God’s Predestination or Man’s Free Will

The Gospel is often presented as the following allegory. That man is in the ocean drowning. Our Heavenly Father, being ever merciful throws a life preserver into the ocean (in the form of Jesus Christ’s death on the cross). Man can then decide whether he grabs the life preserver and is saved or whether he continues to drown and die. This is often referred to as the Arminian view of salvation. The other common view held in Protestant circles is that man has already drowned. His corpse floats in the sea. God then, by His divine providence and according to His sovereign good pleasure resurrects his corpse to life. Man plays no role in his resurrection. This is commonly referred to as the Calvinist or Reformed view. However, you will know, my dear friend, that I am no respecter of theological systems. My main concern is not what a scholar says nor what tradition says (though I do not negate their importance), my concern is that we let Scripture Paint the Picture.

God’s Providence and Man’s will

I will start by refraining from using the term ‘free will’. For is man’s will really free? But certainly man does have a will. Modern political scientists refer to it as ‘agency’. Man has agency. Man knows and can discern both good and evil. He has done so since the fall. Yet the Holy Bible is clear that much is in God’s hand.

Evil here means calamity, not wickedness. For it is impossible for God to do wickedness. But God’s hand in the world is absolute.

Another verse that describe’s God’s absolute sovereignty over the world:

God is one, God is powerful.

Yet we must consider something. When Adam and Eve partook of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they took on themselves responsibility. When a child commits a crime they are not tried for that crime until they reach the age of responsibility. The Fall ushered in man’s age of responsibility. Man has a choice. It’s not always free. Sin influences man’s choices.

Biblical Examples

Let us consider two examples from the Scripture. The King of Assyria was raised up by God for a judgement against Israel. Yet the King himself had no knowledge of this. The King thought he was exercising his own free will:

In fact once God was done with this purpose He reduced the Assyrians to a remnant. Not only is this prophesied in Isaiah 10:16-19 but it is the reality today. Assyrians in the middle east find themselves often oppressed by other groups.

Let us consider in this example the interplay between God’s divine purpose and man’s (in this case the King of Assyria’s) human will.

Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown (Commentary on Isaiah 10:7;) says regarding this “He [King of Assyria] is only thinking of his own schemes, while God is overruling them to His purposes”. Albert Barnes writes in the Webster Commentary:

Howbeit he meaneth not so - It is not his purpose to be the instrument, in the hand of God, of executing his designs. He has a different plan; a plan of his own which he intends to accomplish. Neither doth his heart think so - He does not intend or design it. The "heart" here, is put to express "purpose, or will." It is in his heart to cut off nations - Utterly to destroy or to annihilate their political existence.

Matthew Henry also goes on to say:

The king of Assyria, in his pride, thought to act by his own will. The tyrants of the world are tools of Providence. God designs to correct his people for their hypocrisy, and bring them nearer to him; but is that Sennacherib's design? No; he designs to gratify his own covetousness and ambition.

The king himself acts according to his prideful will. Yet there is in the events God’s providential hand. These two things do not run counter to each other but rather in unison. Now let us consider the example of Judas’ betrayal of Christ. He was one of the twelve. He sold Jesus out for silver coins. The psalms prophesize this event. It is foreknown.

Then it is confirmed in the New Testament that Judas’ betrayal was foreordained:

John Gill writes of Judas’ betrayal of Christ saying “God’s decrees concerning this matter, and the predictions in the Bible founded on them, did not in the least excuse, or extenuate the blackness of his crime; who did what he did, of his own free will, and wicked heart, voluntarily, and to satisfy his own lusts”. What can we observe from the example of Judas? The purpose of God was foreordained and prior to the event. Yet Judas acted upon his own will and is fully accountable for his actions.

Salvation of Man: free will or predestination?

He said “He hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world” (Ephesians 1:4). The implication is that He chose us long before we could ever make that choice. He said “whosoever believeth in him should not perish” (John 3:16). Implying the choice sits with the individual. He says “whom he did predestinate, them he also called” (Romans 8:30). He decides ahead of time who He choses and then calls them. But then man is told “whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Romans 10:13). The choice is mans. But then God says “as many as were ordained to eternal life believed” (Acts 13:48). Those who responded did so because they were ordained. In Acts 17:30 He calls men everywhere to repentance. Yet it is not a matter of man’s free will but of God’s mercy, saying “it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy” (Romans 9:16)”. Perhaps this dynamic can be best articulated by two verses in the book of Philippians:

We are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. That is on us. But it is God which works in us to will and to do.

The Wedding Feast

We have another example of this dynamic in the Parable of the Wedding Feast in Matthew 22:1-14. Those who were originally invited to the Wedding Feast would not come. Then his servants went into the highways and gathered together as many as they found. Then during the wedding party the King saw a man who did not have a wedding garment and cast him out. The passage ends with this phrase “For many are called, but few are chosen”. The calling is surely the Gospel. For the Gospel is fundamentally an invitation to the Wedding Feast. Woven within this example is the interplay between God’s divine purposes and man’s will. That the men who were bidden refused to attend. Of those who were gathered in, one did not come dressed in a wedding garment. Yet we are told that few are chosen. This chosen must refer to the chosen of Ephesians 1, which says we were chosen from the foundation of the earth.

Does God simply foreknow how people will respond?

It is a commonly made claim that the foreknowledge mentioned in Ephesians 1 is simply God knowing how people will respond. It has therefore to be said that even if this was true, and my friend it goes beyond what the text says, it is a human inference, that He would still be creating people He knew would never respond. Consider God’s prescience. God is present throughout and outside of time. He is the alpha and omega. In one sense God is experiencing every moment as the present (Acts 15:18: “Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world.” and Jeremiah 1:5: “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.”). The difference in outcome between the Calvinist and Arminian views are the same. For God could have chosen never to create such people. He could have chosen to only create those He foreknew. Yet He created vessels fit for both glory and wrath. Consider the role of the Church in the drawing of men. For who seeks after God apart from the Gospel? Nobody.

Who brings the Gospel? The Church! What is the Church? The body of Christ. God’s providential hand is upon the business of the Church. The Church brings the Gospel to the world. There is little preaching of the Gospel in Algeria and Saudi Arabia. There is much in America. God could have contrived things to have equal Gospel sharing across the world. But by His good-will, whereever you stand He, for His divine purposes did not. Without the fruits of the Church sharing the Gospel, man would not seek the living God. Until somebody shared the Gospel with me I sought after pagan spirituality. It never occurred to me to seek the Lord Jesus. Then by God’s divine providence the Gospel was shared with me. The Church plants. The Church waters. God gives the growth.

What of this could man do? Man is given no credit here. Yet the next question is, could I have refused? I remember the moment I took the leap of Faith in Jesus Christ. I remember the moment I was born again. Could I have said no? Let us consider our original examples. Could the King of Assyria have said no? Could Judas have said no? The Reformed and Arminian views both try to systemise and harmonise perfectly these questions. Yet God’s Word and Wisdom is deeper than this. For we forget God’s power. Every day He contrives millions of different events and interactions to his divine providential purposes. This is attributed to His omnipotence. We forget and make too little of His power. For God can contrive the incontrivable. In case you need a reminder of God’s power:

It is NOT that God calls man and controls him like a robot. Nor is it that man has no agency and will. For if man lacked agency and will he would not be held responsible for his actions. Yet since tasting of the fruit of the tree of good and evil man has been in his age of responsibility. When the King of Assyria invaded he did so as part of God’s providential judgement against Israel. But he also did so of his own accord. Both of these events were contrived to achieve an end that glorifies the LORD. The same is true of your salvation. This is not holding two opposing ideas in contention. This is not copping out of answering a difficult question. This is a mighty and awesome God, to which NOTHING is impossible who has contrived His divine choosing of His elect with man’s true and authentic response to the Gospel. May we always praise God for our salvation, for with Him, NOTHING shall be impossible. Let us eschew man-made theological systems on these great matters. Let us let Scripture paint the picture.

Tarry until He comes.