Latest / Reformed Thinking / God’s Sovereign Decree and the Doctrine of Election | Jonathan Edwards

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God’s Sovereign Decree and the Doctrine of Election | Jonathan Edwards · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to Reformed thinking, you know.
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If God knows precisely what you are going to do tomorrow, do you
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actually have a choice in doing it?
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That is a massive question and it trips up a lot of people.
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It really does. I mean, usually when we talk
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about a medical diagnosis, there is an expectation of absolute
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clarity. Right, you want a
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straightforward answer. Yeah, you break your arm, you go
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to the hospital and the doctor puts you in front of an X-ray
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machine. The film comes up and you see
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that jagged white line right across the bone.
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It is binary, the bone is broken or it is intact.
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Yes, we like things to be visible, categorized, and clear.
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But then you step into the world of theology.
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Specifically, you step into questions about God's absolute
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sovereignty and human choices. And suddenly it feels like that
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X-ray machine is malfunctioning. Yeah, we are looking at a
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diagnostic landscape that is, well, incredibly murky for a lot
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of people. Folks get lost in a fog of
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trying to figure out how God can be entirely in control of the
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universe while humans are still making real, accountable
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choices. So true, and for this deep dive
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into our source material, we are looking at the personal notes
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and theological excerpts of Jonathan Edwards.
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Reading Edwards is it's like bringing in a master technician
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to fix that broken X-ray machine.
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He brings an awe inspiring rigorous logic to the doctrines
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of divine decrees, election and free will.
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He really does. He takes what feels like muddy
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philosophical waters and clears them up with mathematical
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precision. What stands out when you read
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Edwards is his method. Right.
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He does not just hand you a theological conclusion and
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expect you to accept it on his authority.
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No, he gives you the logical proofs for it step by step.
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And for the listener joining us, we should lay our cards on the
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table from the start. Good idea.
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Both of us approached this material from a shared
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Protestant Reformed theological perspective.
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We adhere to the Westminster Confession, which aligns
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seamlessly with the writings of Jonathan Edwards that we are
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examining today. This is a systematic
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investigation into the absolute sovereignty of God.
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We are going to look at how God decrees all things, how that
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intersects with human liberty, and why understanding this
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alters the way a person views their own faith, their
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struggles, and their reality. Edwards forces us to confront
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the logical conclusions of our own beliefs about God.
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Let's lay out why this matters for you, the listener.
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We are not doing this as a dry academic exercise to see who can
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win a debate in a seminary classroom.
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Right. It might sound like high level
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18th century philosophy at first, but this is the bedrock
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of Christian assurance and comfort.
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If you are going to trust God with your eternal soul and trust
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Him with the safety of your family, your health, and your
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future, you need to know the actual extent of His sovereign
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grip on the universe. Absolutely.
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So we are going to start with a concept that almost everyone in
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the Christian sphere agrees on, but very few people take to its
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logical conclusion. And that concept is
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foreknowledge. In the Sources, Edwards presents
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an inescapable argument about what it means for God to know
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the future. Yes, Edwards argues that mere
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foreknowledge guarantees an event just as much as an
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absolute decree does. He states that if God knows all
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things beforehand, he either approves of them or he does not
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approve of them. He's either willing they should
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be, or he is not willing they should be, and to will that they
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should be is to decree them. We have to break down the
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philosophical contradiction that Edwards highlights here because
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it strikes at the core of how many modern people think about
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God. A lot of folks try to preserve
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human autonomy by creating a specific version of God.
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They say that God does not 'cause our choices, He just
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knows what we're going to choose before we do it.
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Yeah, they separate his knowledge from his control, but
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Edwards exposes a massive flaw in that reasoning.
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He asks as a very pointed question, which is.
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How can God certainly know an event will happen if that event
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is contingent? Right.
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And by contingent we mean an event that might happen or it
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might not happen. It is up in the air, dependent
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on a human whim. If an event truly might not
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happen, then for God to say he knows for a certainty that it
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will happen means there is a possibility God could be
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deceived. Let's say I know for certain you
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will wear a blue shirt tomorrow, but your choice is truly
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contingent, meaning you are completely autonomous and you
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could wake up and choose a red shirt.
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In that scenario, your certain knowledge is actually just a
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highly educated guess that could be proven wrong by my
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spontaneous decision. But deceiving God is impossible.
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God cannot guess. Therefore, if God has infallible
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foreknowledge, the event cannot be contingent.
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It must be fixed. I struggle with this and I know
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many people listening do as well.
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The classic are many in defense, and by Armenian we are talking
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about the theological system that prioritizes human autonomy
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and free will. Feel so safe.
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It is a very common defense. I hear it all the time.
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They say God just looks down the corridors of time to see what
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humans will do. I have even used a specific
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analogy for this in the past. Football game analogy.
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Right. Yes, if you sit on your couch
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and watch a little recorded football game, your act of
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watching does not 'cause the outcome.
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The players played the game, they scored the points and you
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were just observing it after the fact.
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People use this logic to say God operates the same way.
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They say he looks ahead into the future, sees us make a choice,
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and then bases his overarching plan on what he saw us do.
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The football analogy feels safe because it protects God from
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being responsible for our bad plays.
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It creates a buffer. Exactly.
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I mean spot on. If we throw that buffer out like
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Edwards wants us to, we are putting God in the driver's seat
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of everything, which feels incredibly dangerous.
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How does Edwards justify taking that safety net away?
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The football analogy fails, and Edwards strips it away because
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it assumes a universe that already exists independently of
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God's will. OK, so how does he explain that?
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Edwards tackles this by explaining a concept called
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futurition, which you can find in section 763.9 of the text.
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This is heavy stuff, so let's unpack it slowly.
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I'm tracking with you. In your analogy, the football
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game already happened. The events had an independent
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reality, the players actually ran the ball.
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But before the universe existed, before time itself began,
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nothing was future yet. So sit in eternity.
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Pass for a moment. There is no timeline, right?
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There is no tomorrow because the sun and the earth do not exist.
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There are only infinite possibilities in the mind of
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God. God could create a universe
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where you wear a blue shirt or a universe where you wear a red
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shirt. For one of those possibilities
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to become a guaranteed future reality, for it to achieve
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futurition, something has to cause it to move from the realm
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of the possible to the realm of the future.
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Yes. So Edwards is saying that things
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do not just become future on their own.
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They need a push. They need a first 'cause.
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If God's knowledge depends on looking down the corridor of
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time to see a creature's future action, that makes the creature
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the first 'cause of that action. It implies that the human being
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brought something out of mere possibility into certainty all
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by themselves, before God even acted.
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It means the corridor of time was built by human choices, and
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God is reduced to a passive observer peering into a hallway
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he did not construct. And if God learns from the
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creature, that renders the Creator dependent on human
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choices to formulate his own plans.
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Edwards points out that if things are future antecedently
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to God's decree, meaning they are guaranteed to happen before
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God decides they should happen, then God has no choice in what
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the future holds. He is just stuck dealing with
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whatever the humans decide to do.
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He becomes a cosmic reactionary, constantly adjusting his plans
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based on our spontaneous, uncaused decisions.
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Hold on, if God is just a spectator learning from us, then
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he isn't sovereign. But the alternative Edwards
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presents means my choices are entirely fixed by his decree.
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Both options carry immense weight.
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If God is just a spectator with really good binoculars, I have
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no reason to trust Him when things go wrong because He is
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just watching the tragedy unfold alongside me.
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Edwards completely dismantles that spectator view.
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He shows that God's infallible foreknowledge proves the events
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are entirely fixed, and they are fixed for one reason.
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God decreed them. He decided universe A would
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exist instead of universe B. Now this naturally leads to a
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massive tension. It does, because if God decrees
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everything, including the sinful actions of men, we inevitably
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crash into a perceived contradiction.
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Our Armenian friends point out that Reformed theology seems to
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create a schizophrenic God. They say we claim God has a
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secret will, which are His absolute decrees that control
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everything behind the scenes, and a revealed will, which are
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His commands written in Scripture.
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They argue it is absurd and frankly deceptive to say God
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commands one thing publicly but secretly decrees another.
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That is a very common objection, and it comes from a desire to
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protect God's character. How does Edwards handle that?
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Edwards addresses it directly in sections 7 and 170.
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He unpacks this distinction between God's will of command
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and His will of decree. He argues that it is not a
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contradiction, nor is it deception, but rather, God
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willing, different things in different respects.
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Yes. When God issues a command, He is
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declaring what is agreeable to His nature.
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In a simple, direct sense. God loves holiness.
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God hates sin. Therefore, His command is always
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Florida State toward holiness. Like do not steal or do not
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merge. That is his nature speaking.
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But his will of decree looks at the entire universe, across all
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of time, as one complete system. God might hate a specific sin in
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itself, but He may will to permit that sin for the greater
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promotion of holiness in the grand scheme of things.
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Edwards points to incredibly clear biblical examples to prove
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this distinction exists in reality.
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I think the most famous example he uses is Abraham and Isaac.
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That's a great one. God explicitly commanded Abraham
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not to sacrifice his son Isaac. When Abraham raised the knife,
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the Angel of the Lord stopped him and said, Do not lay your
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hand on the boy. The command was clear.
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Child sacrifice is an abomination.
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It violates God's revealed will. But it was unquestionably God's
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secret will and decree to test Abraham with that variation
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event. God ordained the entire
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scenario. He decreed that Abraham would
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take the three day journey, build the altar, and experience
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the agonizing test of faith. God decreed the event while his
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command forbade the actual shedding of blood.
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Or look at Pharaoh. In the book of Exodus, God
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commanded Pharaoh through Moses to let the Israelites go.
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That was the revealed will. But God explicitly told Moses
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beforehand at the burning Bush that he would hardly Pharaoh's
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heart, so that he would refuse. The command established what was
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righteous for the creature to do.
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The decree established the events that would actually
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unfold to display God's glory and judgment over Egypt.
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Edwards uses an analogy in the text in section seven O 4.2 that
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clarifies this dynamic beautifully.
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He talks about a Prince penetrator.
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That is a very helpful picture. I want to flesh this out because
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it really helps resolve the tension.
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Imagine a perfectly wise, all knowing Prince who rules a
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massive Kingdom. This Prince has strict laws
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forbidding treason under penalty of death.
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Those laws represent the Prince's revealed will.
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He hates treason. It is destructive to his
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Kingdom. But suppose this perfectly wise
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Prince uncovers a plot. He foresees that a specific act
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of treason, if permitted to happen, will actually unite his
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fractured Kingdom. He knows this specific treason
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will expose a massive hidden network of corrupt officials
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that he otherwise couldn't root out, and it will secure lasting
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peace and prosperity for generations to come.
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The Prince has the might and the authority to arrest the traitor
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immediately before any crime is committed, but instead he
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consciously permits the treason to occur.
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He does not force the traitor to act.
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The traitor acts out of his own malicious desires, but the
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Prince intentionally lets him proceed because he knows it will
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result in a far greater good for the realm.
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The Prince still hates the treason itself, and the traitor
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is still guilty and justly punished according to the law.
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The prince's decree to permit the crime does not contradict
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his law forbidding it. That analogy perfectly
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illustrates Edwards argument regarding God's two wills, and
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it provides A framework for resolving attention you might
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feel when wrestling with these concepts in your everyday life.
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You might look at the news or look at a tragedy in your own
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family and wonder how a good God can hate sin but still allow it
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to run rampant in the world. Edwards helps us recognize that
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God hates sin in its own nature. He despises it, but he
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intentionally permits it and even decrees its existence for
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the universal good of his creation.
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The Armenians themselves admit that God permits sin.
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They have to because sin exists. But Edwards points out their
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logical inconsistency. If God permits sin, knowing for
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an absolute certainty what will happen when He permits it, and
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He has the infinite capacity to stop it but chooses not to, then
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he must be permitting it for a specific reason.
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He wills the permission of it to achieve a greater end.
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To say God permits sin without a sovereign purpose is to say God
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is simply indifferent to evil, which is a far worse accusation
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than saying he decrees it for a holy purpose.
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This brings a massive sense of peace when you really
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internalize it. When you look at the chaos in
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the world, you're not looking at a universe spinning out of God's
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control. Why we're not looking at a deity
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who is wringing his hands hoping things work out.
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You are looking at events that, while they may be intensely evil
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in themselves, are being directed by a wise Prince who is
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securing a greater universal good.
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But if God is this wise Prince, how does he plan the details?
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We have established that God makes absolute decrees.
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We need to clarify what absolute means because it can sound like
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God is just arbitrarily throwing darts at a board.
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Edward specifies in section 29 that God does not decree things
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based on the foresight of what a creature will do, but rather he
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decrees all things harmoniously. The word harmoniously is the
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linchpin of Edward's thought. Here we often think of decrees
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as isolated, independent decisions.
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We imagine God decreeing that a certain person will go to heaven
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and then completely separately in a different file cabinet,
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decreeing what they will eat for breakfast on a Tuesday.
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We separate the decrees into silos, but Edwards details a
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fascinating point about the logical order of decrees, and we
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must stress this is a logical order, not a chronological 1.
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God exists outside of time. All his decrees are from
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eternity. He did not make one decision on
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Monday and another on Friday. But logically, the decrees are
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perfectly connected. God does not decree someone to
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hell out of nowhere. In an arbitrary vacuum, that
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would make God a tyrant. Instead, he decrees the creation
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of humanity. Logically following that, he
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decrees the permission of the fall of humanity into sin, and
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logically following that, he decrees the punishment of that
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sin to glorify His perfect justice.
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The decrees are a unified system.
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The means and the ends are decreed together.
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I want to spend some time on the illustration Edwards gives about
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rain and prayer because it completely shatters the
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fatalistic mindset. The biggest pushback I hear
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against Reformed theology is the accusation of fatalism.
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People say, if everything is already decreed by God, why
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should I get out of bed? Why should I pray for my sick
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friend? Why should I share the Gospel?
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It is all going to happen precisely as God planned it
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anyway. But Edwards explains that God
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does not just decree the rain independently of our actions.
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Imagine a farmer experiencing a severe drought.
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The Armenian says the farmer prays and God reacts by sending
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rain. The fatalist says God decreed
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the rain, so the farmer shouldn't bother praying.
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Edward says both are wrong. God decrees the drought.
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He decrees the farmer's sense of desperation.
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He decrees the earnest, desperate prayers of that
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specific farmer falling on his knees in the dirt.
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And he decrees the clouds forming and the rain falling as
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the direct, ordained answer to those specific prayers.
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The prayer is not meaningless, it is the decreed mechanism to
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achieve the decreed rain. And this addresses you directly
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as you listen to this. If you ever find yourself
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slipping into that paralyzing fatalistic objection, thinking
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your efforts do not matter in a sovereign universe, you are
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fundamentally misunderstanding the nature of God's decrees.
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You're striving, you're praying, your daily diligence at your
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job, your efforts to raise your children.
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These are not meaningless activities happening under a
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predetermined, unyielding sky. They are the very mechanisms God
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has decreed to bring about His ordained blessings.
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As Edwards points out, it is absurd to thank God decrees the
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end but ignores the means. If God is decreed that you will
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grow in your faith this year, He's simultaneously decreed that
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you will spend time reading your Bible, listening to sound
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teaching, and wrestling in prayer to achieve that growth.
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The decree does not bypass your activity.
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It guarantees your activity. To demand the end without
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engaging in the means is to demand that God violate His own
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harmonious order. Your actions matter immensely
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because they are the ordained path to the ordained
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destination. But this naturally leads us to
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ask about the nature of those actions.
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If God decrees the means, and my choices are the means, how am I
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making those choices? We need to dissect human
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liberty, the prevailing idea in our modern culture, and the core
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of the theology Edwards is refuting is this notion of
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ultimate free will. The culture defines it as the
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human will having sovereignty, meaning the will determines its
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own choices entirely independently of any outside
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force, prior cause, or divine decree.
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Edward sets a razor sharp logical trap for this idea of a
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self determining will in sections 763.0 through 12.
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He takes the Armenian definition of free will and subjects it to
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basic logic. He asks a very simple question.
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How does the will determine its own choices?
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If the will determines its own first act of choice, it must do
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so by some sort of action. To determine something is to act
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upon it. So if your will directs itself,
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it must do so by a preceding act of choice.
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You have to decide how you're going to decide.
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This means a person must choose to choose before they can
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actually choose and what determine that priority.
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Well, if the will is truly self determining, another choice must
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have determined it. It creates an infinite absurd
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regression. Let's visualize this with the
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train yard analogy. Imagine you were standing in a
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train yard and you see a massive steel boxcar rolling down the
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track. You ask the yardmaster what is
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pulling that boxcar? He points to the boxcar
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immediately in front of it. You ask.
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OK, but what is pulling that one?
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He points to the next boxcar. You keep walking down the line
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expecting to eventually find a diesel engine, a prime mover
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that has the internal drive to pull the whole.
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Chain, but the yard master tells you there is no engine.
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It is just an infinite line of box cars, each one pulled by the
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one in front of it, forever and ever without any source pulling
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it. That is logically impossible.
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A train without an engine cannot move.
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Edwards concludes that the idea of the human will remaining
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perfectly neutral and inactive, yet somehow generating the spark
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to determine its own subsequent action without any prior cause
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or motive, is plain nonsense. There has to be an engine, there
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has to be a motive, a desire or a 'cause that moves the will.
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And according to Edwards, that engine is the strongest motive
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presented to the mind. We always choose what seems most
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desirable or most agreeable to us in any given moment.
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And God, in His absolute sovereignty, governs the
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universe in such a way that He ordains the circumstances, the
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nature of the person, and the motives presented to them.
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Therefore, the person freely chooses precisely what they want
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to choose, but what they want to choose is entirely encompassed
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within God's sovereign decree. I can hear the objection forming
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right now. For sure, if our will is not
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self determining in a vacuum, if our choices are driven by prior
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causes, motives and all fall under God's sovereign decree,
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are we just robots? Are we just blocks of wood being
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moved around a chess board? Are we just machines running a
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pre programmed code? That feels like it destroys any
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real sense of human freedom, and it makes our lived experience
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feel like an illusion. Edwards anticipates this dread.
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And I want to bring up his defense regarding angels and
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glorified Saints from section 763.4 because it completely
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reframes what true freedom is. This is one of Edwards most
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brilliant counter arguments because it uses a theological
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reality that almost all Christians already accept.
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He asks us to consider the elect angels and the glorified Saints
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in heaven. Every Orthodox Christian agrees
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that the Saints in Heaven will never sin.
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It is guaranteed. When you are in eternity, you
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are incapable of falling from grace.
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Your choices are absolutely fixed toward holiness.
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There is 0 possibility of rebellion.
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Yet no one would dare say that the Saints in heaven lack
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freedom. No one would call Moses or the
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Apostle Paul or your deceased grandmother a block of wood or a
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machine in eternity. They are experiencing the
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truest, most joyful freedom imaginable.
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This proves that an absolute certainty of outcome is
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completely compatible with genuine freedom.
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That is much of vital paradigm shift.
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Freedom is not the ability to act without any cause or reason,
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or the ability to choose evil just to prove you can.
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True freedom is the ability to act according to your nature and
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your desires without external coercion.
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Spot on. God is sovereignly capable of
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setting motives before the human mind in such a way that people
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willingly, joyfully and freely choose what He has ordained
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without any violation of their nature.
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A Satan heaven chooses to worship God because their nature
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has been perfectly aligned to desire God above all else.
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They're determined to worship by their own holy desires.
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We act according to our strongest desires, and God is
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the one who sovereignly governs the landscape of those desires.
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You are not a robot because a robot does not have desires,
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affections, or a will. You make real choices based on
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what you love. But if God is sovereignly
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orchestrating these desires and circumstances to ensure a
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specific outcome, we inevitably crash into the darkest, most
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emotionally charged question in this entire theological
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framework. It's the big one.
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If God is decreeing all things, and if human choices are subject
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to a sovereign disposal, does decreeing sin make God the
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author of sin? If God ordained the
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circumstances that led to a lie or a theft or a murder, how is
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he not morally culpable? Edwards addresses this directly
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in sections 85348, seven 62 and seven O 4.14.
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It is the most vital distinction we have to make in Reformed
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theology. We must clarify that God decrees
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sin not for the sake of the evil itself, but for the sake of the
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good that arises from it. Motive is the dividing line.
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Man decrees sin for the evil in it.
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When a thief decides to steal a car, his motive is greed.
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His intent is evil. He wants to enrich himself at
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the expense of another. When God decrees to permit that
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theft to occur in His universe, His motive is perfectly holy.
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He permits it to perhaps teach the victim A deeper reliance on
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God, or to bring the thief to a point of devastating legal
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consequence that leads to repentance.
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God's posture toward the event is entirely different from the
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humans posture. The human loves the sin, God
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hates the sin, but uses it as a surgical tool for a greater
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righteous end. I want to spend significant time
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on the ultimate historical proof Edwards points to from the
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source material to illustrate this, because it's silence is
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the accusation that God cannot ordain evil without being evil.
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And that is the crucifixion of Jesus Christ in section 762.
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If you want to talk about the most wicked, unjust, horrifying
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act in human history is the torture and murder of the
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perfect, sinless Son of God, picture the scene.
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You have the Pharisees, driven by intense jealousy and a desire
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to maintain their religious status.
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You have Pontius Pilate driven by political cowardice and a
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fear of riots. You have Judas Iscariot driven
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by greed and disillusionment. Every single one of them acted
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freely according to their most wicked desires.
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God did not force Pilate to be a coward.
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Pilot was a coward. But read Acts chapter 2 and Acts
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chapter 4. The apostles explicitly state
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that the crucifixion happened by the determinate counsel and for
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knowledge of God. The early church prayed and said
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that Pilate and the Gentiles did whatever your hand and your plan
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had predestined to take place. God did not just look ahead
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through the corridor of time and see the cross happening.
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He ordained it. He bounded and marked it out
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from eternity past. The cross is the ultimate
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theological anchor here. God decreed the most wicked
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event in history to secure the greatest good in history, which
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is the redemption of His people. If God can decree the
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crucifixion without being morally guilty of murder.
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If he can ordain the betrayal of his own Son while remaining
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perfectly holy, then he can decree all other events in
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history without being the author of sin.
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God is the author of the plan, but the human beings are the
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authors of the sinful actions within that plan.
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But this forces us to ask a broader question.
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Why design the plan this way at all?
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Why would God design A universe where sin is permitted to enter?
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Why not just make a universe where everyone is like the
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angels from the very beginning and bypass all the misery, the
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tears and the suffering? That leads directly to the
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theological synthesis Edwards provides in section 348
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concerning the glory of God. To understand why the universe
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is the way it is, we have to understand God's absolute goal.
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God's goal is the complete and perfect manifestation of His own
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glory. For God's glory to shine forth
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completely, all His attributes must be visible.
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God is infinitely just, holy, merciful and graceful.
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But think about this philosophically.
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Without sin, there is no of justice to display.
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If no creature ever breaks the law, the beauty and terror of
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God's perfect justice remains hidden forever.
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It is an attribute he possesses, but it is never demonstrated.
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Similarly, without misery and rebellion, there is no grace or
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mercy to bestow. Mercy, by definition, requires a
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miserable, undeserving subject. You cannot show mercy to a
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perfect Angel who has never sinned.
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You can only show love. To show mercy, there must be
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guilt. Shadows are required to reveal
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the brilliant dimensions of the light.
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Edwards argues that evil is logically necessary for the
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complete communication of God's nature for which he made the
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world. That changes your entire
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perspective on the existence of evil.
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It removes the panic. Evil is not a flaw in the
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system. It is not a virus that hacked
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into God's mainframe. It is the dark, heavy backdrop
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upon which God paints the brilliance of His grace and
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justice. And Speaking of that grace, we
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need to move specifically into the doctrine of election.
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We were looking at unconditional election versus foreseen faith.
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Because if God is sovereign over all events, He is sovereign over
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salvation. A lot of people try to soften
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the doctrine of election. They don't like the idea that
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God chooses some and passes over others based solely on his own
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will. So they say election is
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conditional. They claim God chooses people
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because he looks into the future, foresees that they will
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use their free will to choose to have faith in Him, and based on
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that foreseen faith, He elects them to salvation.
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It makes God's choice a reaction to human choice.
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Edwards tears this idea of conditional election apart in
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sections 63423 and 763. He exposes the logical absurdity
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of it by looking at what faith actually does.
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If someone already has faith in Jesus Christ, the Scripture says
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they already have a necessary connection to eternal life.
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Faith unites you to Christ, and Christ guarantees salvation.
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So if God looks into the future and sees someone who already
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possesses faith, what sense does it make for God to then elect or
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choose them for salvation? They already have a right to it
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through Christ. Let's expand on the analogy
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Edwards uses here, because it is brilliant.
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He asks us to imagine a creditor.
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Picture an accountant sitting at a desk with a massive Ledger of
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debts. The Armenian says God looks into
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the future, sees that a person has generated faith, which
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essentially pays off the debt and balances their Ledger to 0.
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Then God points to that person and says, I formally choose to
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forgive your debt. The absurdity is obvious.
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Why would a creditor go through a list of people and formally
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choose to free debtors who owe him nothing?
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If they already have the qualifying faith, a
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predestination of such people to life is altogether useless and
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needless. They have already qualified
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themselves. And the scriptural backing
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Edwards provides against this conditional view is
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overwhelming. You look at Romans 9, John 6,
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John 10. The Scripture does not say God
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chooses a qualification. He does not say I elect the
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general category of people who happen to be the believing sort.
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God chooses specific individual persons.
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Paul writes in Romans 9. Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated,
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and he explicitly notes this was decreed before they were even
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born or had done anything good or bad so that God's purpose of
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election might stand. Jesus says in John 10, I know my
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sheep by name. He doesn't just know the
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criteria for becoming a sheep, he knows the specific
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individuals he was given by the Father.
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If election depends on the human will, if it depends on God
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waiting for us to generate our own faith from our own internal
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engine, then God only gets partial glory for salvation.
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The human being gets to claim the deciding factor.
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God built the bridge, but I took the step.
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Edwards points out the devastating psychological result
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of that theology. If conditional election were
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true, humans would have a legitimate reason to boast in
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heaven over those in hell. You could look at your unsaved
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neighbor who grew up in the same town, heard the same sermons,
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and read the same Bible and say we both had the exact same
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opportunity. God gave us both the exact same
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amount of grace, but I was just a little wiser.
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I was a little more humble. I was a little better at
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evaluating the evidence than you were.
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It makes salvation a reward for human intellect or moral
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superiority. That destroys the very nature of
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grace. Grace is unmerited favor.
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If you contributed the decisive factor, it is no longer grace.
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Think about your own faith right now.
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Why do you believe the gospel when so many others do not?
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According to Edwards, in the clear testimony of Scripture,
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you believe because God sovereignly decreed to give you
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that faith. He gave you a new heart.
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He caused you to approach Him. It is not because you possess
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better natural faculties than the person next door who
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rejected it. This doctrine of unconditional
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election is often painted as a cold, calculating formula, but
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it is actually designed to absolutely eliminate human pride
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and fuel a massive, overwhelming gratitude.
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You are saved entirely by the good pleasure of God, not by
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your own self determined choices.
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When you realize that you were dead in your trespasses, and God
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solely out of His own love, spoke life into your specific
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soul, it produces a worship that conditional election can never
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produce. But this brings us to a very
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practical boots on the ground question.
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If everything is decreed, If God has absolutely decided who will
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be saved and who will be reprobated, how can God
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sincerely offer the gospel to everyone?
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That's the tension right there. People read the Bible and see
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God pleading with sinners to repent.
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They see Jesus standing in Revelation, knocking at the
30:39
door. They hear the universal call.
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Come unto me, all you who are weary.
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If God knows the reprobate will never come and has actually
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decreed not to give them the faith to come, isn't the
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universal invitation a mockery? Isn't it insincere for God to
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offer salvation to someone He has not elected?
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This is a heavy tension, and this is where Edward's
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distinction regarding the two wills of God shines again,
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specifically in section 763.1 and 763.30.
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He explains that there is nothing insincere about God's
31:11
calls and invitations. Remember, God's nature
31:14
infinitely loves holiness and hates misery.
31:17
Look at Jesus weeping over Jerusalem, he cries out.
31:19
Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem. How often would I have gathered
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your children together as a hand gathers her brood under her
31:25
wings? And you are not willing.
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That was not a theatrical performance.
31:28
Jesus was not pretending to be sad.
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It was a genuine, true expression of God's holy nature,
31:33
lamenting the misery and obstinacy of the creature.
31:36
God truly desires holiness in a simple, direct sense.
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He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked.
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But He still decreed their destruction for the greater
31:45
glory of his justice. Yes, His infinite wisdom still
31:49
decrees the tragic event for the universal good.
31:52
There's no contradiction between God expressing His natural
31:55
righteous hatred of human rebellion and His sovereign,
31:59
overarching decree to permit that rebellion to achieve a
32:03
greater end. The offer of the gospel is a
32:05
true offer. The door is genuinely open.
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The only reason a person does not walk through it is because
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they hate the light and refuse to come.
32:12
They are restrained only by their own wicked desires, which
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they freely choose. God's offer is sincere.
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Man's rejection is willful. I think we have to bring up the
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command to Pharaoh again because it synthesizes this perfectly.
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God commanded Pharaoh to let the people go.
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Was God sincere in that command? Absolutely.
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The command reflected God's righteous standard.
32:31
Pharaoh was morally obligated to obey it, but God explicitly told
32:36
Moses that he knew Pharaoh would not obey and that God himself
32:39
would harden Pharaoh's heart. The command establishes the
32:42
creature's duty. The decree establishes the
32:45
creator's sovereign plan. The two operate simultaneously
32:48
without canceling each other out.
32:50
God is entirely sincere in telling us what we ought to do,
32:53
even when He has decreed what we will do.
32:56
That is the crucial application. You do not need to read God's
33:00
secret decrees to know what to do.
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The secret things belong to the Lord.
33:05
Your duty is not to try and decipher the hidden scrolls of
33:08
eternity before you make a decision.
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Your duty is to obey His revealed commands in the
33:14
scripture. He commands you to repent.
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He commands you to believe. He commands you to love your
33:20
neighbor, to care for the poor, and to preach the gospel to all
33:23
nations. You preach the gospel to
33:25
everyone because of your commanded duty, and you preach
33:27
with absolute confidence because the certainty of God's decrees
33:30
is the only thing that guarantees your preaching will
33:32
not be in vain. That is the ultimate irony of
33:35
the Armenian position. They claim we shouldn't preach
33:37
if election is true. But the reality is, if salvation
33:40
relied on the self determining will of fallen spiritually dead
33:43
humans, no one would ever be saved.
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Our preaching would bounce off stone hearts forever.
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We preach boldly precisely because God has decreed to save
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his elect, and He has decreed to do it through the foolishness of
33:56
our preaching. The decree guarantees the
33:58
success of the mission. Let's look back at the logical
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path we have walked today. We started with the inescapable
34:04
reality of foreknowledge, showing that if God knows the
34:07
future infallibly, the future must be fixed, and it is fixed
34:12
by His decree. We move through the harmonious
34:14
order of those decrees, seeing how God ordains the ends
34:18
alongside the specific means, shattering the excuse of
34:21
fatalism. We dismantled the illusion of
34:24
the self determining free will, recognizing that a train needs
34:27
an engine and that God governs our choices through our
34:30
strongest desires without violating our freedom.
34:33
We tackled the heavy reality that God ordains evil events
34:36
like the cross without being the author of the evil motive, all
34:39
to paint the brilliant spectrum of His glory.
34:41
And we culminated in a vision of a entirely arranged by
34:44
unconditional election, which shatters human pride and
34:47
establishes our daily duty to preach a sincere gospel.
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I want to leave you with a final thought to Mull over as you go
34:53
about your week. We naturally bristle at these
34:55
concepts. Our flesh hates them.
34:58
We often fear that absolute divine decrees strip us of our
35:01
autonomy. We want to be the captains of
35:04
our own souls. We want to hold the pen that
35:06
writes our own story. But consider the alternative.
35:09
If your eternal security, your daily faith, the safety of your
35:13
family, and the ultimate outcome of human history relied even
35:16
fractionally on the volatile, shifting, easily manipulated
35:20
nature of your own unguided will, could you ever experience
35:24
a single day of true peace? You would be carrying the weight
35:27
of the universe on shoulders that can barely carry the stress
35:30
of a Tuesday morning commute. Perhaps the very absolute
35:33
sovereignty we naturally resist and fight against is the exact,
35:36
I mean the precise mechanism required for genuine human rest.
35:39
You can sleep at night because the wise Prince is on the throne
35:43
and his decrees are absolute. That is a truth that will stay
35:47
with you long after the audio stops.
35:50
Thank you for joining us on this deep dives into the source
35:52
material. We hope it brought clarity to
35:54
the Muddy Waters and leaves you resting in a fully sovereign
35:57
God.