Predestination and Romans 9: What Is It that God Chooses?

In his book Reflections on the Psalms, C. S. Lewis wrote a chapter on praising which began with him saying that “It is possible (and it is to be hoped) that this chapter will be unnecessary for most people”.  In the same spirit, I hope that this and subsequent blog posts on the topic of predestination will be unnecessary for most people. 

That is, I hope that most people reading it will be safely immune from the understanding of predestination offered by Mr. John Calvin and his Reformed friends—in particular the view which asserts that before the world and its people were created, God chose some individuals who would later be born to be saved and others to be damned, and that this divine choice had nothing to do with His foreseeing their later behaviour.  Rather, their later behaviour and their choices represented the outworking in time of God’s original sovereign and apparently arbitrary choice before time began.  Those whom He chooses for salvation He draws to Himself so that they accept Him, and those whom He had chosen for damnation He hardens so that they reject Him.

Reformed teachers refer to this as “unconditional election”, because God’s choice of some and not others was not conditioned by anything He foresaw in the lives of those chosen.  This is what most people mean by the term “predestination”.  This understanding, however, badly distorts what the Bible actually teaches.  Here it will be necessary to do a little more detailed exegesis than is customary for a blog piece. 

       Some people arguing for this understanding of predestination focus upon Paul’s words in Romans 9.   In this passage, Paul wrote that even before the twin boys Jacob and Esau were born, God chose Jacob over Esau to be the heir and carrier of the covenant that He made with Abraham, and this this choice was not based on anything the boys had done, since they had not yet done anything (verses 10-13).  Then Paul wrote as follows:

       “What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means! For he says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.’  So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, ‘For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.’  So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.  You will say to me then, ‘Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?’  But who are you, O man, to answer back to God?  Will what is molded say to its molder, ‘Why have you made me like this?’  Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honourable use and another for dishonourable use?” (verses 14-23).

       Some assert that in this passage, Paul is talking about the eternal decree of God for salvation or damnation, and they say that just as there is no injustice in God choosing Jacob over Esau, so there is no injustice in Him choosing to save one and to damn another.  God has mercy on whoever He wills, choosing one from all eternity for salvation, and choosing another from all eternity for damnation, based solely on His own sovereign will.  Arguing that this constitutes injustice (since no one can resist His will) is sharply rejected—frail humans must not answer back or contradict God. This would be as unreasonable as the thing molded complaining to its molder that it is molded in a certain way, or like the clay complaining to the potter about the purpose for which it had been made.  The complaint that God is being unjust to arbitrarily save some and damn others is simply disallowed.

       In other words, these people apply this passage and Paul’s reasoning to the issue of the justice of God’s decision to save or damn based on His will alone.  Of course it is admitted that the one chosen to be saved will accept Christ, and the one chosen to be damned will finally reject Him.  But, this view insists, the acceptance and rejection made by men during their lives represents what God had originally decided for them.  The choices to accept or reject might seem to have been freely made by men, but in fact they could not have been otherwise;  God’s decision before time began was the ultimate cause of men’s free decisions.  (Whether this radically re-defines free will is another question.)

       As said above, this badly distorts and completely misreads the nature of the discussion as a whole.  The issue that Paul is discussing is not the supposed injustice of God’s eternal decision to save some and to damn others.  The issue is the supposed injustice of God’s eternal decision to make salvation for Israel dependent upon their acceptance or rejection of Jesus.  Paul had been arguing that if a Jew rejects Jesus, he forfeited his salvation in the age to come, while if a Jew accepted Jesus, he retains salvation in the age to come.  Salvation, Paul said, depended upon acceptance of Jesus and membership in His Church.  Paul’s unseen Jewish debating partner objected that if this were so, then the word of God and His promise that Israel would be saved had failed:  God had promised to bless Israel, and to say (as Paul was saying) that the majority of Israel which had rejected Jesus would not be blessed constituted God going back on His word.

       Paul insisted that this was not so, for “they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel” (verse 6)—that is, the true Israel, the Israel which would experience God’s promised blessing and salvation, was not defined racially, but spiritually.  Merely being Abraham’s physical descendants was not enough, and merely being a Jew racially was not enough to ensure salvation—faith in Jesus was required.   

This, Paul argued, was clearly seen in Abraham’s sons Isaac and Ishmael:  both were Abraham’s sons, but only Isaac was chosen.  It was seen clearer still in Jacob and Esau, for both were children of the same mother (unlike Isaac and Ishmael), and yet God chose the younger Jacob over the firstborn Esau, in defiance of the cultural norms of that day.  The deciding factor, Paul insists, was not their behaviour, for neither had yet done anything when the choice of Jacob over Esau was announced (verses 7-13).  The deciding factor was God’s sovereign choice.  This was seen again in the example of Pharaoh:  after Pharaoh had oppressed God’s people and hardened his heart, God judged him by hardening his heart at the end so that he followed Israel into the Red Sea and was humiliated before the nations (verse 17).  God has mercy on whom He wills, and hardens whom He wills (verse 18).

Obviously the deciding factor is God’s choice and what it is that He predestines; the question is “What is that choice?  What is it that God is choosing?”  The divine choice referred to by Paul is not whether an individual will be saved or damned, or whether or not the individual will accept or reject Christ.  The divine choice referred to by Paul is whether or not to make acceptance of Christ the basis on which a Jew (or anyone) will be saved. 

Paul is insisting that God has the right to make discipleship to Christ the basis of whether or not one is saved, and the basis of whether or not one truly belongs to Israel.  God can, Paul insists, re-configure membership in Israel to make it dependent upon acceptance of Jesus as the Messiah.  Objecting (as Paul’s Jewish debating partner does) that God cannot do that and that He must bless all Jews on the basis of their Jewishness (i.e. on the basis of works of the Law, such as their being circumcised, keeping the Sabbath, observing the food laws) Paul simply disallows.  That indeed would be like the thing molded complaining to its molder, or like the clay pot complaining to the potter.  How dare Israel think that it could answer back to their God?

In fact, there is no injustice in God’s decision to make faith in Jesus the basis for membership in Israel.  Israel had been storing up wrath from God for some time with its hard and stubborn heart—stubbornness seen in their opposition to Jesus during His ministry.  For years God had been willing to demonstrate that wrath and to judge them, but He held back His hand.  Their stubbornness and sins were preparing them for destruction, but God endured them with much patience (verse 22).  His plan was to wait until Christ came, the time when His wrath finally fell upon the stubborn who rejected Him and when the riches of His glory came to those Jews who accepted Christ—and not just upon those Jews, but also upon the Gentiles who would accept Him (verse 23-24).

We see in this divine decision to make acceptance of Jesus the basis of the salvation promised to Israel the outworking of God’s judgment as well as His mercy:  the humble of heart would find their reward, while the stubborn would stumble through their pride and find judgment.  In Christ both the humble and the proud find their recompense.  (We see this teaching also in 1 Peter 2:7-8). 

We also see it in Luke 10:21 and John 6:45:  those who are humble and “babes” are taught by God and come to Christ, while those who are proud and wise in their own eyes refuse to come to Him.  God wills to teach and save all; the deciding factor determining whether or not one is taught by Him and saved is one’s humility. 

Making acceptance of Christ the basis of salvation was the eternal plan of God, administering both salvation to the humble, and judgment to the proud.  The judicial hardening of the proud hearts, long stubbornly set against God, was a part of this judgment.  It is as Paul said elsewhere—those hard Jewish hearts killed the prophets and they always filled up the measure of their sins, but now in Christ God’s wrath and judicial hardening have come upon them at last (1 Thessalonians 2:15-16).

This understanding of Paul’s words avoids any suggestion of arbitrariness on God’s part, and fully preserves human free will.  A man freely chooses or rejects Christ, not because God had already decided that he would, but solely on the basis on his own choices.  If he rejects Christ, that is not because God had eternally chosen him for damnation or decided that he would reject Christ.  The blame for the man’s rejection lies entirely with the man alone, and not with any eternal divine decree.  We can allow ourselves to be taught and drawn by God, or we can refuse Him.  The choice lies squarely with us.

Next:  Predestination and Ephesians 1:  What Is It that God predestines?