Predestination is a topic that comes up with 2 camps of thought within the Christian world and beyond.
Camp 1 is fate. It has already been decided how things will go and no one truly has free will.
Camp 2 is free will. Everyone has free will and God knows the future.
These 2 sides have been debated for many years and I don’t think I’ll settle the debate in one blog. But let me bring a biblical perspective that I hope will make you think biblically about it.
What if the answer is (In the words of the great thinker Forrest Gump) “Maybe it’s both”.
Get out the Kleenex again, and you can watch the clip below:
I think a much better example of both in action at the same time is none other than the story of Jesus in the garden. It’s the place he would pray so hard he was literally sweating blood. Jesus makes a statement that demonstrates to all of mankind the level of obedience he had to the Father.
Luke 22:41-42
And he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed, saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.”
This statement is why I do not believe in the idea of predestination, in that God determines our actions and outcomes. Why else would Jesus demonstrate perfect alignment with the will of the Father? Jesus showed us three truths in this prayer.
- Man has his own free will. This was shown to be true when Jesus (showing His humanity) first asked for his own will rather than the will of God the Father. 2 different wills were now presented. The will of Jesus, who demonstrated His humanity with “let this cup pass from me”, and the perfect will of God, The Father.
- God has a perfect will. The perfect will of God the Father was that God the Son should be betrayed and crucified. This will of God was counter to the will of Jesus (in His humanity) at that moment. Jesus, being human, prayed that the perfect will of God the Father would not come true and that he would not have to suffer.
- Man’s will must be broken to God’s will. Jesus showed that man’s will must always be broken to God’s will. One word showed the perfect obedience and the breaking of his personal human will, to the will of the Father. That word was “Nevertheless”. That Greek word has a meaning of “greater”. In other words, Jesus said but your will is greater than my will. So I must do your will, not my own. The hardest breaking you will ever go through is in the perfect will of God when it involves suffering.
Predestined and predetermined are two different words with vastly different meanings. Pre-determinism is the teaching that would contradict this scripture. The idea that Jesus had been pre-determined to be broken to the will of the Father undermines the power of the Holy Spirit working through Jesus in that moment to become supernaturally obedient to the will of the Father. The question is – was He FORCED to obey, or did He lay down His life WILLINGLY? What does Scripture teach us?
John 10:17
For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative.
He gave his life with His will, but it was in alignment with the Father’s will. His personal human will had to be broken, just as our personal human will must be broken to the will of God in our lives.
The doctrine of pre-determinism fails to account for a scriptural truth found throughout all of scripture that points us as believers toward the perfect will of God. That is in our breaking. If predestined, means predetermined, then there is no such thing as breaking us to his will, because it has been predetermined that we would do his will. But is that what scripture teaches us from cover to cover? Let’s reconcile these verses together.
Psalm 51:17
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
God desires to break our will. If we didn’t have one, it wouldn’t need to be broken. He wants to break our spirit to follow His Spirit. This is why He says in Psalm 143:10: Teach me to do your will, for you are my God! Let your good Spirit lead me on level ground!
Why would the Psalmist state that a proper prayer is to TEACH ME to do your will if God is controlling my will? Teach me what? I don’t have a choice, according to that line of theology.
This is why a balanced view of predestination must include our personal human will, that God desires to break to our will. If we didn’t have free will, it would not need to be broken.
So what about Romans 9? What about verses like this:
Romans 9:17-18 says: For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.
This is a classic example in scripture that if left in isolation and the whole of the story isn’t studied, you wind up with a God that chooses to condemn some to hell, and some to heaven based on His whims.
Let’s start with a scripture that would seem to contradict this scripture:
2 Peter 3:9
The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
So this begs the question. If the character of God is that he wishes that NO ONE would perish, but that ALL should reach repentance, why would He purposefully harden Pharoah’s heart?
This is why you have to understand the whole story, to capture the true character of God, who is both merciful and just. He is both patient and sovereign. The 2 are not mutually exclusive. He is the same God yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8).
Here’s the WHOLE story, in context:
God gave Pharaoh multiple opportunities to repent, but Pharaoh hardened his OWN heart.
1 Samuel 6:6
Why should you harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? After he had dealt severely with them, did they not send the people away, and they departed?
Pharoah’s heart began the process of hardening by rejecting God.
The story in 1 Samuel helps us understand through the theft of the ark of the covenant, how the Judgement of God kept falling until the Philistines relented and gave the ark back to Israel.
And the warning is, that a hardening was happening just like what happened to Pharaoh.
Now that you have the context, you can see the will of man (Pharaoh hardening his own heart) and the sovereign will of God (Where God continues to call him for the purpose of hardening him more) come together to form the full understanding of scripture.
And how does that hardening from God happen? Here’s the answer.
And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man (Genesis 6:3)
There is a limited and finite number of times the Holy Spirit will “strive” with you to turn from your wickedness. This is the patience of God and the judgment of God perfectly stated in one verse. But every time you reject God’s calling, your conscience becomes seared, and your heart hardens even more.
If He has eternally decreed who would do what, every scripture regarding God’s patience with us, being slow to anger with us, would be nonsense.
Scriptures like:
Nehemiah 9:30
“However, You bore with them for many years, and admonished them by Your Spirit through Your prophets, Yet they would not give ear. Therefore You gave them into the hand of the peoples of the lands.
Isaiah 48:9
“For the sake of My name I delay My wrath, and for My praise I restrain it for you, In order not to cut you off.
I believe God’s patience refutes the doctrine of predeterminism. In the next blog, we will take a closer look at predestination and the wonderful hope the world has through Jesus.
