(This is part 6 of 6; Click for: part 5; part 4; part 3; part 2; part 1. Appendix available upon request)
CONCLUSION
God’s plan is redemption and He works all things in accordance with His will in that plan. He calls according to this plan. He works in those He calls for His good and His glory. God predestines, elects, and reveals His wisdom through the church as it works in His plan. [40] Can we as believers accept that God has a plan for all things? Can we accept His plan? Do we have a choice in the matter? Do we want to accept it? Can we accept that God has planned before time that some would believe and others would not? Was Christ’s death in the plan from the beginning? How about the foreknowledge of Adam’s actions?
Foreknowledge, election, predestination, and calling are so deep into Paul’s theology. He sees God’s work through these actions and mentions them throughout his writing. Paul discusses a secret wisdom that God has predestined in the entire plan of salvation. The apostle writes to the Corinthian church about this mysterious plan (1 Cor 2:6-9). The plan has always included salvation through Jesus’ death on the cross. [41]
Eskola calls the labeling of this passage as the “golden chain” a mistake. He says that Paul never intended a progressive pattern to be inferred in verses 28-30. Eskola says that Calvinist theology has always seen the progression as evolutive. He comments that the same words appear elsewhere in Paul’s writing without any evolutive connection. [42] People throughout time have attempted to develop the recipe for Christianity. Eskola might be reading too much into Calvinist theology on this point.
How can man account for God’s love and His justice? Most desire a God that is 51 percent love and 49 percent justice. Love always wins, but man wants to see that proof in earthly terms. After all, how could a loving God select some, before they had a chance to do anything good or bad, to an eternal damnation? Love must win because God is love! Man must be given a chance to redeem himself.
A.T. Robertson (Word Pictures in the New Testament) says, “Paul accepts full human free agency, but behind it all and through it all runs God’s sovereignty as here and on its gracious side.” [43]
Redemption occurs only through Jesus Christ (Eph 1:7). God knew this and predestined it. Love does win. The Dictionary of Paul and His Letters says, “The death of Christ satisfied God’s love and justice at the same time, broke the power or evil, transferred believers into God’s kingdom, and ultimately saves them.” [44] James Denney (Expositor’s Greek Testament) writes, “The eternal foreordination appears in time as ‘calling’, of course effectual calling: where salvation is contemplated as the work of God alone, there can be no break-down in its process.” When God calls the sinner to salvation, He justifies him by removing the penalty of his sin. [45]
Praise God for this process. Though it may not be understood fully, it is a process that will never break-down. It is a process that has already been completed. It is finished. The payment has been made.
(This is part 6 of 6; Click for: part 5; part 4; part 3; part 2; part 1. Appendix available upon request)
[40] Hawthorne and Martin, 226.
[41] Ibid., 228.
[42] Eskola, 168.
[43] Wuest, 142-3.
[44] Hawthorne and Martin, 228.
[45] Wuest, 146.
1 Comment
17 November 2006 at 7:55 pm
Good write up.
What is it like at Southwestern in terms of the Calvinism/Arminian debate?