IN the Westminster Confession, which sets forth the beliefs of the
Presbyterian and Reformed Churches and which is the most perfect expression of
the Reformed Faith, we read: "God from all eternity did by the most wise and
holy counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes
to pass; yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence
offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of
second causes taken away, but rather established." And further, "Although God
knows whatsoever may or can come to pass upon all supposed conditions; yet
hath He not decreed any thing because He foresaw it as future, or as that
which would come to pass upon such conditions."
This doctrine of
Predestination represents the purpose of God as absolute and unconditional,
independent of the whole finite creation, and as originating solely in the
eternal counsel of His will. God is seen as the great and mighty King who has
appointed the course of nature and who directs the course of history even down
to its minutest details. His decree is eternal, unchangeable, holy, wise, and
sovereign. It extends not merely to the course of the physical world but to
every event in human history from the creation to the judgment, and includes
all the activities of saints and angels in heaven and of reprobates and demons
in hell. It embraces the whole scope of creaturely existence, through time and
eternity, comprehending at once all things that ever were or will be in their
causes, conditions, successions, and relations. Everything outside of God
Himself is included in this all-embracing decree, and that very naturally
since all other beings owe their existence and continuance in existence to His
creative and sustaining power. It provides a providential control under which
all things are hastening to the end of God's determining; and the goal is
"One far-off divine
event
Toward which the whole
creation moves."
Since the finite creation
through its whole range exists as a medium through which God manifests His
glory, and since it is absolutely dependent on Him, it of itself could
originate no conditions which would limit or defeat the manifestation of that
glory. From all eternity God has purposed to do just exactly what He is doing.
He is the sovereign Ruler of the universe and "does according to His will in
the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay
His hand, or say unto Him, What doest thou?" Dan. 4:35. Since the universe had
its origin in God and depends on Him for its continued existence it must be,
in all its parts and at all times, subject to His control so that nothing can
come to pass contrary to what He expressly decrees or permits. Thus the
eternal purpose is represented as an act of sovereign predestination or
foreordination, and unconditioned by any subsequent fact or change in time.
Hence it is represented as being the basis of the divine foreknowledge of all
future events, and not conditioned by that foreknowledge or by anything
originated by the events themselves.
The Reformed theologians
logically and consistently applied to the spheres of creation and providence
those great principles which were later set forth in the Westminster
Standards. They saw the hand of God in every event in all the history of
mankind and in all the workings of physical nature so that the world was the
complete realization in time of the eternal ideal. The world as a whole and in
all its parts and movements and changes was brought into a unity by the
governing, all-pervading, all-harmonizing activity of the divine will, and its
purpose was to manifest the divine glory. While their conception was that of a
divine ordering of the whole course of history to the veriest detail, they
were especially concerned with its relation to man's salvation. Calvin, the
brilliant and systematic theologian of the Reformation, put the matter thus:
"Predestination we call the eternal decree of God, by which He has determined
in Himself, what He would have to become of every individual of mankind. For
they are not all created with a similar destiny; but eternal life is
foreordained for some and eternal death for others. Every man, therefore,
being created for one or the other of these ends, we say he is predestinated
either to life or to death." (Institutes, Book III, Ch. XXI, Sec. 5.)
That Luther was as zealous for
absolute predestination as was Calvin is shown in his commentary on Romans,
where he wrote: "All things whatever arise from, and depend on, the divine
appointment; whereby it was foreordained who should receive the word of life,
and who should disbelieve it; who should be delivered from their sins, and who
should be hardened in them; and who should be justified and who should be
condemned." And Melanchthon, his close friend and fellow-laborer, says: "All
things turn out according to divine predestination; not only the works we do
outwardly, but even the thoughts we think inwardly"; and again, "There is no
such thing as chance, or fortune; nor is there a readier way to gain the fear
of God, and to put our whole trust in Him, than to be thoroughly versed in the
doctrine of Predestination."
"Order is heaven's first law."
From the divine viewpoint there is unbroken order and progress from the first
beginnings of the creation to the end of the world and the ushering in of the
kingdom of heaven in all its glory. The divine purpose and plan is nowhere
defeated nor interrupted; that which in many cases appears to us to be defeat
is not really such but only appears to be, because our finite and imperfect
nature does not permit us to see all the parts in the whole nor the whole in
all its parts. If at one glance we could take in "the mighty spectacle of the
natural world and the complex drama of human history," we should see the world
as one harmonious unit manifesting the glorious perfections of God.
"Though the world seems to run
at random," says Bishop, "and affairs to be huddled together in blind
confusion and rude disorder, yet, God sees and knows the concatenation of all
causes and effects, and so governs them that He makes a perfect harmony out of
all those seeming jarrings and discords. It is most necessary that we should
have our hearts well established in the firm and unwavering belief of this
truth, that whatever comes to pass, be it good or evil, we may look up to the
hand and disposal of all, to God. In respect of God, there is nothing casual
nor contingent in the world. If a master should send a servant to a certain
place and command him to stay there till such a time, and, presently after,
should send another servant to the same place, the meeting of these two is
wholly casual in respect to themselves, but ordained and foreseen by the
master who sent them. They fall out unexpectedly as to us, but not so as to
God. He foresees and He appoints all the vicissitudes of things."
(Quoted by Toplady in Preface to Zanebius' Predestination.)
The psalmist exclaimed, "O
Jehovah our Lord, How excellent is thy name in all the earth!" And the
writer of Ecclesiastes says, "He hath made everything beautiful in its
time." In the vision which the prophet Isaiah saw, the seraphim sang, "Holy,
holy, holy, is Jehovah of hosts: The whole earth is full of His glory."
When seen from this divine view-point every event in the course of human
affairs in all ages and in all nations has, no matter how insignificant it may
appear to us, its exact place in the development of the eternal plan. It has
relations with preceding causes and exerts an ever widening influence through
its effects so that it is related to the whole system of things and has its
individual part in maintaining the perfect equilibrium of this world-order.
Many instances might be given to show that events of the greatest importance
have often depended upon what at the time appeared to be the most fortuitious
and trivial events. The inter-relation and connection of events is such that
if one of these were to be omitted or modified, all that follows soon would be
modified or prevented. Hence the certainty that the divine administration
rests on the foreordination of God extending to all events both great and
small. And, strictly speaking, no event is really small; each one has its
exact place in the divine plan, and some are only relatively greater than
others. The course of history, then, is infinitely complex, yet a unit in the
sight of God. This truth, together with the reason for it, is very beautifully
summed up in the Shorter Catechism which states that, "The decrees of God are,
His eternal purpose, according to the counsel of His will, whereby for His own
glory, He hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass."
Dr. Abraham Kuyper, of
Holland, who is recognized as one of the outstanding Calvinistic theologians
in recent years, has given us some valuable thought in the following
paragraph: "The determination of the existence of all things to be created, or
what is to be camellia or buttercup, nightingale or crow, hart or swine, and
equally among men, the determination of our own persons, whether one is to be
born as boy or girl, rich or poor, dull or clever, white or colored or even as
Abel and Cain, is the most tremendous predestination conceivable in heaven or
on earth; and still we see it taking place before our eyes every day, and we
ourselves are subject to it in our entire personality; our entire existence,
our very nature, our position in life being entirely dependent on it. This
all-embracing predestination, the Calvinist places, not in the hands of man,
and still less in the hand of blind natural force, but in the hand of Almighty
God, sovereign Creator and Possessor of heaven and earth; and it is in the
figure of the potter and the clay that Scripture has from the time of the
prophets expounded to us this all-dominating election. Election in creation,
election in providence, and so election also to eternal life; election in the
realm of grace as well as in the realm of nature."(Lectures on Calvinism,
p.272.)
We can have no adequate
appreciation of this world-order until we see it as one mighty system through
which God is working out His plans. Calvin's clear and consistent theism gave
him a keen sense of the infinite majesty of the Almighty Person in whose hands
all things lay, and made him a very pronounced predestinarian. In this
doctrine of the unconditional and eternal purpose of the omniscient and
omnipotent God, he found the program of the history of the fall and redemption
of the human race. He ventured boldly but reverently upon the brink of that
abyss of speculation where all human knowledge is lost in mystery and
adoration.
The Reformed Faith, then,
offers us a great God who is really the sovereign Ruler of the Universe. "Its
grand principle," says Bayne, "is the contemplation of the universe of God
revealed in Christ. In all places, in all times, from eternity to eternity,
Calvinism sees God." Our age, with its emphasis on democracy, doesn't like
this view, and perhaps no other age liked it less. The tendency today is to
exalt man and to give God only a very limited part in the affairs of the
world. As Dr. A. A. Hodge has said, "The new theology, asserting the
narrowness of the old, is discarding the foreordination of Jehovah as a
worn-out figment of the schools, discredited by the advanced culture of today.
This is not the first time that the owls, mistaking the shadow of a passing
eclipse for their native night, have prematurely hooted at the eagles,
convinced that what is invisible to them cannot possibly exist."
(Popular Lectures on Theological Themes, p.158.)
This, in general, is the broad
conception of predestination as it has been held by the great theologians of
the Presbyterian and Reformed Churches.
Foreordination is explicitly
stated in Scripture.
Acts 4:27, 28: For of a truth
in this city against thy holy servant Jesus, whom thou didst anoint, both
Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, were
gathered together, to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel foreordained to
come to pass.
Eph. 1:5: Having foreordained
us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto Himself, according to the
good pleasure of His will.
Eph. 1:11: In whom also we
were made a heritage, having been foreordained according to the purpose of Him
who worketh all things after the counsel of His will.
Rom. 8:29, 30: For whom He
foreknew, He also foreordained to be conformed to the image of His Son, that
He might be the firstborn among many brethren: and whom He foreordained, them
He also called: and whom He called, them He also justified: and whom He
justified, them He also glorified.
I Cor. 2:7: But we speak God's
wisdom in a mystery, even the wisdom that hath been hidden, which God
foreordained before the worlds unto our glory.
Acts 2:23: Him (Jesus) being
delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye by the
hands of lawless men did crucify and slay.
Acts 13:48: And as the
Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of God; and as
many as were ordained to eternal life believed.
Eph. 2:10: For we are His
workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God afore prepared
that we should walk in them.
Rom. 9:23: That He might make
known the riches of His glory upon the vessels of mercy, which He afore
prepared unto glory.
Ps.139:16: Thine eyes did see
mine unformed substance; And in thy book they were all written, Even the days
that were ordained for me, When as yet there was none of them.
