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If it's true, it's
probably not new. "It is the old that is true,
HOW CAN GOD ORDAIN SIN
The following article Those who would quibble with
these thoughts must be able to tell us how God could foreordain the Cross with
his "determinate counsel" and yet hold the hands that crucified His Son
to be "wicked" (Acts 2:23) Here is Calvinism's answer … I have yet to
meet with a better. WHAT DOES PREDESTINATION OR FORE-ORDINATION
In the Pauline conception,
predestination, or foreordination, covers and includes both the holiness that is
to be rewarded with life, and the sin that is to be punished with death. The
holiness of the elect is predestinated, and the sin of the non-elect likewise.
Both alike are represented by the apostle as standing in a certain relation to
the divine purpose and the divine action, and this purpose and action are
designated by the one word proorise. WHAT IF WE ONLY LIMIT
PREDESTINATION To omit both the holiness and
the sin from the predestination, and retain WHY NOT OMIT THE SIN AND RETAIN THE HOLINESS? And to omit the sin but retain the holiness,
as is done by those who adopt the single predestination and reject the double,
though much less defective, is yet defective in omitting that element of
revealed truth contained in texts like Acts 4: 27, 28; 2: 23; Luke 22: 22; Jude
4; Rom. 9: 21, et alia, whereby sin as well as holiness is taken out of
the sphere of chance and brought within the divine plan. If, then, the Holy
Spirit inspired St. Paul to employ the word proopise - to denote the
nature of God's action both when he predestinates the elect to holiness and the
non-elect to a sin like that of crucifying the Lord of glory, it becomes a most
important question: What is the nature of this predestinating action of God?
What does it include and what does it exclude? WHAT DOES FOREORDINATION INCLUDE The answer is, that God's predestinating in
election and preterition is his making the origin of holiness in an elect
sinner, and the continuance (not origin) of sin in a non-elect sinner, a
certainty in his plan of the universe, in distinction from a contingency outside
of that plan springing from chance; and that it includes certainty only, and
excludes necessity and compulsion. WHAT DO THE OPPONENTS OF THE DOCTRINES OF
DECREES GENERALLY ASSUME ON THIS MATTER? Opponents of the doctrine of decrees, from the
beginning, generally assume that to decree holiness or sin is to necessitate
them. HOW DO THE DEFENDERS OF THE DECREES The defenders of the doctrine
uniformly deny this. They contend that when the divine decree relates to the
action of the human will, be it holy or sinful action, there is certainty, but
not compulsion. The Westminster Confession, iii. i, declares that 'God [fore]
ordains whatsoever comes to pass; yet so as thereby neither is God the
author of sin; nor is violence offered to the will of the creature; nor is the
liberty of second causes taken away, but rather established'. HOW GOD EFFECTUALLY WORKS IN
THE HEARTS OF ELECT SINNERS WITHOUT VIOLATING THEIR FREEDOM? How can these things be? How, in the first
place, does God make the origin and everlasting continuance of holiness in an
elect sinner a certainty without compelling and necessitating his will? By the
regenerating and sanctifying agency of the Holy Spirit; by 'working in the will,
to will and to do of his good pleasure'. Phil. 2: 13. Scripture teaches that
this operation of the Spirit does not destroy the freedom of the will. 'If the
Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed' John 8: 36. And the report of
consciousness agrees with this; for the regenerate man has no sense of being
forced and unwilling in any of his experiences and exercises. HOW DOES GOD EFFECTUALLY WORK IN THE HEARTS OF
NON-ELECT SINNERS WITHOUT VIOLATING THEIR FREEDOM? How, in the second place, does God make the
everlasting continuance of sin in a non-elect sinner a certainty without
compelling and necessitating his will? By letting him alone, or, in the
Confessional phrase, by 'passing him by', and leaving him wholly to his
own self-determination in sin? DO ELECTION AND PRETERITION The sublapsarian preterition, which is that of
the Westminster Confession and all the Reformed creeds, supposes the fall in
Adam and the existence of sin to be prior, in the order of nature, to both
election and preterition. Election and preterition, consequently have reference
to the continuance of sin, not to the origin of it. All men fall
in Adam, without exception; so that there is no election or non-election to the
fall itself, but only to deliverance from it. Both election and preterition
suppose the fall, and are inexplicable without it as a presupposition. Men are
elected from out of a state of sin; and men are passed by and left in a state of
sin. 'They who are elected [and they who are passed by] being fallen in
Adam,' etc., Con. iii. 6. Election stops the continuation of sin;
preterition permits the continuance of it. WHAT IS REQUIRED IN GOD'S PART FOR THE The non-elect man, then, like the elect, being
already in the state of sin and guilt by the free fall in Adam, nothing is
requisite in order to make it certain that he will for ever remain in this state
but the purpose of God not to restrain and change the action of his free will
and self-will in sin by regenerating it. To denominate such merely permissive
action as this, compulsion, is absurd. And yet this permissive action of God
secures the certainty of everlasting sin and death in the case of the non-elect,
just as infallibly as the efficient action of God secures the certainty of
everlasting holiness and life in the case of the elect. WHAT MAKES THE CERTAINTY OF SIN IN THE But in the former instance the certainty is
secured wholly by the action of the sinner himself, while in the latter instance
it is secured by the action of the Holy Spirit within the sinner. This leaving
of the sinful will to its own movement makes endless sin an infallible
certainty. For the sinner himself will and can never regenerate himself; and if
God has in his sovereignty decided and purposed not to regenerate him, his
willing and endless continuance in sin and death is certain. Every Christian
knows that if, in his unregeneracy, he had been left wholly to his own free
will, without any restraint from God, he would infallibly have gone from bad to
worse for ever and ever. TO RECAP - WHAT ARE THE TWO WAYS IN In these two ways of efficiency and
permission, God 'foreordains' and makes certain two things that unquestionably
'come to pass,' namely, the everlasting holiness and life of some men, and the
everlasting sin and death of some men; 'yet so as thereby God is not the author
of sin; nor is violence done to the will of the creature; nor is the liberty of
second causes taken away, but rather established'. RELATE THESE THINGS TO THE When God predetermined from eternity not to
restrain and prevent 'Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and all the
people of Israel', from crucifying his beloved Son, but to leave them to their
own wicked inclination and voluntary action in the case, he made this
crucifixion a certainty, but not a necessity, as is evinced by the 'woe'
pronounced upon them by the Son of God. Luke 22: 22. Men with hearts and
dispositions full of hatred toward the Saviour of the world, if left to
themselves are infallibly certain to cry, 'Crucify him; crucify him'. 19:6-15. WHY CALVINISTS REJECT THE IDEA OF BARE
PERMISSION: The Confession (Section 6 paragraph 1 and also
in the Larger Catechism Question 19) declared that God 'permits' sin, but
that it is not a 'bare permission'. (Section 5 paragraph 4) The
permission that is adopted by the Assembly is one that occurs by a voluntary
decision of God which he need not have made, had he so pleased. He might have
decided not to permit sin; in which case it would not have entered his universe.
The 'bare permission' which is rejected by the Assembly means that God
makes no voluntary decision at all in the case; that he could not have prevented
the fall of angels and men, but stands 'like an idle spectator', having
no control over the event which he witnesses. WHAT DID AUGUSTINE WISELY OBSERVE CONCERNING
Augustine makes the following statement in his
Enchiridion, Ch. 100: HOW DOES AUGUSTINE'S AND CALVIN'S OBSERVATIONS
APPLY TO THE CONTINUANCE OF MEN AND ANGELS IN SIN? Calvin, adopting Augustine's phraseology,
concisely marks the difference between the two permissions in the remark, that
'God's permission of sin is not involuntary, but voluntary' Inst. 1:18:3.
Both Augustine and Calvin had particular reference, in this connection, to the
first origin of sin in angels and men. * But their statement holds true of the
continuance of sin in angels and men. When God passes by all the fallen and
sinful angels, and does not regenerate and save any of them, it is by a positive
voluntary decision that might have been different had he so pleased. He could
have saved them. And when God passes by some fallen and sinful men and does not
regenerate and save them, this also is a positive voluntary decision that might
have been different had he so pleased. He could have saved them. WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS OF DENYING THESE
THINGS? To deny this option of God in either instance
is to deny, first, the divine sovereignty in the exercise of mercy; and, second,
the divine omnipotence in the control of creatures. FOOTNOTE: * 'The permissive decree as related to the
origin of sin presents a 'Two extremes are to he avoided. First, that of
defect, when an otiose permission of sin is ascribed to God. Second, that of
excess, when the causality of sin is ascribed to him. Between these extremes,
the orthodox hold the mean, who contend that the providence of God extends to
sin in such way that he does not involuntarily permit it, as the Pelagians say,
nor actively cause it as the Libertines assert, but voluntarily ordains and
controls it'. AN OBSERVATION FROM THOMAS BOSTON "God's providence is most holy. "The Lord is
righteous in all his ways and holy in all his works" (Psalm 145:17) Even though
providence reach to and be conversant in sinful actions, yet it is pure; as the
sun contracts no defilement, though it shine on a dunghill. For God is neither
the physical nor moral cause of the evil of any action, more than he who rides
on a lame horse is the cause of its halting. All the evil that is in sinful
actions proceeds and flows from the wicked agent, as the stench of the dunghill
does not proceed from the heat of the sun, but the corrupt matter contained in
the dunghill." (Beauties of Boston Christian Focus Publications p316) A thought of my own: If we deny that Ephesians
1:11 (In whom also
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