Regular listeners to my radio program know that it airs live from 4p – 6p ET in Detroit, followed by another live one hour program sponsored by a local Word-Faith church. Last Thursday night about 7 minutes into that program the guest host directly challenged on-air what I told a listener to my program who called during my program with a question about John MacArthur’s position on election and whether or not it was biblical. Here is a direct quote of what the host said in response to my answer to the caller:
I was listening to the previous program, and they were talking about the doctrine of election, does God pick and choose who He saves? Well, you know, I’ll just tell you: read Acts 10:34. Read it! Right from the very beginning, with Adam, God was not (well, I almost give (sic) the answer away), but He didn’t pick and choose. Hello! He gave him a free will. He gives you a free will. Ah, I gave you the answer anyway. He’s not a respecter of persons, if He picks and chooses. He’d be the biggest respecter of persons if He picks and choose who’s saved and who’s not saved.
This is a total misrepresentation of what I told the listener. Beyond that, it is not a careful handling of Scripture. The host cited Acts 10:34 as proof that God does not show partiality or is not a “respecter of persons,” and concludes from this that God does not choose who will be saved and who will not be saved, but that the choice is the individuals. However, the entire context of Acts 10:34 – 35 reads this way:
So Peter opened his mouth and said: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.”
Typical of the Word-Faith movement is to lift verses out of their context to make them fit their predetermined conclusion. The host quoted only verse 34, which does indeed say God shows no partiality.
However, Peter’s thought didn’t end with verse 34. He’s still talking in verse 35 when he says, “but…”. In normal conversation when a person has made a statement followed by “but,” that means that what he says after the “but” qualifies what he has said before the “but.”
Peter follows his assertion that God shows no partiality by clearly saying that God “accepts those who fear him and do what its right.” Clearly Peter says that God makes a distinction – a choice – without showing partiality. In this context, those who fear God and do what is right, do so BECAUSE God chose them, not IN ORDER THAT God might choose them.
When Peter says that God does not show partiality, he means that God does not take who we are or anything we have done into account when He chooses to save us. It does NOT mean that God does not choose. Clearly God chooses, and He clearly chose the people Israel to be his treasured possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth, as Deuteronomy 7:6-8 clearly says:
“For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples,but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.”
Paul makes the same point in Romans 9:11-13, speaking of Jacob and Esau, when he says, “Though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad – in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of his call – she (Rebecca) was told, “The older will serve the younger.” As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
It wasn’t because of anything good in Jacob that God called Jacob, and it wasn’t because of anything bad in Esau that God did not call Esau. It wasn’t because of their works but because of God’s call. Three verses later Paul says, “So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.”
To assert that God does not choose because He does not show partiality is to mishandle the Scriptures. In choosing us for salvation, He did not show partiality, therefore He is not a respecter of persons.
So if God doesn’t choose based on us, or in response to anything we do, what is the basis of His choosing or election? His own will and purpose, for His own glory. Romans 9:18 says, “So then He has mercy on whomever He wills, and He hardens whomever He wills.”
Now that’s a tough answer to a Bible question.
Have you ever seen the Modeling God blog?
He claims a non-contradictory explanation for why the doctrine of election is not biblical.
From my extreme lay-person point of view it seems to make much more sense that implications of election/Calvinism.
http://modeletics.blogspot.com
Thanks for your thoughts Nancy. : )
When the Holy Spirit puts someone on your heart, to pray for their salvation…He usually has a specific part for you to play. Are you the only one who can play that part? I don’t think so…but what a blessing when you do so!
“When I think along these lines I don’t think that God is going to choose someone because I ask him too. I think he already knows who he has chosen since the beginning of time.”
After, struggling with the sovereignty of God on the choosing side, this I think is the next hard question. Just what do our prayers avail? I believe, prayer, true prayer is birthed in our heart by the indwelling Holy Spirit and is to get us lined up with God and His Word. It plays a part in the renewing of our mind along with studying the scriptures…it’s not just us talking to God…but, listening so we are on the same page.
Jennifer
I so appreciate the struggle you’re going through as you wade into these doctrinal waters. I’ve been there.
A couple of things I would highly recommend:
1. Going to http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Articles/ByDate/1995/1580_Are_There_Two_Wills_in_God/
2. Email me at md.edwards[at]gmail.com and I can send you a teaching file from Matt Chandler (of the Village Church in Texas) speaking on this subject. One that has helped many people on this topic.
Grace and peace
Thankyou. : ) Tough stuff. I could go on and on but i guess i’ll shut up now and just pray for God to open my eyes to the truth of it all and give me understanding.
But one last thing! : ) – do you have any clear thoughts on praying for the salvation of someone? Can my prayers change whether God chooses someone or not? That is why this whole concept freaks me out so. I feel like it starts to weaken my faith in the power of prayer. When I think along these lines I don’t think that God is going to choose someone because i ask him too. I think he already knows who he has chosen since the beginning of time.
Jennifer,
Yes, it is possible for ANYBODY to call on God in response to the gospel and be saved. That’s the hope of the gospel. You are not wrong to tell people to ask God to reveal Himself to them. That’s part of the Gospel.
You do your part and let God do His!
And know that you aren’t struggling with any questions I myself didn’t also have.
Thanks guys. : ) I’m still not feeling it. Thats why I always let it go and just focus on living for Christ and being as much as i can like Him, but of course it always pops up again.
Paul, I know I don’t know who there is and isn’t hope for, but wouldn’t you agree that there are people out there for whom there is no hope because they are not chosen?
I can’t know who these people are so I just treat all as if they can be saved of course. But I don’t like the thought that there are some that are just plain doomed and nothing can change it.
Sorry. broken record!!!!! Just that it causes turmoil in my heart.
All I know is I am sooooooooooooo grateful that I am secure in Christ and saved by his blood.
I just like to believe that so can ANY other person if they just call on Him.
I hear so many stories of people who called out to God in desperate times and he answered their call and changed their lives. I just like to believe that this is possible for ANYbody!!!
I always tell people that if they truly ask God to reveal himself to them, that He will. That he is their creator and loves them and will answer them.
Am I wrong in doing this? This is something I have always believed in my heart. But if I’m telling this to an ‘unchosen’ person I guess I would not be telling them the truth?
You can just ignore me whenever you want cause i know i just keep going on and on and over the same thing! Sorry! : )
Jennifer,
You say it makes you want to cry to think that for so many people there is no hope, but there is. The hope is the gospel! The same gospel that saved you is the gospel that can save them. We must not make the mistake of doing God’s job and not ours.
We are all born spiritually dead (Ephesians 2), so in that sense none of us have the ability within ourselves to believe on him. That ability comes only when God gives us life through his word (Jesus said, “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life”). The only hope for any one to come to life is to hear the word, so we must be faithful to proclaim the gospel without regard to who receives it and who doesn’t.
Anyone who is condemned to hell is there because he deserves it. Anyone admitted to heaven is there because of God’s grace, when all they DO deserve is hell.
I realize how hard these truths are. I would encourage you to focus on what God has called us to do, and to leave to Him to do what only He can do.
Jennifer,
I’ll be praying for you as you struggle with this–it took me years and I still find myself often wrestling with it. My pastor talked about it once and illustrated the struggle perfectly–we’re screaming “free will! Free will! Free will!” and then God brings us to a place where we collapse and say “your will.”
All men have had the opportunity to hear the Gospel and most people get justice; the rest get mercy. I don’t know why God chooses who He chooses except that…well, God chooses who He chooses and it’s not up to me to question that. He’d be just as holy and righteous as ever had He not called someone. But it is a difficult subject and one that takes months, even years, of praying.
I was once told that I was to think as a Calvinist and act as an Arminian. While I understand the sentiment there–we believe God is sovereign but that we have a responsibility–I think it’s flawed. I want to think AND act as if God is sovereign…and in doing that I have to believe that He told us to tell others about Him. And that’s all we have to go on.
Thanks Paul for taking the time to answer my question so thoroughly and shedding light on the use of the word all in scripture.
I am praying that God will give me peace and understanding on this subject because i struggle with it so. It makes we want to cry to think that for so many people there is just no hope for them. Probably some of the people of I love. I think too, and I mean no disrespect to my awesome God, but its an honest struggle in my heart, that it seems evil to me to create a person with their end being eternal damnation and suffering. That is why I just can’t fully accept this.
I have always been taught that God gave Adam and Eve a choice in the garden because he didn’t want to just create robots that all love him. That he gave us free will so that we would choose to love him, choose to walk in his ways. I would imagine you’d think that is grossly incorrect.
It does seem ‘fair’ to me, (although I know what i think is fair in comparison to God’s sovereignty is ridiculous, but just expressing the feelings of my heart) that if someone rejects God and the gift of salvation he has given for them, and the evidence of the creation around them, that they would perish. I look around me every day and think how absurd it is that anyone would not believe in God!
But I guess if God created them without the ability to believe in him, its not so crazy and its not their fault. They are not suffering eternally because they rejected God’s love if they are not able to choose Him in the first place.
But to know that there never was even a chance of them being saved, that they were born just to die and suffer, that they were a little baby like every other, that their mother loved them with all their heart and rocked them and cared for them and fed them, hoped for the best for them, but in the end only for all that to fall away and there to be neverending burning fire. Thats what is so hard for me to grasp. Especially when I believe that God is Love.
And I do look at it as a large percentage of the people will perish, Jesus’ statement in Matthew 7: For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
So if the word of God has gone out to all men so that they are without excuse, this makes me feel that all men have the option to accept God’s love for them and follow him.
When someone is ‘without excuse’, they did something wrong and don’t have justification for it. So what did they do wrong? Hear God’s word and not accept it as truth? Does this mean that if they had fallen on their knees before God he would have come to them? Did they even have the ability to fall on their knees before him?
As humans, we naturally come by a “me first” mind set. Our rules of order in… fairness…are heavily shaded by this mind set. “I shoulda, coulda, woulda been first if the decision had been FAIR!” When we think of God’s ways, we know He will always be “fair”…and just. But, when life deals us a surprise, and we look at the facts seen…many of us are offended when God does not play by our rules. Such is the caution of Jesus as he tells us the ways of the Kingdom…Is “letting” God do the choosing FAIR? How Sovereign IS God? If it doesn’t seem “fair”…on whose side should the adjustment be made?
Come to think of it Chris, I think I actually felt a thrill go up my leg!
I have that effect on people. Unfortunately, not on single ladies.
Chris,
Sometimes you just make me all giddy inside! 🙂
Jennifer,
There are two senses in which the word “all” can be used. 1) All without exception, meaning every single person, or 2) All without distinction, meaning all men regardless of race, gender, nationality, economic standing, etc.
In Mark 1:5 the Bible says “All the land of Judea” came to John and “all were baptized” by John. Does this mean that every single man, woman, and child in Judea was baptized by John? Clearly not, because Luke 7:30 says that the Pharisees were NOT baptized by John. So what does the word “all” men in this context? Not that all without exception were baptized, but rather that all without distinction in terms of their gender, race, wealth, etc., were baptized.
Luke 3:21 says that “all the people” came to Jesus as he taught in the Temple. Does this mean that every single person in Jerusalem came to Jesus in the Temple? Clearly not, because the context is the Feast of Tabernacles when the population of Jerusalem would have doubled. The Temple would not have been large enough to accommodate every single person in Jerusalem at that time. So clearly the word “all” again means “all without distinction.”
So how is the word “all” being used in the context of 1 Timothy 2:3? I would argue that Jesus gave himself as a ransom for “all men” in the sense of all men without distinction. I base this on Revelation 5:9 where the ransomed around the throne of God say, “For you were slain and by your blood you have ransomed people for God out of every kindred, tongue, tribe, and nation.” The ransomed were redeemed OUT OF the nations, meaning some in the nations were NOT redeemed. So clearly when Paul says God gave himself a ransom for all, he means all without distinction, not all in the sense of every single person, because not every single person will be saved.
God does not create a majority of men with no chance of being saved. The Bible says the word of God has gone forth to all men (Romans 10:8), so that they are without excuse. There is a general call which goes out to all the world, and there is an effectual call that works for those who believe. We are responsible to give the general call through our preaching and witness. The Holy Spirit gives the effectual call through the Word preached, showing mercy on whom he will show mercy (Romans 9:15,16).
It is not possible for us to know ALL the people God has elected to salvation, therefore we must be faithful to preach the gospel to ALL the people to whom God gives us an opportunity to witness.
I’ve heard Pastor Jerry a few times and I’m sure that even though he was saying false doctrine, it sure probably sounded like the happiest false doctrine in the world.
But in all seriousness, this is such a tough subject because, in our world’s thinking, we choose based on the benefit it brings to us. Whereas God’s choice was not one of “we deserve it” but rather, as the Bible says, Him choosing to give mercy on whomever He pleases and wrath on whomever He pleases.
I left my former church in 2002 because I was a college student and was appalled at the teaching of election in our Sunday School class. It offended me (of course, I would later learn that the Bible repeatedly offends me and is the most offensive book ever written to fallen humans). Of course, right after leaving I found myself at a church in the middle of a sermon series on Romans. And what was the topic of the day? Romans 9.
It’s such a tough area to wrap our brains around because we’re all taught by our culture that we are good and worth something, instead of the Biblical teaching that we are born as enemies of God destined for hell without grace. And certainly, from my perspective growing up, I became a Christian when I “asked Jesus into my heart” (shudder for using that phrase). It wasn’t until through growth, maturing and the massaging of my heart that God showed me that while I did make a choice from my perspective, it was in response to a choice He made in eternity past to open my heart and show His beauty to me.
Another way I’ve heard it phrased is that yes, of course we have the free will to choose God. But we haven’t chosen God. From conception, we’ve chosen death–we don’t choose God because our hearts are dead and hardened and we have no desire for Him. He takes the initiative to call us to Him. But even in there it seems that there’s a tension that I honestly don’t think we’ll reconcile until Heaven.
Debbie, you still should pray for a child not walking with the Lord and you should still witness to those who are not saved. Why? Because, as Paul said on his show this week, those are the means with which God spreads the Gospel (plus, we’re commanded to do that). I think we want to make it really simple to understand and, in doing that, we make the error of making it so simple that we reduce it “God’s sovereignty means we have no responsibility.” The Truth is much more complex,mysterious and higher than we can understand here, where we see through a glass darkly.
Which is one of the reasons I so firmly believe it’s true.
Because we do not and cannot know whom God has chosen and who He hasn’t, we must be faithful to do only what He has commanded us to do: be faithful to proclaim the gospel to the lost and leave it to the Holy Spirit to do His work of calling and saving. The gospel is to be preached to ALL the world. The gospel is the means God uses to save those whom He saves. “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. How shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except they be sent.” The fact that God has chosen does not eliminate our responsibility to obey His word in sharing the gospel, because it is only through our preaching that God saves anyone.
Still a hard concept to wrap my head around. Should we continue to pray for a child that isn’t walking with the Lord? Maybe God hasn’t chosen him/her? Isn’t it His will for everyone to be with Him in eternity?
First I have to say that I love God, am so grateful to know him and have been saved by the blood of Christ. I always want to be walking in his ways and living by his truths.
I do however struggle with this concept, and often because of it just try to not think of it and let it go. It seems so awful to me that God would create so many people with their final condition to be burning for eternity in hell.
But what about 1 timothy 2:3?
This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men—the testimony given in its proper time.
If God wants ALL men to be saved, and Christ Jesus was given as a ransom for ALL men, i don’t see how that lines up with the concept that God creates a majority of the people with no chance of being saved? With a predestination of not being saved, when his word states he indeed does want all men to be saved?