Chapter 3 Of God's Eternal Decree Section 1 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. Section 2. Although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass upon all supposed conditions, yet hath he not decreed anything because he foresaw it as future, or as that which would come to pass upon such conditions? The Protestant Reformation, the greatest religious awakening since the days of the apostles, was characterized by a zeal to understand God's Word. Not only were its obvious teachings emphasized, for example, the sufficiency of Christ's work for our salvation and the uselessness of purgatory and penance, but also its deeper doctrines, for example, predestination, were carefully examined. However, two or three centuries later, after love of many had waxed cold, and when unbelief came in like a flood, the discouraged and fragmented faithful became fundamentalists and were content to defend a few vital doctrines. Sometimes they even said that Christians ought not to go too deeply into the scriptures. It is presumptuous, useless, and worst of all, divisive. Such an attitude is not commended in the scriptures themselves, nor was it the practice of the Reformers and Westminster divines. The Bible says that all scripture is profitable for doctrine, not just some. And the Reformers did not draw back from the difficult passages on predestination, poor ordination, and God's eternal decrees. Really, these passages are not difficult to understand, though many people find them difficult to believe. But if they are God's words, then we should study, believe, and preach them. The Westminster Confession, summarizing the Bible, asserts in chapter 3 that God, from all eternity, did ordain whatsoever comes to pass. Obviously, if God is omnipotent, if nothing can thwart his will, and if he decided to make a world, then all his creatures and all their actions must be according to his plan. This is easy to understand, but many people find it difficult to believe that God planned to have sin in the world. Does Chapter 3 of the Confession mean that God commits sin? And even in the case of man's doing something good, does it mean that God makes the man do the good act while the man will to do something evil? These questions have perplexed many minds. But the first question is, what does the Bible say? If the Bible talks about poor ordination, we have no right to avoid it and keep silent. Summarizing the scriptures, the Confession says here that God is not the author of sin. That is, God does nothing sinful. Even those Christians who are not Calvinists must admit that God in some sense is the cause of sin, for He is the sole, ultimate cause of everything. But God does not commit the sinful act. or does he approve of it and reward it? Perhaps this illustration is faulty, as most illustrations are, but consider that God is the cause of my writing this book. Who could deny that God is the first or ultimate cause, since it was He who created mankind? But although God is the cause of this chapter, He is not its author. It would be much better if He were. The scripture references show clearly that God controls the wills of man, during Absalom's rebellion against David, Hushai gave poor advice, but Ahithophel gave good advice to Absalom. Absalom, however, and all the men of Israel, said, The counsel of Hushai the Archite is better than the counsel of Ahithophel. For the Lord had appointed, ordained, to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel to the intent that the Lord might bring evil upon Absalom. 2 Samuel 17.14. It is clear then that God, in his purpose to bring evil upon Absalom, so controlled the wills of Absalom and his men that they chose Hushai's poor advice instead of Ahithophel's good advice. By controlling the wills of these evil men, God established the throne of David from whom the Messiah descended. This does not mean that violence was done to the will of the creatures, It was not as if the men wanted to adopt Ahithophel's plan and were forced to follow Hushai against their desires. Their psychological processes issued in a desire to follow Hushai's plan. But it must be noted that God established psychological processes just as truly as he established physical processes. This ties in with the next phrase. Nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established. In the case of Absalom, the secondary causes were the psychological processes. The decision the men of Israel made was not made in opposition to those processes, nor even without them. God has established such processes for the purpose of accomplishing His will. He does not arrange things or control history apart. from secondary causes. To mention other examples, God decreed to bring the children of Israel out of Egypt, but they had to do the walking themselves. God decreed that Solomon should build the temple, but Solomon had to collect the materials. God does not decree the end apart from the means. He decrees that the end shall be accomplished by means of the means. Further discussion on these matters may be found in The Cause of God and Truth. by John Gill, an 18th century Baptist, published by the Sovereign Grace Book Club. See particularly pages 182 through 198. Also, Religion, Reason, and Revelation by the present author, Chapter 5, published by the Presbyterian and Reform Publishing Company, 1961. The importance of Section 2 becomes much clearer when later the idea of grace alone is examined. Here, in a general way, it is necessary only to understand that God does not obtain his knowledge by watching how the world goes on. Not only is it unnecessary, or better impossible, that God should have to wait to find out what happens, but God's knowledge does not depend on his looking into the future to see what will happen. Quite the reverse. God did not decree that David would defeat Absalom because he knew ahead of time that David would do this. Rather, David did this because God had decreed it. In human society, men often change their plans. Sometimes they change their minds voluntarily. Sometimes accidents prevent the carrying out of their plans. Obviously, therefore, the human situation does not parallel the divine situation. But if we attempt to make allowances, we might ask, do I decide to use the Queen's pawn opening in a chess tournament because somehow I can predict that that is what will happen? Or am I able to predict that I shall use this opening because I have decided to? The answer is obvious, is it not? Section 3. By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, Some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting death. Section 4 These angels and men, thus predestinated and foreordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed, and the number is so certain and definite that it cannot be either increased or diminished. Section 5 Those of mankind that are predestinated unto life, God, before the foundation of the world was laid, according to His eternal and immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of His will, hath chosen in Christ unto everlasting glory, out of His mere free grace and love, without any foresight or faith or good works or perseverance in either of them, or any other thing in the creature as conditions or causes moving him thereunto, and all to the praise of his glorious grace. Section 3 is the one that anti-Calvinists abominate. They may not object too much to the idea that God predestinates some men to everlasting life, although the more Arminian they are, the more they prefer salvation to spring from man's will rather than God's will. But what irritates them without measure is the idea that God has foreordained other men to everlasting death. Indeed, a popular notion in this twentieth century is that there is no hell at all, and everybody is saved. God is too good to punish anybody, whether or not he believes in Christ, and whether or not he has committed great crimes. Hitler and Stalin seem to inherit the same felicity as the Apostle John. Now the first thing to do is to see what scripture says. Make a list of all the verses that bear on the topic. Do they or do they not say that God foreordained some people to everlasting death? Three verses are given in the references. Can you find three more? Some of Calvin's detractors following John Wesley attempt to give the impression that Calvin himself felt a revulsion from the notion of reprobation. and therefore probably did not sincerely believe it, or at least had serious doubts about it. They say he referred to the idea as a horrible decree. This charge against Calvin's integrity is at best explained on the basis of an ignorance of Latin. True, in Latin, Calvin referred to reprobation as to create him horrible, but in Latin horrible does not mean horrible. It means awe-inspiring. Cicero, oratio pro quinct, says it is an awful, horrible undertaking to plead a cause in which life and death are concerned, more awful still to be the first opener of such a cause. Lucan writes, aboribus suus auror innest, that is to say, there is something awe-inspiring in a grove of trees. And a post-Reformation writer refers to Scaliger in this manner. cujus nomen sine horore e religione commemorare non possum, to which the very mention of his name strikes a sort of religious awe upon my mind. Calvin, therefore, was saying that the decree of reprobation was one that inspired awe in the presence of God. Calvin's words are, I inquire again how it came to pass that the fall of Adam, independent of any remedy, should involve so many nations with their infant children in eternal death, but because such was the will of God. There, those who object to divine decrees, tongues so loquacious on every other point, must here be struck dumb. It is an awful decree, I confess, but no man can deny that God foreknew the future, final fate of man, before he created him, and that he did foreknow it because it was appointed by his own decree. Institutes 3, 33, 7. Section 4 asserts that the number of the saved and the number of the lost is so certain and definite that it cannot be either increased or diminished. The additional scripture references are hardly necessary to support this statement. Since God is omniscient and therefore knows exactly who will be received into heaven, any change in the number would require ignorance in God. Since also God is immutable, and since he decides whom he will save, any alteration of the number would imply that God had changed his mind. This is impossible. Hence the number of the saved is fixed and unalterable. Section 5 teaches that those whom God predestinates to salvation he chose in Christ. This is in keeping with the principle that God determines the means as well as the end. God did not choose to save some people in just any way. He chose to save them by the work of Christ. Recently, some of the Neo-Orthodox, in addition to their theory of universal salvation, have asserted that original Protestantism separated divine election from Christ, and that they, the Neo-Orthodox, are the first to discover this doctrine. Evidently, the Neo-Orthodox have not read this section of the Confession. Subsidiary ideas in this section, free grace without foresight of faith or good works, and perseverance, will be discussed in later chapters. But there is one idea that is not subsidiary. Section 5 says that all the details mentioned are arranged so as to display God's glorious grace. The Shorter Catechism begins by declaring that man's chief purpose in life is to glorify God. Answer 7 stresses that God foreordains everything for his own glory. Chiefly we see God's glory in the provisions for salvation, predestination, and free grace. We do indeed see God's glory in the stars and hear it in the rolling thunder. But in the grace that rescued man, his brightest form of glory shines. Here on the cross his ferris drawn in precious blood. and crimson lines. Section 6 As God hath appointed the elect unto glory, so hath he by the eternal and most free purpose of his will foreordained all the means thereunto. Wherefore they who are elected, being fallen in Adam, are redeemed by Christ, are effectually called unto faith in Christ by his Spirit, working in due season. are justified, adopted, sanctified, and kept by His power through faith unto salvation. Neither are any other redeemed by Christ, affectionately called justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only. Section 7. The rest of mankind, God was pleased, according to the unsearchable counsel of His own will, whereby he extendeth or withholdeth mercy as he pleaseth for the glory of his sovereign power over his creatures, to pass by, and to ordain them to dishonor and wrath for their sin, to the praise of his glorious justice. Perhaps 6 and 7 do not add much to what preceded, except by way of detail. Examination of the scripture references will reinforce and elaborate the ideas of the previous sections. Once again, it is said that God's purpose is eternal. His decree is not subject to any external compulsion and includes all means as well as the final end. This is true both with respect to the saved and to the lost. All is done for the glory of His sovereign power. In the United States, too little has been heard recently about the sovereignty of God. In England, there is an association called the Sovereign Grace Union. Cooperating with it to some degree, there is in this country the Sovereign Grace Book Club, previously referred to. And there is a group of Baptist ministers loosely associated under the name of Sovereign Grace Baptists. No doubt Presbyterians, those who are Presbyterians, not just in name, but in reality, believe in Sovereign Grace too. But would it not be better if we dusted off our confession, used it as a guide in our Bible study, and then proclaimed the message with heavenly enthusiasm? It is a message the world needs. For if God is not sovereign, the world is in a hopeless jam. Section 8. The doctrine of this high mystery of predestination is to be handled with special prudence and care. that men attending the will of God revealed in his word, and yielding obedience thereunto, may from the certainty of their effectual vocation be assured of their eternal election. So shall this doctrine afford matter of praise, reverence, and admiration of God, and of humility, diligence, and abundant consolation to all that sincerely obey the gospel. The last section of this chapter says, that the doctrine of predestination is to be handled with special prudence and care. But many ministers think that it is not to be handled at all. They may be willing to preach the deity of Christ and his atonement on the cross, but not God's eternal decree on which the atonement is based. One summer, a big tent was set up in Indianapolis, and over a 10-week period, various evangelists spoke. I heard one of them blast all the contents of this chapter in loud, emphatic tones. At the end of this five-minute harangue, he concluded by assuring the audience that, of course, he believed what the Bible said about predestination, but he certainly gave no indication of what he thought the Bible said. There is also the case of the Bible professor in a so-called Christian college who told me, even if you believe in predestination, don't let anyone know you do. He constantly told his students never to study the subject, nor mention it in their preaching. One student who held his teacher in high respect was shocked to find that the Bulgarian laborers with whom he worked in Chicago were extremely interested in the forbidden subject. But if predestination is not to be mentioned, God must have made an embarrassing blunder in revealing it to us. Professor George S. Hendry, footnote. The Westminster Confession for Today, pages 51 and 52. Professor George S. Henry has something interesting to say relative to the Confession's advice in Section 8 about handling this high mystery of predestination with special prudence and care. Professor Henry writes, No reader who compares the statement of doctrine in the Confession with the biblical passages and fail to notice a profound difference in tone between them. Ephesians 1, 3-14 and Romans 8, 29-30 breathe an air of exultant joy. Both exemplify what has been called truth that sings. The chapter in the Confession, by contrast, breathes an air of dread and doom, and it ends with the advice to handle the subject with extreme caution. There is no suggestion of caution in Ephesians 1 and Romans 8. There, if ever, the apostle is letting himself go. Now, it may be that Professor Hendry has a point here. Not only is there no suggestion of caution in Paul, but also there was more enthusiasm in the preaching of the Reformers than in the contemporary preachers, who, as Hendry notes, so often pass over the doctrine in complete silence. For example, Jerome Zanchius, in his Absolute Predestination, republished by the Sovereign Grace Book Club, may be said to let himself go with enthusiasm. If church members in large numbers should read this classic, it would be like life from the dead. It was Augustus Toplady who translated Zanchius' book. Toplady, too, was enthusiastic, and his other writings would also inspire moribund congregations. Yet Dr. Hendry may have exaggerated the air of dread and doom which he says pervades the confession. The advice is not to handle the subject with extreme caution, as he says, but it is to use special prudence and care. Clearly the latter phrase has less dread and doom about it than the former, for the more the advice is given in order that men attending the will of God revealed in his word may from the certainty of their effectual calling be assured of their eternal election. Then the confession immediately adds, So shall this doctrine afford matter of praise, reverence, and abundant consolation to all that sincerely obey the gospel. There is no doom and dread here. even if a formal statement specifically prepared as the official standard of a church or churches is not so exuberant as Paul, Zanchias, or Toplady, when they let themselves go, yet the careful creedal language still speaks of praise and abundant consolation. The reason Dr. Henry disparages the Confession is not that he wishes this doctrine to be preached with enthusiasm, Dr. Henry casts aspersions of doom on the Confession because he does not believe the doctrine. He does not want the Reformed doctrine of predestination preached at all. He wants a different doctrine preached. The Reformed doctrine, he tells us, is no longer held by the Presbyterian churches in the form in which it is set forth in this chapter. The original doctrine is a forbidding husk that hides some different truth. What this other truth is, Dr. Henry does not very clearly say, but he gives certain reasons for rejecting the Presbyterian position. The first reason is a very confused bit of exegesis. Romans 9, 19-23, he says, stresses God's grace. This grace was extended to the Gentiles, and it will also persevere to the final salvation of Israel. But from the fact that such is the main theme. It does not follow, as Henry would have it, that the reformed doctrine of predestination is not supported in the course of the argument. He insists that the phrase, vessels of wrath fitted to destruction, does not indicate by whom those vessels were so fitted. He fails to observe, however, that the context explicitly refers to only one divine potter, and that no other can possibly be imagined. Further confusion is produced by comparing the Romans' reference to the potter who has power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor. Note the sole agency of God throughout. With Jeremiah 18.4, where a potter clumsily mars a vessel, squeezes it into a lump again and makes another vessel. The argument seems to require the conclusion that all the vessels God makes will be vessels unto honor, though Hendry on a later page avoids a profession of universalism by what seems to be an argument based on ignorance. At any rate, the words in Jeremiah do not require us to extrude predestination from Romans. The wording and the meaning of Romans is too clear. Verses 13, 18, 19, 22 can be misunderstood only by means of the greatest perversity. The illustration in Jeremiah, although it overlaps the subject in Romans, is incomplete and, like the parables of Christ, is not applicable in every detail to the reality. The scripture teaches that God is both omnipotent and omniscient, but Jeremiah's partner makes mistakes. One wonders whether Dr. Hendry intends to imply that God also makes mistakes. In the paragraph, he suggests that the doctrine of predestination pictures God as a petty official operating mechanically, bound by red tape. Of course, a confession does no such thing, but in opposition to the confession, Dr. Henry thinks of God as free to modify his action from day to day according to the reaction of those with whom he is dealing. Now, if this phrase does not simply mean that God foreordained David to be anointed king on one day, and that he foreordained another day as the day of Christ's crucifixion. This, of course, would be in accord with the Confession, and is therefore not what Dr. Henry means. Then what else can the praise mean, other than that God has to alter His plans from day to day because of human reactions that God cannot anticipate? Professor Henry also gives other reasons for rejecting the Confession. one has to do with the relation between eternity and time. Without tracing the intricacies of the argument, it is doubtless inadequate to report that I find in it misstatements of fact, plus a dash of nonsense. But that the author opposes the doctrine of the Church, the Confession, the Reformation, and the Bible is beyond question. He says the fault of Augustine, later aggravated by Calvin, was that he traced the sovereignty of grace to the sovereignty of an inscrutable will, which was then absolutized, whatever that means, and made the basis of a double predestination. Page 55. This, I say, is nonsense, for what else can grace be but an act of will? To continue with Henry's following sentences Does the fact that God's decree is not fully revealed to us, but that there are many events foreordained which we do not yet know, imply, as Henry plainly suggests, that the assurance of salvation is impossible? If God has revealed to us information sufficient to produce assurance, His non-disclosure of other matters does not negate these promises. Since Dr. Hendry is Professor of Systematic Theology in Princeton Theological Seminary, one is inclined to trust his assertion that his church does not accept the doctrine of the Confession. His position in that prominent seminary clearly indicates that his views are not merely tolerated, but widely approved in that denomination. Now, in the Machen controversy 30 to 40 years ago, Those who denied the virgin birth, the atonement, and the resurrection argued that these were not essential to the system of doctrine contained in the Confession. And since their ordination vows required only their acceptance of the system, they were free to reject the virgin birth and the resurrection. But if anything at all is essential to the system, it is the doctrine of the divine decree. This doctrine very particularly constitutes Presbyterianism, Calvinism, or the Reformed faith. It follows, therefore, that the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America is not a Presbyterian Church. Indeed, without the virgin birth, the atonement, the resurrection, and the divine decree, one wonders what sort of a church it can possibly be. Somehow it must be made clear to ministers who profess to believe God's Word that refuses to preach that word is sinful. Earlier we criticized and rightly condemned the modernist hymn book where the doctrine of the Trinity had been edited out of holy, holy, holy. But is this any worse than editing predestination out of the Bible? Aside from the fact that God has commanded his servants to preach all his revelation, one great reason for preaching on the eternal decree is that a knowledge of sovereignty, election, and predestination is necessary in order to understand many other doctrines. How else can we understand the perseverance of the saints? An assurance of salvation, far from being inconsistent with divine sovereignty, is impossible without the doctrine of election. If God has not from all eternity decided to preserve me in grace, Do I have any spiritual power in myself to persevere to the end? And if I have such power, would not salvation be achieved through my own efforts and by own merits, rather than by God's grace? This doctrine of the eternal decree underlies not only the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, but also that of effectual calling, the necessity and nature of regeneration the gifts of saving faith, and, in short, the whole gospel. For the whole gospel is not just a few disjointed truths. It is an ordered and logical system. Each part bears on each other part. This is what is meant in chapter 1, section 5, where it says we may be induced by a reverend esteem of the scripture, by the consent, the logical consistency of all the parts. Given the sovereignty of God, His omnipotence and omniscience, predestination follows by logic alone. Given the creation of the world by an Almighty Creator, it necessarily follows that history must accord with the eternal decree. For if a person believes that men are dead in sin and that God can give them eternal security, he ought to recognize that this is possible only through the irresistible grace of foreordination. But the Lord has not left us to our own logical resources. Not everyone is quick to see implications. Therefore predestination is explicitly asserted in many passages throughout the Bible. The exegesis is on the whole so easy that even he who skims the surface may understand. Therefore we should not regard the eternal decree as a doctrine hard to understand. Indeed, it is very easy to understand. That is why it provokes such instant animosity in those who prefer sinful rebellion against God. But for us who are very glad and thankful that God controls the world, this doctrine affords matter of praise, reverence, and admiration of God, and abundant consolation to all that sincerely obey the gospel.