Thanksgiving Day is a wonderful American holiday! Despite our country’s spiritual and moral decline, the principle upon which Thanksgiving was founded – giving thanks to God for our blessings – continues to be practiced by millions of fellow countrymen. A precious gift that each Christian should be abundantly thankful for is God’s gracious, abounding love towards them. Even those who don’t know God in a saving way have Him to thank for His love towards them. Often oversimplified by Christians is the complexity of God’s love. The Bible describes various ways in which God extends love towards His human creations. When we generalize these expressions, confusion abounds and a distorted view of God’s love emerges.
Jesus explains in the Sermon on the Mount that God provides for both good and evil men, the just and the unjust (Matt 5:45). Throughout New Testament teachings Christians are encouraged to love their enemies and meet needs of poor believers and unbelievers. Why? This imitates God! We see in the Old Testament how God repeatedly blesses the entire nation of Israel even though many, and most often the majority, were in the midst of idolatry and wicked living. This did not necessarily imply these Jews were all truly saved, but that many of God’s blessings were extended to those who were merely Jews outwardly, as Paul refers to them in Romans 2:28-29.
John 3:16-17 expresses the pinnacle of God’s love towards the unbelieving world. As these familiar verses say, God did not send His Son incarnate to condemn the world, but to provide salvation for all who will believe in Jesus. Following the call to live a God-honoring life, 1 Timothy 2:3-4 says, “This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” Additionally, we know that God does not desire that any person eternally perish, calling all men to repent (2 Peter 3:9). Providing further understanding of God’s loving provision for the fallen world, 1 John 2:2 says about Jesus, “He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.”
We see here God’s providential love for all people, as well as His inviting and pleading love, evidenced by the gift of His Son and offer of salvation. However, must there be another sense of God’s love in order to explain why all men are not saved? If God desires for all to be saved (1 Tim 2:4), wishes that none would perish (2 Pet 3:9), and has provided a propitiation for the world’s sin (1 Jn 2:2), why have so many post-Calvary remained unsaved? Orthodox Christians certainly don’t believe in universalism – the belief all men are unconditionally saved. Therefore, historically Christians typically answer this dilemma in one of two ways: 1) God upholds the libertarian (uninhibited) free will of all people to choose or reject the Gospel as His utmost priority. 2) God upholds His sovereignty over people by electing some to eternal life in order to supremely show His glory in man’s salvation.
To provide some brief background, both camps believe in man’s free will but they define free will differently. The first group contends that God cannot interfere with a person’s salvation decision in any way that would create bias towards accepting or rejecting Christ as Savior and Lord because that would not provide a fair playing field for all people. Any interference or influence by God in this process denigrates their understanding of the creature truly loving their Creator. This group largely upholds the doctrine of original sin (man is born in sin with a bent towards sin) but contends that God removes spiritual blindness through some measure of grace to allow unbiased choices. Theologically this is called prevenient grace, but neither the term nor the concept is expressly found or explained in the Bible. God’s special love for his adopted children is contingent upon their unprejudiced free choice to accept Christ.
Group number 2 holds that because of man’s utterly sinful condition (as described in part 1 of the “Seekers” blog post), their free will always exert itself through sinful rebellion and rejection of Christ’s atoning death and resurrection. Although God offers salvation to all people, only those in whom the Holy Spirit overcomes this spiritual deadness by making them alive in Christ (Eph 2:4-5) through regeneration (Titus 3:5) will respond in saving faith. By God’s grace alone, those regenerated will always respond in free will because the truth has been so clearly and beautifully revealed to them. Additionally, this group affirms the biblical distinction between God’s preceptive will (precepts and commands) and His decretive (sovereign) will (ref., Gen 50:20; Deut 2:26-27,30 and 29:2-4; Jdg 14:4; Josh 11:19-20; 1 Sam 2:22-25; 2 Sam 17:14; 1 Kings 12:9-15 and 22:19-23; Mk 4:11-12; Acts 2:22-23 and 4:27-28; Rom 11:7-9,31-32), which accounts for God’s different types of love.
Seen by those who believe in God’s sovereignty in salvation, a distinct love exists for those whom He has chosen and is initially displayed through His election of them. Ephesians 1:4b-6 explains this love, “In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.” Romans 9:14-16 follows Paul’s explanation of how God chose Jacob over Esau before they were born and had done anything good or bad, explaining, “What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! For he says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.’ So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.” Some opponents of this view have tried to describe it as unjust and in conflict with God’s character (in their understanding of it), but note that the Bible describes God’s election in loving and merciful terms.
I’ve personally seen in my own life and witnessed in many lives of family and friends the rescuing love of God. Even though I believe I was a Christian throughout my experiences, beginning in junior high I began choosing seasons of rebellion and hard-heartedness. At the age of 28 these wayward paths had escalated and culminated with devastating bondage to various sins, a failed marriage and blinding self-deception. In the midst of my wandering, the Lord graciously rescued me from this life of sin without my help, for sure. The parable of the Good Shepherd leaving the 99 sheep to find the 1 that was lost resonates powerfully and deeply in my heart. I didn’t find my way back to the flock, Jesus rescued me from a perilous precipice from which I couldn’t find my way down.
Considering that this is a story many believers share, why does the view of God’s sovereign grace in the salvation of condemned sinners elicit such strong antagonism? If we truly understand man’s sinful condition as the Bible describes, should we assume that anyone deserves salvation? Most Christians do not believe certain people are owed salvation, but on the other hand, when contemplating how God could choose to save some and not others, they somehow think this impugns His justice. Is He not the only wise God? Is He not the essence of love, mercy, kindness but also perfect justice? Anticipating potentially unfavorable reactions and resistance to the absolute sovereignty of God in salvation, Paul says in Romans 9:19-23:
“You will say to me then, ‘Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?’ But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, ‘Why have you made me like this?’ Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory.”
Who are we to say that God’s sovereignty and human responsibility are irreconcilable if the Bible provides overwhelming evidence to the contrary?
Instead of attempting to fully reconcile God’s mystery in salvation with our human logic and emotions, let us remain faithful to the full council of God’s Word by embracing what we can’t comprehend because we trust in the perfect character of God. After all, are not His ways infinitely higher than our ways and His thoughts beyond our finite thoughts? Surely the Lord needs no apologists to explain away the controversial mysteries contained in His revelation.
In the next post we’ll look at the term “foreknowledge” and compare the disparaging viewpoints related to this debate, as well as contemplate why some believe and others don’t - if the belief is true that God is not sovereign in salvation.
Happy Thanksgiving to each of you and please know that regardless of where you side on this controversial doctrine, God loves you just the same, and so do I! Thank you, Lord, for extending immeasurable grace to us for every errant thought, word and deed that fails to reflect your glory!
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