the hands of men. Pilate and Herod, etc., are said to have done what
2. Admitting our views of foreordination to be true, could they have been expressed in language different from this, or from that employed in the Epistle to the Romans and Ephesians? Had we been left to choose our words for setting forth our views, we could not have desired any other than these. Can our opponents say the same? Are these words the most appropriate for expressing their views?
3. This determinate counsel is said to have fixed certain events in Christ's history. Now, if some were fixed, we have reason to conclude that all others also were. Yet in the life and death of Christ we see nothing but what seemed outwardly to occur in the natural order of events. It will certainly be conceded that the will of the Son of God was free from first to last. Yet we learn that what He voluntarily did and suffered was also predetermined by God. In His case there was entire free will, yet entire preordination. What, then, becomes of the objection to predestination, arising from its supposed interference with the free will of moral agents? In Christ's life and death we have a series of preordained events, and at the same time a series of free actions. And this is sufficient answer to the current objection. We may not be able to reconcile these things, yet they stand palpably before us.
4. This determinate counsel is said to have delivered up Christ into the hands of men. Pilate and Herod, etc., are said to have done what God's hand and counsel had predetermined. Here is something still more striking. The deeds of these wicked men are said to have come to pass according to this counsel, yet these deeds are no less wicked, and those men are no less responsible. Here, again, we have another objection answered, or at least silenced. To reconcile things may be difficult, yet the statement in this passage is plain. What pride and folly, then, are there in the questions and cavils which we so often hear in connection with this doctrine:
If God has arranged everything, man's will is not free, someone will say. How can the sinner be responsible? How can he be plied with motives and arguments? Of what use is it to do anything toward an end, if all is arranged beforehand by Another? How unjust it is in God to warn and invite sinners when He has fixed everything already! All these cavils have their answer in the passages quoted above. It is vain to think of putting questions such as these until these strong and explicit declarations have been explained away. They teach us plainly that our world's history is a history of events, preordained by God from eternity, yet at the same time coming to pass by the free agency of man. This preordination is the effect and the expression of God's will, yet it does not in the least interfere with man's responsibility. Nor does it suppose any violence done to the will of man.
It was certain that the ten tribes were to revolt, for it was predicted long before. But did it make their revolt less voluntary? It was certain that Christ was to be born at Bethlehem, but did that make the coming of His parents to that town less voluntary? It was certain that Judas was to betray Christ, for it had been predicted by David long before in the Psalms, but did that lessen the sin of Judas or make his act less free? In the same way I might go over every prophecy, and ask the same question. And I wonder greatly what our opponents would answer. How can they reconcile their ideas of free agency with the fact that the sin of Judas was predicted by the Holy Spirit as certain, one thousand years before it came to pass? Was Judas a mere machine? Was God the author of his sin?
But it will be said, Are we not told that this election is according to foreknowledge? (1 Pet. 1:2; Rom. 8:29). In reference to the first passage, I would remark that the word foreknowledge,in the second verse, in the original is the same as that rendered foreordained in the
twentieth verse. There can be no doubt that it means preordination, for it refers to Christ as the appointed Lamb. And if so, then, it is impossible to suppose that the word foreknowledge in the second verse refers simply to foreseeing and nothing more. But then we are asked to look at Romans 8:29, "Whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son." The word foreknow means not simply to know before hand, but to fix the choice upon. The meaning is then evidently, "whom God set His choice upon, them He predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son." These saints were the objects of His eternal choice, they were appointed by Him to the honor of being made in the image of His own Son.
I wish to notice some concessions of our adversaries which appear to overthrow their whole system. They admit that in certain things there is a real election. They admit, for instance, that there is a real election of particular nations to particular privileges.
This admission is fatal to their theory. For their main prop was that the election of individuals was just another word for favoritism and injustice. Now, if the election of persons is unjust, that of nations must be more unjust. If the one is inconsistent with man's responsibility, so must the other be. If the election of men shows an undue partiality, much more must the election of nations. For God to reveal Himself to the Jews and not to the Egyptians is as much favoritism as for Him to convert one soul and not to convert another. He did far more for Israel than He did for any other nation. He brought them near Him. He gave them His Word. He taught them the way of forgiveness through the blood of the sacrifices. He placed them in circumstances of peculiar advantage. He did not do this for Babylon or Nineveh, to Assyria or Egypt. Can it be wrong, then, to choose individuals, yet right to choose nations? Can it be wrong not