Let God Be God

My father believed in predestination. That may not seem strange, since our family belonged to a Presbyterian church—unless you know how far and for how long mainline Presbyterianism has strayed from doctrines it once professed. The godly pastor of our Presbyterian church was evangelical, but he did not teach Presbyterian doctrine. He knew that a chapter had been added to the Westminster Confession of Faith on “The Love of God and Missions.” Since that chapter had been added to prepare for union with the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, he believed that his evangelical Arminianism had official approval.

As a student at Wheaton College, I became convinced of Calvinism for the first time. I was convinced by a chapel talk given by Dean Wallace Emerson. He warned against the doctrine of predestination. If it were true, he said, that God predestinated the eternal destiny of lost sinners, any sinner who was not chosen could say to God on the Day of Judgment, “You cannot condemn me, because I did what you willed!”

The dean’s challenge had a familiar ring. I went up the fire escape to the men’s dormitory on the fourth floor of Blanchard Hall. I got out my Bible. Sure enough, I found the passage in Romans 9:19: “You will say to me then, ‘Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?’ ” The apostle Paul had expressed exactly the dean’s objection. Paul expected that very question.

The point was that I would have to choose. Would I agree with the dean in bringing the objection or with the apostle in anticipating it? Somehow, the choice was not too difficult.

I was eager to read what response the apostle would make to the dean’s objection. There it was: “But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God.” Paul’s question was not, “Who is right in this argument with God?” but “Who are you to argue with God?” As Paul says in Romans 3:4, “Let God be true but every man a liar.” Paul does go on, however, to remind us of how much we do know about our relationship to God. He made us. He is the potter, we are the clay. Cannot the potter make a pot for the purpose he designs? “What if God, wanting to show His wrath and make His power known, endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?” (Rom. 9:22–24).

The apostle knows that God is sovereign. He is not accountable to us, but we are accountable to Him. He is the Creator, and we are His creatures. Yet we take it for granted that God will forgive us. Voltaire said, “C’est son métier”—“That’s His thing.” Popular thoughts about God often reduce the Almighty to the djinni that appeared from Aladdin’s lamp.

This mythical god, seen as an indulgent grandfather, is not the God of the gospel Paul preached. Paul was in awe of the sovereignty of God in creation, but especially in salvation. This is the foundation of his ministry. His opponents were those who thought they earned their salvation. They acknowledged God’s goodness and grace, but still took credit for the decisive role of their own righteousness.

Paul insists on God’s sovereignty in salvation because he knows that salvation is God’s gift, not our achievement. He does not argue philosophically about the royal rule of the Creator. He stresses God’s kingly calling because he wants us to realize that salvation is all of grace. God chose Jacob, not Esau, before the twins were born, “that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of Him who calls” (Rom. 9:11b).

Grace must be sovereign to be grace. If God’s gift of grace were for the worthy or the suitable, it would be divine strategy, not free grace. God’s choosing pours out His love on His enemies: “For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life” (Rom. 5:10).

The Lord told the Israelites, His chosen people, that He loved them, not because they were more in number than any other people, but because He loved them (Deut. 7:7–8). Here is the mystery of God’s love: “I love you . . . because I love you!” We can imagine a young woman asking her lover, “Why do you love me, dear?” Suppose he would answer, “I love you because, of all the women I have met, you are the most suitable for my purposes”? And yet, in a book about election in the Old Testament, a scholar wrote that God chose the people most suitable for His purposes. In a sense that might be true—if Israel’s suitability consisted of its being the most willful and stubborn people on earth! Part of the convicting power of the Old Testament comes as we realize that we are no different from erring Israel.

Some years ago, a nominee for elder spent a Saturday morning with me and another pastor. We tried to answer his questions concerning the doctrine of election. He recorded the interview and took the tape home to his wife, who dutifully listened to it all. “What do you think, dear?” he asked.

“Why, it’s what I have always believed,” she said. “You seemed a little bothered, though!”

He went away and prayed. At last he came to peace. Later, he told his wife, “I decided I had to let God be God!”