We’ve covered a lot. And again, that’s always the challenge with these lessons. I know I’m really skimming the surface of doctrines that have been worked over and studied and debated for centuries. But I hope ultimately that what tonight’s lesson has done as you go back and look at your notes a little bit later this week, I hope it’s encouraged you, I hope it challenges you, I hope it leaves you in this place of awe as you think about the depths and the knowledge of our great and mighty God. I will leave you with Psalm 145:3. We’ve used it a lot in this series, and we’ll continue to. “Great is the Lord, and highly to be praised, and His greatness is unsearchable.”

Let’s pray. God how great You are. How unfathomable You are. How holy and good and just You are. How merciful and loving and kind You are. God, I pray, as we’ve just soaked in so much truth and I know we’re going fast and I know these doctrines are so deep and it’s tough to cover them in a fast clip. I pray what this does is for those of us who know You, simply deepen our love for You, our affection for You, our awe of who You are, and our worship of You. And God if there is anybody here tonight who doesn’t know You, I pray, they would know that the way to come to know You, is not by knowing more about You, or sitting in a church service, or even opening a bible, or praying, or doing Christian things. The only way to know You is to come to saving faith by placing one’s full trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross. And I pray, if there’s anyone here like that tonight or anyone watching, that tonight would be the night they declare that Jesus Christ is Lord, be forgiven of their sin, secure the hope of eternal life. And know that they know You, this God, this mighty God, this saving God, this God who knows all things, and have great joy as a result. We give You thanks and praise for this time in Your word and ask that You would go with us and before us this week as we seek to serve You in faith. In Jesus name, amen.