The Sovereignty of God
Unwanted Results of an Inordinate Emphasis on
the Exercise of Sovereignty
An inordinate emphasis on the sovereignty of God can lead to
doctrinal conflicts in the church because of inexplicable teachings arrived at
by theologian’s systematic teachings.
Sadly, God’s people, all too often, are forced to reconcile terrible
interpretations of God’s Word with very clear Biblical teachings. The theologians and good meaning men obscure
or hide the truth. In fact, those most
prone to obscure God’s truth are those who claim most vigorously that they have
a fuller understanding of God’s Word. In
his final words, Job lamented this very situation...
Job 42:3
3 Who is he that hideth counsel Without knowledge? Therefore have I uttered
that I understood not; Things too wonderful for me, which I knew not.
One such doctrinal conflict is the demand to explain Calvin’s
reprobation doctrine from his systematic theology Institutes, and the clear,
simple teaching that God loved the world.
Calvin’s teachings concerning sovereign election have obscured truth
becoming a stumbling-block to the young theologian, the discouraged older
theologian, or to the aggressively intellectual theologian.
In his Institutes, Calvin clearly teaches as part of sovereign
election the doctrine of reprobation.
Free grace of God is made sovereign grace. It confuses believers who believe that God is
love; that Jesus died for all men; and that God desires all to come to
repentance.
The doctrine of reprobation teaches that if some are arbitrarily
elected to salvation by God, then there has to be the opposite and equal teaching
that God arbitrarily elected some to damnation.
This is by Calvin’s own words a “horrible” doctrine. Calvin even characterized those that would
not accept reprobation as “childish.”
Among “modern” theologians, John Calvin gave an early and detailed
treatment of eprobation in his Institutes
(III. 23. 1ff.), calling it a “horrible” doctrine, yet one that could not be
avoided from the plain teaching of Scripture. The example of Jacob and Esau
(Rom. 9:13) is cited as a prime example of reprobation, where even before their
birth, one is elected to blessing and the other consigned to judgment. (Boa,
K., & Kruidenier, W. (2000). Vol. 6:
Romans. Holman New Testament
Commentary (294). Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers.)
The human mind, when it hears this doctrine, cannot restrain its petulance, but boils and rages as if aroused by the sound of a trumpet. Many professing a desire to defend the Deity from an invidious charge admit the doctrine of election, but deny that any one is reprobated (Bernard. in Die Ascensionis, Serm. 2). This they do ignorantly and childishly since there could be no election without its opposite reprobation (Calvin, J. (1997). Institutes of the Christian religion. Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software.)
God is said to set apart those whom he adopts for salvation.
It were most absurd to say, that he admits others fortuitously, or that they by
their industry acquire what election alone confers on a few. Those, therefore,
whom God passes by he reprobates, and that for no other cause but because he is
pleased to exclude them from the inheritance which he predestines to his
children. (Calvin, J. (1997). Institutes
of the Christian religion. Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software.)
Calvin’s justification for such a “horrible” doctrine includes
the Romans 9, Jacob and Esau passage. If
Jacob and Esau are examples of Paul’s teaching of election for eternal salvation;
then, God should have given that inspiration to Paul as he wrote Romans 9. To the contrary, the context is not salvation
of the lost worldwide, but the selection of which child would be a father of
earthly Israel.
God “hated” Esau and would not give him the role as a father
of Israel. This is a quote from Malachi
with nothing to do with the death of Christ, salvation of the lost, or the
damnation of the lost. Being a member
of earthly Israel has nothing to do with eternal salvation, unless you believe
that Israel will be saved apart from Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection.
In fact, it would be hard to prove that Roman’s 9 is
anything more than Paul’s complete broken heartedness over Israel’s advantage
being lost as the earthly people of God.
God by sovereign choice made Israel His earthly people. He gave them advantage with the delivery
responsibility of God’s message and savior.
Their rebellion caused God to reject them and nullify their advantage. God is justified by His rejection of Esau and
now Israel. They cannot say to the
potter, “Why have you made me thus?”
It is not their salvation, but it is the loss of advantage
as God’s earthly people. God did not
consign them to eternal hell, but He did reject them and grafted in the
Gentiles. The Gentiles now have the
privilege of which Israel was unworthy. .
By the same token, the Gentiles may be rejected should they
refuse His offers of reconciliation and God would be totally justified. No place in the passage does Paul give reference
to the arbitrary damnation of the lost.
Never is there a discussion of God’s sovereign determinate
council before creation in which He decreed individually all that would go to
hell. However, repeatedly we see the
free grace of God and his will to save all men.
John 3:15–17
15 That whosoever believeth in him
should not perish, but have eternal life. 16 For God so loved
the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17 For
God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world
through him might be saved.
God has gone to a lot of trouble to cover-up his true
intention to damn people arbitrarily with all these simple statements from
Scriptures. With regret, the conflict
for the church rages on because simple truth has been replaced with the complex
systems of theology, and the church struggles to carry these theological
burdens.
No comments:
Post a Comment