Q&A on Canon and Predestination

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Pastor Keith answers questions about the Bible on the subjects of the Canon of Scripture and Predestination.

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00:06
Somebody said the other night, y'all were talking about a couple of difficult subjects, and I enjoy engaging in difficult subjects with one simple request, that you listen.
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Because if all it's going to be is a tit-for-tat argument, I'm just going to go preach Galatians.
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But if you're interested and you have legitimate questions, two of the main subjects that I have spent the last 15 years studying and teaching on have been the subjects of Reformed Theology, revolving around the subject of God's sovereignty and predestination, and the subject of textual variation and the history of the transmission of the text of the New Testament specifically.
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And I understand those are some places that you guys have questions.
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So if you want to ask a question, or if you just want me to give an overview of those things, we can do that.
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Yes, sir? If you can, I recommend you study from the original languages.
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But because that eliminates about 99 percent of people, then I would say you need to use an English translation that you're able to understand, that is translated in what we would call the equivalent or the literal translation, rather than a dynamic translation.
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So for instance, if you look at the way Bibles are translated, you have to start with the question of what was the method of translation.
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And so when we talk about the method of translation, there is what I call the speedometer of Bible translations.
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And it begins over here with what we call the absolutely literal.
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And then you have what's called the paraphrase.
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And then up here you have what's called the DE, or the dynamic equivalent.
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Now the dynamic equivalent is best understood in this regard.
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If I were translating something from a language into another language, for instance this statement, morning hours have gold in their mouths.
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That is a statement that is a German phrase.
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Morning hours have gold in their mouths.
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In English that means very little to us.
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Doesn't make sense at all.
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Sounds kind of silly.
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However, if I were to say to you, the early bird catches the worm, you know exactly what I meant, because that's the equivalent expression in English.
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Understand? So when I'm translating, I have to decide whether I'm going to use a literal golden, morning hours have gold in their mouths, would be the literal translation of the German term.
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And then it would be up to the reader to try to figure out what that meant.
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Or if I was trying to aid the reader in understanding, I would use an equivalent early bird catches the worm.
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How many of you have used the King James Bible? Open up your Bibles to Romans chapter 6.
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I should have got coffee this morning.
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Diet Coke just ain't doing it.
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I appreciate it.
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I'll make the Diet Coke work for now.
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Alright, Romans chapter 6.
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Who's got it in the King James? Please read it to me in the King James.
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Chapter 6 verse 1.
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Okay, read verse 2 then.
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God forbid, how shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein.
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Okay, thank you.
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So it's verses 1 and 2.
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Alright, so, shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? He says, God forbid.
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Right? That's King James rendered.
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Okay, somebody read it in the...
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What other translations we got? You had your hand up, sir, in the back.
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Okay, read it again.
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What shall we say then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means.
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We are liars who have died to sin.
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How can we live to Jesus? And then we go on.
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Alright, what you got? What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means.
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How can we who died to sin still live in it? Okay, anybody got an ESV? Is that what you just read? That was what you just read? Okay, alright.
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Anybody got anything that says anything other than by no means? What you got right here, brother? What should we say then? Should we continue in sin so that grace may multiply? Absolutely not.
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How can we who died to sin still live in it? Okay.
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Okay, what does the New King James say? What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not.
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How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Do we not know that as many as were baptized in it? Oh, that's three, I'm sorry.
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Yeah, no worries.
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Okay, so here's my point.
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The King James, when the question is asked, how shall we continue in sin so that grace may abound? The King James says, God forbid.
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The ESV or the NIV say, by no means.
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Is there anybody who has a translation that says, may it never be? Does Holman say, may it never be? That's what you read.
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So here's the point, here's the point.
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This particular phrase is the Greek, me genoita.
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Me genoita.
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Genoita is from the word gene, which means existence.
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Where you get the word gene, we get the word gene.
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You talk about your genes, where you're from.
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Your genes are what make you up.
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So, genoita refers to your existence.
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May is the adversative, not.
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And so, in a translative sense, what it means is, may it not exist.
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Existence, genoita, may is the adversative, not.
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So the idea is, may it not exist.
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And the idea is, shall we continue to sin so that grace may abound? May that not exist.
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May that not come into your minds.
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That's what the Greek says.
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But the King James Version uses the dynamic equivalent, God forbid.
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There is no word for God.
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The word theos is not there.
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There is no word for forbid.
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It is not there.
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So, there are those who would say the King James Version always translates everything literally.
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I just proved to you that it doesn't.
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Even the King James Bible uses what's known as dynamic equivalent.
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It is up to the translators how they translate various words and phrases.
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Now, the NIV is more of a dynamic equivalent in more areas.
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It uses that same principle of dynamic equivalency than does the King James.
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And so, when we look at the speedometer, the best way to do it is to say, okay, if we want to look at the literal, over here under the absolutely literal, we could put the King James, we could put the ESV, we could put the NASB, and even down here you could put the YLT, which is the Young's Literal Translation.
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Literal translation in that it is so literal it's hard to read.
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If you've ever read the Young's Literal Translation, it's like it's really awful.
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Because, one, it was translated by one guy, and I do not like Bibles that are translated by one person.
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The Message Bible was translated by one guy, Eugene Phillips.
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Young's Literal Translation was translated by one guy.
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When you have a translation that is translated by one person, then you have no checks and balances.
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The King James Bible was translated by a committee of over 40 scholars.
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The ESV, the NIV, the New King James were all translated by teams of scholars, Greek experts, Hebrew experts, language experts.
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When you have one guy translating a Bible, you have the opportunity for the introduction of bias in the translation without any checks and balances.
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Understand? Alright, so, when it comes to the translations that are literal, we have the KJV, the ESV, the NASB.
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They all attempt to make a literal rendering of the original language.
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Now, when we get to the Dynamic Equivalent, this is your NIV, your New Living Translation, and there are others, but those are probably the two most popular.
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I actually like the New Living Translation.
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If I am looking for a Dynamic Equivalent, I think it's better than the NIV.
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The New Living, I like it.
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I think it reads easily.
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Again, when I'm studying the passage, I look to the original languages because that's where the answers are.
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But, if I'm just reading for devotional purposes, if I'm just trying to get a feel for the text, or if I'm trying to see how somebody else has translated the text in a different way, and you've heard me do that when I'm preaching to Galatians.
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I'll say, this is what the ESV says is what I use, and then I'll say, but this is what the King James says, and this is what the NIV says, and this is what the NLT says, because I'm trying to show you how different teams have translated that particular text.
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And then you have the paraphrase.
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What would be an example of the paraphrase? Living Bible.
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The Living Bible is actually a easy reading book, but it is very, very loosey-goosey when it comes to how it translates the text, so you have to be careful.
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Now, if you're Reformed, the Living Bible does really have some places where it just, I mean, it's almost like it was a Calvinist writing it, because there are some parts that are really, especially Romans 9, it's like straight up, it's like no question.
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So, yeah, get your Living Bible.
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But the Living Bible is like the Calvinist version of the Message Bible, because the paraphrase, the other one would be the Message Bible.
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It may know what I call the Message Bible, it may remember.
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The Message Bible is the toothbrush Bible, because the only Bible I know of that mentions a toothbrush.
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When Jesus says, take for your journey no coat, and do not take two tunics, and all that, remember that? When He's sending out the disciples to go and preach.
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There's a part in the Message Bible where it says, take your toothbrush.
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And I was like, well, you're trying to bring it to today.
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There's also one called God's Word on the Street.
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It's like a hip-hop Bible, and it uses like Jesus said, yo-yo.
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I mean, it is.
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It's silly, but that's just how far the range gets.
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And I do think that sometimes they get a little irreverent.
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But that's an example of, to answer the question, I know I probably spent a lot more time on it than you intended, the question of what Bible would I recommend.
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I would recommend one that is literal.
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If you are trying to get the true sense of what the text said.
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If you're reading devotionally, I wouldn't necessarily have a problem with a dynamic equivalent, as long as you understand that you're getting someone's influence in the text.
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You're getting a commentary along with the text.
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That's what a dynamic equivalent is.
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It's giving you a commentary as you're reading.
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But there's a broader question, and that is the question is, which one is more accurate to the original? That question actually raises a larger question, and that is the question of the issue of manuscripts and the history of the text of the New Testament.
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Very quickly, how many books are in the New Testament? 27.
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Alright, so there's 27 books in the New Testament.
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There's four Gospels.
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That is our message about Jesus and His life.
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We have the book of Acts, which is the history of the works of the Apostles.
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It's actually called the Acts of the Apostles.
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And then you have beginning in Romans through the end of his works.
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You have Paul's writings.
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And people question whether Hebrews, that's why I said I didn't want to mention Hebrews.
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Some people believe Paul wrote Hebrews.
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I don't.
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But whether or not Paul wrote Hebrews is irrelevant to this discussion because Paul wrote what we call the Pauline epistles.
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And then you have the general epistles, which are those that are written by others to the general church.
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And then you have, of course, the book of the Revelation, which is the apocalyptic book.
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So within the New Testament, how soon after the writing of the New Testament were those books collected and put into one group? Hey, I hear crickets.
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Okay, good.
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That's an important question, right? It should be a question Christians should know.
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Because you say the Bible is the Word of God, how do you even know the 27 books are the right ones? And how many books are in the Old Testament? Depends on whether you're Catholic or not.
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Right? Because if you're a God-fearing Baptist, you know there'd be 39 books in the Old Testament.
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And by the way, if there are 39 books in the Old Testament, you times that and you get 27 and there's your New Testament.
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Hey, what do you think about that? It's actually pretty cool.
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There's 39 books in the Old Testament, 3 times 9 is 27.
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That's how many books are in the New Testament.
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But that's just a way to remember.
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That is, I'm not teaching numerology.
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That was just a little, that's just a little side thing.
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Yes, sir, raise your hand.
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Or you raise your hand.
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I was raised Roman Catholic, but I went to a lot of Christian when I was younger and stuff like that.
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I've just always said, I was talking to somebody this morning, I've always said difficulty is why Catholics believe that you pray to saints and stuff like that, because in the Bible it doesn't say that.
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God's literally, you know, Jesus stayed, you know, look to me, don't look to, you know, because all the disciples and all that, they're, they're preaching his word, they're not saying to, you know, pray to my disciples and as they talk, they're saying, you know, this is what God said, this is what, you know, the Holy Spirit, Jesus, proclaiming the gospel.
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So why do they believe that? The Roman Catholic Church has a massive amount of bad theology and it, it really stems from a misunderstanding of authority.
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The Roman Catholic Church believes in two equally level perspectives on authority.
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The Protestant Church believes in one sole authority for the Church, the Word of God.
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We believe in something called Sola Scriptura.
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The Bible alone is the only infallible rule for faith and practice.
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That's the doctrine of Sola Scriptura, the Bible alone.
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But the Roman Catholic Church believes in the equal authority of the Bible and tradition.
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And the tradition is determined by the magisterium of the Church.
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The magisterium is the teaching authorities of the Church, including the Pope, the bishops, and all of the priests.
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They make up the magisterial authority of the Church.
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And therefore, they are able to determine what is and what is not authoritative because they're the ones who are assigning what is and is not tradition.
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And when you have two equal authorities, one will always tend to overcome the other in some way.
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And what has happened in Roman Catholicism is the authority of the Church has overcome the authority of the Bible.
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And in those places where you see them going outside of the Bible, they say, yes, but that's tradition.
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For instance, the veneration of Mary.
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The Bible nowhere says that we should pray to Mary, that we should say, Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
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You know, pray for sinners now at the time of our death.
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That's the rosary.
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The Bible never proclaims that we should ever pray to Mary or any saint.
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But yet, that is a tradition that has arisen in the Roman Catholic Church.
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It didn't arise for almost a thousand years after Christ.
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And yet, it still arose within the Church during the Middle Ages.
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And since it arose during the Middle Ages, it became part of tradition that was recognized and understood and accepted.
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Because it was recognized and understood and accepted, the Church went along with it and now believes it to be part of the truth.
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That's part of the reason for the Reformation.
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The Reformation was the idea of going back to the Bible.
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It happened during the time of the Renaissance.
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What was the Renaissance? The Renaissance was the recapturing of the ancient works, the ancient writings, the ancient documents, the bringing to light the things that had been put aside.
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And so, one of the great things about the Reformation was that they were no longer reading the Bible only in Latin, but that they were reading the Bible in the original languages, Greek and Hebrew and Aramaic.
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And they were able to translate the Bible in its original languages.
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And they were able to understand it.
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And they said, hey, you're right, we shouldn't be praying to saints.
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We shouldn't be paying for indulgences.
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We shouldn't be going to the priest and asking forgiveness for sins.
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We should be going to Christ, who is our only High Priest.
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And so, there was a lot of false theology.
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And that was the reason for the division between the Catholic Church and the Reformed Church.
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Does that make sense? Yes, sir.
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So, it's kind of like you could diagram it.
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It's kind of like we could look at the government, like we're checking some balances.
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Yeah, the Roman Catholic Church had all authority.
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And this was an interesting thing, because during the height of the power struggle in Rome, there was a time when there was actually three different popes.
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Because the papacy, which was situated in Rome, had moved to Avignon, France.
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And because the pope had moved to Avignon, France, there was a pope in France.
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Well, that pope became somewhat of a despot, somewhat of a power-hungry person.
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And so, they elected a new pope in Rome.
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So, now you've got two popes.
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This one excommunicates this one.
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This one excommunicates that one.
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So, now you've got two warring positions for who's the most powerful person in the Christian Church.
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Well, a council comes along, excommunicates both of them, and elects a third pope.
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So, now there's three people with three different popes.
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Finally, that was squashed, put to bed.
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But that's called the Babylonian captivity of the Church.
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It's a historical blip on the radar that's very important to know about, because it's at that moment that it demonstrated the fallacy of the papacy.
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That the pope is not a legitimate actor in the history of the Christian Church.
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The pope himself is a usurper of Christ's authority.
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He calls himself the vicar of Christ.
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Vicar means the one who stands in the place of another, a vicarious one.
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So, the vicar of Christ is the one who's standing in the place of Christ.
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And it's a false understanding.
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And as the person who stands in the position of Christ, he's able to speak what's called ex-cathedra, or from the chair.
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The cathedra is the seat.
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He speaks from the seat of the apostle Peter, and he speaks with authority.
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And he's supposed to speak infallibly.
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The problem is this pope says something, and then a pope later says something else.
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Who was authoritative, and who was infallible? If this guy's saying one thing, and this guy's saying something else, and the Roman Catholic Church says, well, you're not in the position to question him.
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You're not in the position to scrutinize him.
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Because he's infallible.
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And along comes Martin Luther and changes the world.
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Alright.
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Oh yeah, absolutely.
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Okay, hand up back there.
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What's up? Okay, alright, well, we weren't done with the Bible translations.
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But very quickly, let me just say this about the Bible translation before you go to predestination, because that's a bigger one.
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When it comes to Bible translations, there's also the question, because I did ask, I said, when was the Bible codified? It took time for books to be recognized as part of the canon, meaning to have been recognized as being God's writings.
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In fact, what was the last book to be accepted as part of the Christian Bible canon? What was the last book to be truly recognized as authoritative? Revelation.
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Why? Not really.
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It was the last one, but that wasn't the reason why.
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The reason why is because that book would be crazy.
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You read it.
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It's got ten-headed dragons and all kinds of...
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I mean, people read it and they're like, wow! This is wild! And so it demonstrates that there was some discernment that was used in the early church.
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They didn't just accept everything that came along.
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They didn't accept...
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there's all kinds of writings that were supposed to have been written by Paul and Peter and John and all, but they weren't.
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They were what we call pseudepigrapha or false writings.
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Have you ever heard of the Gospel of Thomas? The Gospel of Thomas is a false book written by someone other than Thomas, but it used his name to try to gain some legitimacy.
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If you've ever read the Gospel of Thomas, it'd be crazy.
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It's nuts! It talks about how if Mary Magdalene wanted to be saved, she has to become a man.
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Read it.
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Go look it up.
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She has to become a man because women can't be saved.
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It's nuts! So again, I encourage you, don't always...
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if somebody says, oh, there's missing books in the Bible.
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Hogwash! Hogwash, I say.
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It's garbage.
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It's not true.
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The Bible, the early church was very discerning in how it understood what was and what was not authoritative, what did not and did not come from the hands or through the hands of the apostles.
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And so I do believe with all my heart that what we have is what we should have because God is sovereign and God has established for Himself that His people will know His Word and My sheep will hear My voice.
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They will know Me and I will know them.
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And so it's an issue of sovereignty as to why we believe we have the right Bible.
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Now the question of translation and the question of passing through time and how we got manuscript evidence and things like that, that's a lot longer study.
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But ultimately I think we can trust the Bible that we have in our hands as being what God has preserved for us.
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Yes sir, your hand's up.
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Can you explain to me what is the book of Q? Yes.
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Q is a...
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it's not a book, it's a theory because there is no evidence for Q.
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Q is a...
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Matthew and Mark are so close in their writings that it seems as if there has to have been some way in which the two of them were writing in conjunction with one another.
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I mean there's just certain sentences that are written exactly the same way.
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And if you were a teacher and you were grading a test and two guys handed in a test and they had an essay and the essay had the exact same language, you would accuse them of collusion, right? You'd say these two guys, there's no way that they didn't have some influence on one another, right? And so the theory of Q is that there was an earlier gospel that Matthew and Mark both drew their language from, right? That's the theory.
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The problem is there's no evidence for that.
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There is no evidence.
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Now when we get to Luke, see Luke is written later and John is written much later.
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Luke actually says, I have compiled this from other sources.
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If you read the first chapter of Luke, my doctoral dissertation was on the gospel of Luke.
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And he says in the first chapter, I have spent the time, oh dear Theophilus who was the guy he was writing to, I've spent the time studying and researching and gathering this information.
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So the fact that Luke has things that are from the other gospels makes perfect sense.
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So there's likely a chance that he had taken some, at least some liberty in using their language, right? But the question is who came first, Matthew or Mark? I'm a Matthew guy.
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I think Matthew was written first.
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But the scholarly consensus is that Mark was written first.
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I tend to think Matthew was written first, but again I base that on some stuff I don't really want to get into right now.
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Whether you're Matthew in supremacy or Mark in supremacy is really, it's not a big issue, but it's just a question of why, why you think one would be first.
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But the issue is, the question is, was there something that came before that both of them drew from? There's no evidence that there was, and the reason why people believe there was is because there's so much agreement between Matthew and Mark.
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And you come back and you say, but wait a minute, the Holy Spirit's involved too.
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If the Holy Spirit is the one who's superintending the writing, then that could be part of the reason for so much agreement, and that the language is so close.
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So it's, the Q theory really is an anti-supernatural theory.
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And what I mean by that, that's a secular theory.
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How do you get agreement between two guys? Well you have to have another source that they're both drawing from.
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The Christian says, how do you get the agreement between two guys? You've got the Holy Spirit superintending both of them.
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So the question is whether you're taking an anti-supernatural view or a supernatural view.
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So I take the supernatural view.
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I think the Holy Spirit is superintending this, and that's why you have so much language agreement between the two of them.
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Because there are things that they don't agree on, and they don't contradict.
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But there are areas where Mark and Luke and Matthew are saying the exact same thing, and then one goes this direction, one goes this direction, one goes that direction.
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It's like, wait a minute, if they're all drawing from the same source, then why do they all go in different directions? But if they're all just copying Q, which is what the Q theory is, there's this hidden gospel out there that they're all copying from.
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If they're all copying from the same thing, there would be a lot more agreement, but there's actually a lot more disagreement.
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So I would deny Q is, there's no evidence, no reason to believe in it except for the theory.
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Okay? Okay, before we get to predestination, I have one more question.
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Although it seems to be probably real, you seem to believe that one Enoch is true, however it's just not necessary for...
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That was a big one.
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No, it's not.
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It really isn't.
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Because the issue of the book of Enoch, a couple of things you have to consider.
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Just because the Bible mentions a book does not mean that that book is authoritative.
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For instance, if you go back to the book of Acts, chapter 17, the Apostle Paul mentions the writings of the Greek philosophers.
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Does that mean the writings of the Greek philosophers were authoritative? No, it doesn't.
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So, that being said, if a book is mentioned in the Bible, it doesn't mean that that book is necessarily meant to be in the Bible.
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You go back to the Chronicles, the King, to the Old Testament, they mention several books.
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The books of the wars and all this.
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Those are books that are not in the Bible, but those are books that they reference.
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So just because a book is referenced in the Bible does not mean it's supposed to be part of the Bible.
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Second, when it comes to the book of Enoch, there is no copy of the book of Enoch available today that goes back to the time of Enoch.
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The only thing that we have today is a false pseudo-Enoch that was created to give rise to the reason for that.
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So the one that is in circulation today is not real.
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It's less, if I remember correctly, it's less than a few hundred years old.
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It was created to give answers to people who say, oh, we need the book of Enoch.
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Where is it? Oh, here it is.
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It's got all this weird information in it.
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That's not true.
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So you've got to be able to trace history, right? How do we know when something was written? How do you know when a document was written? No, not carbon dating.
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How do you know when a document was written? We have what's called external evidence and internal evidence.
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External evidence could be, somebody said carbon dating, that partially could be external evidence.
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If you find something in the ground and you can carbon date it to a certain year, then that can be an external evidence.
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But carbon dating can be faulty, right? However, if you find something in a ground that's in a tomb and the tomb has a date on it, there you go.
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The tomb told you when it was, at least you know it was written before it went in the tomb, right? So that tomb stands as a piece of external evidence.
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Internal evidence is language in the document.
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So for instance, if I were to say, pick up a book and the book said social distancing, you would know that book is less than a year old because that language was not in circulation until about three months ago, right? How about LGBT? If you picked up a book and it referenced the LGBT community, you know that book was probably less than 20 years old, right? If you picked up a book and it referenced a woman wearing bell bottoms, you might assume it was written somewhere in the 60s or 70s.
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That's what you call internal evidence.
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There's evidence in the writing of when it was written.
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It's not proof, but it's evidence, right? It's evidence of when it was written.
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And so when we go to a book from the ancient world that we unearthed from the ground and we begin reading through it, if we find language that's consistent with a certain time period, we can put that book in that time period.
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For instance, when I talk about the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, the Gospel of Judas, all of these false Gospels, they all have internal evidence of being written long after the death of the apostles.
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None of them were written contemporaneously with the apostles.
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However, all of the New Testament books, every single one of the New Testament books has both internal and external evidence that they were all written prior to AD 95.
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Every one of them were written before the death of the last apostle, the Apostle John.
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Every book, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, 1st, 2nd Corinthians, 2nd Corinthians, all of those go through the New Testament.
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Every single one of them was written during the lifetime of the apostles.
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All of them passed through the hands of the apostles.
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All of them had apostolic authority.
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And all of them were in use in circulation in the early church prior to the death of the last apostle.
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The Gospel of Judas didn't have that.
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The Gospel of Thomas didn't have that.
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The Gospel of Mary Magdalene was 400 years later.
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So there's your basic evidence for things like that.
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And that's an important thing to understand.
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When people start saying, there's missing books of the Bible.
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Sit down, Junior.
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You don't know what you're talking about.
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Not you.
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I'm saying that to the person.
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Sit down, Junior.
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You've been watching too many conspiracy movies.
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All right.
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Cool.
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All right.
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Now to predestination.
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Let's get real.
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Let's get real for a minute.
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There are a few subjects that are really hard in Christian theology.
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The Trinity is hard.
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It's not impossible to understand.
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But it is not possible to comprehend.
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You say, well, what's the difference? Well, I understand I'm alive, but I don't really comprehend life.
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Do you understand the difference? I mean, that's the difference in understanding and comprehending.
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Comprehending something means you have a full-orbed understanding of it.
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It's like taking the Atlantic Ocean and trying to put it in a five-gallon bucket from Home Depot.
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You just can't do that.
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And so while I can understand what the Trinity is and what it's not, I can't fully comprehend it because it's more than I am able to compress into my mind.
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The same thing can be said about predestination and election.
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Because while it is clearly taught in the Bible, it is a difficult concept to understand because it, first of all, violates our emotional response to the Bible.
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Most of us have this emotional response that we want the Bible to agree with our feelings.
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And so when I read the Bible and it says God loves me, oh, that feels so good.
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When it says God sent His Son to die for me, whew, it feels good.
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When it says I deserve to go to hell because I'm a worthless wretch, oh, that feels so good.
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So now I begin to, and that's why a lot of people don't believe in hell.
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By the way, one of the most difficult doctrines in the Bible is the doctrine of hell, eternal perdition.
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The fact that if you die in your sins, you will receive the wrath of God forever.
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Here's the thing that bothers me.
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People who have a problem with predestination but don't have a problem with hell.
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Hell is so much more difficult.
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To really consider the fact that there are people who die, 150,000 people will die today all around the world.
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150,000 people die every day.
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The vast majority of those people are going to face God.
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They're going to be in their sins and they're going to go to hell.
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And they're going to be there forever.
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No possibility of parole.
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Does that bother you? I was going to say, if predestination bothers you and hell doesn't, then you've got a problem.
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And the reason why I mention all of this is because hell is clearly taught in the Bible.
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So we accept it because it's there, even if we don't really understand it.
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Even if we have trouble with it.
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We have to accept it because it's in the Bible.
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So predestination is the same thing.
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Even if we don't like it.
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Even if it bothers us.
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Even if it causes us an emotional, guttural response.
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If it's what the Bible teaches, then we don't have the right to simply say, I don't believe it.
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In fact, let me give you an example.
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When I first began to really become convinced of the doctrine of predestination election, I remember hearing people say, I don't believe in predestination.
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And I said, but it's in the Bible.
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The Word is in the Bible.
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So here's the thing.
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If you say, I don't believe in anything.
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If I say, but it's in the Bible, you have to then change I don't believe to either I don't understand or I interpret it differently.
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But you can't say I don't believe it if it's there.
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Open your Bibles to Ephesians 1.
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Now I will tell you this.
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Normally when I talk about predestination, I don't start here.
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Normally when I talk about predestination, I start in John 6.
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Because I like to begin, because a lot of people will say, oh, well that's Paul.
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That's Paul.
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I want to hear what Jesus has to say.
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Well, let me help you understand something.
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Jesus never disagrees with Paul.
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And Paul never disagrees with Jesus.
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Because it's all superintended by the Holy Spirit of God.
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Therefore, the Bible does not contradict itself.
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And if Paul is writing, he is writing with the authority of the Holy Spirit in the same way that Jesus spoke by the authority of the Holy Spirit of God.
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Jesus Himself is God in the flesh.
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So, because I'm starting with Paul, I don't want to hear anybody come to me later and say, well why don't you say what Jesus says.
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Jesus agrees with Paul.
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Understand? Alright.
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So we begin with Ephesians.
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Chapter 1, verse 3.
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Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him.
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In love He predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace with which He has blessed us in the Beloved.
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In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of His will according to His purpose, which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth.
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In Him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, so that we who were first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of His glory.
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In Him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of His glory.
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Okay, so, a couple things.
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Number one, there's a phrase that happens several times in that passage.
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It is the phrase, in Him.
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That, of course, is referring to Jesus.
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There is also the phrase, us.
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And I tried to emphasize us when I was going through.
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I don't know if you noticed that when I was saying us, us, us.
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The passage tells us, beginning at verse 3, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us.
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That's the first time we see us.
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Who is the us? Believers.
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It's us.
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Not them.
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But us.
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That's important.
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Because this is limiting the object of the actions that we're about to see.
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For instance, if I say to my children, boy, I wish the whole world had enough food.
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I do.
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But I don't want to make sure we have enough food.
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Because that's my job.
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So, I may have a desire for the whole world.
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But when I say we, I'm now limiting and I'm separating out the we.
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Or the us.
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I'm separating out my group.
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And so when Paul says that blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, he's referring to a group.
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The group is actually identified in the first two verses.
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Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God to the saints who are in Ephesus and are the faithful in Christ Jesus.
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Grace to you and peace from God our Father in the Lord Jesus Christ.
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So the us he's referring to is himself in the Ephesians.
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He's referring to the us, the saints, the believers, the holy ones.
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The word saint is hagios in the Greek.
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It means the ones who have been made holy.
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They have been blessed.
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Then he uses the word chose.
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He says even as he chose us in him.
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What is the object of the verb? The object of the verb, well what's the verb? As he chose us, what is the verb? Chose.
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Chose is the action, right? What is the object of the verb? Us.
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He chose us.
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That's important.
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He chose us.
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Because a lot of people will say God doesn't choose people, people choose God.
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That's not what the text says.
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And again, we're dealing with the text.
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It says he chose us.
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In him, that is in Christ, and the reason why he references in him is because God doesn't choose us independently of the actions of Christ.
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The reason why God chooses us is because he is choosing us to be the gift to the Son.
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We are the bride given to the Son.
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John 6, as I mentioned earlier, Jesus.
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All the Father gives me will come to me.
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John 6, verse 37.
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Jesus said, All the Father gives me will come to me.
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So what does that say about the person who comes to Christ? He is given to Christ by who? The Father.
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The Father has given the person to Jesus.
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If you are a believer, God gave you to the Son as a gift.
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You say, I don't feel like much of a gift.
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You're not.
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Neither am I.
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I'm no gift.
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But from the perspective of God, the Bride of Christ, or the Elay, it's like this.
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In the ancient world, if a man had a son, he would go and find his son a bride.
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And he would find his son a bride that was not only beautiful on the outside, but he would find his son a bride who was virtuous and industrious and was good for his son and for his family.
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And he would go and he would pay a price for that bride.
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He would go and offer what was known as a dowry.
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He would give a price for that bride.
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And he would take that bride back to his home and he would present that bride to his wife, or to his son as a gift.
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Look what I have gotten for you.
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I've gotten you this bride, this gift.
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That's the picture of what God does for Christ.
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God sends the Holy Spirit into the world to convert hearts so that hearts would turn to Christ and become a gift to the Son.
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The Spirit's job...
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Do you remember the parable where the king had the wedding feast for the son? And he said, go out and get people to come in.
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And they went out and no one would come.
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And the king said, you go to the highways and to the hedges and you compel them to come so that my son's feast will be full! Right? So that's the work of the Father.
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Sending the Spirit to go and bring people to the Son as a gift.
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And we, the us in this passage, are the gift given to the Son as the reward for His good work.
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The Son who died on the cross did that work for His bride.
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We are the bride of Christ.
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So, the text says, He chose us in Him.
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When? When did He choose us? Before the foundation of the world.
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Before the foundation of the world.
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God chose us before we were ever created.
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Now people have an issue with that.
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And they say, now wait a minute.
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That means I wasn't involved.
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I wasn't even created.
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Yep.
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But just before you let that take you into a lot of negativity and places that it's best not to go, just ask yourself, are we being fair with the text? He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.
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Is that what it says? Yes.
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He, that is the Father, chose us, that is the believers, in Him, that is Christ, before the foundation of the world.
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That's when it happened.
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So right there, that should at least be enough for us to say, wow, there's something going on that's beyond my control.
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There's something going on that's beyond my influence.
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If this happened in eternity past, if this happened before I was created, if this happened before the world was created, I'm really not a part of this in the sense of the decision making.
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I'm the recipient.
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I'm not co-partners.
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See, here's the thing.
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When it comes to the doctrine of salvation, a lot of people want to think of themselves as somehow partnering with God.
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They have partnered with God.
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Here's the way it usually is said.
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The devil votes against you, God votes for you, but you make the deciding vote.
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You ever heard that? Or maybe heard somebody say, God does 99%, but you have to do 1%.
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And the 1% is you've got to believe, you've got to come to Jesus, you've got to have faith, right? And all those things become your contribution.
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But this text tells us God chose us before we were ever able to contribute.
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God chose us before we were ever able to put in our two cents.
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I know you have a question.
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Please go ahead.
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I was just curious, Psalm 139.16 says, Your eyes saw me when I was formless.
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All my days were written in your book and planned before a single one of them began.
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Absolutely.
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We can put that with that? Yeah, I would, and I have.
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Because I tell people all the time, ultimately my life, the beginning and ending of my life is in the hands of God.
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Now are there things I can do to make my life longer? Well, some people might say if I ate a little better and lost a little bit of weight and exercised more doing pushups like my brother this morning, watching him knock him out like a beast.
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Yeah, maybe if I did a few more pushups I'd feel better.
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But at the same time, while that is true, that there are things I can do to make myself healthier, ultimately my life is in the hands of Almighty God and my days are fashioned before me before there ever was one.
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God had my days decided before I ever was created.
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So yeah, I would say Psalm 139 speaks to that specifically.
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Now I want to go a little further in Ephesians because I have a little extra time.
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Because it says this, He says, He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before Him.
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You see, God didn't just choose us for no reason.
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He chose us for the purpose and the purpose is holiness.
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God chooses us to be His Son's Bride and the Bride should be a pure Bride.
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The Bride should be a good Bride.
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The Bride should be a virtuous Bride.
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So when we get saved, we're not being saved simply so that we can walk around and puff out our chest and say, look at me, I'm saved.
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No, we're being saved to be made holy.
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There's purpose in it.
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But then, look at verse 9.
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Well, it's the same verse.
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Continuing in verse 4.
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That we should be holy and blameless before Him.
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Now, verse 5 should begin with the words, In love.
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But that's actually the last part of verse 4.
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But listen to this.
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In love He predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of His will.
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Alright.
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In love.
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That word should catch you right in your gut because a lot of people say, well, if God chooses, and I don't have any say in the matter, and I'm not contributing, and God chooses me and He doesn't choose somebody else, then that means God's just rolling the dice and whoever gets snake eyes gets to go to heaven.
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God's capricious and arbitrary.
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That's often the objection that's made.
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If God's not considering my contributions, then God must just be rolling the dice.
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But notice it doesn't say that.
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It says, In love He predestined us.
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Nobody ever loves, especially God, capriciously or arbitrarily.
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God loves according to His will.
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He chooses to love.
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Let me ask you this.
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Those of you who may have an issue with predestination, listen to this question.
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Don't answer.
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Just listen.
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Did God love Israel differently than He loved the other nations? And if you say no, I would point you to Amos 3.2 where He specifically says, You of all nations have I loved.
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So if God had the right to choose Israel and not choose the Assyrians or the Babylonians, if God had the right to choose Jacob but not Esau, who are we to say God doesn't have the right to choose us? You made a good point.
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You pointed out God's all-knowing ability because why would He have predestined certain people to be believers if that shows that He knew that Adam and Eve were going to eat from the tree before the world was done? Yep.
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There is a sense in which we have to go back to the beginning and know that everything has happened according to the decree of God.
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Everything.
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See, the one thing about Calvinism and that's what, if you want to label me, that's what I am.
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I have a radio show called Coffee with a Calvinist and I'm the Calvinist.
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So just in case you're wondering.
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Huh? Oh, you watch my show? That's my man right there.
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Coffee with a Calvinist, I don't care using that title because the issue is the question of do I believe that all things in the world happen according to the will of God or do I believe that all things in the world happen contrary to the will of God? Do I believe that God has a purpose and plan for all of history or do I believe that all of history is just spinning out in its own forces and its own direction or do I believe God is sovereign over all things? I believe this.
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I don't believe that there is one single molecule in the entire universe that is outside of God's command.
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Think about the book of Job.
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When Satan wanted to oppress Job, who did he have to have permission from? And what did God say? You can do this but not that.
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You can do this.
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What's that? You can do anything to him but don't touch him at first and then He said you can do anything but don't kill him.
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Yeah, but the point is He could only do what God decreed.
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He couldn't go beyond the decree of God.
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He couldn't do anything outside of what God, and people like to use the word allow.
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You can say allow if it makes you feel better.
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I say decree because He who is sovereign over all things decrees what will be and what will not be.
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Why does God know the future? Is it because He can see the future or because He has determined what it will be? Yeah, go back to the book of Isaiah and it tells us God has determined the end from the beginning.
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Go to the book of Acts and it talks about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
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It says evil men did what your purpose and plan predestined to take place.
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Yes sir? That was an issue I had with your brother brought up.
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If God knew that Adam and Eve was going to eat from the tree, He could have stopped them at any time and He would have never had to go through any sin and losing, putting Jesus to the cross and any of that would have never took place if He could have stopped them at any time.
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Sure, He could have.
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A couple things about that.
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Number one, the purpose and plan of God has always included the cross, so we could say that it was God's purpose for this to be as it is because God glorifies Himself in two ways.
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God glorifies Himself in the salvation of people.
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He also glorifies Himself in the destruction and the judgment of people.
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So you will glorify God in one of two ways.
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You will glorify God either by spending heaven with Him or you will glorify God burning in hell.
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But you will glorify God because one demonstrates His love and the other demonstrates His justice.
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And God is both loving and just.
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The same judge who lets one man go free and puts another man in the electric chair is just as righteous in one as He is in the other.
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And He is glorified in both because He is a good judge.
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Right? So, when we deal with the issue of predestination, we are in deep water.
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But I want to show you one last thing.
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You read into this text, it is clearly said that we are predestined.
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It is used the word predestination multiple times.
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It is used the word chosen multiple times.
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The object is always us.
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That is the key.
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And it is in Him because that is how we are chosen.
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We are chosen in Christ because you don't go to heaven not believing.
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You go to heaven believing.
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But turn with me now to Romans chapter 9.
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Because if there is a passage that is so clear, and I am going to tell you a story before we read this.
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Because I am out of time.
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Well, I got to go to work.
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But I will stay a little bit.
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But listen, I want to tell you a story.
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2001, planes hit the towers.
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I preached my first sermon on the Sunday after.
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The first Sunday after 9-11 was my first sermon.
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Our pastor had been in a car wreck.
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He couldn't stand up.
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Remember Darrell was in an accident.
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And so the elders came to me and they said, we need you to preach.
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We need somebody to preach.
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We know you believe in Jesus.
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We know you have been teaching our kids.
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I have been teaching Sunday school.
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Please preach for us.
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So I preached my first sermon on the Sunday after 9-11.
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It was then that I understood and realized what God had called me to do.
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God called me to preach.
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That Sunday, I knew that was when God had called me.
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I mean, that was it.
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Nothing else did I ever want to do after that.
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So the church helped me, paid for me to go to seminary.
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So I would go to seminary.
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I spent seven years in school, all the way through to my doctorate.
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While I was in seminary, I was told predestination is false.
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You shouldn't believe it.
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Calvinism kills churches.
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That's what I was told.
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This is by the seminary now.
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In 2004, I was asked to speak at a camp.
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So I went to the camp and as I was speaking, the leader of the camp, the guy who had orchestrated the event and put it on, he began to pull me off to the side.
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He went to the same seminary I did.
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He said, I know you probably don't believe in predestination, but I have come to believe in it because I believe it's what the Bible teaches.
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And I was really surprised.
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I mean, I almost was like, get behind me Satan.
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I was like, leave me alone.
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I don't want to hear this predestination stuff.
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But he said, this is all I want you to do.
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I want you to begin to read.
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And he began to give me, he said, I don't want you to read one verse.
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I don't want you to read two verses.
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I want you to read whole chapters.
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I want you to read John 6.
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I want you to read John 8.
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I want you to read John 10.
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I want you to read John 17.
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I want you to read Ephesians 1.
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I want you to read Romans 8, Romans 9, Romans 10, Romans 11.
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I want you to take another look at the Old Testament and how God treated Israel as opposed to how He treated all other nations.
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How He treated Abraham as opposed to how He treated all other men.
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And He said, I want you to really consider how God truly operates.
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So I went home and I began to devour my Bible in a way that I never had before.
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I was almost like I was wanting to prove Him wrong.
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Because again, the seminary...
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I wanted to be a pastor and the seminary told me, you preach this, you'll never get a job.
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Churches won't hire you if you're a Calvinist.
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I remember sitting in my living room.
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My wife was in the kitchen.
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We were in a little shotgun house.
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We lived over on Woodland Drive.
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And I was sitting on the couch.
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My wife was in the kitchen and I was reading.
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And I would stop reading.
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And I would say, hey baby, doesn't this sound like what Brother Jim believes? And I'd read her the text and she'd say, yeah.
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And I'd read a little further and I'd say, hey baby! Listen to this! And it was before long, I couldn't stop.
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I had to just take the Bible and read the whole chapter to her.
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I said, this is what the Bible teaches.
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And I know why men won't preach it.
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I know why men won't teach it.
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Because the average man in the average church cannot afford to give up his job.
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And people, when they preach the Word of God, do not want to hear it.
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And they will excommunicate them from their pulpits and they will fire them.
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And I've heard people tell me to my face, pastor, I know it's true.
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Other pastors have said to me, I know it's true, but I can't preach it.
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I'd lose my church.
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I'd lose my ministry.
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But the point I'm making is this is so hard that pastors won't often even deal with it.
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And I'm not condemning those men.
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I understand.
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My wife looked at me and she sometimes doesn't like me to tell this story, but I don't say this in any way to address her as being wrong or evil or anything.
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She was a young woman and I was a young man.
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I was 25 years old.
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And I said, baby, I am convinced that this is the truth.
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And she said, Keith, if you preach this, we won't have a church.
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You've been studying for years to preach.
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And if you say these things, we won't have a church to preach in.
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And I don't think any less of her for that because I know that her concern was for us and for the fact that we were looking forward to a life of ministry.
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And she knew this was going to be a dangerous thing.
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And I said, baby, I can only preach what the Word says.
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And we're going to have to trust God.
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And for the next two years, I preached.
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And I don't just walk out and say, today is predestination day, here we go.
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You know this because many of you have been in my church.
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I preach one verse at a time through the Bible.
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The same thing I do here on Thursdays with Galatians, I've been doing that in Genesis.
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Before that, I preached through the book of Acts, the book of Luke, the book of Hebrews.
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Hebrews took me three years.
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So I don't pick and choose and cherry pick what I'm preaching is my point.
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However, if you understand the sovereignty of God, it's on every page.
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And so the first two years of my preaching, a group of people in the church tried to have me fired.
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They started having private meetings in their homes because I was a Calvinist.
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By God's grace, I'm still there and they're gone.
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And God has sustained the ministry and I pray He'll continue to do so.
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And I don't say that to lift myself up or exalt myself at all.
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But the point of the matter is, this is not easy.
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And yes, I have had people abandon listening to me over it.
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But beginning in verse 6, I want you to read with me through Romans 9.
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And I'm going to make very few comments.
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Because the Word is what changed my heart.
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The Word is what helped me understand.
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The Word is what brought me to clarity.
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So just listen.
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The context of this is Paul is asking the question, what about the Jews? If Jesus came to save and the vast majority of people who are Jewish don't believe in Jesus, does that mean God has failed? That's the question.
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Has God failed because His people aren't saved? Listen to the answer.
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But it is not as though the Word of God has failed.
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For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel.
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And not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring.
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But through Isaac shall your offspring be named.
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This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of promise are counted as offspring.
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For this is what the promise says.
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About this time next year I will return and Sarah will have a son.
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And not only so, but also when Rebecca had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born, and had done nothing, either good or bad, in order that God's purpose of election might stand or continue.
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Not because of works, but because of His call.
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She was told the older will serve the younger.
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As it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.
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So what's the point? People are saying, the Jews aren't being saved.
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In fact, most of them are rejecting Christ.
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Does that mean God has failed? And the Apostle Paul says, no, God has not failed.
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Because it has never been God's purpose to save a whole nation of people, but it has always been God's purpose to save those whom He chooses.
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And how do we know that? Because first He chose Abraham.
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He chose him in Ur of the Chaldees.
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Out of all of His other family members, He chose him.
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And out of His children, He chose one, Isaac.
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Abraham had other kids.
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Abraham had Eleazar of Damascus, his adopted son.
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He had Ishmael, the son of the handmaiden.
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And after Sarah died, he had Kithorah, his second wife, out of whom they had many children.
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But only one was elect.
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Only one was the son of the promise, and that was Isaac.
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Was God unfair to choose only Isaac? No, because that was God's plan and God's purpose.
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And out of Isaac, two children came, Jacob and Esau.
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And one was chosen and one was not.
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And this is the point that Paul makes in this text.
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God chose them before they were born to demonstrate that He wasn't choosing them because they would do good or bad.
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In fact, if you look at Jacob and Esau, who was the bad one? Jacob was the liar.
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Jacob was the scoundrel.
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Jacob was the one who put hair on his arm and tried to fool his father.
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Jacob was the one whose own mother was involved in the fooling of her husband.
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Jacob was the one who had to run away from his brother's hatred.
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And yet, Jacob I loved and Esau I hated.
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I always tell people this.
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If you have a problem with that sentence, it should be with Jacob I loved, not with Esau I hated.
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The fact that God could hate a rebel sinner should be obvious.
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The fact that God could love a rebel sinner should be the part that makes us go, wow, that God would choose to love anyone.
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Understand this.
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The reason why I believe in election is because I believe in God's sovereign free grace to choose to love whom He wills.
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God has the choice.
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He does not have to love you, but He chooses to love you.
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You see, when God looked at a fallen humanity, He had three choices to make.
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He could have saved everyone.
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And He would have been righteous to do so.
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He would have chosen to save everyone.
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But He didn't do that.
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He could have chosen to save no one.
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And He would have been righteous to do that.
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He would have been righteous to let every one of us go to hell.
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But He didn't do that either.
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God in His mercy chose to save some.
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He didn't choose to save all.
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And He didn't choose to save none.
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Imagine this.
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Imagine a king.
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Imagine a king leaves his kingdom and while he is away, his kingdom rebels against his authority.
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The people who are under his rulership rebel against him and destroy his kingdom.
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And every one of them hates him.
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And every one of them rises up against him.
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And every one of them does not want his leadership and his rulership over them.
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And he returns.
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Is he obligated to save any of them? He could burn the whole place down.
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And no one would have any recourse.
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He would be righteous to destroy them all.
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But if He sent in His Son to save some of them, we would call that an act of pure mercy and amazing grace.
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And that's what God has done.
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God chose to save.
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And if you are saved today, you should say, Thank God for saving me.
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You should not look to your contribution, but you should say, Thank You for what You did for me.
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There's a lot more I could say, but I think I'll end there.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank You for Your Word.
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And I pray that we've been fair and right with it.
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I pray that these men would spend time in Romans 8 and 9, and that You would lead them to a right understanding of what it means to truly be called of God, made part of Your family, not by our doing, but by Your doing.
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In Jesus' name, Amen.