We have seen that predestination refers to the all-encompassing plan or counsel of God, the unfolding of which man calls history. Everything that happens, including the eternal salvation of some men and the just punishment of others for their sins, has been fixed or determined by the almightily and sovereign God.

Salvation, therefore, does not ultimately depend upon any act of the human will, not even on the act of faith in Christ. Faith itself is a gift which God bestows only on those whom He has predestined to salvation. A sinner is not predestinated to salvation because he believes, but he is enabled to believe, because he is predestinated.

Although this is the clear teaching of Scripture, many people, even many Christian people have much difficulty with predestination. The common objection against predestination is that it reduces man to a mere puppet or automaton. If God had determined everything that comes to pass, how can a man be held accountable for what he does, or fails to do? In other words, the charge is that predestination is inconsistent with the moral responsibility of man. This is a serious charge which deserves careful attention.

Admittedly, the question concerning the relationship between God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility is a difficult one. It has been called the Gordian knowledge of theology. As the history of theology shows, man is always inclined to stress the one at the expense of the other. Some theologians have been so concerned to safeguard God’s sovereignty, that they virtually denied human responsibility. Others, in their anxiety to maintain man’s responsibility, have magnified it beyond all due proportions, until God’s sovereignty has been lost from sight, and in many instances flatly denied. Yet, the solution to this problem is not to be found in the denial or weakening of either divine sovereignty or human responsibility, but rather in the affirmation of both.

As Lorraine Boettner says,

the same God Who has ordained all events, has ordained human liberty in the midst of these events, and this liberty is as surely fixed as anything else. Man is no mere automaton or machine. In the divine plan which is infinite in variety and complexity, God has ordained that human beings shall keep their liberty under His sovereignty. That man is indeed a free agent was recognized by the authors of the Westminster Confession; for immediately after declaring that God has freely and unchangeably ordained whatsoever comes to pass, they added: “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 or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.”

The doctrine of predestination does not mean that those who are predestinated to eternal life are saved against their will. On the contrary, only those who willingly embrace Christ as He is offered to us in the Gospel, are saved.

But when a man puts his trust in the Lord Jesus Christ does that act of his will lie outside the purpose of God? No, it is very much a part of the divine plan. Perhaps an example from the Bible will help. When Paul was in the ship being taken from Alexandria as a prisoner to Rome, he said to the frightened sailors and passengers: There shall be no loss of any man’s life among you, but of the ship. He said this as a prophet, having received supernatural information. God had revealed part of His eternal plan to Paul. It was predestinated that no one on that ship was to lose his life. Their safety was guaranteed before it was accomplished. But what does Paul say to the ship’s company a little later? Pay attention to what he said. Except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved. The sailors had been about to flee from the ship in the lifeboat. To stop them, Paul said to the centurion and to the soldiers, Except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved.

He had just finished telling them that they would all be preserved alive. Paul had God’s Word for it; it was all predestinated. Yet, now Paul tells them that that which was absolutely certain to take place, would not take place unless a certain condition was fulfilled. It would not take place unless the sailors stayed in the ship.

Did Paul’s insistence on this condition destroy the certainty of the working out of God’s plan? Not at all. Why not? Because the fulfillment of that condition was just as much part of God’s plan as the safety of the ship’s company. It was certainly true that the ship’s company would not be saved unless the sailors stayed in the ship. But that did not involve any risk that God’s plan might be frustrated. The sailors did remain in the ship, and so the original prophecy was fulfilled. They did not remain in the ship by chance. No, they were, although unaware of it, under the guiding hand of God. The centurion and the soldiers who kept them from escaping in the lifeboat were God‘s instruments in seeing to the final accomplishment of God’s plan.

If we can learn anything from this example it is that when the final result is foreordained by God, all the steps to it are also foreordained. Applying this to the matter of faith and salvation, we see that God has predestinated some men to salvation, just as He predestinated those men of the ship to the preservation of their earthly lives. Yet, in both cases the fulfillment of a condition was necessary to the accomplishment of the final result. The men on that ship were all predestinated to survive the disaster; yet none of them would have made it safely to shore if those sailors had gotten away in the lifeboat.

Likewise, the elect are all predestinated to eternal salvation; yet they will not be saved unless they come to faith in Jesus Christ. According to Scripture, however, such faith in Christ is due only to the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit. It takes a miracle, that of the new birth, before a sinner will savingly believe in Jesus Christ. Yet, that wonderful act of God in the sinner’s heart does not do violence to his freedom as a person. As the Canons of Dort, a great Calvinistic creed, say:

This grace of regeneration does not treat men as senseless stocks and blocks, nor take away their will and its properties, or do violence thereto; but it spiritually quickens, heals, corrects, and at the same time sweetly and powerfully bonds it, that where carnal rebellion and resistance formerly prevailed, a ready and sincere spiritual obedience begins to reign in which the true and spiritual restoration and freedom of our will consist.

The eternal plan of God, and even its execution at the new birth, are not at all incompatible with our freedom and responsibility as personal beings. But what about those who are not saved and ultimately perish in unbelief? Do they perish against their will? No. It is true, they perish because they did not believe in Christ, but they did not believe in Him because they did not want to. In the Day of Judgement this will be their condemnation, that they preferred the darkness to the light, that they would not come to the light, because their works were evil. They will go to hell because they preferred the things of the world to the things of God. Not a single human being in history has desired salvation and been turned down. Not a single soul has ever sincerely prayed for eternal life and failed to receive it. Therefore no one will be able to say to God, “I would have to come to Christ, but He would not have me.” No soul will be able to say, “I desired life, but Thou gavest me death.” That is impossible!

Many object to the doctrine of predestination and say, if this is true, there is nothing I can do to be saved. But the point usually is that these people don’t even want to be saved. When the Gospel is preached to them, they reject it. They don’t like its terms. Faith and repentance? “No, sir, that’s not for me.” A life of sanctification and self-denial? “No thanks, I’m not interested. I would rather have my sins.”

That is always the reaction of man by nature. He does not want to be saved. And God always gives a person exactly what he wants. If you prefer to live without God in the world, you will live without Him in the next world too. If Christ and His salvation mean nothing to you here, what would you do in heaven, where the redeemed are constantly singing His praises? You would feel out of place there, wouldn’t you?

Sad to say, this is the condition of every human being as he comes into the world. No one by nature, is concerned about God and His Son Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul describes the condition of us all in Ephesians 2. He says to the Ephesian Christians that before their conversion they were dead in trespasses and sins, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, children of wrath, having no hope and without God in the world. But out of that lost race of men God had decided to save some. That is what the doctrine of predestination is. After Paul has described the terrible condition of man by nature he says: But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. But God—this is the Gospel. God could have left all men in their sin and misery. He was under no obligation to provide salvation for anyone. But He did choose some, and those whom He chose were no better than the others who were passed by and left to their own evil devices and choices.

Many people object to the doctrine of God’s sovereign election because, as Machen says: It writes God entirely too large and man entirely too small to suit our human pride. But those who are saved by faith in Jesus Christ, know that his doctrine, distasteful as it may be to man by nature, is yet the only solid ground of hope. Little hope we would have, if our salvation depended on ourselves. If God did not draw us out of the darkness of sin, we would never come to His marvelous light in Christ Jesus.

There lies your only hope in God’s eternal counsel! Not in your love for God, or faith in Christ, or anything else that is in you. But in that wonderful, though mysterious counsel of God, from which flow all spiritual blessings such as faith in Christ, love to God, and everything else we need to live and die happily.

Cornelis Pronk is the pastor of the Free Reformed Church of Grand Rapids, Michigan. This is one of a series of radio talks on the Five Points of Calvinism.