[This is a rather long, probably rambling thought on the question, "If God deserves the full credit for the salvation of the elect, does He also share the full blame for the damnation of the rest?"]
I have written on this before, but the topic has arisen once again and it is an important topic, fully worthy of two posts on my prestigious blog.
The issue of sovereignty is, at its core, the age old question, “Is God good?” Some think sovereignty is about Gods power verses our lack of power, but that is merely the first level of the discussion, and it is rather easily answered. With just little research and discovery we find that He has all power and we have none, or we have none outside of that which He has given us.
No, the much more pressing question is, how does this all-powerful God choose to use His power? Is He giving and kind or sadistic and evil? It is the question the serpent first posed to Adam and Eve in the garden. Would God really be so cruel as to deprive you of His good fruit? Would he really kill you simply because you ate of it?
Before we go much further let me say that there is only one answer to the question, “Is God good?” It is a whole-hearted “Yes!” Jesus uses goodness as His standard for God. When the people called Him “good teacher” He reminded them that there is only one who is good, and that is God. By definition anything God does is good, regardless of how it looks through our eyes.
With that as our foundation let us consider a more specific case; whether God has found it good to create some people for His glory and others for His wrath. This is the end reality of most discussions about the chosen and elect. In our desire to give God full credit for our salvation (which He deserves) we often paint a picture in which He also receives full credit for the damnation of the lost.
Though I am willing to accept that premise, I neither desire to do so nor do I think it is necessary according to Scripture.
One objection is somewhat subjective, loosely resting upon principle’s found in Scripture. It has to do with my nature as a father in light of God, the ultimate Father. He says of me that I am evil, and yes I still desire good for my children. How much more, He continues, does He want good things for His children? In Matthew this was not directed only at people who were destined for eternity with God. He was speaking in a more general term, relating our “good” wickedness to his perfect goodness.
Imagine a scene that took place five years ago as my wife and I were discussing children. We decided that we wanted two, a son and a daughter. We hoped to have the son first and the daughter second, some two years later.
The son will be our treasure. Each day we will shower him with love, and each night he will fall asleep secure in our acceptance and care.
The daughter will be reserved for our wrath. Each day she will receive only what she needs to survive. We will not let her die so that we can torture her for another day. Each night we will cut, burn, and beat her and then throw her into a room of utter darkness to fall asleep in her misery.
After this talk we look at each other and agree that our plan is good, in fact it is very good. Then we rest and go to bed.
My stomach squirms just writing these things. They are so far from the truth as to be horrific and ghastly. No sane person would read that conversation and call it “good”. And, if I heard anyone talking like that about my children I would do whatever it took to stop it. I would die before I let my daughter be treated in such a way.
In that light it is no great stretch for me to believe God’s heart went out in the same way about His own sons and daughters. Then, in His great power and mercy he made sure that it did not have to be that way. He would do whatever it takes to redeem His creation. And he did it.
Scripture is extremely clear that when God redeemed creation through Jesus that He completed the task. He saved all, fixed it all, and covered it all. Every wrong was righted; every sin covered when Jesus paid the price and proved His power.
This is what we expect from a good and powerful God. When we were completely unable to save ourselves from an eternity of suffering He stepped in and saved us.
And yet Scripture is also clear that some will not be saved. Some will experience God’s wrath for all eternity. That is really where the problem arises. If God were to say to us, “All will be saved, even if you don’t think they should be,” ten we would deal with it. We might not like it, but in submission to His will we would live with it. Jesus told a parable similar to that after all and the message was clear; God’s mercy is much greater than ours.
But, God does not say that. He tells us that some will be judged for all time in endless fire and separation. How does that happen? We only have two choices. The first is that God decided from the beginning that it would be good to create some things for the sole purpose of releasing His wrath upon them. The second is that He created us with the ability to reject His love and choose His wrath instead.
I reject the first option for two reasons. First it goes against the definition of love that God uses to describe Himself. (His very nature is love, defined as fully giving oneself for another. Wrath receives its definition from love, as the absence of true love.) Second, God says that each will be judged according to his own words and deeds.
Some hesitate to land upon the second option for fear that it will raise a new problem. For, if someone is able to choose death, then couldn’t they also choose life? Not necessarily. Let us take the first man and woman as an example.
What part did Adam and Eve play in the life they discovered? None. Yet, what part did they play in their own death and separation from God? Every part according to God, perhaps somewhat shared with the serpent.
Similarly let us consider the children of Israel. What part did they play in their rescue from Egypt? None. And yet to whom does Scripture attribute the blame for those who died in the wilderness? Certainly not to God. The terms “hardened hearts, disobedience, and unbelief” describe those who were saved from Egypt and yet did not enter His rest.
Might the process of our salvation follow a similar pattern? Might it be more of a process than a single point in time? What if we are all dead in our sins, bound in slavery until God comes and breathes new life into us, setting us free with the offer of eternal life? What if when Scripture says that Jesus died once for all it means just that? That all of us who are by our sinful nature objects of God’s wrath are offered freedom? It has nothing to do with any action or choice we take; God just chose to pay the price for our sin and offers us new life. And this new life is offered to us all, in fact it is granted to us all in his superior grace and mercy. He says to everyone, “Come and eat, enter my rest!”
What then do we say of those who end up experiencing God’s wrath? Perhaps it is of those that the author of Hebrews refers in chapter 6:4-6, “It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.”
This is a picture of one who has been freed from the blindness of sin, who has tasted the breath of life… and yet then rejects that very life choosing to embrace death instead.
And so God retains full credit for all those who are saved, and yet He holds none of the blame for those who are condemned.
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