From a midwest reader comes this brief question: “Does I Peter 2:8 belong to the hidden things of God?”
I toyed with the idea of simply answering this question in the affirmative, for then I wouldn’t have to say any more about it. But on second thought, I decided to “read something into” the question, since I suspect that’s what the author of the question intended that I should do.
I have a feeling that this question has been asked in view of the current discussion taking place on the subject of reprobation. For this is one of the texts frequently pointed to in connection with that doctrine. The text reads: “. . . for they stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed.” The phrase “whereunto also they were appointed” is the focus of attention in this text, for it points back to their “stumbling at the word, being disobedient.” The reference is to the Jews, and the fact that they rejected the “chief corner stone” on whom to believe is not to “be put to shame” (vs. 6). But many of them disbelieved, for they stumbled at the word, being disobedient, whereunto they also were appointed! Who appointed them to this stumbling? The subject is not named, and so it has been interpreted by some to mean that they appointed themselves to this stumbling.
But it seems to me that that is an invalid assumption. We accept the Bible‘s teaching that it is God who elects, who chooses His people to salvation. The elect do not “choose” themselves, but they are appointed or destined to believe by God. Vs. 9 begins with “But ye are an elect race, a royal priesthood . . .”, etc. The subject is not named, but is it not clear that the subject is God, that He chose them to be “an elect race, a royal priesthood”, etc.? Why, then, in that same context, should we interpret the implied subject with regard to the appointment to disobedience, to be someone other than God? Calvin, in his commentary on I Peter, writes that “they had been appointed to unbelief, as Pharoah is said to have been put into the position of resisting God (Ex. 9:16), and all unbelievers are destined for the same purpose.” And it is also his interpretation that the “whereunto” of vs. 8 points back to the immediately preceding phrase rather than to their appointment to believe, because of the word “also”–“whereunto also they were appointed.” Indeed, the Jews were appointed (by God) to believe, for the promise of salvation was for them; but they were appointed to unbelief as well, according to the “also” of verse 8.
If this interpretation is correct, and I believe it is, then the argument that the Bible only teaches an election of a nation (Israel) and not individuals, also falls. For God in His Sovereign mercy appointed the nation of Israel to be His people, but not all of them individually believed; for He appointed some of them to stumble, being disobedient. The reason for that is known only to God, and lies in an area beyond which we should seek to enter. In that sense, this truth does indeed belong to the hidden things of God.
I was reading parts of Calvin’s Institutes Of The Christian Religion in conjunction with your question, and I would recommend that, if you have access to a copy, you also read the sections in which he refers to the subject of election and reprobation. I was particularly struck by his opening paragraphs of Chapter 23, Book 3, from which I quote in closing: “Now when human understanding hears these things, its insolence is so irrepressible that it breaks forth into random and immoderate tumult as if at the blast of a battle trumpet.
“Indeed many, as if they wished to avert a reproach from God, accept election in such terms as to deny that anyone is condemned. But they do this very ignorantly and childishly, since election itself could not stand except as set over against reprobation. God is said to set apart those whom he adopts into salvation; it will be highly absurd to say that others acquire by chance or obtain by their own effort what election alone confers on a few. Therefore, those whom God passes over, he condemns; and this he does for no other reason than that he wills to exclude them from the inheritance which he predestines for his own children. And men‘s insolence is unbearable if it refuses to be bridled by God’s Word, which treats of his incomprehensible plan that the angels themselves adore.” Institutes Of The Christian Religion, Ed. J. T. McNeill, Vol. II, Book III, Chp. XXIII, P. 947.