Predestination IS a Very Difficult Doctrine

Common Sense Commentary: I received the following response to my recent blog on "Foreknowledge and Predestination", from a fine young pastor I knew as a child. He took a kind and gentle difference with me concerning the root origin of  predestination and what it means in Scripture. He is doing a wonderful work for the Lord.


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On the flip-side. Scripture, both old and new is filled with detail after detail of God's direct selection of those who would bring Him glory by their obedience to                 
  His command, and be the object of His wrath for their rebellion. He does state that   every knee will bow...; some to their Savior, Some to their judge.                            

I see God as sovereign over all his creation; making vessels for honor and for dishonor as he wills. If His redeeming work on Calvary was sufficient to save, it must be only     for those He as predestined for it. Otherwise, the human will has somehow overridden His, dissabling the effectiveness of Christ's supreme sacrifice.                                        


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Here is my answer to this very common position on predestination:
Since I gave Scripture in the Blog in question, I will not repeat it here.

Did God get "glory by their obedience" which He predeposited in them?

Did God predeposit the "rebellion" in the lost, upon whom his "wrath" shall fall, without any freewill choice or sin or rejection on their part?

Did God predestinate, before their birth, the refusal of the lost to
"bow their knees" to Him, during their lives, by no choice of their own?
Yes, God is "sovereign" and it was within His supreme sovereignty that He chose to give those created in His image and likeness, a free will to decide and choose to believe and obey or disbelieve and rebel. And, yes, God did, "make both vessels (people) who honored Him and those who did not.  But, He did not "make" some good and some bad, some honorable and some dishonorable.  He did not "make" us sinful before we were born or after.  With Satan's help, we are sinners by choice ... our choice not God's.  If we will be judged for our actions, we alone are responsible for them.

So, the question becomes, "Why did God even make those He foreknew would reject Him?"  the answer is simple.  He could not have foreknown a thing that would never even happen.  If He stopped it before it happened, He wouldn't foreknow that it did happen. He would foreknow He stopped it.  Though He foreknew the unsaved would reject Him, He had to let the fact of their rejection play itself out in reality or He could not have foreknown it would, indeed, come to pass.  Also, if God had not let the bad go ahead and happen, which He foreknew that people would do, but instead,  simplified matters and just sent them straight on to hell at conception or upon their birth ... as babies, would that be their just rewards?  Would that be like God?  Most of the world are not Christians. Most die lost. God knew it before they were born.  If predestination
were not based of God's foreknowledge but strictly upon His preferential choosing of one and rejection of another, based on nothing else, then every fetus and baby born is destined for Heaven or Hell. And most of them, who die before or at birth, would go directly to Hell without ever sinning or having a choice. That would also apply to a little child, too young to be saved, who dies.  Hyper-predestinationalists, to be consistent, must believe that fetuses and babies predestined for hell are sent there by God's choice and nothing else even if they die at or before birth. Give me a break!
And this based solely on the preferential selection by God of one and rejection of the other, without the baby ever having lived to sin, choose or reject God on its own.

Preachers, if you believe that interpretation is Bible truth, you are obligated to preach it.  I have never heard such a sermon even from the most convinced Hyper-Predestinationalist. Why do you suppose that is? Can't you see that little mother's face, who just lost a toddler, when she hears that from the pulpit? She would rush out in tears, never to return and most of the church with her. But if its true, preach it.

"Rightly dividing the word of truth" means study God's word in depth, every sentence and each word.  Dig deep, read every verse in the Bible related to every sermon.  Think!  Is your conclusion consistent with every other verse in the Bible?  What are the ramifications and consequences of your beliefs, followed to their ultimate end???
We must not preach or teach error.  One error has a rippling effect on every other thing we read, hear and believe.

I have wrestled with this subject for years seeking harmony between "Whosoever will"  and "election, fore ordination and predestination".  I have never yet found any harmony with "predestination" without the prerequisite of God's "foreknowledge".
The word, foreknowledge has no hint of an action by God in determining our eternal destiny within it.  Think! God's Foreknowledge IS Predestination. The natural, automatic, equal of God's Fore Knowledge IS Predestination. GFK = P .  True
Knowledge, like truth, is neutral; it is what it is and stands alone like a column reaching from heaven to earth.  True knowledge, and Truth itself, are God's dominion and have his power within them.  A lie about either is neither. Hate it and it yet stands
for eternity. True knowledge and True truth can be attacked but cannot be changed.
Twist it and you twist yourself. Pervert it and you are perverted but it is still truth.

A final thing.  The response of my friend is sincere. He says, "Otherwise, the human will has somehow overridden His, dissabling the effectiveness of Christ's supreme sacrafice."

Actually, the opposite is true. "In the beginning" it was God's own, perfect will to give us a free will to choose and decide our personal thoughts, words and actions.  God, having set that precedent by His soverign will, all else must harmonize with it. He, Himself, does not violate His word and will.  If the erroneous interpretation we are discussing were correct, and we were selected or rejected by God without our having done anything, on our own, by our free will decision, thought, word or action, to effect
 it, and were Divinely "chosen" of God, for Heaven, why did Christ die at all?  He died for our sins because we were responsible, we chose to sin, we were guilty. We did it
.......God did not do it to us or put it in us or predestine us to sin. We did it. Freewill.

Pass it on. RB