Unconditional Election Archives - Page 2 of 6

Paul writes a difficult statement in Romans 9:13:

Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.

Scholars debate whether or not God actually hated Esau. There are two main opinions on this question.

Option 1: Hate = “Love Less”

Some argue that the reference to hate in Malachi 1:2-3 is a Hebrew idiom for “love less.” They point out that Jesus instructs us to love our enemies rather than hate them (Matt 5:44), point to the places where Jesus tells His disciples to both hate and love their parents (Luke 14:26; Mark 10:19), and remind people that God has strictly forbidden the Israelites from hating the Edomites (Deut 23:7).

Greg Boyd succinctly explains this idea:

Some might suppose that God’s pronouncement that he “loved” Jacob and “hated” Esau shows that he is speaking about their individual eternal destinies, but this is mistaken. In Hebraic thought, when “love” and “hate” are contrasted they usually are meant hyperbolically. The expression simply means to strongly prefer one person or thing over another.

So, for example, when Jesus said, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple” (Lk 14:26), he was not saying we should literally hate these people. Elsewhere he taught people to love and respect their parents, as the Old Testament also taught (Mk 10:19). Indeed, he commanded us to love even our enemies (Mt 5:44)! What Jesus was saying was that he must be preferred above parents, spouses, children, siblings and even life itself. The meaning of Malachi’s phrase, then, is simply that God preferred Israel over Edom to be the people he wanted to work with to reach out to the world (See “How do you respond to Romans 9?“)

Option 2: Hate = Hate

Others, however, argue that God did in fact hate Esau (and the Edomites), for that is what the text clearly states. The Calvinistic commentator John Murray provides a good explanation of this view:

We must, therefore, recognize that there is in God a holy hate that cannot be defined in terms of not loving or loving less. Furthermore, we may not tone down the reality of intensity of this hate by speaking of it as “anthropopathic” … The case is rather, as in all virtue, that this holy hate in us is patterned after holy hate in God (Murray, Romans, 2:22).

So which view is right? Did God hate Esau?

How can we choose between the two views above? Does God hate Esau and Edom, or does He simply love Edom less than He loves Israel?

The solution to the problem of Romans 9:13 is to agree with those who say that “hate” means “hate,” but to also agree with the others who argue that neither Paul nor Malachi are talking about Esau’s eternal destiny (or anyone else for that matter).

More critical still is to recognize that what God hated is not specifically Esau, for Malachi 1:3 was written many centuries after he had died, nor was God saying He hates the people of Edom.

Instead, God hated how Edom behaved toward Israel.

The Hebrew word used in Malachi 1:3 for “hate” (Heb., sanati) is used in various other places to speak of hatred for the sin and wickedness of people (cf. Psa 26:5; 101:3; 119:104, 128, 163; Prov 8:13; Jer 44:3; Amos 5:21; 6:8; Zech 8:17), not hatred for the people themselves. In light of what many other biblical prophets say about the actions and behavior of Edom (cf. Jer 49:7-22; Lam 4:21-22; Ezek 25:12-14; Amos 1:6-11), this is how we can understand God’s hatred in Malachi 1:3.

God does not hate Edom; He hates how she has behaved. Specifically, God hated how Edom treated Israel.

To read more about this, check out my new book: The Re-Justification of God.

If you want to read more about Calvinism, check out other posts in this blog series: Words of Calvinism and the Word of God.

3 Keys to Understanding Romans 9

By Jeremy Myers

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Romans 9 has been a battleground text for centuries. Calvinists and Arminians have hotly debated this passage since the days of the Reformation.

Since I am neither a Calvinist nor an Arminian, I want to offer my perspective on Romans 9 over the course of the next few posts so that people who are trying to understand what Paul is saying in Romans 9 about election, Esau, Pharaoh, and the potter and the clay. Note that all of these posts are drawn from the longer explanation in my book The Re-Justification of God.

When it comes to understanding Romans 9, there are three keys which I have found helpful in explaining what Paul is teaching in this text. Let us look briefly below at each of these three keys to understanding Romans 9.

1. Salvation in Romans

To begin with, we must recognize that “salvation” in Scripture rarely refers to receiving eternal life. “Salvation” does not mean “forgiveness of sins so we can go to heaven when we die.” The word simply means “deliverance,” and the context must determine what sort of deliverance is in view.

Most often, the deliverance is some sort of physical deliverance from enemies, storms, and sickness, or from some of the temporal consequences of sin (cf. Matt 8:25; 9:22; Mark 5:34; 13:20; Luke 8:48; 23:35; John 12:27; 1 Tim 2:15; 2 Tim 4:18; Jas 5:15; Jude 5; See “save, saving” in Vine’s Expository Dictionary, p. 547). This understanding of “salvation” is especially true in Romans.

Most of the uses of “salvation” in Romans are in connection with wrath. It is not wrong to say that “salvation in Romans” is deliverance from wrath (Hodges, Romans).

So what is wrath?

Just as salvation does not refer to entrance into heaven, wrath does not refer to eternity in hell. Nor is wrath from God.

Though an imaginary objector to Paul does occasionally speak of “God’s wrath” in Romans, Paul does not understand wrath this way. For Paul, “wrath” is what happens to people (both believers and unbelievers) when they stray from God’s guidelines for proper living.

Today, we would speak of “consequences.” While someone today might say that a destroyed marriage is the consequence of adultery, Paul might argue that a destroyed marriage is the “wrath” of adultery. And as all who have experienced the damaging and destructive consequences of sin know, the fall-out from sinful choices often feels like wrath. Sin brings metaphorical earthquakes, hailstorms, raging fires, and flash floods into our lives, leaving behind large swaths of destruction. What better word to describe this than “wrath”?

So in Romans, salvation is deliverance from the devastating consequences of sin. This is the first key to understanding Romans 9.

2. Election is to Service

The second key to understanding Romans 9 is to see that “election” is not to eternal life, but to service. Just as God elected Israel to serve His purposes in the world, so also, God chose the Church for similar purposes. This understanding of election greatly helps us understand some notoriously difficult texts in Romans 9–11.

For example, Paul writes in Romans 11:17-21 that the elect branches were cut off so that non-elect branches could be grafted in, which in turn will lead to the elect-which-became-non-elect to be re-grafted back in and become re-elect. If Paul is referring to eternal life when he speaks of election, none of this makes any sense. How can a people or a nation whom God elected “to eternal life” before the foundation of the world go from being elect to non-elect and then re-elect?

However, this makes perfect sense when we recognize that election is not to eternal life but to service. God wants to bless the world through His people, and if one group of people fails in this God-given task, then God will simply find someone else to do it while He continues to lead the first group to fulfill His overarching purposes—albeit in different ways than originally intended. If this second group also fails, they too will be moved into an alternative role in accomplishing God’s will (Rom 11:17-21).

If necessary, God could raise up a people for Himself from rocks (Matt 3:9). In this way, when Paul writes about branches being cut off so others can be grated in which will lead to the cut off branches being grafted back in again, he is not talking about people losing and regaining eternal life, but about losing and re-gaining places of privilege and purpose in God’s plan for this world.

God’s plan of redemption started with Israel, shifted to the Gentiles, and eventually will reincorporate Israel so that “of Him and through Him and to Him are all things” (Rom 11:36).

This idea really helps us understand Romans 9. Election is to service, so that God can elect even people like Esau and Pharaoh to service, and this has nothing whatsoever to do with their eternal destiny.

3. Election is Corporate AND Individual

The third and final key to understanding Romans 9 is that election is both corporate and individual.

There is a long-standing debate about election, regarding whether Paul is talking about corporate election or individual election. That is, when Paul writes about the election of Israel, or God’s choice of Jacob over Esau, is Paul talking about the individuals within Israel, and the individual destinies of Jacob and Esau, or is Paul referring instead to the national and corporate destinies of Israel (which came from Jacob) and Edom (which came from Esau)?

Usually, the battle lines over this debate are determined by whether a person is a Calvinist or not. As Calvinists believe and teach the individual election of certain people to eternal life, they are more likely to understand and explain Romans 9 in this light. Those who do not hold to Calvinism tend to interpret Romans 9 as teaching corporate election. Henry Halley, author of Halley’s Bible Handbook, is one such writer:

Paul is not discussing the predestination of individuals to salvation or condemnation, but is asserting God’s absolute sovereignty in the choice and management of nations for world functions (Halley’s Bible Handbook, 527).

So which is it? Is Paul talking about individual election or corporate election?

I believe that in Romans 9 Paul is teaching both corporate and individual election.

Since it is the purposes of God that determine who gets elected and to what form of service they are elected, then it is God who decides when He needs to call individuals and when He needs to call nations or groups of people to perform certain tasks.

Of course, even when election is corporate, it is true that God’s purpose for that group of people is carried out by individuals within the group, and so in this sense, we can say that even corporate election has an individual aspect.

On the other hand, the benefit to corporate election is that even if some individuals within the corporate identity do not contribute to fulfill the purpose of the corporate entity, there will be some within the group that will fulfill their purpose, thus accomplishing God’s purpose in election.

With these three keys before us, the difficult chapter of Romans 9 becomes much less difficult. If you want to read more, you can get my book, The Re-Justification of God.

If you want to read more about Calvinism, check out other posts in this blog series: Words of Calvinism and the Word of God.

The Re-Justification of God (Romans 9)

By Jeremy Myers

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I have just published a book called The Re-Justification of God.

Here’s the cover:

It is probably the ugliest book cover I have ever designed, but if you compare it with the cover from John Piper’s book on the right, you’ll see why I created the cover as I did.

Why did I write The Re-Justification of God?

Ever since I read John Piper’s The Justification of God about twenty years ago, I have wanted to write a book in response called The Re-Justification of God.

Why?

I believe that Piper’s book does more to malign the name of God and His character than uplift and glorify it. To put it bluntly, I don’t think Piper’s book does anything to accomplish “The justification of God” but actually does the opposite!

So I wanted to write a book which explains Romans 9 in a way that presents God in light of Jesus Christ, in a way that does not make God responsible for hating Esau, hardening Pharaoh’s heart, and condemning a large majority of mankind to everlasting damnation in hell.

Look, I have great respect for John Piper, but much of his theology really gets my blood boiling, and this book of his on Romans 9 was no exception.

But it wasn’t just his book. Most of the explanations of Romans 9 I have read from Calvinists seem to be completely off track and do more to undermine the character of God than glorify it.

So in light of all the bad theology that has been taught from Romans 9, I wanted to write a book that explained the text of Romans 9 in a way that truly presents God in the light that Paul presents Him, as a God of light, love, mercy, grace, and longsuffering toward all.

That would be a great book, right?

Well, guess what?

Despite appearances, the book I just published is not that book. My The Re-Justification of God is not a point-by-point refutation of Piper’s The Justification of God. My book is not even a point-by-point refutation of the typical Calvinistic understanding of Romans 9. That is the book I set out to write, but it is not the book I am announcing here.

…Sorry to disappoint you.

However…

…My book IS the first draft in what will hopefully become that book.

While I believe my new book does provide an overall big-picture analysis of Romans 9:10-24 that is neither Calvinistic nor Arminian, and while I believe my book provides logically and theologically sound explanations for why God “hated” Esau, why God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and how God treats the “vessels of wrath” destined for destruction, I was not able to provide ALL the scholarly and exegetical details that a book like this requires.

So this book is the brief summary of the book I initially set out to write so many years ago. It is not finished, however. It is less than half-way done. Oh, the ideas are all there, but the book contains very little of the exegetical evidence which is needed to defend the ideas.

So why am I publishing this book now if it’s not done?

In the opening pages to this new book, I explain why, but in a nutshell, the reason is that if I didn’t publish it now, it would probably never get done. Also, having the book out there allows people to respond to it and interact with it so that in a future edition I can correct or attempt to better explain the ideas I present in the book.

And following the theme in the cover image above, here is an image of some of the edits I performed on this manuscript:

As with many of my books, there are probably still several typographic mistakes in it. If you find some, please send me an email, or use the “Contact Me” section on my About page to let me know where they are so I can correct these mistakes in future editions of the book.

So how can you get and read this book?

This book is available for purchase on Amazon.

Once you have read it, let me know what you think by leaving a review on Amazon.

And hey, would you let others know about this new book by using the share buttons below? Thanks!

Romans 8:28-30 and the “Golden Chain of Salvation”

By Jeremy Myers

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Yesterday we considered the problem with the Calvinistic ordo salutis in Romans 8:28-30.

I suggested that there is a different way of understanding this text in light of Paul’s overall argument. We consider this alternative today.

The “Golden Chain” of Romans 8:28-30

The first thing to consider is the “golden chain” which begins with the foreknowledge of God and ends with glorification.

Through repeated use of the plural pronoun “whom” (Gk., ous), all those whom God foreknew are also those who arrive at glorification. That is, the same group which is identified by the “whom” in Romans 8:29 seem to be the exact same group which reach glorification in Romans 8:30.

Most Calvinists would agree with this, and say that this proves that God has some sort of eternal divine foreknowledge of all things. But note what happens when we apply this sort of foreknowledge to Romans 8:29-30.

All those whom God foreknew (which is everybody and everything), are also those who are predestined, called, justified, and glorified. Understanding God’s foreknowledge in Romans 8:29-30 as encompassing all people leads to the inevitable conclusion that all people will be glorified. But if only a certain group of people out of all humanity will be glorified, then this leads us backward through the “golden chain” to see that God’s foreknowledge is also limited to a certain group of people.

In other words, we must either say that this verse teaches universalism, or that we have misunderstood the terms and logic Paul uses in this text. I vote for the latter.

Greg Boyd is exactly right when he says this about Romans 8:28-30:

If Paul is using the term proginōskō (lit., “to know before”) in a cognitive sense—that is, to say that God possessed certain information ahead of time—then far from implying that God foreknows everything, this text would actually be denying that God foreknows everything.

… It is more likely that Paul is using the term know in the customary Semitic sense of affection rather than in a merely cognitive sense. To “know” someone is to love that one. So to “foreknow” someone means to love that one ahead of time. Three chapters later Paul refers to Israel as “[God’s] people whom he foreknew” (Rom 11:2). If this is in fact its meaning in 8:29, then Paul is simply claiming that God loved the church before he called them just as he loved Israel before he called them.

… What God loved ahead of time (ultimately from the foundation of the world) was the bride of Christ, the body of Christ, the church considered as a corporate whole (Boyd, Satan and the Problem of Evil, 118. Such a view is not without significant lexical challenges, however. See Olson, Beyond Calvinism and Arminianism, 152-173).

Whatever foreknowledge Paul is talking about, he is not referring to some sort of exhaustive, all-encompassing knowledge of all events and all people from before all time, for this would lead to the conclusion that all those whom God foreknows will end up in glorification.

Paul’s Golden Chain in Romans 8:28-30

So what is Paul saying?

First, we must remember that in Scripture, and especially in Pauline theology, Jesus Christ is the ultimate elect one, and individual people become elect, not through an eternal divine decree from God, but by joining with Christ by faith.

In other words, God does not predestine or elect people to be in Christ; no, God elects Jesus, and by default, all who join with Jesus by faith also become elect as members of the “body of Christ.”

Second, we must also recall that election is not to eternal life, but to service.

God does not choose, out of the mass of humanity, some to spend eternity with Him in heaven, while all others are destined for eternal suffering in hell. This is not the biblical teaching of election.

Instead, election is to service, and God chooses some out of the mass of humanity to serve Him or perform certain tasks to accomplish His will in human history.

While He sometimes chooses unregenerate individuals for this purpose (such as King Cyrus, Judas, and a few others), all who are in Jesus Christ automatically become “elect” in Christ. That is, all who become members of the body of Christ are also elected or chosen by God to serve God’s purposes in this world.

These two points help us understand what Paul is saying in Romans 8:28-30.

Note that when Paul introduces the idea of God’s calling in Romans 8:28, he says that this calling is “according to His purpose.” And what is God’s purpose? In Romans 8:29, Paul states that those whom God foreknew, He predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son.

This calling of God is a calling upon believers to serve God’s purposes. Since all who are called are also justified, Paul cannot be referring to some sort of general call of the gospel to the world, but rather to a calling of God to believers to serve Him and come into conformity to Jesus Christ, “that He might be the firstborn among many brethren” (Romans 8:29).

We can see this more clearly if we include some elements in Paul’s “golden chain” which he left out.

For example, though Scripture includes proclaiming the gospel, human faith, Spiritual regeneration, and sanctification into the theological chain of events which contribute to the “salvation package,” Paul makes no mention of these.

Why not?

Maybe it was because he understood these other terms to be synonyms with the terms he did mention, or maybe it was because Paul’s list of terms places an emphasis on God’s role in salvation.

If we were to include these other four terms inside Paul’s chain of events, the list would look like this: Foreknowledge, predestination, proclaiming the gospel, faith, regeneration, calling, justification, faithfulness, sanctification, glorification.

Note that in this list, regeneration, calling, and justification are simultaneous events which follow faith but precede sanctification (cf. Jude 1). When a person responds to the gospel in faith, God regenerates them to new life, calls them to a specific purpose, and declares them righteous in His sight.

I do not, of course, want to add words to what Paul is saying. He included the terms he did because he wanted to make a specific point to his readers.

In Romans 8, Paul’s emphasis is on God’s part in the plan of salvation. There is nothing in Romans 8:28-30 about a human’s responsibility to believe in Jesus or to walk by faith for sanctification.

Paul is emphasizing God’s role while ignoring man’s role, but this does not mean that mankind has no role.

In the overall scheme of redemption, God alone is the one who foreknows what He will do, takes steps to make sure it happens, calls believers to a greater purpose in service to Him, justifies those who believe, and glorifies for eternity all whom He justified.

In Romans 8:28-30, Paul is not talking about an eternal decree from eternity past about to whom He would give eternal life, but rather, God’s plan from eternity past to bring those who believe in Jesus into conformity to the image of Jesus Christ, which does not fully occur until glorification (cf. Eph 1:4; 4:1; 5:27; Col 1:22-23).

This fits with everything we have seen about election so far. In Romans 8:28-30, Paul is saying nothing about God’s predestination of some to eternal life.

Instead, Paul is saying that God decided in eternity past to make sure that everyone and anyone who joins His family by faith will finally and ultimately be brought into conformity to Jesus Christ at their glorification.

Foreknowledge is not God’s plan from all eternity about whom to give eternal life. It is simply God’s plan about what to do with those who believed.

Since election is to service, God’s foreknowledge does not include the election of individuals to eternal life. God’s predestination is His commitment to carry out His plan. “And what is God’s plan? To bring all who have responded to God’s initiative with love to salvation, to eternal bliss” (Pilch, Cultural World of the Apostles, 91).

The Context of Romans 8:28-30

This understanding of Romans 8:28-30 fits perfectly within the broader context of Romans 8 as well.

In this section of Romans, Paul is writing to Christians who are facing severe testing and trials as a result of their faith in Jesus (cf. Romans 8:17-18).

But Paul wants to encourage his readers by telling them that the suffering they face will result in glory, and that absolutely nothing can separate them from God’s love or God’s purpose in their lives (Romans 8:31-39).

In light of this, the foreknowledge of God takes on a special intimacy and mercy for all who are part of the people of God. Paul’s point in Romans 8 is that God determined from eternity past to bring us to glorification despite our many weaknesses and failures.

God elected and predetermined a destiny for his people in full knowledge of what they were, what they would be without his intervention, and, most significantly, what they would become as a result of his grace on their behalf (Klein, The New Chosen People, 164).

In this way, there is great encouragement in Paul’s words.

Many of the people to whom he is writing (just like many people today), were struggling with feelings of inadequacy, guilt, failure, fear, and doubt. Paul wanted them to know that God knew all about these things from eternity past, and it didn’t stop Him from initiating His plan to rescue and redeem the world, and since God predestined such a plan, He will take care of everything necessary to bring it to completion, which will result in our glorification (cf. Romans 8:31-39).

Ultimately, the whole discussion about the ordo salutis in Romans 8 leads the student of Scripture in the wrong direction about Paul’s point. Paul is not so concerned with laying down a guideline about what happens in which order. He is not intent on describing each individual step in God’s plan of salvation.

Instead, Paul’s only point in writing Romans 8:28-30 is to encourage Christians that no matter what happens to them, God is with them, will not abandon them, and just as He has had them in mind since before the foundation of the world, He will not abandon them to the trials and testing they are facing.

If God is the only one who could bring a charge against them, but He will not do so, and instead, delivered His own Son up for us all (Romans 8:31-34), then we can be sure that absolutely nothing will separate us from the love of God (Romans 8:35-39). If God is for us, who can condemn us? Jesus could. But rather than condemn us, Jesus intercedes for us!

This is an astounding message from Paul which all believers need to hear.

[Paul] is speaking to Christians, about Christians, and to reassure them of God’s love for them and God’s desire for them to cooperate with his Spirit in working for good and in overcoming all tribulation (Marston and Forster, God’s Strategy in Human History, 245).

In Romans 8, Paul is not laying out some sort of mysterious outworking of God’s divine decree, but is describing in great detail the height, breadth, width, and depth of God’s love for His people.

He loves us, has always loved us, and will always love us. He set the plan of redemption in place, and He will bring it to completion. This is Paul’s point in Romans 8.

If you want to read more about Calvinism, check out other posts in this blog series: Words of Calvinism and the Word of God.

Problems with the Calvinistic Ordo Salutis in Romans 8:28-30

By Jeremy Myers

48 Comments

For many, Romans 8:28-30 presents the strongest case in the entire Bible for the Calvinistic doctrine of Unconditional Election.

This text contains what many refer to as “the golden chain of salvation,” linking God’s foreknowledge from eternity past to the glorification of Christians in eternity future. It seems that if those whom God foreknew from eternity past are the same ones He brings to glorification in eternity future, then sovereign Unconditional Election is the only way God could bring this about.

Here is what Paul writes:

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified (Romans 8:28-30).

As can be seen, this text seems to strongly support the doctrine of Unconditional Election.

Calvinists on Romans 8:28-30

John Piper calls it “the most important text of all in relation to the teaching of Unconditional Election” (Piper, 5 Points, 58). Romans 8:29 begins by linking God’s divine foreknowledge with God’s predestination, and Romans 8:30 carries this predestination through calling, justification, and glorification.

It appears that Paul presents a “golden chain of salvation” from eternity past to eternity future, just as Palmer states:

What Paul is saying in Romans 8 is that there is a golden chain of salvation that begins with the eternal, electing love of God and goes on in unbreakable links through foreordination, effectual calling, justification, to final glorification in heaven (Palmer, Five Points of Calvinism, 32).

With just a cursory reading of Romans 9:29-30, it appears that Palmer is correct. It seems that Paul is saying that from eternity past, God had in mind a certain group of people whom He predestined to receive eternal life.

This group of people was called by God, justified by God, and glorified by God. Many note that even the word “glorified” is in the past tense, which seems to indicate that even when glorification is in our future, it is nevertheless settled and complete in the mind of God.

If our glorification and justification was settled in the mind of God through His calling and predestination from eternity past, then this text seems to irrefutably support Unconditional Election.

The Problem with the Ordo Salutis Romans 8:28-30

However, when Romans 8:28-30 is understood in context, not only does it fail to support Unconditional Election, but this text actually refutes it.

In some theological circles, there is an ongoing debate over something called ordo salutis, or “the order of salvation” (Sproul, Grace Unknown, 144).

The debate is basically about the logical order of events and decisions in God’s plan of salvation.

For example, while everybody agrees that justification precedes glorification, there is much debate about whether God’s decree to redeem humanity preceded or followed the human fall into sin. The option you choose leads to numerous ramifications about your understanding of God’s sovereignty, human freedom, and what (or who) initiated God’s plan of redemption.

One of the other issues in the debate over ordo salutis is in regard to God’s foreknowledge and predestination.

The Calvinistic Ordo Salutis looks like this:

Arminians, with their desire to maintain human free will, often say that God, in eternity past, looked down through time to see who would choose Him out of their own free will, and then it is these whom God predestined for eternal life. In this order of events, God’s foreknowledge logically precedes God’s predestination. Calvinists disagree, and say that such an order of events makes God dependent upon human choice. They argue instead that God knows what will happen in the future because He predestined, or foreordained, all that will happen (Demarest, The Cross and Salvation, 36-44; Piper, 5 Points, 59-60).

Yet when Paul talks about the “order of salvation” in Romans 8:28-30, he does not follow the normal Calvinistic order. Instead, he follows the Arminian order. He puts foreknowledge before predestination.

In an attempt to explain this, Edwin Palmer explains that foreknowledge carries the idea of having a loving relationship with someone:

The word translated by the older versions as “foreknew” is a Hebrew and Greek idiom meaning “love beforehand.” … Paul is using the Biblical idiom of “know” for “love,” and he means “whom God loved beforehand, he foreordained” (Palmer, Five Points of Calvinism, 31-32; cf. Boettner, Predestination, 100).

The idea that God’s foreknowledge is best understood as God’s eternal love is correct, but this still doesn’t solve Palmer’s dilemma, that Paul places God’s foreknowledge prior to God’s predestination. Even with Palmer’s exegetical sleight-of-hand in substituting in new terminology for Paul’s words, he still cannot get around the fact that Paul has God’s foreknowledge (or eternal love) preceding God’s foreordination (or predestination).

A. W. Pink attempts similar gymnastics when he uses the word “for” at the beginning of Romans 8:29 to say that the phrase “whom He foreknew” points back to part of the last clause of Romans 8:28, “to those who are called” (Pink, Sovereignty of God, 172).

In this way, Pink is able to base God’s foreknowledge on the calling of God, thus maintaining some semblance of the preferred Calvinistic ordo salutis. But this just confuses things further, because then Paul re-reverses the order in Romans 8:30 by putting God’s calling after predestination. Furthermore, since Calvinists often equate God’s “effectual call” with Irresistible Grace and God’s predestination with Unconditional Election, A. W. Pink has just reversed the order of TULIP as well, by placing the “I” before the “U” (Vance, Other Side of Calvinism, 389). It gets very confusing listening to Calvinists try to explain Paul’s words.

R. C. Sproul also notes the difficulty in Romans 8:29-30, and tries to explain it away by stating this:

We notice in this text that God’s foreknowledge precedes his predestination. Those who advocate the prescient view assume that, since foreknowledge precedes predestination, foreknowledge must be the basis of predestination. Paul does not say this. He simply says that God predestined those whom he foreknew. Who else could he possibly predestine? Before God can choose anyone for anything, he must have them in mind as objects of his choice. … [So] in actuality Romans 8:29-30 militates against the prescient view of election (Sproul, Grace Unknown, 143. He later goes on to argue for the same meaning of “foreknew” as “fore loved” as Palmer uses above. See p. 145).

I am not sure if “militates” is the right word, as Sproul’s argument is much weaker than he believes. According to Sproul, Paul is simply saying that God knows whom He will choose before He chooses them.

This would be fine, except that most Calvinists argue the opposite, that God only knows whom He will choose because He first chose them.

According to the Calvinistic ordo salutis, predestination and foreordination come before foreknowledge and election. So just like Palmer, Sproul is right about what Paul seems to say, but is in disagreement with what Calvinists typically argue.

So does this mean the Arminian is right?

No.

Calvinists rightly criticize Arminians for saying that God looks down through the halls of time to see who will believe in Him for eternal life, and then He elects, chooses, or predestines those people to be the objects of His grace and love.

Calvinists say that this makes God subject to the will of human beings, and in fact, puts the whole plan of salvation at risk. I agree with what Boice and Ryken say on this point.

[Some teach] that God bases his election of an individual on foresight, foreseeing whether or not a particular individual will have faith. … [This] actually means that men and women elect themselves, and God is reduced to a bystander who responds to their free choice. Logically and causally, even if not chronologically, God’s choice follows man’s choice (Boice, Doctrines of Grace, 99).

After all, what if God, in looking down through the halls of time to see who would choose Him, discovered that, much to His dismay, nobody had chosen Him? God would have been bound by this foreknowledge to do what He foresaw; otherwise His foreknowledge would have been in error.

If God only looks forward in time to see what it is that He should be doing in regard to human salvation, then God is bound by what He foresees to carry it out, even if He defeats Him and His purpose.

Right about now, you may be feeling like this discussion of Romans 8:28-30 is getting off into the weeds.

On the one hand, we have seen that while some Calvinistic explanations of various words of this text do in fact teach what those words say, we have also seen that the Arminian ordo salutis better fits the logical order in which Paul lists these words.

Yet the Arminian ordo salutis creates vast theological problems for the interplay between divine sovereignty and human freedom.

How then are we to proceed? What is Paul saying? How can we understand this text?

The solution seems to lie in the middle ground between Calvinism and Arminianism, which is discovered by letting Paul’s words speak for themselves, which we will look at tomorrow.

Until then, what are your thoughts on the ordo salutis debate? Are you familiar with it? Is it all new to you? Do you have an opinion? Do you even care?

If you want to read more about Calvinism, check out other posts in this blog series: Words of Calvinism and the Word of God.

Why did God love Jacob and hate Esau?

Option 1: Hate = “Love Less”

Option 2: Hate = Hate

So which view is right? Did God hate Esau?

3 Keys to Understanding Romans 9

1. Salvation in Romans

2. Election is to Service

3. Election is Corporate AND Individual

The Re-Justification of God (Romans 9)

Why did I write The Re-Justification of God?

However…

So why am I publishing this book now if it’s not done?

So how can you get and read this book?

Romans 8:28-30 and the “Golden Chain of Salvation”

The “Golden Chain” of Romans 8:28-30

Paul’s Golden Chain in Romans 8:28-30

The Context of Romans 8:28-30

Problems with the Calvinistic Ordo Salutis in Romans 8:28-30

Calvinists on Romans 8:28-30

The Problem with the Ordo Salutis Romans 8:28-30

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