17thMarch
Are some predestined for heaven and others for hell?
Categories: salvation | 2008 | by Ken Horn | 3 commentsThere is a teaching that some people are predestined for heaven and others predestined for hell. Doesn’t man have free will?
Here’s the short answer. Jesus died for everyone. God desires all to be saved. No one is predestined to heaven or hell. Everyone has a choice (free will) to accept or reject Christ.
Now here’s some detail.
The Assemblies of God has a position paper called “The Security of the Believer.” The following section addresses this issue:
Salvation is available for every man (2 Peter 3:9; John 3:16; Romans 10:11-13).
Two questions may be asked: “Are some predestined to be saved and others to be lost?” and, “Who are the elect?” The answer is clear when it is recognized that the message of the gospel is one of “whosoever will.” No one reading the New Testament can miss the impact of this great truth.
However, in Romans 9-11 there are some statements that seem to imply that man’s free will is excluded in the matter of the believer’s salvation and that God in His choice of the elect exercises His divine sovereignty entirely apart from man’s volition. For example:
(For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;)…Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated…. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy…. Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth (Romans 9:11, 13, 15, 16, 18).
When this passage is considered in the light of all that God’s Word teaches concerning election, however, it is evident that man’s will is involved in his election. Jacob was chosen before having done good or evil, but God’s choice was on the basis of what He foreknew Jacob would do.
This truth is brought out in Peter’s letter to “the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia.” These believers were recognized to be “elect according to the foreknowledge of God” (1 Peter 1:1, 2).
This same truth is stated in Romans 8:29. Paul wrote, “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son.”
God determined beforehand the conditions on which He would show mercy. And on the basis of His foreknowledge believers are chosen in Christ (Ephesians 1:4). Thus God in His sovereignty has provided the plan of salvation whereby all can be saved. In this plan man’s will is taken into consideration. Salvation is available to “whosoever will.”
The paper also says, “The General Council of the Assemblies of God believes in the sovereignty and divine prerogative of God untainted by arbitrariness or caprice. It also believes in the free will and responsibility of man.”
Man has free will and God desires to save everyone. Though He has foreknowledge of the choices each individual will make, He does not predetermine those decisions.
Read the entire position paper here.
Ken Horn
So, if God truly knows (with certainty) the future free-will choice of every human being, then how can you get around God creating some human beings for the ultimate purpose of salvation (of course in accordance with the individual’s choice), and others for ultimate damnation (of course in accordance with the individual’s choice)?
i’m with you will, that’ll be tough to preach ehh?
About Predestination
“And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, that he might be the firstborn among many bretheren. Moreover whom He predestinated, these He also called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these he also glorified.” (Romans 8:28-30)
The concept of predestination has confused and separated Christians for generations. Some claim that God, through predestination, is being unfair. Others would just rather leave it out of their Bible. Indeed, most modern churches have chosen to simply ignore it. Yet, all of the Protestant churches that came into being out of the Reformation held to the doctrine. But today, with so much humanism in the church, the idea of a sovereign God who controls all things is not popular. However, God’s sovereignty is spelled out for us throughout the entire Bible and so is predestination.
As a doctrine, predestination states that God sovereignly elects who is to be saved. He makes this choice totally independent of anything that we may do. He does not choose us based upon faith because our faith is a gracious gift of God to those He has chosen. Nor does He choose us based upon our good works. Nor does He look into the future to see who would choose to believe. He elects people to eternal salvation based purely on His own good pleasure. Those not elected are not saved. Does this sound a bit unfair? In reality, it’s just the opposite.
THE HIGHWAY TO HELL
Man is a sinner and the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). Thus, all of us would be on our way to hell without the salvation graciously provided by God. “…Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. “As it is written: There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one.” (Romans 3:10-12).
Because of this situation, man is incapable of understanding the things of God. “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Corinthians 2:14). Thus, from his birth, man is on the highway to hell. He cannot and he will not, choose to come to God. So God “. . chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.” (Ephesians 1:4-5).
FOR WHOM DID CHRIST DIE?
God chooses us. We do not (for we cannot) choose him. Can you imagine the sovereign God of the universe sending his Son to die for sinners who may or may not choose to come to him? Does it make sense that, after His resurrection, Jesus sat down at the right hand of the Father and began to wait for sinners to choose whether or not to come to him? That would mean that, on the cross, Jesus died for no one in particular. But, that is not the case. Christ’s atonement was specifically for his people - “I lay down my life for the sheep” (John 10:15). He did not shed his blood for those who would not come to him. He has not paid the price for their sin - they will. “I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for those whom You have given Me, for they are Yours.” (John 17:9).
UNDESERVED MERCY
Is that unfair? Hardly. Fairness is that we all go to hell. All men are sinners and deserve to go to hell. God owes us nothing. Yet, God has chosen to save some from that eternal punishment. C. H. Spurgeon said, “The amazing thing is not that everybody isn’t saved, but that anybody is saved.”
Instead of being unfair, this is mercy at its utmost. God does not have to show mercy to any one. “For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.” (Romans 9:15). “Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?” (Romans 9:21)
GOD IS IN CONTROL
With a closer look, predestination is not seen as the unfair doctrine that so many would claim it to be. Predestination is the result of God’s mercy and love. It guarantees the salvation of the ones He has called. It reveals the true nature of man to be sinful and rebellious toward God.
It puts God in total sovereign control, where He belongs. It removes man’s ability to take any credit for his own salvation, because even the act of believing can not be created in a sinful free will. It allows the saved to rest assured in the knowledge that it was God himself who made their salvation sure.