Is God Fair?
Hi all, yesterday as part of the ‘Is God…’ series, the sermon was Is God Fair? It considered aspects of Predestination and Grace. As promised the notes from that talk are here for you. I’ll try to do this on a regular basis. Please contact me if you wish to discuss the content at all. Love, Dave
I also read an excerpt from My Dear Child by Colin Urquhart, called ‘I love you because I love you’. This book can be found here…
Jireh Church 6th December 2009
Is God Fair? Ephesians 1.3-10 and Ephesians 2.4-10
Today we are considering Predestination and Grace – or God’s foreknowledge and arrangement of events; and God’s generous and undeserved giving.
I think predestination is probably outside the full understanding of humanity. This is because God is timeless. Events of past, present and future are all now for him. This gives God a very different view from ours.
The major problem with predestination is this – if God’s decision is to redeem some then it is also not to redeem others. Whereas some are predetermined as included by God, some are predetermined as excluded. Therefore Christ didn’t die for all!
Predestination has been argued for centuries. It is found in the writings of Plato, Xenophon Josephus and others. Philo wrote a whole volume about it.
In the times of the New Testament, particularly in Greek (Hellenistic) thinking, it was a popular subject of the day. It is therefore understandable that it finds its way into the NT.
Peter: In 1 Peter 1.2 Peter writes that the elect were chosen by the foreknowledge of God and in 1.20 that Jesus was foreknown before the foundation of the world. Also in Acts 2.23 that Jesus was delivered up ‘by the predestined plan and foreknowledge of God’.
Paul: In Romans 8.29 he says God foreknew and predestined those whom he called to be in the image of his Son and in Romans 11.2 and Galatians 3.8 Paul seeks to reconcile the destiny of Israel with the predestiny of believers indicating Abraham as a source for this predestiny.
Whether these writers meant in their day what we tend to understand as predestination today is questionable. In Greek, the word is from pronoia – foreknew. This is probably a better place to start and reminds us of God’s timelessness as discussed earlier.
Predestination is prominent in Calvinism – the followers of the 16th Century Swiss reformist, John Calvin. Although he only attributes three chapters of his major works to predestination, Calvinism develops this quite a way further. He does say this though,
‘…out of the human community some should be predestined to salvation, others to destruction’ (Calvin in McGrath, 2007, 446).
This is difficult as it implies that Jesus only died for some, not all humanity.
For this major reason, I tend towards Arminianism thought on this. Jakob Arminius reacted to reformist views insisting that Christ died for all, not just the ‘elect’. John’s gospel offers a classic verse in support of this argument,
‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but mat have eternal life’ (John 3.16).
For Arminius, God predestined that those who were chosen would be part of his plan for salvation: For Jews, as a chosen people through faith in God of one man, Abraham; and for Gentiles as a chosen people through faith in God through one man, Jesus.
So those who were born by flesh as people of faith – Israel: Those who were born from above as people of faith – Believers.
Christ died for all humanity, not just the elected few. Those who are predestined to be part of God’s plan are those who turn to him in faith. It is those who seek him out and follow him. These are the key elements for us to understand.
This brings us onto grace – is God fair?
Fairness to me means equal chance – good life v bad life is heavily influenced by geography and genetics. For example, by geography or genetics some people would appear to have a greater chance of following Christ. If we could gain salvation through works, it is clear that humans develop in circumstances which give them a greater or lesser chance of doing good. This would not be an equal chance.
Similarly, if we could inherit our salvation, it is clear some people are born into believing families whereas others aren’t. So being baptised or christened as an infant as a means of salvation would not afford equal chance for all. It would be arbitrary and unfair weighted by geography and genetics.
So chance must be equal. It is not dependent on where we were born or to whom we were born, but on our personal belief in, and response to, God – each person equal.
Grace is not egocentric (all about me), but Christocentric (all about him). It is a gift based on nothing about us at all other than our belief and response to God.
His death was for all humanity, not just a selected few – it is for all who believe!
The passages before us are important because they tell us not only by what means we are saved, but also by what means we continue to live – that is by grace!
So the sin we commit now is covered by the blood of Jesus and we live in an ever-thankful life dependent on him.
If we are concerned about the things we think about, the things we say or the things we do; then we can confess them all to God (who already knows our weaknesses) and we can be ever-thankful for his forgiveness and acceptance of us just as we are.
God is totally fair and loving. He desires that none will perish, but that all will have eternal life.
Bibliography:
All Bible references are taken from either the New Revised Standard Version, the New King James Version or the New International Version
McGrath, Alister E. (2000). Christian Theology: An Introduction (2nd edn.). Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd.
McGrath, Alister E. (2007). The Christian Theology Reader (4th edn.). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing
Metzger, Bruce M. and Coogan, Michael D. (1993). The Oxford Companion to the Bible. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc.