The old debate of election vs freewill seems, for many, to be a tirelessly divisive argument. I myself have been back and forth on this subject quite a few times, trying to find my place in understanding God's Word and will for my life. Many claim that scripture argues favorably for both views - that God has designed man with free-will (either to accept or reject God's grace) or that God is absolutely sovereign to the extent that man is not free - that His every choice is predetermined by the sovereign will of God.
I believe what I'm about to share with you is the clearest understanding I have in regard to this subject. I have only the Lord to thank and the Scriptures as they have been my fuel for chasing after the answers to the questions I've had on this debate for years.
On the subject of God's Will:
- 2 Peter 3:9 tells us "God does not want anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance" (yes the context supports the inference that anyone and everyone refers to all people over all the earth).
- John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life."
- Most consistently as we look throughout all of Scripture and God's dealings with His "chosen" people - He pleaded with them countless times to abandon the idolatries of the foreign nations. Jesus said, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing."
On the subject of Man's will:
- Deuteronomy 28 tells us that humanity has the capacity to reap rewards for obedience and curses for disobedience (supporting the argument of freewill) - otherwise, what purpose does this conditional explanation serve?
- The Bible tells the dynamic story of the Father's love for His creation (see Gen 15-22 & Luke 15:11-32); this is important because the purpose behind His creation of humanity is for worship - to love the LORD with all his heart, mind, soul, and strength (Matt 22:37). If man is not free - then love is a meaningless term. Love demands freewill - otherwise it is not love at all (but only a code, a program, a preconditioned response). If love is merely a program or string of code it is reduced considerably to have any weight in value for the object which receives this love.
- Consequently, if man is not free, then God's own Word proves Him a liar - for if love demands freewill and yet man is not free, then God's command and demonstration of love are vain and deceptive.
Romans 9:22-24 reads: "What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction?23 What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory—24 even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?"
- first note that Paul begins this statement with "what if" meaning this defense is not declarative, but a plausible (reasonable) solution to the question of God's judgment over those who are "destined for destruction".
- second, it is important to understand we must read the rest of the Bible's authority and teaching into this passage if we are to interpret it correctly as Paul intended for his audience. This determines that we must read in the understanding that God has created human beings in His own image - with a free moral will as part of the package of the "Imagio Dei".
- third, one of the notable defining attributes of God (other than His sovereignty) is that He is omniscient "all-knowing" and that He has a foreknowledge of all of time and space because He, as the divine Creator, transcends His creation (meaning He exists outside of time and space). God's foreknowledge coupled with the Biblical view of freewill helps us understand how to read Rom 9:22-24 with more clarity.
- fourth, it is a strict rule of good hermeneutics to keep Scripture within the framework of the author's context. Paul is addressing his concern for the nation of Israel and the sovereign plan God has for the world (see Rom 9:1-5).
(VERSE 22) Its no surprise that God has revealed His wrath to mankind because of its wickedness (see Gen 6-9 and Gen 19). This means that God is fully capable of unleashing His divine judgment upon His creation at His will. However, in the understanding of 2 Pet 3:9 we know that "it is not God's will that anyone should perish... but that everyone should come to repentance." Therefore, we know that God bears with great patience the objects of His wrath (i.e. He tolerates their temporary wickedness for the present time for an intended "sovereign" purpose). We know that God often has used the wicked to chastise the lives of His beloved children (those He knows will ultimately "choose" Him and inherit eternal life). Thus, "the objects of His wrath" are merely those wicked people God foreknew will ultimately reject Him - yet He tolerates their existence, even though He has the full right and ability to destroy them now, for a greater purpose to govern, direct, discipline, and even punish the lives of the righteous in accordance with His "sovereign" will.
(VERSE 23) Again, "what if" is Paul's way of suggesting this is possibly the reason why God has permitted the wicked Gentile nations to survive all this time - because He had a greater purpose for them other than utter destruction. Something to consider here, the "objects of wrath" - could in-fact very well be the same subject as the "objects of His mercy". If the objects of His wrath, were the wicked gentile nations of the Old Testament - who have undergone the extension of God's favor, mercy, and grace to become the redeemed after the salvific work of Christ, there is no reason to deny the "plausiblility" that they have now become the "objects of His mercy". This is helpfully confirmed in the very next verse (24).
In Conclusion:
God is sovereign - He has full right to do as He pleases without any question. We as creatures, in relationship to His sovereignty, correctly should understand we have no right to question how or why He chooses to do things the way He does. However, we must be careful so as not to contradict what His Word reveals of His nature and purpose for all nations (Gen 15); as we gain knowledge of God and draw nearer to Him in the appreciation of His chief divine attribute of LOVE (1 John 4:7-21), we learn His will seeks to restore the world (John 3:17).
A picture of a God who creates for the sole purpose of destroying them is not consistent with the Biblical view of God's justice - even going so far as to force human behavior, their choices, their responses to His law and His will - is something far from the picture of God's character and His sovereignty.
A God who creates creatures with no will but the will He should impose upon them is hardly a God of Love, much less a God of sovereignty (a being who determines the set path of everything renders everything powerless - which means his power is no more worth reckoning than a child with a room full of lifeless toys). Quite frankly - if this is the understanding we have of sovereignty, then we have reduced God to a pathetic puppet master whose loneliness is His own prison. A God who fears to create a being with a will to either choose or reject Him is hardly sovereign, hardly admirable, hardly holy - but rather sinister, manipulative, deceitful, and hypocritical. I only say this to challenge those who claim this misled view of sovereignty in order to search the Scriptures more thoroughly to understand that human freewill does not belittle God's sovereignty - but rather confirms it.
For only a sovereign God has the capacity to create a free-moral agent with the gift of His own image in order that it might love Him in return with praise and worship that has any true sense of worth. Only a sovereign God has the power to permit a free-moral agent to reject Him and have the authority to judge Him justly. Only a sovereign God has the benevolence to award such privileges of heaven to those who rightly choose Him. Only a sovereign God has the sure confidence and majesty to create a being with such freedom and not allow it to interfere with His ultimate plan for the world He's created.
God has no need to manipulate every person for the sake of His intended pleasure – He has the capacity to move and influence the decisions of His creation – in order that He should accomplish His purposes indefinitely (with or without human compliance)! Man’s freewill is not so powerful so as to overthrow God’s sovereign plan – however his freewill does provide a greater value in praise and glory from a free-moral agent who is not reduced to an otherwise limp and lifeless marionette. The Calvinist, although claims to uphold sovereignty as the chief defining attribute in relationship between God and humanity, actually fails to reveal the value in a person’s exercises of prayer, praise, obedience, sacrifice, and consecration. If God performs all these actions for the human will – then is not God merely applauding Himself through a pathetic performance only He participates in? Praise from a puppet is hardly anything of substance – but praise from one who has the choice to love or reject something actually means something. We can learn a lot about God simply by observing His creation in the behavior of humanity.
What's more, yes salvation is not a merited work of human freewill but only the work of God. However, man has responsibility in this gift - to receive it and surrender his life to the will of God in order that His Spirit might bring him unto everlasting life! This enabling power (or gift of prevenient grace) is only made possible by the Holy Spirit and the conviction He brings upon the world. Calvinists need not fear that the support of freewill threatens a proper view of God - if anything, freewill supports the sovereign will of God in the fact that God uses those who surrender to His will - to accomplish His sovereign plan.
Election - is not arbitrary either (though this is something I may discuss at greater length later) - it is decided beforehand on account that God's foreknowledge of man's freewill is considered in this process - lest freewill be defeated, love destroyed and God's sovereignty collapses from the true picture we should revere it to be. God elects from the basis of His sovereign will and foreknowledge of His freewill creatures. Like a master chess player - God knows the power and position of His pieces and the anticipation of His obstacles and moves of the enemy in order that He should secure His victory and glory in the end!
