Chosen Children - Answering an Objection to Irresistible Grace

“We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps.” –Proverbs 16:9

It is interesting that when you bring up the topic of predestination, people assume that if God determines whether or not to give you saving faith, then He has therefore created robots.  This is a very emotionally charged statement as we immediately consider stiff, cold, metal machines incapable of free thought and not worth our affections.  However, this doctrine doesn't teach that we are robots at all; it teaches us that we are children.

The individual whom God chose to save, chose, I say, before time began; that blessed man or woman to whom God said “I will pour out my grace upon you”: that is the individual God treats as a true son or a daughter.  He does not forcibly compel, but grants faith as a gift, and the child receives it as though it had been given a wonderful present at Christmas.  Once gifted with faith, our eyes are open to the majesty and glory of God, the wondrous love He has for us, and our journey of salvation has not only begun, but it is secure.  Those spiritual eyes, once granted the sight of faith, can never be blinded again.  God has not compelled a servant, no; He has taken his sick child in His arms, held it close, applied the cure, and made it well.  It shall never be sick again.

As I write this, I have a daughter who is just about to turn three months old.  She is quite helpless and needs to be waited on constantly as she cannot meet any of her many needs herself.  As a parent, I do not compel her to serve me; rather I serve her every day, feeding her, cleaning her, clothing her, comforting her.  I absolutely delight in doing all of these things for her, because I love her dearly, even though sometimes she smells, spits up, cries and fusses.  None of these things diminish my love for her, and I would certainly give my life for hers.  Isn't this precisely how God treats us?  Indeed, He did give His life for us, and He feeds us, cleans us, clothes us and comforts us, not just physically, but spiritually also.  We are truly His children.

Yet when it comes to salvation, we do not wish to be children; we wish to be adults, purely autonomous beings who make their own decisions for themselves without any outside influence compelling them this way or that.  Yet the Bible doesn't refer to us, in relation to God, as though we are adults.  In relation to God we are children: “See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are!” (1 John 3:1)  As any parent can tell you, children are often disobedient, often stubborn, often in need of discipline.  However, the parent is not compelled to bend to the will of the child, but by the very order of things guides and directs the child as he or she grows.  The child may be a free spirit, but that freedom does not give it autonomy; throughout its young life it is subject to the guiding hand of the parent.  A good parent does not enslave the child, controlling its every thought and movement, but neither does a good parent simply let the child go.  No, a good parent sets boundaries, applies rules, and pushes and directs the child in a positive direction, always moving it forward for its own good, protecting the child, not only from the world, but from its own foolishness as well.

When God chooses to save an individual, it is not a spur-of-the-moment decision, a question that was hanging in the balance until that point in time when someone got down on their knees to cry out to Him.  No, God always knew those on whom He would pour out His saving grace: “Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.” (Ephesians 1:4-5).  He knew them because they were made to be His own, and because they are His own He guides and directs, disciplines, protects and instructs them.  Are they free?  Certainly, but they are free as a child is free, subject always to the oversight of a loving Father who will always be watching over them, protecting them and keeping them.  A little child cannot disown the parent, though he may throw a tantrum now and then.  Neither can we, who were adopted by the grace and choice of God, disown our heavenly Father.  We are children, not robots, because we are chosen, cared for, protected and kept by His almighty will, grace, and love.

Divine Foreknowledge and Irresistible Grace: A Look at Romans 8:29,30

"For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified." -Romans 8:29,30

This verse is often used by those who subscribe to Arminianism (or just generally reject the doctrine of predestination, or what Calvinists refer to as "Unconditional Election") as an argument that ultimately, whether an individual comes to Christ or not rests solely on that individual, acting freely and without compulsion.  Their reasoning goes that when the text says that those God "foreknew" he predestined, what is meant is that God saw ahead of time which individuals would, entirely of their own will, choose to accept Him, and those individuals God then "predestined" to be made like His Son.  Human choice comes first, and then God sets the stage.

The problem, and it is a significant one, is that this does not fit the flow of thought in this verse at all.  Had Paul left this passage in that spot, foreknowledge then predestination, there would be ground for this argument.  But He goes on and builds from that same starting point, and as he extends his reasoning it ought to become clear to us that Paul is not referring to foreknowledge in this light at all.  I must admit, however, that I myself never considered this point until it was shown to me by John Piper.  Consider the flow of the verse:

Those He foreknew He predestined, those He predestined He called, those He called He justified, those He justified He glorified.

Each point leads directly into the next.  It's on the second point, where Paul states that those whom God predestined He called, that Arminianism’s position breaks down.  Arminianism argues that the call of God is that the Gospel is preached to all without prejudice, and then it lies in the heart of the individual how to respond to it.  The Calvinist agrees with this position, but insists that this "general" call will always be rejected, and thereby lead to the condemnation of the hearers, unless God directly intervenes in the lives of some to cause them to positively respond to it.  This is the Calvinist doctrine of "Irresistible Grace": the call of God is always rejected by sinful man unless God first changes the heart...and once the heart has been changed, redemption has already taken place.  For this reason Calvinists insist upon what we might call the "effective” call of God.  This is not just a general presentation of the Gospel, or a general tug on the heart of men and women, but it is God effectively, irresistibly calling His own (the predestined) to faith in Christ.

As a Calvinist, the above progression makes sense.  Those God predestined He calls, and those He calls He also justifies; in other words, their sins are wiped clean and they are declared guiltless before God on account of the atoning sacrifice of His Son.

According to Paul's line of thought, the call follows after predestination and leads directly to justification.  Those who are predestined are then called, and those who are called are then justified.  This creates a significant difficulty for Arminianism, but for the Calvinist, there is no issue.  It is because you were predestined that God, at some point in your life, intervenes and calls to you with an irresistible call to grace.  On the other hand, the Arminianist can argue that this is just a simple timeline...naturally the call follows predestination, but it's not a particular, irresistible call, it is the same call the rest of the world receives, the same general pronouncement of the Gospel message.  Fair enough, until you reach the next point: "those whom he called he also justified".  Clearly, the whole world, which receives the same general Gospel message, is not justified.  Paul does not say that SOME who are called are justified, but links the call directly to justification.  You are predestined, therefore called, therefore justified.  Driving the point even further home, Paul continues that those who God justified "he also glorified", i.e., they are with God forever in eternity.

The problem that Arminianism has at this point cannot be understated.  If the call here is the same general call, then all those called should be justified, and all of those justified are glorified.  If this is so, then Paul is proclaiming Universalism.  But unless you want to take that third road, we are left with few options.  Those called ARE justified, and those justified ARE glorified.  It's ironic, but this whole passage, which Arminianism has long used as an argument against Calvinism, is instead Calvinism in a nutshell, providing the process of salvation, even a nod to eternal security, in simple fashion.

So what of the beginning of the passage, where Paul speaks of God's foreknowledge?  Foreknowledge has never been an argument against predestination, indeed, predestination depends on God's foreknowledge.  The fact is, God has been aware of the plan of salvation from the beginning of creation, when He foreshadowed Christ in Genesis 3:15, telling Satan that the woman would bear offspring and that "he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel".  He was aware of each of us as individuals, having purposefully pieced us together, as evidenced when God told the prophet Jeremiah "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations." (Jeremiah 1:5).  Jesus Himself, confronted with the unbelief of the Pharisees said, in John 10:26-28, "you do not believe because you are not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand."  He did not say they did not believe because they were stubborn, but because they were not His sheep.  Those who are God's sheep hear his voice and respond.  God knows those who are His, knew them before they were born, purposefully created them, and predestined their salvation through Jesus' sacrifice.

To the Arminianists out there, I urge you to come up with another argument.  To the Calvinists out there, I urge you to start using this verse to explain your position.  Finally, to the Universalists out there, I urge you to keep studying the rest of scripture as a whole, which indeed I urge us all to do regardless of our present theological leaning.