Predestined for Salvation?
Ephesians 1:3-5:11-12; John 3:16
by Rev. Frank Schaefer
Ephesians 1:3-5:11-12:
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has
blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.
4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and
blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to
sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will.
11 In 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, 12 in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ,
might be for the praise of his glory.
John 3:16:
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that
whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
Introduction:
The topic of Salvation lies at the root of most every religion. Are there
other important issues? Certainly! But none are as basic and primary as
the question of how I can be accepted by God—all else follows from the
assurance of my salvation. The way we live, love, serve, and give is
defined by our theology of salvation.
At one point in their lifetime most human beings are going to ask about
eternal life insurance. There comes a time in our lives, especially as we
get older, when we realize materialistic things, respect, influence, and
entertainment are not the most important things in life; pretty soon, we
realize that if you don’t have your health, you really don’t have
anything.
Or people start to realize that all the things they accumulated in the
world, really doesn’t mean anything if they cannot share it with someone
they love and someone that loves them.
But where do we even begin on a subject so big and so cosmic? There are
so many questions we have and it seems that Christians from different
denominations have a different understanding on what it means to be saved.
I still vividly remember an incident I had while serving a church as a
student pastor. Following a baptism service, the father of the child just
baptized asked me: “are you born again?”
At first I was flabbergasted; I wanted to ask him back: “how can you ask
me this? You know I’m a minister in training; I just assisted in your
son’s baptism, how can you ask me this question?” But then it occurred to
me that this was not a show of disrespect, but rather a demonstration of
how different churches view salvation very differently.
And the thing that’s so confusing is that we’re all looking at the same
Scripture passages to support our view and experience of salvation.
And to show how confusing this subject is, even within our very church
family.
Some of us have been raised in the faith and cannot even remember a day in
their life that they didn’t know in they’re heart that they were saved.
Others, had an experience of salvation though communion, or adult baptism
or confirmation.
Still others can trace their conversion to a single moment, where they
made a decision for Christ. Others say that it wasn’t the decisions they
made but rather a supernatural experience of God which they identify as
the moment of their spiritual birth.
In contrast, a pastor friend told me about a man who started to attend his
services and became a believer just by starting to go to church with his
wife listening to sermons and learning to sing the songs of the church.
After a couple of months he realized that he had adopted totally different
beliefs and values; he had found faith in God without ever responding to
an altar call; the Holy Spirit did a quiet work of salvation in him.
As I have listened to the testimonies of countless Christians, I have come
to the conclusion that there are three pairs of poles between which the
dialectic of Soteriology (teaching of salvation) happens:
Three Pairs of Poles in Salvation:
God’s sovereignty – Free Will (Human)
God’s act of grace – Human response/decision
Faith / Confession – Deeds / Behavior
“saved by faith through grace” “faith without works is dead”
Continued Salvation:
Justification / security – Discipleship / Holiness
“once saved always saved“ – “and lead us not into temptation”
Today’s Bible readings bring into focus the first two poles I want to talk
about: the tension between God’s sovereignty and a human free will
response.
Not surprisingly, our two passages represent the two guardrails, and, of
course, they have been used by Christians of different denominations to
substantiate their beliefs.
On the one hand there are Reformed Protestants whose founder was John
Calvin who lived in the 16th century. He was a French reformer who, being
persecuted in France, fled to French-speaking Switzerland where he
ministered and built his church.
I know a little something about Calvin because I had to study his
Institutes during my studies since I attended a Presbyterian seminary.
John Calvin had the mind of a lawyer; in fact he had been a lawyer before
he became a minister. To him the emphasis of salvation lay in the
sovereign act of God. He was so overwhelmed by the grace, the love, and
the power of God, that he tended to overemphasize it in the act of
salvation.
One of the basic doctrines of Calvinism is the predestination or
pre-ordination of individuals to reward and punishment. The idea is that
God, before the earth was formed, with no regard to the will of the human
person, predestinated certain people to eternal life and others to eternal
damnation.
The basic tenets of Calvinism can be summed up with the acronym: TULIP
which stands for:
| T
otal depravity |
Human beings are fallen from grace and are at a point where they cannot save themselves. |
| U
nconditional Election |
God chose those to be saved, not based on merit, but solely on God’s grace. |
| L
imited Atonement |
Jesus’
atoning death cannot have been in vain, he only died for those that will actually be saved. |
| I
rresistible Grace |
Human beings, when offered the gift of salvation,
cannot resist God’s grace, they have to say yes to it. |
P
erseverance of the
Saints |
Once
you’re saved, you’re always saved. |
The Dutch theologian Jacob Arminius lived about a sixty years after
Calvin, and he thought that Calvin’s doctrine had some adverse effect on
the believer’s zeal. He thought that Calvin’s teaching made believers too
relaxed, too content, and in some cases, even arrogant.
After all, if people believe they are God’s chosen ones and are
predestined to be saved, why should they do anything? He relied on John
3:16 and especially emphasized one phrase to make his point: whosoever
believes!
Arminius, however, went to too far to the other side of the argument, I
think; he put the emphasis on the human response, saying that we need to
exercise our free will in the salvation process and choose God’s grace and
forgiveness. Thereby really saying that we humans can obtain (or even
earn) salvation by choices we make.
I believe with all my heart that these poles that we often see in
Christian teaching, are there for a purpose; I believe that God
intentionally created these poles and that we are supposed to live in the
tension of these poles, i.e we’re supposed to be right in the middle and
avoid getting too close to one or the other side.
I compare my approach to theology to driving on a road in a mountainous or
otherwise treacherous countryside. There are guard-rails on either side of
the road. They are there for your protection. Now, you’re not supposed to
get too close to either one of them, but rather stay somewhere in the
middle between them.
It is important for us to acknowledge that God is sovereign and that
salvation always originates with God. But God also created human beings
with a choice-making ability.
I believe that, while the origin of salvation comes solely through the
grace of God, the reception of salvation comes through meeting God’s
conditions on the part of the human person.
I believe, the predestination we read about in Ephesians 1 deals not with
specific individuals, but with a particular group of individuals, i.e.
those "in Christ" in other words: the church.
As a good Methodist, I have to agree with Arminius, that anyone can be
part of that group, that’s where the “whosoever” comes in. But the
soteriology of Arminius was wrong, as Calvin would have surely pointed
out, in that we cannot pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps—we human
beings are indeed that depraved.
John Wesley, familiar with the argument, amended Arminius’ theology a
little, by introducing the concept of “prevenient grace.” Prevenient
grace is the working of the Holy Spirit all around the future and
potential believers, gently helping him or her to not only see and
understand the salvation of God, but also to accept it. In the end, God
gets all the glory, and the human response, even though it is truly
free-willed, is still gently encouraged and aided by God through the Holy
Spirit. Thanks be to God for God’s unfathomable grace and his mighty power
to save! Let us pray…
________________________________________________________
Additional Material :
The conditions for receiving the benefits of God's grace according to some
Scripture references:
· Hearing of the good news (Rom. 10:17),
· Belief in Jesus (Heb. 11:6)
· Repentance from one’s wrong life style and choices (Acts 2:38)
· Confession of ones sin to God (Rom. 10:9)
· Baptism (1 Pet. 3:21), and
· Endurance in one’s faith to the end (Matt. 24:12-13) |
