God's Decree and Man's Judgment

Yesterday, I posted a video on the YouTube channel, the 371st,

I think we ought to have a pizza party or something for number 400 when we get around to it. But the 371st video, a response to someone on YouTube in some prophecy channel or something, that he took a clip, a brief clip from the

Bible Answer Man broadcast and posted it in regards to one of the questions that had been asked of me by both the folks

I was debating at that time, and it had to do with the rape of children. It was one of those emotional things, trying to get your emotions going so you don't actually think very clearly in regards to God and His sovereignty over the universe.

I'm not going to repeat what I said on that. It's about a 25 -minute long video. You can watch that for yourself.

But I did want to address some further issues that sort of flow out from that, and in the process, respond to some questions that have been asked in other venues as well.

I'll try to use my time as best I can in providing a response to some of these questions.

And so we read in the Westminster Confession of Faith, God from all eternity did by the most wise and holy counsel of His own free will, of His own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass, that is, the fundamental assertion of the nature of God in regards to the

Reformed faith, of course. But it says, Yet so, as thereby, neither is God the author of sin.

This is where the issue is joined by most people, because they don't want to consider or really allow the issues of secondary causes to come into the picture.

If in God's decretive will, evil would exist, from their perspective, that makes

God the author of it. They don't seem to understand that God decrees to bring about those conditions whereby evil will certainly come into existence.

However, He is not the one who commits the acts of evil. He is the one that creates the conditions in which that evil will come into existence.

But He judges individuals based upon their desiring to do these things. His desire is bringing about His greater glory.

Their desire, of course, is their own personal promotion, fulfillment of lust, whatever. There's a myriad of human desires that are fulfilled in sin.

But when people go, Yeah, but that doesn't matter, because if God ordained that it would happen, then the person doing it is irrelevant.

Well, no, it's not irrelevant, especially when we emphasize, as I did in the video, given the biblical data, that in the one action of Joseph's brothers selling him to slavery, in Assyria coming against Israel, in the crucifixion of Jesus, and there are so many others that we could then expand that out to, in that one action, you have

God's just and holy desires being fulfilled, and then you have man's sinful desires being fulfilled, and God does not judge us based upon a presumed knowledge of His decrees.

The only way we know God's decrees is either by looking at the past, because that's always what happens, or by those few times when

God gives us the content of those decrees as they impact the future, hence prophecy and things like that.

But we do not have general access to the decrees of God.

We have His prescriptive will that has been revealed to us in Scripture, and we are held accountable for our obedience to that prescriptive will.

We are not judged on the basis of a knowledge of God's decrees, and that's important in recognizing that we don't know who the elect are, all those other things that flow from them.

As someone just pointed out well in Channel, Deuteronomy 29, 29, the secret things belong unto the

Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever that we may do all the words of this law, very, very important things to keep in mind.

But when we say that God is not the author of sin, one correspondent has asked, as He ordained the existence of evil and sin, how can

He not be considered on some level the creator of it at least indirectly? Well, in the sense that Scripture itself has

God saying in Isaiah, I have created light and darkness,

I have created shalom and raw, then in that overarching sense, yes, but the

Westminster Confession of Faith says author. And an author, that flows from that author's heart.

It reflects what that author is. Sin reflects the creature's rebellion against God.

And so when we talk about author of sin, we are talking about a first level source, not secondary sources or bringing secondary sources into existence that will certainly do

X, Y, or Z, Satan and demons or mankind or whatever else it might be. In the sense that God's a creator of everything, then any theistic system, unless you have a completely ignorant

God who has no knowledge of anything at all, would in some way, shape, or form have something to do with the existence of evil.

No matter what theistic system you have, you have to deal with that in some fashion. The Reformed person is saying, well, in God's divine decree, evil is to exist, yes, but that does not make

Him the author thereof. He is not the one committing it. He's not taking innocent human beings, putting a gun to their head, saying, do this or die.

That is what is being protected and what is being said. Another question, I understand the nature of second causes, but as He is the first cause, then how then is

He not the author? Well, again, because secondary causes do this on the basis of their own desire for rebellion,

God's purpose in all things is always holy and just, and in using those secondary causes,

He can do so perfectly because they likewise are condemned sinners. Any extension of grace to them, any time that they have in existence after, really after the fall of Adam, given the federal representation of mankind in Adam, is an extension of God's grace.

And so I think recognizing the difference between first and secondary causes and what author means is relevant there.

Since God is able to stop the evil and not only chooses not to in many cases, but even more

He decrees the evil, enabling it to happen. I'm not sure I'd go there. How is God not considered at the very least an accessory before and during the fact and therefore culpable along with man who pulls the trigger?

Well, again, I think that God actually does restrain the vast amount of man's evil.

As we discussed last time, I think that mankind in hell is the perfect example of what happens when that restraint is removed from man and he is allowed to sin as he sees fit without any restraint.

So when it says decrees the evil, enabling it to happen, the only way

I can understand that is that He brought creation into existence. If He didn't bring creation into existence, then evil could not be enabled to happen.

So I'm really not certain of exactly what that means. But how is God not considered at the very least an accessory before and during the fact?

He's the judge, that's why. And He determines the categories in which judgment is going to take place.

And He has said that His intentions and His purposes are always just, holy, and righteous, and they are.

And we see that in the examples given to us in Scripture. And we see that He restrains evil. Remember the story in Genesis 20 where He withholds the king from committing evil.

We know that the Holy Spirit is involved in doing this and using the law to curb men's evil in many ways.

But even more than that, the important thing is to keep in mind is that the arena of judgment that God has created,

He is the creator of this universe, He has the right to determine the categories in which things happen, it's not a matter of our laws or anything like that being applied to God, that He has decreed that the arena in which judgment is to happen is that regarding our desires, what we do and why we do it.

While mankind, it's dangerous, very dangerous, to give to mankind the right to, shall we say, re -hearts and minds, that's what these hate crimes laws are all about.

We can't see into the hearts and minds of men, God can see into the hearts and minds of men perfectly, and in the judgment

He will demonstrate. This will be part of what the judgment is all about, it's a demonstration that in every action

He was righteous and just in what He did, and mankind was not. The Westminster Confession goes on to say, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures.

This of course is where the Westminster Confession is asserting that God is not taking innocent people who desire to do good, who want to turn to God, or do not want to do evil and He forces them to do evil.

This is in no way, shape or form the case, even in fact, regeneration itself. When people like Norm Geisler and others, who we'll be listening to later in the program today, complain, and in some senses mock, the biblical representation of the regeneration of the heart of man, raising man to life, freeing him from the bondage to sin.

They say, well, God's saving you against your will, He's forcing you to do something against your will.

We actually have been enslaved to sin. It is a freeing of man from those bonds, a resurrection to spiritual life that is actually being discussed there.

That is not doing violence to the will of the creature by changing his nature.

The will decides based upon the choices presented to it by the nature. To change that nature, of course, is what the

Holy Spirit of God does in regeneration. But in reaction to that line from the

Westminster Confession, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures. But if the individual is persuaded by irresistible means, i .e.,

God's decree, man's own intellection, limitations, parental training, habits, and the power of sin, how is this much different?

Well, of course, that whole list of things are all completely different from one another. And I don't understand individuals persuaded by irresistible means.

I don't know what that means. And none of those would in any way violate what the

Westminster Confession says, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures. This is not a situation where some innocent person, as if such an innocent person existed, is being forced to do something against his or her desire at that point.

In fact, I think the only argument you might make about violence being offered to the creatures is how many times

God restrains evil. And I guess you might make an argument at that point. It continues on saying man is acting with the consent of his will, but how could he act otherwise as all the conditions were to lead him to act in accordance with what

God had already determined? That's not the point. The point is that he's acting in accordance with his will.

That's what his heart desires. The other possibility is, well, there just has to be libertarianism.

There can be no divine decree. God cannot know the future. Really, there can be no theism at this point.

And God has no right to determine that the realm of judgment is going to be the realm of judgment that is, in fact, within temporal constraints within time.

And man is to be judged on the basis of his response to that revelation

God has made of his law within man's heart and externally in the Word of God.

That's simply God's right to do that. That's how he's set it up. I don't know if there's anything more to be offered than that in answer to that question.

It says, how is this ultimately different from a fatalistic or mechanistic view of reality in man's will? Because God is personal.

He is accomplishing his personal will, and that is his decree in glorifying himself, and that the creatures that are involved in so doing act upon their desires, and they do so under his decree.

And he glorifies himself in saving a particular people unto his own glory and for his own purposes.

And the Westminster Confession goes on to say, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but in order, but rather established.

The questioner says, in other words, man's free will is limited or contingent upon God's decree. Well, everything is contingent upon God's decree.

It is God's decree that man will function in this way, and therefore Satan cannot, for example, take away those faculties and turn him into a mere robot.

He certainly, as a fallen creature and as a rebel, is limited in comparison to Adam at that point.

But still, it is God's decree that keeps man from ceasing to be human and ceasing to have the imago dei, the image of God.

Then the Westminster says, although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass upon all conditions, yet hath he not decreed anything because he foresaw his future, or that which would come to pass upon such conditions, which, interestingly enough, would be a repudiation of Molinism.

In other words, God has chosen what will happen based purely upon reasons sufficient to himself and not based upon anything independent or outside of himself, i .e.,

man's will. And yes, that would be the case. Man's will is a part of that decree.

And again, man is only judged within the temporal realm, not in the realm of having knowledge of God's existence.

Just a couple other questions in regards to this perspective. One question was asked. God certainly has the right to create something and then to destroy something,

Romans 9, 20 -21. However, when it comes to the issues of blame and punishment, it appears to human reason unfair to blame or punish someone for doing something if that person is, quote, unable, end quote, to do otherwise.

What am I not understanding here? Well, again, God has not taken away man's ability to act in a righteous fashion.

That is a part of his fallen Adam. This is primarily an argument against federalism and against God's dealing with man in a federal fashion, i .e.,

dealing with man as the fallen children of Adam. And then positively dealing with men as they are united with Christ, and Christ then becomes their head, so his righteousness is their righteousness, etc.,

etc. Again, the issue is blame and punishment is based upon the desires of the heart.

No one has desired to not do these things. And so that's where the judgment comes in, not based upon, well, you know, since they've fallen in Adam and they've become enemies of God and they're no longer capable of doing spiritual good because they have spiritually died, therefore they can't be blamed anymore.

And that's like saying the person who has, you know, drunk himself into a stupor can no longer be blamed for what he does when he's in a drunken stupor.

Well, our law says, no, this is the realm in which a person is to be judged. And if you've put yourself in that position and you then lose your faculties or control of your faculties, you're driving a car and running into somebody, we're still going to blame you for that despite the pre -existing condition of your drunkenness.

One more question. As you can tell, we've got one call on hold and lots of other things to deal with today, so I'm talking really, really fast, but you can always slow the recording down if you want to.

Second question, how does our will even work? Understanding that it is voluntary, spontaneous, contingent, yet not indifferent, since it is not free to determine itself from an extra -volitional vantage point, and since God's decreed will cannot be thwarted.

Ahab was persuaded even after God's revelation. Judas also was warned in a similar way, and yet was possessed by Satan and betrayed

Jesus anyway. I'm not fully following the question.

There's far better discussion of the functioning of the will of man than I can give you. In Jonathan Edwards, he went about as fully into that as I think you can, if you go that direction.

But again, the point is, the will functions on the basis of the desires presented to it by the nature of man, and as such, that then becomes the realm in which judgment takes place, acting upon our desires and what our heart wants to do.

I'm not exactly certain, I mean certainly, in regards to Judas. I don't know what it is about Judas that a lot of people just really get very uptight about, but there's a lot of folks that are pro -Judas.

They want to make sure Judas gets a fair shake, you know. And I guess it is part of the humanism of our day that people would be so focused upon quote -unquote individual rights,

I'm not talking about this particular email, but so focused upon individual rights that you can take someone like Judas, who is a sinner, who is rightly under the wrath of God, and be more concerned about the will of man, more concerned about his quote -unquote being treated justly, than the role that by divine decree, he is to take and bring about the greatest act of redemption in the crucifixion of the

Son of God. It is amazing to me how many people just, oh, you know, it's got to be,

I don't like this stuff about the Son of Perdition, you know, and you're just like, wow, this is,

I really think this is primarily a modern Western thing. I don't think the people of the ancient world, who had a much more holistic view of man, and a much less individualistic view of man, would have ever even understood what those complaints are about, to be perfectly honest with you,

I think they would have gone, what are you folks talking about? And finally, the question is asked, how will

Christians be judged differently than unbelievers, yet still responsible for every thought, word, and deed? Well, Christians are judged regarding their sins in Christ.

That is a past tense reality, and so the judgment of the Christian is in regards to our utilization of the gifts and the blessings that God has given to us, and it is a very different judgment than the unbeliever, who is standing there responsible for his sins.

We have had a sin bearer who has borne our sins, and that is not the same situation as the unbeliever, so there's a major difference between those.