Grace and Predestination
by Steve Exendine, last updated 09/09/2005

Introduction
Omnipotence
God's Justice
God Works in the Hearts of Men
Free Will
Predestination
Conclusion
Feedback
Scripture References

 Introduction

Although many aspects of God’s character are not and cannot be fully understood by finite men, there are many things that can be ascertained through Scripture and by the use of logic.  In I Corinthians 1:27, we see that “God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise” and there are many who would cite Scriptures to say that we are to blindly trust in God because we cannot understand Him.

There is a line from a contemporary Christian song that makes me cringe every time I hear it.  “The newest rage is to reason it out.  Just meditate and you can overcome every doubt.”  Maybe we can’t overcome every doubt through reason, but there are few things in Christianity that are beyond our comprehension.  A diligent study of Scripture is what most Christians need to answer their questions.  There will be some things that remain mysterious to even the most learned theologian, but there are many more things that can be discovered through study, and yes, reason.

The Bible makes sense.  It is not some wild theory full of holes and pitfalls, it is logical and consistent.  Yes, there is faith involved, but God also gave men reason, and while we are to be innocent as doves we are also to be wise as serpents.  Shutting off our intellect is not an essential part of faith and belief in God.  The righteous live by faith, but not ignorance.

Faith alone is not sufficient, because faith does not make truth.  Just because I have faith that I am a fish does not make it so.  Faith that I am a fish is absurd, because reason tells me that I have seen fish, and I'm clearly not one of them.  Faith in the Bible is not absurd, because we have reasoned that it is correct through what is observed in creation.

My reason for writing this article is that I wish to clarify my position on predestination, a Christian doctrine that I believe to be important to our lives as we follow the teachings of Christ.  As a preface, I will attempt to explain some of the characteristics of God in this article, as well as some of the logical deductions that necessarily follow the understanding of these characteristics.

In reading this article, it is assumed that you agree that the Bible is the Word of God, and that it is infallible.  Some of the ideas that I will propose are difficult for some people to accept because the ideas defy their understanding of how salvation works, but I am working from clear Biblical principles.  I say this because you must have the courage to believe what the Scriptures actually say for any of these ideas I’m writing about to pass through any preconceptions that you may have about predestination.  I have done my best to give merely an exegesis of the Scriptures I have quoted, that is, I am not reading anything into the passages of the Bible but simply explaining what is actually being said.

Please don't bother to read this without looking up the Scriptures.  I've added hyperlinks to the references at the bottom of the page to make it easy for you to look them up quickly, because they are extensive.  After you read the reference, clicking "Back" in your browser should take you back to where you were in the text.

Omnipotence
- Having unlimited or universal power, authority, or force; all-powerful.  (See “God”)

Whenever the word “omnipotence” is tossed out in a discussion, sometimes people try to trip up Christians by asking the question “Can God create a rock so heavy that He can’t lift it?”  Their assertion is that if God cannot create or lift the rock, then He cannot do all things, therefore He can’t be omnipotent.  But such a question is nonsensical, because the premise of the question is based on something logically impossible.  No, God cannot do anything that would limit His omnipotence.    

Such discussions are not useful, so to silence these questions before they are asked, I will add that I am using the word “omnipotence” in the sense that it has been historically used in church tradition.  I will qualify the word by saying that there are certain things that God cannot do because they would defy His own character.  For instance, God cannot destroy Himself or sin, and He cannot do anything else that is contrary to His character or anything that is logically impossible, such as draw a square circle or some other silliness. 

However, I am constantly amazed at the limits that people try to put on God even as they claim that He is omnipotent (Jer 32:17, Matt 19:26).  These imposed limits are illogical, and usually rooted in a lack of understanding of Scripture, or simply a reflection of man's pride.  For instance, it is egotistical to believe that God needs man for anything.  To say that God needs man is to say that God is imperfect, and faith in anything less than a perfect God would be misplaced.  God is perfect, lacking in nothing, and able to do all that He desires.  Study of Scripture reveals that God does not always fit into the box that men create for Him, and that His ways are not our ways.  But when many Christians read something in the Bible that does not go along with how they would do things, they simply refuse to believe what they read, and instead they mold God into whatever suits them. 

I once read a science fiction story about a polytheistic society in which one of the characters was good friends with one of the gods.  The god was dying, because it lived off of the praise and adoration of its followers, and the people were turning their backs on this poor, unpopular god.  Without their prayers, praise, and worship, the god’s power was slowly being diminished.  Unfortunately, this is how many Christians see the Almighty God, that He is somehow dependent on man.  This is quite evident in the way some have twisted the meaning of “intercessory prayer”.  Here’s a quote from a website on intercessory prayer:

“In intercession, we bear the sins of another, positionally, as Jesus did on the cross. Since man could not, Jesus did it for them. We can do this for another since we re-present Christ in us before our God. · In bearing the burdens of others, as Christ did, we are also carrying them away from others.”

While the author may not have intended it, he is in effect saying that we can be the Savior for the lost and bear their sins.  This is hardly what the author of Galatians chapter 6 intended when he told us to “carry each other’s burdens”.  It is not as if Christ needs our help because he is overloaded with work, and that He needs us to die for the sins of some of the people that He couldn’t handle.  Good intentions on the author’s part aside, this is heresy and must be called such.  "For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." (1 Timothy 2:5)

More on intercessory prayer:

“We have a part to play in the securing of protection and other heavenly provisions. ... Let's accept the fact that the Scriptures are filled with principles that put responsibility on us, which must be met to receive God's promises. Let's realize this doesn't cancel grace and promote salvation by works. Grace does not imply, 'no responsibility' on our part. Let's realize the love of God is unconditional, but His favor and blessing are not.”

This is from the book “Intercessory Prayer” by the much celebrated author Dutch Sheets.  He is essentially saying that God’s protection, His favor, and His blessings are contingent upon us praying the right things.  This is not what the Bible teaches.  God’s love and protection are bestowed without condition on His children.  If a man gets hit by a bus, it is not because he forgot to pray that he wouldn’t get hit by a bus that day.   In the same way, if he doesn’t get hit by a bus it is not because he prayed that he wouldn’t be hit by a bus.  Grace and mercy are by their very nature independent of our thoughts and actions.

Sheets tries to hedge his position by saying “this doesn’t cancel grace and promote salvation by works”, but that is exactly what it does.  If certain actions are required of us for salvation, that is by definition salvation by works.  Saul of Tarsus did nothing to secure the favor and blessing of God as he was persecuting Christians, yet he was blessed by God.  The transformation in Paul's life was strictly by the grace of God.

Another common theme that runs throughout Sheet’s book is what he calls “releasing the Holy Spirit”.  His assertion is that we are effectively responsible for the work of the Holy Spirit, that we have the power to hold back the power of God through prayerlessness.  But the power of God is never dependent on men.  God’s hand is at work throughout all creation in every second of every day in ways that we cannot even fathom.  He is hardly incapable of action without our instruction!  We are sometimes richly blessed by things in our lives that we never asked for, and some that we would never think to ask for.  This is His pleasure and Will at work.  Does this mean that we should not pray?  Of course not, but God is not waiting to be released by our prayers so that He can act.  We don’t green light projects that God is working on, as if God is pacing back and forth and saying to Himself “if they would only pray my plans could be put in motion”.  More on prayer later on.

Contrary to what Sheets and others may say, God’s power is completely independent of man’s will or desire.  While God often chooses to work through men, this does not mean that He is dependent on man for a single thing.  I have heard it said that when one person doesn’t do God’s Will, God simply raises up another to accomplish whatever task was set before the first person.  But what man, by his own will, can turn back the hand of God (Isa 14:27)?  God’s Will is never thwarted by man’s will.  To believe such a thing would be to put our faith in an impotent god, one that promises things that it may or may not be able to fulfill.

God’s power and authority are absolute.  By His power, He might have chosen to save all of mankind from condemnation.  He also might have chosen to condemn all of mankind, and He would be perfectly justified in doing either, as I will explain later.  According to His own pleasure, He allowed the fall of Satan and his angels.  Because He allowed this, sin has a hold in our lives.  He allowed the fall of Adam, not because He was unable to intervene, but because He chose not to.  If this is not true, then God is not Almighty and His creation is out of His control.

I have also heard people say that God is not concerned with the everyday mundane things that go on in the world, just the big stuff.  For example, God doesn’t bother to have control over how many steps I take today, because it is not important to Him.  It’s strange for me to hear Christians say that they don’t believe in luck and yet they believe that God has no control over the mundane, like whether a flipped coin will be heads or tails (Matt 10:29-30).  But if God is omnipotent, there is not a single thing that is outside of His control (Prov 16:33).  God does not have to live within natural laws, but He did create them.  If God wanted that coin to stop in midair, turn into a bird and fly away, then that is what would happen.  Or He could choose to let gravity, which He created, takes its natural course.  Either way, God is in control.

God truly lacks nothing.  As a wise man once reminded me, God does not change (Num 23:19).  If God changes, then it means that He somehow lacks something and that He is less than perfect.  If God lacks the knowledge of the future, then He is imperfect.  If His foreknowledge is somehow incomplete, He is imperfect.  If He needs anything from man, He is imperfect.  If some things are out of His control, then He is imperfect.  Any such assertion is ludicrous, not to mention heretical.  If God ever learns anything, then it's because He lacked the knowledge of that thing, therefore He is imperfect.  So God never learns anything.  There is not a thing that we can ever do that God did not know we would do, and He is never surprised by anything.

God’s Justice

People have said to me that the idea that God sways men’s hearts and inclines them towards good or evil is not fair.  But God is sovereign, and therefore His justice is absolute.  To say that God is "sovereign" means that He has supreme and permanent authority.  If His authority is supreme, above all other laws, then He is free to do whatever He pleases (Psa 115:3) with the hearts of men (Isa 46:9-10).

Since man’s heart is inclined towards evil, he condemns himself.  But by grace, some men’s hearts are inclined towards God’s even though their inward nature inclines them towards evil, because God has mercy on whom He will have mercy, and He hardens whom He wants to harden (Rom 9:15).  It is by His pleasure and Will that some are saved and others are condemned (John 5:21).  All have sinned and fall short (Rom 3:23), so it is only by His grace and mercy that any of us are saved (Eph 2:5).

When God punishes the wicked and rewards the righteous it seems just to us, but the Will of God is the only true rule of justice.  Abraham nearly sacrificed his own son, which would have been murder by law.  But Abraham was acting in obedience to God, and he realized that God’s Will has authority over the law of the land.  God’s Will is by its nature just and righteous.  The works of men may be judged as good or evil, but God’s Will cannot be put to a test and determined to be good or evil, because God’s Will is necessarily good and just.  What rule can supercede the Will of Almighty God (Deu 32:4)?

God allows people to fall into sin or changes their hearts, He allows people to die or prevents it, and He even calls some to eternal life and allows others to follow their own sinful nature to eternal suffering.  All acts of God’s Will are intrinsically holy, and He does what He wills with all of His creatures, great and small.  This is a necessary component of the Christian faith, that God is holy and just.

God Works in the Hearts of Men

All men live under sin, and there are none that are righteous (Rom 3:9-12).  Man does not naturally seek God, but He turns men’s hearts to Himself as He pleases.  Consider that no man comes to Jesus unless God the Father draws him (John 6:44).  We are not even capable of coming to salvation through Christ unless God first calls us.  In fact, God is the author of all good that comes from men (Phi 2:12-13).  God changes the heart of man so that man will freely accept Him, and in the same way He directs men’s actions towards eternal life or death.  His grace alone causes men to seek Him, because man’s natural inclination is to sin (Gen 8:21).

Since man’s heart is inclined towards evil from childhood, only God working in us enables us to do good (Eze 36:26-27).  By the same token, God allows the hearts of the unsaved to be hardened against Him.  God hardened Pharaoh’s heart (Exo 7:3-4) and then sent judgment upon the land of Egypt .  This is a difficult word for some to take because it defies their preconceived ideas of fairness, but it is precisely what happened.  Proverbs 21:1 says “The king's heart is in the hand of the LORD; he directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases.”  If God turns the hearts of kings and Pharaohs, why not the hearts of all men?

An important distinction to make is that God does not predict the future.  Some have said that God simply knew that Pharaoh’s heart would be hardened, but that is not the whole picture.  God caused Pharaoh’s heart to be hardened, as evidenced in Exodus 4:21 which says ‘The LORD said to Moses, "When you return to Egypt , see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go.’  God took an active role.  He is not a fortune teller, as some believe.  He intentionally hardened Pharaoh’s heart for His own purpose.  There is also this passage from Joshua 11:20, “For it was the LORD himself who hardened their hearts to wage war against Israel , so that he might destroy them totally, exterminating them without mercy, as the LORD had commanded Moses.”

God’s power and authority are absolute, and essential to that authority is that He is accountable to no one.  So if God decides to work in men’s hearts and turn them towards evil, it is His prerogative to do so.  It would be arrogance to question the actions of our sovereign God, so instead some people simply refuse to believe that He actually changes men’s hearts, despite the fact that the Bible is filled with examples of this very thing.

Consider the seemingly endless disobedience of the Israelites.  God chose His people knowing that that would turn from Him continually, and in fact His hand has always been involved.  In Romans 11, Paul talks about grace versus works and uses the example of God hardening the hearts of His own people (Rom 11:5-8).  Paul refers to the renewal of God’s covenant with Israel , when Moses said in Deuteronomy 29 “³With your own eyes you saw those great trials, those miraculous signs and great wonders. ⁴But to this day the LORD has not given you a mind that understands or eyes that see or ears that hear.”  God chose to keep His people from fully appreciating His glory.  Paul goes on to say that, though God’s own people turned away, “there is a remnant chosen by grace”.  God hardened the hearts of some, but chose others to receive His grace.

Another example is when God handed Jesus over to evil men, knowing that they would put Him to death (Acts 2:22-23).  It was God’s Will that these men put Jesus to death, and it was accomplished through the hearts of those men.  Also consider how God used Herod and Pilate for His plan to be accomplished (Acts 4:27-28).

Yet another example of God working in men’s hearts is found in II Thessalonians 2:11-12 “¹¹For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie ¹²and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.”  In this example, all those that already delight in wickedness are further deluded by God Himself.

Isaiah 45:5-7 says “⁵I am the LORD, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God. I will strengthen you, though you have not acknowledged me, ⁶so that from the rising of the sun to the place of its setting men may know there is none besides me. I am the LORD, and there is no other. ⁷I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the LORD, do all these things.”  By His grace and mercy, God strengthens those who do not even acknowledge Him as Lord.  He brings prosperity and creates disaster at will, according to His own pleasure.  He works in the hearts of men in the same way.

Free Will

If God turns men’s hearts towards evil or good, how is it that we have free will?  On the surface this may seem like a paradox, but it is not.

God extends the invitation to eternal life to all men, but some will clearly not choose Him.  That is, some will hear the gospel and choose not to follow Christ, because it is their choice.  After all, how are all of our choices made?  Some accuse me of implying that we are puppets or that we merely follow a script that God has written, but I know that every decision that I make is my own.  I choose to do good and choose to do evil.  I can blame no one for my own sin, because I make the choice to sin freely.  In the same way, I can see an opportunity to do good and seize it, or I can ignore it.

Consider this quote from 16^th century theologian Jerome Zanchius:

"My meaning is, that the prescience of God does not lay any coercive necessity on the wills of beings naturally free. For instance, man, even in his fallen state, is endued with a natural freedom of will, yet he acts, from the first to the last moment of his life, in absolute subserviency (though, perhaps, he does not know it nor design it) to the purposes and decrees of God concerning him, notwithstanding which, he is sensible of no compulsion, but acts as freely and voluntarily as if he was sui juris, subject to no control and absolutely lord of himself."

We choose to do good or evil without asking ourselves if God is steering our hearts one way or the other.  When God hardened Pharaoh’s heart (Exo 7:3-4), he was not blaming God for his own cruelty and evil.  No, he freely chose to hold the Israelites captive.  When we know that what we are about to do is sin and yet still do it, we don’t blame God for it because we made the decision.  Pharaoh felt no puppet strings, and neither do we.

HOWEVER, the accusation that God is a puppet master has a decidedly negative connotation, and this should not be the case.  Man's wisdom is that God gave us free will because that is what we think sounds right.  But I have already shown through many Bible references that the idea that our thoughts and actions are independent of God's Will does not hold much water.  God is clearly at work in the hearts of men, steering them whichever way He pleases for His own glory.  But besides these obvious contradictions to Biblical truth, free will has other questions to answer.

You may have heard it said that "God is a gentleman" and that He does not force Himself on us.  Instead, He is like a man who is after the affections of a woman and he courts her until she decides that she wants to be with him.  While that is a colorful analogy, we are talking about the difference between eternal life and eternal torment, so the analogy I prefer is much less cute.  A father has two sons, and both of them are deaf.  In the back yard of the man's home are train tracks, and the father has repeatedly warned his children not to play near them.  But the children don't listen to him, and he regularly sees them playing on the tracks.  One day a train is coming and the deaf children are playing on the tracks.  Since they are unable to hear the danger approaching, the father runs out to warn them to get away.  But rather than taking them in his arms and carrying them to safety, he waves his arms until he gets their attention and then uses sign language to tell them that the train is coming.  He warns them that they should come to him, because he knows that staying on the tracks will lead to their death.  After some consideration, one of the children heeds his warning and runs to the father, and the other child comes to a dreadful end.  The father warned the children not to play on the tracks, but ultimately left it to them to decide to get out of the way of the train.  He knew that if they only understood the dire consequences of not listening to him that they would choose to be saved, but he did not want to force himself on them.  This is the God of free will.

Conversely, here is the Calvinist take on the story.  The father sees the train coming and rushes out to snatch one of his children from danger, saving him and leaving his brother to die.  Many people say that Calvin's view of salvation is harsh, but both stories defy most people's sense of what is fair and loving, do they not?  Life is not fair in many ways.  It's not fair that some are born into poverty or with handicaps, but this does not mean that we serve a God who is not loving (Exo 4:11).

The concept of free will as most Christians understand it is not found anywhere in the Bible and, as you can see, a closer look at free will shows that it should not be held in such high regard anyway.  If God gives people the ability to save themselves through free will, yet knows that some will abuse this free will and go to Hell, then He values free will more than people. If, on the other hand, God destines some for Heaven and some for Hell, it is because He values displaying His own glory through His mercy or wrath more than He values people.

Another problem with free will is that it is inconsistent with God's foreknowledge.  We must believe that God knows the future, and knows all of the future and not just some of it.  Let's say that God knows that I will have tuna salad on wheat toast for lunch tomorrow.  He in fact knew before the world was created that tomorrow I would have tuna salad on wheat toast for lunch.  Is there any possible way that I'm not going to have tuna salad on wheat toast for lunch tomorrow?  No, it would be impossible.  Because if I choose to have peanut butter and jelly on white bread tomorrow for lunch, then God was wrong.  So it is necessarily true that I will have tuna salad on wheat toast for lunch tomorrow, given that God has known for all time that it would occur and He cannot be wrong.  There is absolutely nothing that will change what I'm having for lunch tomorrow.  If God foreknew it, then nothing can change it.

Predestination

This brings us to the crux of the matter.  I find it odd that I have to defend my position on predestination to other Christians when I take it so directly from the Bible.  Yet, as I said before, I think that some people do not want to believe it because it defies their ideas of what is fair and equitable, or nice.  Consider this passage from Ephesians chapter 1:

⁴For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love ⁵he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will-- ⁶to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. ⁷In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace ⁸that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. ⁹And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, ¹⁰to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment--to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. ¹¹In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, ¹²in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. ¹³And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, ¹⁴who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession--to the praise of his glory.

And this passage from Romans chapter 8:

²⁸And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. ²⁹For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. ³⁰And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

We must understand that God does not call everyone.  If those He calls, He justifies, and those He justifies, He glorifies, then clearly Paul is not talking about all men, because some will perish.  This is crucial to the understanding of what predestination is.  If we believe that the number of hairs on our heads are numbered (Matt 10:30) and that God knew us before we were formed in the womb (Jer 1:5), it should not be much of a stretch to believe what is clearly spelled out here.  Before the creation of the world, God predestined some for Heaven.  It is a logical necessity to say that if some are predestined to Heaven and eternal life, others are predestined to Hell and eternal torment (Prov 16:4).

Foreknow - to have previous knowledge of; to know beforehand.
Predestine - To fix upon, decide, or decree in advance; foreordain. 

These words are unambiguous.  God knew us before the creation of the world.  This was not some vague understanding of what we might become, He knew us completely.  Because God is omnipotent, and nothing is out of His control, He knows every decision that we will ever make in our entire lives before we make them.  God is never surprised by anything.

God knows the future, and it is under His control.  If God knows the future, He knows all of it (Psa 147:5).  He knew before the foundation of the earth that He would send His only Son Jesus to save mankind (Act 2:23).  Nothing in the story of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection was shocking to God the Father.  It is the same way with all men.  God knew our every footstep and where each would take us before we were ever born (Acts 17:26).  Psalm 139:16 says “your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”  How could these days not include what is arguably the most important day of our lives, the day we choose to follow Christ?

If God is indeed Almighty, then He is also all-knowing.  As I stated before, God never learns anything, because if He lacks knowledge then He is imperfect.  If God knows the future, He knows all of it, and this includes who will believe and be saved.  That God knows who will be saved should not be in dispute, except by those who believe that God essentially spun the world into motion and then took a step back to see what would happen (This is the long and short of Deism, long thought to be heretical by orthodox Christians).  But the part of the doctrine of predestination that some people refuse to believe is that He not only knows who will be saved, but He also chooses.  However, this is a logical necessity if you believe that God has the world in His hands, that He is involved with our lives.

God knows the missteps that we will make and by His grace we are saved from calamity, probably on a daily basis!  If you believe this is true, then follow the truth to its logical conclusion.  If God knows who will reject His Son and not believe, could He not intervene and by some miraculous sign cause the unbeliever to be converted, as when Paul was on the road to Damascus?  And yet He clearly does not always choose to do this, allowing some to follow their sinful nature to death.  God is, by His lack of intervening grace, condemning some.  And conversely, by the gift of His grace, He saves others.

For those who require more evidence than the Scriptures already mentioned above that we are chosen by God and not the other way around, here are some more examples.  I would strongly encourage you to take a moment and read all of them before you continue.  And perhaps later you will want to take out your Bible and read them in context to make sure that I am not simply picking and choosing verses to advance my own personal theory, though I can assure you that this is not the case.

Psalm 65:4 Blessed are those you choose and bring near to live in your courts! We are filled with the good things of your house, of your holy temple.

Jeremiah 1:5 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart;  I appointed you as a prophet to the nations."

Mark 13:20 If the Lord had not cut short those days, no one would survive. But for the sake of the elect, whom he has chosen, he has shortened them.

John 6:37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away.

John 15:19 If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.

John 17:1-9 ¹After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed: ²"Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. ³Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. ⁴I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. ⁵And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began. ⁶"I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. ⁷Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. ⁸For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. ⁹I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours.

Acts 13:48 When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and honored the word of the Lord; and all who were appointed for eternal life believed.

Ephesians 2:10 For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

II Thessalonians 2:13 But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth.

II Timothy 1:8-10 ⁸So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God, ⁹who has saved us and called us to a holy life--not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, ¹⁰but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.

Titus 1:1-4 ¹Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ for the faith of God's elect and the knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness-- ²a faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time, ³and at his appointed season he brought his word to light through the preaching entrusted to me by the command of God our Savior, ⁴To Titus, my true son in our common faith: Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.

1 Peter 1:1-2 ¹Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To God's elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, ²who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance.

These are not the only Scriptures that say that God chose us, but it is a short list of some of the most compelling Biblical evidence.

These things were made plain to me by reading Scripture alone.  Before some of you accuse me of being a Calvinist, I had barely heard the name John Calvin before I came to believe what I have stated here.  I hope you will agree that the Biblical evidence itself is glaring enough, and that it does not require Calvin or Luther or Zanchius’s brilliant explanations of the doctrine of predestination.  The doctrine of predestination did not originate with Calvin, it is an inescapable conclusion drawn from the Bible alone.

Why is predestination important to Christians?  Most Christians say that they believe we are saved by grace and not by works.  This is barely in dispute by Protestants.  But most of us do not live like we truly believe it.  Most Christians believe that they have a hand in their own salvation, even though this is not what the Bible teaches.  We come to believe by the grace of God alone, and our ultimate salvation is secured through grace alone.

John 15:16 “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit--fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.”

Romans 9:16 It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy.

Since all men have sinned, and are equally deserving of death for that sin, it is God’s grace that saves us.  He chooses from among us, and it is His right to do so since we have all sinned against Him.  So our election and salvation must be of grace and not of anything that we have done (Rom 11:35).

In Matthew 22, Jesus tells the parable of the wedding feast, and in it He describes the Kingdom of Heaven.  A king decided to throw a wedding banquet and he sent out his servants to invite people to come.  But the people that the king invited paid no attention, or sometimes even killed his servants.  The king became enraged and sent his armies to destroy the offenders, then told his servants to go into the streets and invite everyone.  The servants filled the wedding hall with guests from the streets, good and bad people.  But then the king spotted one man not wearing wedding clothes and threw him out of the banquet.  Matthew 22:14 says "For many are invited, but few are chosen."  The invitation is extended to all, but the King decides who will enter the Kingdom of Heaven .

Going back to God’s omnipotence, Christians must believe that nothing happens by accident.  People do not fall through the cracks of God’s design, that is, it is not a mistake that some will not choose to follow Christ.  God’s foreknowledge is complete, and therefore we must believe that we are chosen by God.  To deny this is to deny that God is perfect.

If for no other reason than to cut our pride off at the knees, predestination is something that every Christian should study.  Our righteous acts are filthy rags to Almighty God (Isa 64:6), and our good works will never save us.

How much greater is the gift of salvation in light of predestination?  We are incapable of goodness without God, and yet He chose us from among all men to be with Him in Heaven.  And this is not because of a seed of goodness within us that He chose to water.  No, God planted the seed into our hearts, into soil that was previously incapable of growing anything good.

Furthermore, as you can see from the range of Scripture references I have chosen, predestination is something that runs throughout the Bible, and may even be called the glue that holds it all together.  You can scarcely read a book written by the apostle Paul that does not at least allude to the idea of predestination.  From Genesis through Revelation, there are probably hundreds of verses that speak of it.

One reason for this is that the doctrine of grace hinges on predestination.  Grace, by definition, is independent of man’s goodness or determination.  Salvation by grace depends on predestination, because if God does not choose us, then we are saved by something that we can do, that is, by works.  Romans 11:5-6 says “⁵So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. ⁶And if by grace, then it is no longer by works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace.”

Restated in Ephesians 2:8-9, ⁸For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-- ⁹not by works, so that no one can boast.  Ephesians 2:4-5 says ⁴But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, ⁵made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved.  Again, the order is unmistakable.  When we were dead does not mean when we chose to be alive!  Only by grace are we made alive.  Some have tried to tell me that "works" does not mean what I think it means.  They say that works means serving the poor or witnessing to people or something like that, but the idea that we choose God is not works, it's just a thought process.  Read the verses above again and you will see that it is "not from yourselves, it is the gift of God".  It is a gift, and that should be the end of it.  The idea that we choose for God to give us grace is not remotely implied here.  No, leave the definition of "works" behind and consider that salvation is simply not of ourselves.  If there is anything that we do to earn salvation then it is not by grace that we are saved.

That grace is required for salvation has never been in question in the church.  Even the Roman Catholic Church has always stated unequivocally that grace is necessary for salvation.  But the Protestant Reformation came about because of the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church that are still being taught in many Protestant churches today.  And that is, that while grace is required for salvation, it is not in and of itself sufficient for salvation.  But the two ideas, as Paul iterates, are not compatible.  If we are chosen by grace, then it is not by works that we are saved, "works" being something that we do.

The fallacy of the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, to which many Protestant churches still subscribe, is that while we call Christ our Savior, He does not actually save anyone, He merely makes it possible for us to be saved.  Basically He does not save us without our help.  God has a plan of salvation, but we must work within the plan to be saved.  Jesus wants to save us, but He needs our assistance.

The Protestant Reformation took place because of the opposition to this teaching by the Roman Catholic Church.  If you have been reading this and wondering what the point is, consider just how important it is, that men would risk beheading by being opposed to the Roman Catholic Church on this issue.  It affects much more of Christianity than a mere cursory examination might reveal, as I will explain in the conclusion. 

The question then becomes, is God sovereign and in control, or is man ultimately in control of his salvation?  It is clear in the Bible that man is naturally inclined to evil, that he is against God.  Only God’s grace can save man, and only God can move man’s heart to accept Christ as Savior and Lord (John 6:44).  Where, then, is man’s hand in the matter?  Even the seed of belief is granted by God, not originating from man (Phi 1:29-30).

A good explanation of how we are chosen by grace is found in John chapter 6:

³⁵Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. ³⁶But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. ³⁷All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. ³⁸For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. ³⁹And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. ⁴⁰For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day." ⁴¹At this the Jews began to grumble about him because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven." ⁴²They said, "Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, 'I came down from heaven'?" ⁴³"Stop grumbling among yourselves," Jesus answered. ⁴⁴"No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. ⁴⁵It is written in the Prophets: 'They will all be taught by God. Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me. ⁴⁶No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. ⁴⁷I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life.

It is clear what comes first.  Verse 37 says “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away”.  Read it again!  It is restated in verse 44, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day”.  No one comes to Christ, no one is saved, unless God the Father brings him to Christ.  Man’s will or desire is not part of the equation.  It clearly does not say that all whom the Father has foreseen will eventually come to me I will raise up on the last day, as many Christians believe.  No, it is “all that the Father gives me”.  This is restated in John 6:63-65.  "⁶³The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. ⁶⁴Yet there are some of you who do not believe." For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. ⁶⁵He went on to say, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him."

The next thing that is important to note is the word “will” in verse 37.  It should not then be in question that those who are given by the Father, those who are drawn by the Father, will answer the call and be saved.  No, all the Father gives will come to Christ, because God’s call is irrevocable (Rom 11:29).

For those who would say that God wants all men to be saved, read verse 40 again in context.  In context, everyone that the Father gives to the Son will never be driven away, for it is the Father’s will that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life.

God is active in our lives throughout the process, and Jesus doesn’t lose any of us along the way.  So God is not saying that He will give the Son some that may be saved, and those that choose will actually be saved and go on to eternal life.  No, those that the Father gives will come to Christ, and the chronology of this process is unmistakable.  We do not believe and then the Father draws us, the Father draws us and then we believe.  Not only that, but verse 44 emphasizes that no one is capable of coming to Christ unless the Father draws him.  Again, man’s works are not part of the equation.

A common question put to Calvinists is, why do we pray or preach?  If God has ordained everything, and predestined people to Heaven and Hell, what good does it do to pray for anything or to witness to the lost?  First of all, the freewill-ians have to answer the same question.  Let's say that I believe that I am saved by my choice to follow Christ.  My brother is not saved, so I pray that God will save him.  So essentially, I believe that my prayer will be powerful and effective, and that God will bring about a change in my brother's heart, otherwise I would not bother to pray.  If God changes my brother's heart, at what point does He let my brother take over and complete the good work that God began in him?  I have heard that some believe that God is in control of all things in our lives except the moment we choose to follow Christ, and that decision is purely up to us.  So the idea is that God decides to be "a gentleman" only when our eternal souls are on the line, but that is ridiculous.  If we pray that God will plant a question or longing in someone's heart so that they might seek God, why is it so hard to believe that He also provides the answer?  

It is the freewill-ians who must answer the question "why do we pray".  Since we can't have it both ways we must give up one idea or the other.  That is, we must either stop praying for the lost because we don't truly believe that God can convert unbelievers (because our salvation is self-determined), or we must give up the idea that our salvation is self-determined.  The answer is that God completes the good work that He begins in man, not the other way around (Phil 1:3-6).

God commands us to love Him, and that is hardly something that a gentleman would do.  But to answer the question above, we pray because God often chooses to work through men, and because we are commanded to do so (Matt 28:19-20).  We are commanded to go into all the world and preach the good news because that is often the mechanism by which God chooses to introduce people to the gospel.  We pray for the same reason, that God chooses to work by answering our prayers.  Not only that, but we should pray in thankfulness for the grace that God has given us.  We are to give thanks in everything and through prayer submit our requests to God (Phil 4:6).

We pray because we are commanded and because God works through our prayers, but He also wants to have a personal relationship with us.  God wants us to ask Him for help in times of trouble, and He answers our prayers to demonstrate His glory.  He also wants us to praise Him and give thanks to Him always.  The dialogue of prayer is somewhat of a mystery to me, because it is true that God knows what we will ask before we ask it.  But this in no way diminishes the increase of my faith and trust in Him when my prayers are answered.

But there is still more that needs to be said of predestination.  This is from Romans chapter 9:

¹¹Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad--in order that God's purpose in election might stand: ¹²not by works but by him who calls--she was told, "The older will serve the younger." ¹³Just as it is written: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." ¹⁴What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! ¹⁵For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion."¹⁶It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy. ¹⁷For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." ¹⁸Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden. ¹⁹One of you will say to me: "Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?" ²⁰But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?' " ²¹Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use? ²²What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath--prepared for destruction? ²³What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory -- ²⁴even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?

The only objection I have found for this passage comes only from those who do not accept Reformed theology, and they try to say that Paul is speaking of nations in this passage when he refers to Jacob and Esau (Mal 1:2-4), despite the fact that verse 16 so obviously negates that theory, having nothing to do with nations.  But to take this passage in context and to be sure that he is not talking about nations but individual salvation, read the entire chapter and have the courage to believe that Paul actually means what he is unmistakably saying here!

Romans chapter 9 is an excellent summation, and should be the end of the matter, of the grace vs. works argument.  However, only God can change the heart of he who, it may be said without much drama, is in rebellion to God’s sovereignty.  In truth, he believes himself to be the author, if not even the perfecter, of his own faith (Heb 12:2).  If it is by our own choice that we are saved, then only the wise and mature will choose God.  Here's a good analogy that I've heard: Ten men are before a firing squad and all of them are offered unconditional pardons.  Only five choose the pardon, the other five choose to perish.  All other factors being equal, it is only the foolishness of the second five that condemns them and the wisdom of the first that saves them.  We are not saved by wisdom, but by grace.

Paul makes it abundantly clear in this chapter that God chooses us, and not the other way around.  Before our birth, just like Jacob and Esau, God decides on whom He will have mercy and compassion, and it does not depend on man’s desire or effort.  God’s purpose in election has nothing to do with anything that we have done or will do, good or bad.

For those who would say “that’s not fair”, read verses 19-21.  Paul heard your objection before you voiced it.  Think for a moment about the absurdity of the dishes in your cupboard talking back to you and questioning your reasoning for using them in whatever way you choose.  God is not unjust, and He will have mercy and compassion on whomever He pleases.  Verse 16 in the NASB says “So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.”

God’s purpose in all of this is to display His power and to proclaim His name to the earth, for God works only for His own glory.

Conclusion

If you believe that we are responsible for our own salvation, then feel free to reject the doctrine of predestination.  But I would say that you do so at great risk, for you would be rejecting the teachings of Paul (about half of the New Testament) and numerous other writers of Scripture.  You will notice that I have referenced over 160 verses to back this doctrine, and I’m sure I haven’t covered half of the evidence in the Bible.  This is not some sketchy theory created by John Calvin.

Acceptance of this doctrine is not only freeing, it also inspires great trust in Almighty God.  Most Christians will say that they believe that God is in control of the world, that He has a plan, but their discontentment and worry reveal that they do not truly believe it.  They want to trust in God and believe that He will see them through difficult times, but they are hindered by their belief that God is not fully in control, that He is really just a spectator who gives us an occasional helping hand when He takes pity on us or it strikes His fancy.

This should not be an obscure doctrine, given its prominence in the New Testament, but many of today’s pastors are reluctant to speak on it because they view it as controversial.  It is unfortunate because predestination effects a great deal more than simply how we get to Heaven.  Notice that Paul opens up his letter to the Ephesians by first praising God for His blessings, then immediately launching into how God predestined us according to His pleasure and Will.  Paul does not try to hide it, and neither should we.

In conclusion, I have prayed that whatever I have written here is correct and glorifying to God, but I will be the first to admit that I am simply a fallible man.  So please, all of you that are brothers and sisters in Christ, correct me on anything that I have said here that doesn’t line up with Scripture. 

Leave me some feedback below

Scripture References
(KJV verses being added slowly)

Genesis 8:21  
(NIV) The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: "Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.
(KJV) And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.

Exodus 4:11-12 
(NIV) ¹¹ The LORD said to him, "Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the LORD ? ¹² Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say."
(KJV) ¹¹ And the LORD said unto him, Who hath made man's mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I the LORD? ¹² Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say.

Exodus 4:21
(NIV) The LORD said to Moses, "When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go.
(KJV) And the LORD said unto Moses, When thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in thine hand: but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go.

Exodus 7:3-4
(NIV) ³But I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and though I multiply my miraculous signs and wonders in Egypt, ⁴he will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and with mighty acts of judgment I will bring out my divisions, my people the Israelites.  
(KJV) ³ And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt. ⁴ But Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you, that I may lay my hand upon Egypt, and bring forth mine armies, and my people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great judgments.

Numbers 23:19  
(NIV) God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?
(KJV) God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?

Deuteronomy 32:4
(NIV) He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he.

Joshua 11:20
(NIV) For it was the LORD himself who hardened their hearts to wage war against Israel, so that he might destroy them totally, exterminating them without mercy, as the LORD had commanded Moses.

Psalm 65:4
(NIV) Blessed are those you choose and bring near to live in your courts! We are filled with the good things of your house, of your holy temple.

Psalm 115:3
(NIV) Our God is in heaven; he does whatever pleases him.

Psalm 139:16
(NIV) your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

Psalm 147:5
(NIV) Great is our Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit.

Proverbs 16:4
(NIV) The LORD works out everything for his own ends-even the wicked for a day of disaster.

Proverbs 16:33
(NIV) The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.

Proverbs 21:1
(NIV) The king's heart is in the hand of the LORD; he directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases.

Isaiah 14:27
(NIV) For the LORD Almighty has purposed, and who can thwart him? His hand is stretched out, and who can turn it back?

Isaiah 45:5-7
(NIV) ⁵I am the LORD, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God. I will strengthen you, though you have not acknowledged me, ⁶so that from the rising of the sun to the place of its setting men may know there is none besides me. I am the LORD, and there is no other. ⁷I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the LORD, do all these things.

Isaiah 46:9-10
(NIV) ⁹ Remember the former things, those of long ago;I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. ¹⁰ I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.

Isaiah 64:6
(NIV) All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.

Jeremiah 1:5
(NIV) "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart;  I appointed you as a prophet to the nations."

Jeremiah 32:17
(NIV) "Ah, Sovereign LORD , you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you.

Ezekiel 36:26-27
(NIV) ²⁶ I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. ²⁷ And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.

Malachi 1:2-4
(NIV) ²"I have loved you," says the LORD. "But you ask, 'How have you loved us?' "Was not Esau Jacob's brother?" the LORD says. "Yet I have loved Jacob, ³but Esau I have hated, and I have turned his mountains into a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals." ⁴Edom may say, "Though we have been crushed, we will rebuild the ruins."

Matthew 10:29-30
(NIV) ²⁹Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. ³⁰And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.

Matthew 19:26
(NIV) Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."

Matthew 22:1-14
(NIV) ¹Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: ²"The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. ³He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come. ⁴"Then he sent some more servants and said, 'Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.' ⁵"But they paid no attention and went off--one to his field, another to his business. ⁶The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. ⁷The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. ⁸"Then he said to his servants, 'The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. ⁹Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.' ¹⁰So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests. ¹¹"But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. ¹²'Friend,' he asked, 'how did you get in here without wedding clothes?' The man was speechless. ¹³"Then the king told the attendants, 'Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.' ¹⁴"For many are invited, but few are chosen."

Matthew 28:19-20
(NIV) ¹⁹Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

Mark 13:20
(NIV) If the Lord had not cut short those days, no one would survive. But for the sake of the elect, whom he has chosen, he has shortened them.

John 5:21
(NIV) For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it.

John 6:35-47
(NIV) ³⁵Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. ³⁶But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. ³⁷All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. ³⁸For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. ³⁹And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. ⁴⁰For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day." ⁴¹At this the Jews began to grumble about him because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven." ⁴²They said, "Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, 'I came down from heaven'?" ⁴³"Stop grumbling among yourselves," Jesus answered. ⁴⁴"No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. ⁴⁵It is written in the Prophets: 'They will all be taught by God. Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me. ⁴⁶No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. ⁴⁷I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life.

John 6:63-65
(NIV) ⁶³The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. ⁶⁴Yet there are some of you who do not believe." For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. ⁶⁵He went on to say, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him."

John 15:16
(NIV) You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit--fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.

John 15:19
(NIV) If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.

John 17:1-9
(NIV) ¹After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed: ²"Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. ³Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. ⁴I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. ⁵And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began. ⁶"I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. ⁷Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. ⁸For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. ⁹I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours.

Acts 2:22-23
(NIV) ²²"Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. ²³This man was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.

Acts 4:27-28
(NIV) ²⁷Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. ²⁸They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen.

Acts 13:48
(NIV) When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and honored the word of the Lord; and all who were appointed for eternal life believed.

Acts 17:24-28
(NIV) ²⁴"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. ²⁵And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. ²⁶From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. ²⁷God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. ²⁸'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'

Romans 3:9-12
(NIV) ⁹What shall we conclude then? Are we any better? Not at all! We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. ¹⁰As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one; ¹¹there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. ¹²All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one."

Romans 3:21-26
(NIV) ²¹But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. ²²This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, ²³for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. ²⁵God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished-- ²⁶he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

Romans 8:28-30
(NIV) ²⁸And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. ²⁹For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. ³⁰And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

Romans 9:11-24
(NIV) ¹¹Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad--in order that God's purpose in election might stand: ¹²not by works but by him who calls--she was told, "The older will serve the younger." ¹³Just as it is written: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." ¹⁴What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! ¹⁵For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion."¹⁶It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy. ¹⁷For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." ¹⁸Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden. ¹⁹One of you will say to me: "Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?" ²⁰But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?' " ²¹Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use? ²²What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath--prepared for destruction? ²³What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory -- ²⁴even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?

Romans 11:5-8
(NIV) ⁵So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. ⁶And if by grace, then it is no longer by works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace. ⁷What then? What Israel sought so earnestly it did not obtain, but the elect did. The others were hardened, ⁸as it is written: "God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes so that they could not see and ears so that they could not hear, to this very day."

Romans 11:29
(NIV) for God's gifts and his call are irrevocable.

Romans 11:35
(NIV) “Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?"

I Corinthians 1:27-30
(NIV) ²⁷But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. ²⁸He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things -- and the things that are not -- to nullify the things that are, ²⁹so that no one may boast before him. ³⁰It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God--that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.

II Corinthians 3:1-6
(NIV) ¹Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you? ²You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. ³You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. ⁴Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God. ⁵Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. ⁶He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant--not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

Galatians 6:2
(NIV) Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

Ephesians 1:4-14
(NIV) ⁴For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love ⁵he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will-- ⁶to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. ⁷In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace ⁸that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. ⁹And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, ¹⁰to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment--to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. ¹¹In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, ¹²in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. ¹³And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, ¹⁴who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession--to the praise of his glory.

Ephesians 2:4-10
(NIV) ⁴But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, ⁵made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved. ⁶And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, ⁷in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. ⁸For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-- ⁹not by works, so that no one can boast. ¹⁰For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Philippians 1:3-6
(NIV) ³I thank my God every time I remember you. ⁴In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy ⁵because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, ⁶being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

Philippians 1:29-30
(NIV) ²⁹For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him, ³⁰since you are going through the same struggle you saw I had, and now hear that I still have.

Philippians 2:12-13
(NIV) ¹²Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed--not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence--continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, ¹³for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.

Philippians 4:6
(NIV) Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

II Thessalonians 2:11-13
(NIV) ¹¹For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie ¹²and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness. ¹³But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth.

1 Timothy 2:1-6
(NIV) ¹I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone-- ²for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. ³This is good, and pleases God our Savior, ⁴who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. ⁵For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, ⁶who gave himself as a ransom for all men--the testimony given in its proper time.

II Timothy 1:8-10
(NIV) ⁸So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God, ⁹who has saved us and called us to a holy life--not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, ¹⁰but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.

Titus 1:1-4
(NIV) ¹Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ for the faith of God's elect and the knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness-- ²a faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time, ³and at his appointed season he brought his word to light through the preaching entrusted to me by the command of God our Savior, ⁴To Titus, my true son in our common faith: Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.

Hebrews 12:2
(NIV) Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

James 4:2-3
(NIV) ²You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. ³When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

1 Peter 1:1-2
(NIV) ¹Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To God's elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, ²who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance.

Revelation 22:17
(NIV) The Spirit and the bride say, "Come!" And let him who hears say, "Come!" Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life.

Feedback

I would like to know what you think about this article, so please leave me some feedback regardless of what you believe because I would like to hear from you!  Unless you wish to remain anonymous, leave me your name or your email address so I'll know who you are.  Thanks!

Hey Steve, wow. I don't have time to read all the way through yet but the first little bit is well-written and thought out. I look forward to finishing it. I'm interested in finding out what this is for. Personal? Nice thinking.
From judy on Saturday, 3/22/2003 at 9:46:45 PM

I got bored and finished reading your predestination paper. (On Saturday of all days!)
From Boaz on Monday, 4/12/2004 at 4:25:33 PM

Amen and amen. I have recently come to a reformed faith and the Doctrine of Predestination, once so distasteful to me, has become the sweetest and most comforting of Doctrines. It gives me great courage to know that God is ultimately wise, ultimately just and ultimately merciful. . . as well as being ultimately in charge and capable of bringing to completion the good work that HE began in me.
From Anonymous on Sunday, 6/9/2004 at 1:34:33 PM


From Frank Johnson on Tuesday, 1/24/2006 at 5:41:50 AM

Steve: I work with your mom at Hughes-Anderson in Tulsa. Very interesting article. I currenlty attend a Reformed Southern Baptist Church in Owasso and came to embrace the "Doctrines of Grace" several years ago. I was asked to step down from a Sunday School teaching position at our previous church because I was a "Calvinist." I've been called worse. 8^)> === Semper Fi
From Keith on Tuesday, 7/11/2006 at 12:44:59 PM

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