Ask the Pastor: Predestination

Question: How is it that we believe anyone can be saved, but we also believe in predestination? That seems like people aren’t saved by choosing the Lord, but the Lord made them follow him...

Answer: Great question! Whenever we get into deep theological topics like predestination, it is important to begin by reminding ourselves that we believe what the Scriptures teach us, even when those topics are hard to understand. In this case, it’s hard to see (from our perspective) how both human responsibility to believe and God’s predestination can be true at the same time. Yet, the Bible clearly teaches both.

On the one hand, the Scriptures clearly teach that God “desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:4; see also 2 Pet. 3:9). Further, the Scriptures teach that “whoever believes in [Christ] should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16; see also John 1:12), and that Jesus Christ was made the “propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2). Therefore, the reach of the gospel of Jesus is universal as “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Rom. 1:16; see also Tit. 2:11).

On the other hand, the Scriptures also clearly teach that God “chose us in [Christ] before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ” (Eph. 1:4–5a). We also see strong descriptions attributing salvation to the Lord, and not to the choices of people: “And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved” (Acts 2:47); “and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed” (Acts 13:48).

So, the Scriptures teach that we are saved by faith alone in Christ alone, but the Scriptures also teach that only God can cause faith to grow in the hearts of people (Matt. 16:17; 1 Cor. 3:6; Eph. 2:8–9). The fact that the Scriptures teach both things is why we ask this question. We are essentially asking how to understand both of these truths together.

My favorite verse that captures both of these truths together is from the words of Jesus, captured in John 6:37: “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out” (John 6:37). In the first part of this verse, Jesus tells us that a specific group of people will come to him: namely, those whom the Father has given to him. Before Jesus goes to the cross, he insists that it is for these whom the Father has given to him that he prays: “I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them” (John 17:9–10). Those whom the Father gave to the Son from before the foundations of the earth were laid will certainly come to Christ.

Then, in the second half of John 6:37, Jesus assures us that he will “never cast out” those who come to him. We must come, but we have assurances that he will never cast out those who do come to him. Yet, those who come were those who have been predestined to eternal life.

One important point in all this: the word “predestine” is never used in the Bible or in Reformed confessions to refer to those who never believe, and who will therefore be cast into hell. Instead, the Scriptures teach that God makes a different kind of choice to “foreordain” some to eternal condemnation. It is not as though God were picking a team, selecting the best and most impressive for himself, and then choosing to reject others. Indeed, God has chosen those who were foolish, weak, low, and despised—those who were “nothing” in this world (1 Cor. 1:26–29)!

Rather, the biblical idea is that all were deserving of hell and condemnation because of our sin. Yet, out of nothing more than his own free grace, mercy, and covenantal love, he graciously chose to save some. God would have been righteous to condemn all of us because of our sin, and if he were to save only one sinner it would have been infinite mercy. Yet, God chose and called out a people to himself, predestining to give them new birth by his Holy Spirit, faith in Christ, and adoption to the Father as sons and daughters.

As for the rest of mankind, the Westminster Confession of Faith says that God was pleased to “pass by” the others, “according to the unsearchable counsel of his own will, whereby he extend[s] or withhold[s] mercy, as he please[s],” and “to ordain them to dishonor and wrath for their sin, to the praise of his glorious justice” (WCF 3.7). To “pass by” is not so much an active choice to reject, but a permissive choice to allow sinners to continue in the sin that they have chosen for themselves.

In other words, God would be righteous to condemn all, and he is merciful to save any.

As a final word, we must keep in mind that the Scriptures do teach these truths, but they do not allow us to peer too deeply into them. As Deuteronomy 29:29 warns, “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.” Let us hold to the Scriptural teaching of predestination chiefly for the “praise, reverence, and admiration of God,” and then also for “humility, diligence, and abundant consolation to all that sincerely obey the gospel” (WCF 3.8).

Oh, the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. (Rom. 11:33–36)