Bonus: Superintending the Solution to Calvinism vs. Arminianism, What We Believe, Part 27

Welcome to another edition of the Rap Report. I'm your host, Andrew Rapoport, the president of Striving for Eternity and the

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What I want to do this episode is a little bit different. I'm taking a little bit, kind of a break, not really.

We are in our section of our doctrinal statement on regeneration. We started this last episode and we'll continue it next episode is the plan, but as we're looking at this, when we talk about regeneration,

I just felt the need to do something kind of like a bonus episode for you. I wanted to do something and pull out of the discussion of regeneration one doctrine of superintending.

I mentioned this before in the last episode, mentioned it actually throughout, because this is a very important doctrine that we must understand when it comes to regeneration, especially if you deal with the debates between Calvinism and Arminianism.

I think that this doctrine solves the discussion. It is the thing that resolves the issue.

It becomes very important for us to really understand what is going on.

I wanted to pull this out, even though we have it in the episode on regeneration. I want to pull this out so that this episode is one that would be more shareable because this issue has helped so many people see and understand what the issues are and how to resolve them.

I felt that it would be good to do a separate podcast just on this doctrine of superintending so that it would be something that you can not only learn from but share with others because I hope that this would be helpful for everybody.

Let's start with what the problem is. Let's talk about the debate on Calvinism and Arminianism in its basic form and then build up to where it gets more of an issue.

In its basic form, the debate over Calvinism and Arminianism is who chooses who.

Does God choose man and therefore man believes? The way that many will think of it logically, we dealt with this last episode logically, not chronologically, but logically to say that God chose man, therefore

God regenerates man and then man will believe in God.

Regeneration would occur first. The idea of this is that we would see in the passage in Ephesians that God elected or chose before the foundation of the world.

He elected us. This is where we get the word election from and that's a doctrine within Calvinism that would teach that God chose who was going to be saved before the foundational world.

Now, this is known as predestination and within Calvinism is the idea of double predestination where God chose some to go to heaven and others to go to hell and that is a major issue that a lot of people have debate over because they don't think of God as one who's picking people randomly to pick some to go to heaven and some to go to hell, that God is not just damning people to hell.

They have no choice. And that's the issue, the choice issue, because there's a lot of scriptures that clearly indicate that we have a choice and people will turn to those.

And so as we look at that, we have to see where the challenge is, where the debate is on this, and that's where you end up finding it because why do people have such an issue of election, predestination?

Because of the choice issue. Now, I'm going to say that when God speaks of predestination and election, it's often that he's doing it to emphasize the fact that you and I had nothing to do with our salvation.

That's important. What does he say that he elected us before the foundation of the world?

Because is there any stronger way for God to say you had nothing to do with your salvation?

No, there's no stronger way. And even those that would say they're not Calvinist or they're Arminian tend to agree with that statement that God did the work in salvation and we had nothing to do with it.

And so they don't debate that. So where is the debate? Well, it comes down to the choice.

Now the Arminian would end up saying that what you end up seeing is that God chose, sorry, that man chose to repent and in their repentance, that belief that they have, because they believe in God, they make a choice to believe in him, therefore they repent and the natural result of repentance is that God would regenerate them.

Now, again, chronologically, we talked about this in the last episode, but chronologically, no, but in a logical way, there's people that say, well, see, this is how it would flow.

Now both logically have arguments, but those arguments become chronological and that's where we end up in trouble.

Why? Well, if it's a chronological thing, the question that I asked my co -host

Kofi last episode is can you have a regenerate unbeliever?

And he realized, no, you can't. You can't be a regenerate person, but not believing in Christ.

Okay, good. Can you be a regenerate unbeliever? So sorry, a unregenerate believer, sorry.

The answer still is no. You can't be a regenerate unbeliever and you can't be a unregenerate believer.

You can't be someone who is unregenerate, but believing in Christ. You can't be someone who's regenerate and not believing in Christ.

And I would say, and I said in the episode, I got that argument, I think it was from Christopher Love, one of the

Puritans, but I would say that therefore the only argument we can make is that this is simultaneous.

That choosing to believe that repentance, both are together. Now, I can support this in scripture, and I think one of the ones that we end up seeing is

Philippians 1 .29, because in Philippians 1 .29, it's the last verse of Philippians chapter 1, and it says, speaking of the suffering, if Paul's writing to their suffering, he basically ends up pointing out to that their salvation is given to them just as their suffering.

It says the fact that we are suffering is appointed by God, that his whole argument is that this is coming from God, that we suffer because that is what

God's will is. But he brings into this our belief, he says, for it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ, you should not only believe in him, but also suffer for his sake.

And actually, sorry, it was the second to last verse of chapter 1. So what he's saying there is that it is granted, it's given to you to believe.

So your belief, according to that verse, is not your own. God gave it to you, and you go, but wait,

I believed. This is the struggle. So if I look at this theologically,

I have to say, God chose me. But if I look at this experientially, well,

I chose God. I mean, what did I experience? I know that when I came to repentance, when I became a

Christian, I believed in God. I chose to believe in God. And after that,

I was a changed person. So my experience would say that I chose to believe in God, and then he regenerated me.

That would be chronologically or experientially how I felt.

Notice what I said, felt. But experientially has to be compared with theologically.

Theologically, I look at a passage like this and say that God granted to me my belief.

He gave it to me. Therefore I can't claim it of my own. Well, how do I reconcile those? Well, we're going to get to that in the doctrine of superintending, but I want to continue on our path of where these struggles lie.

Now, many people will say, well, yes, I can believe in most of the five points of Calvinism.

You see this pretty commonly. It's a misnomer to say that people are either Calvinist or Arminian, because I know very, very few

Arminians, but I know many, many, many that don't hold to Calvinism. You say, well, wait, why is that?

Because there's a third option. It's actually a logical fallacy to say that someone has to be

Calvinist or Arminian. I remember being in a church where one of the deacons, we went to,

I want to say a Ligonier conference, but I don't think it was, but we went to a conference and the question that someone gave to me, he said that I needed to go to one of the breakout sessions on Calvinism or Arminianism because I wouldn't say that I'm a

Calvinist. He says, you should go. I said, why should I go? He goes, because you're an Arminian.

I said, well, what in my theology is Arminian? He said, well, you're not Calvinist. I said, that's not the question.

What in my theology is Arminian? And he was like, well, I don't know. And I realized then, he really doesn't know what the issues are between Calvinism or Arminianism.

What he does know is that there's only those two. And I had to explain to this deacon, this fallacy of what's called the excluded middle, or sometimes referred to as the

AB fallacy. The fallacy of the excluded middle is the idea that you give A or B as if there's no other option like C.

And C is actually a very popular option. Most people in evangelical Christianity, if you actually dig into it, would be kind of what's known as a four -point

Calvinist. They agree with all the points except one. There's one that's a sticking point, and the sticking point is, who did

Christ die for on the cross? Because the argument, again, this comes down to experience versus theology.

And so we have to look at this and say, okay, what are we dealing with?

The argument goes like this. This is what's known as limited atonement. Now I know very few people that believe in an unlimited atonement.

What do I mean by that? Well, unlimited atonement, truthfully, would be universalism. That Christ paid the price for all people, and therefore all people are going to heaven.

That would be really an unlimited atonement or universalism. The idea that Christ's death on the cross was applied to everybody,

I'm being precise in wording there, applied. So the way that that ends up going is the argument becomes one of looking at this to say, well, if God is, remember

I talked about double predestination, that God chooses some to go to heaven, chooses others to go to hell.

And by the way, that was not actually taught by Calvin or in his writings. That was one of his followers. And that in itself is a logical, not theological, understanding.

The logical understanding, well, if God chose some to go to heaven, it means he passed over others.

He must have damned them to go to hell. The problem I see with that doctrine is the fact that we're already on our way to hell.

If God does nothing in the life of every human being, every single human being rightly deserves to go to hell.

That is the place that everyone deserves. So if God does nothing, that's what we deserve.

However, God does do something with some. Why? Because it brings him glory. And so what we see is

God is not responsible for damning people. That's the curse. If you want to blame someone, blame

Adam, because he's the one that brought the curse of sin on humanity. So when we look at this issue of limited atonement, some will look at this doctrine of double predestination and view that and say, well, since God is damning people, it must mean that he doesn't give them any choice for having an atonement.

And they look at so many scriptures that say whosoever believes and things like that and say, well, that must mean that there's a way of having people choose.

Well that becomes the issue, because the Calvinist is going to look at this and say, well,

Christ died on the cross, and therefore at the cross is when the payment was made.

This may be, I hope, not a surprise to folks, but it's at the cross when your payment was made, not when you believed.

This is a big difference, because this shows, well, for one thing, you can't lose your salvation. That's one of those five points, the last one,

P, for perseverance of the saints. You can't lose that. Why? Because all of our sin was post -cross.

In Colossians 2 .13 it says, and you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcised of your flesh,

God made alive with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses.

So he forgave us all. When did he forgive us all? Did he forgive us all when we repented?

That would be what Islam teaches, that when you say the prayer that makes you a Muslim in front of witnesses, when you say that and do that, all of your past sins are forgiven.

Now you got to account for the future ones. That's the way that many Christians act as if it is, but that's not what scripture says.

Let's continue reading in verse 14. So he's forgiven us all our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.

This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. So at the cross is when we were forgiven of all our sin.

Name a sin you commit that's pre -cross. You see, it's all post -cross. And he's saying he forgave all of them, that punishment was paid at the cross.

So all of our sin, if we're a believer, has been forgiven. There's nothing, no sin as a believer that hasn't been forgiven.

But you say, but wait, I haven't committed that sin. And there's the dilemma, because God doesn't think like us.

Let me reverse that to say it properly. We don't think like God. Wait, let me correct that. God doesn't think, he knows.

Catch the difference there. God knows all things, and you and I think things.

In other words, you and I see things, observe things, and respond to those things, and that is the way we think.

That's our thinking process. God doesn't think. He never had a bright idea in his life, because he just knows.

You and I cannot fathom that. We can't understand that. And so when we think about that, it becomes difficult.

And so this is where the two areas I see the big debate on choosing, and who chose who, and I think that leads to this idea of who did

Christ die for. Those are the two areas that there is debate in this. And therefore, let me try to resolve those.

And I think they're resolved in the doctrine of superintending. So I want to define this, explain it, and then go through some scriptures so that we can examine them.

So this is going to be one of those episodes that you're going to want to have a Bible with you, because we are going to look at some scripture, and it is going to be helpful for you.

So as we do, let's first define this doctrine that I'm referring to.

And then we're going to come back to those two issues and see how it resolves. So let's start with a definition.

What is the doctrine of superintending? Superintending is this doctrine that we first see when it comes to the inspiration of scripture.

And so if you remember way back when, when we started this series on what we believe, which is something that you can go, we didn't read through it this episode, but you can go to the strivingforeturning .org,

go to the about section and look up what we believe. And in that section, you will see our doctrinal statement.

That's what we're doing in this series. Not only going through kind of a systematic theology, but explaining the doctrinal statement, what it says, what it doesn't say, all that is within there, because that becomes very important for us to know why we believe what we believe.

And so we've been doing this, oh my, I think for a year. So you could go through, and we're many episodes in on this, and so you could go back to episode one and see all the episodes that we've done through this.

And it'll be helpful for you to do that in order, to go through from the very first episode in the series and look at all of these, because picking up in the middle is kind of hard.

This actually is episode 27 in a series. And so you missed 26 things that built up to this.

But if you go back to those earlier ones in the doctrinal statement, under the idea of inspiration,

I wrote this, the Bible is inspired by God. Inspiration is that supernatural work of the

Holy Spirit in which he super intends, controlled and directed, the reception, to the writers, and communication, to the hearers and readers, close parentheses, of the divine message of mankind, such that the product, open parentheses, the original writings, close parentheses, is verbally, open parentheses, every word, close parentheses, and plenary, open parentheses, meaning completely, close parentheses, both inerrant, open parentheses, without error, close parentheses, and authoritative.

Boy, that's a big statement, but that is the power of it. So superintending there, I'm just saying, is controlled and directed.

What does that mean? I want to dig in deeper, and I did that in that episode, I think episode 2, maybe 3.

But what I want to dig into is what this means. So the idea of superintending is the doctrine that God worked through the human authors in such a way that they chose of their own volition to write the things they wrote, but every letter that they wrote is exactly as God intended it to be.

Why do I say every letter? Because we'll see arguments that Paul will make about, basically plural versus singular, seed versus seeds.

So he's going to refer back to an Old Testament writer and make the argument based on one letter, on whether it's plural or not.

So we end up seeing things like that. So what we're saying when we say superintending is that God works through the human, so that the choice that they made in what they wrote is exactly as God intended it to be.

So Paul writes very different than Peter, who writes very different than John, who writes very different than Moses, who writes different than Samuel.

They have a different writing style, they bring out their own personality sometimes. Paul will say to Titus or to Timothy, hey bring my cloak, it's going to be cold, bring my books.

He's going to have personal appeals, and yet it's exactly as God intended it to be, such that God gets all the credit and man gets none.

So we say it's God's word, not Paul's word and Peter's word, no, it's

God's word because he works through the human author in such a way that every word, every letter that the author chose to do was as God intended it to be.

So when we look at the scriptures, we could say who chose. Now we end up thinking there's got to be a cause and effect, and you can't have two causes to one effect.

Well that may be in the human realm, but maybe not in the divine realm, because what we see in the doctrine of superintending is that God didn't dictate to Paul what to write, and he didn't inspire the writers themselves so that they're something special.

How do we know that? Well Paul wrote several letters to Corinthians, at least three, and I believe four letters to Corinth, and yet only two of them are inspired.

Only two of them were recognized at the time to be God's word, and so there's a difference there.

And even Peter recognized the writings of Paul at that time to be inspired scripture.

He calls it scripture. So when we look at that, it can't be that the writers themselves are inspired, and yet we see there's personality differences, so it wouldn't be that he dictated, so what did

God do? The doctrine of superintending is the solution to the dilemma, that God worked through the writers in such a way that even though they chose of their own volition, they chose.

But they chose what God already chose. Now we say already, and that's a problem, because God is infinite.

He's infinite when it comes to time. It means he's eternal. He's outside of time.

That is important to understand. If you take my class on Systematic Theology at our academy, the

Striving Fraternity Academy, just go to strivingfraternity .org and go to the academy or go to strivingfraternityacademy .org,

but you can see the free course we have on Systematic Theology, like 80 lessons.

And as you look at that, I go into the attributes of God and explain this in detail, why it's so important to understand that God is eternal and God is omniscient.

God did not need to see what Paul was going to write to make that his word. And yet before Paul was born,

God knew what he would write, because he knows all things. But we can't make the mistake of thinking that for God, there is this progression of chronological order.

For us, there is. But not for God, because he created the time -space -matter continuum, and therefore,

I would say he's outside of time. If he's outside of time, he's not bound by it the way you and I are.

He can work within time, but he's not bound by it. And therefore, we have to always remember that when we say these things and we're speaking about God, it is going to be different.

It is going to be something that God is not like us, he's wholly other than us.

And so we tend to use words that make it sound like God is like us, and we have to be careful with that.

And God speaks to us with things using words, like he chose before the foundation of the world, because we can't comprehend what it's like to be all -knowing and eternal.

We just can't think that way. And so he uses words to make it evident that we do nothing to save ourselves.

So when we look at that, and we come to this choosing of the words,

God did not in time choose the words that Paul would write down.

He always knew them. So to Paul, it was chronological, but not to God. And that becomes very important, because that is where we have the difference between experiential and theological.

Experientially, Paul felt he was writing. He wrote one of the letters to Corinth that he thought no different than writing the second letter to Corinth.

Well, he actually didn't write, he had someone else write, and he dictated. But either way, it was his words.

He chose what words would be written down. And in doing so, we end up seeing that that was chronological and experiential to Paul.

But God, who's working outside of time, was working through Paul. So Paul would choose the words that God would have to be inspired scripture in one letter of Corinth to the

Corinthians, and not the other. So who gets all the credit? Well, God does. Can we claim that these are

Paul's words? Yeah, in a sense. Paul wrote them or spoke them, and he did choose those words, but they aren't his words.

I'm spending this time in this doctrine of inspiration because people don't debate this doctrine of superintending when it comes to the issue of inspiration of scripture.

And some of you are already clicking with this. You're already seeing where I'm going to go, but let's continue. We see the doctrine of superintending in another area.

Another area of scripture where we see this doctrine applied is in the area of sanctification.

So you're a believer. Do you do good works? Now, some of you are thinking this is a trick question, because if I had asked you who wrote

Romans, you would have said Paul, but then I would say, really, think about it and say, oh, yeah,

God. So if I say, do you do good works? After discussing the inspiration of scripture, you go, well, yeah,

I mean, experientially, I know that I choose to do good works. But then you catch yourself and go, wait, but James says all good works come from God, from heaven.

So do I really do good works? Huh? Well, no. God does them in me. And this is another area we see this doctrine of superintending.

We see that God does the good work within us. Even though we choose, God does this work in us so that we choose to do good works, but it's exactly as God intended it to be, such that we can't take any credit for it.

God gets all the credit. And so we see this doctrine applied in inspiration.

We see this doctrine applied in sanctification. Before we apply this to regeneration, let me just deal with some scriptures.

Let's go through the scriptures. One of the clearest, I think, that we would see this doctrine of superintending. Genesis chapter 50.

You know the account. This is where Joseph, his father has died.

His brothers are going, hey, we sold Joseph as a slave. His dad, their dad's now died.

And they're afraid maybe Joseph kept us alive because Joseph is now second in command in the

Egyptian empire. These brothers are now at the will of Joseph.

Joseph could command them to be killed and no one's going to bat an eye. They're nervous.

So they come up with a plan. How do they get out of it? Well, let's start in verse 15 so we get context.

But you're going to see that the answer is later. So let's start in verse 15.

When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, it may be that Joseph will hate us and pay us back for all the evil we did to him.

So they sent a message to Joseph saying, your father gave this command before he died.

Now let me stop there and just say, the way this is worded, I believe that they made this up.

I don't believe that their father gave this command. I think that they're making it up just based on the context.

Let's continue. Verse 17. What did they say? Say to Joseph, please forgive the transgressions of your brothers and their sin because they did evil to you.

And now please forgive their transgression and several servants of the

God of your father. Joseph weeped when they spoke to him. Now let me stop there and just say that I think that this indicates that Joseph's father knew what the brothers did to him.

I think there had to be some explanation over the years. Scripture doesn't show that that happened, but I believe it did.

I believe this gives some context to say that that's probably a reasonable argument. So what was

Joseph's response? Let us look. Verse 18. His brothers also came and fell before him and said, behold, we are your servants.

And now we get verse 19 and this is the key to this doctrine of superintending. So hear it carefully.

But Joseph said to them, do not fear for am I in the place of God?

This next verse, verse 20 is the verse that explains it. As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good to bring about that many people should be kept alive as they are today.

So do not fear. I will provide for you and your little ones. Thus be comforted and speak kindly to them.

So verse 20 is the key there. What they meant for evil, God meant for good.

What they meant for evil, God brought about to fulfill his will and keep people alive.

This is also known as the doctrine of concurrence. The doctrine of concurrence is this idea that what men can do for evil,

God could use for good. And we see this here in Joseph. This is also the doctrine of superintending that when these men chose to do evil, they chose to do evil.

It was as God intended to bring about the salvation of the people of Israel. Think about that.

Now, does that mean God chose evil? No. Did that mean that God forced evil or created the evil?

No, they chose. They're responsible for their choice. We're responsible for our choices, even though God worked through them.

So the choices they made were exactly as God intended it to be. Now, that is the strongest and one of,

I would say, the best scripture we could look at for superintending. But there's more.

Lest you think. There's only one passage of scripture, and there's actually more. We're going to look at only four.

Let's look at Judges chapter 14, and this is dealing with Samson's choice for a wife.

He's going to choose a wife, but that choice, even though it was a sinful choice, was exactly what

God intended to happen. So what you end up seeing is that ultimately, we give credit to God, even for his bad choices, because that brought about his will, without inflicting upon God sin.

That's the thing. So I'm trying to show how this plays out in both ways. Now, what we typically will say when it comes to things like the choice of Joseph's brothers, and in this case,

Samson, that this is the doctrine of concurrence. And so the difference that some will make in the precision of the doctrine of concurrence in superintending is that the doctrine of concurrence is specifically

God working through people such that their evil choices bring about the will of God.

But it's the same notion here, and that's why I'm bringing it up. Because it is that same working through humans.

The difference with superintending and doctrine of concurrence, if we want to have a precision between them, would be that the superintending

God gets all the credit. With the doctrine of concurrence, God gets none of the blame.

And that would be a distinction you can have between them. But the idea that's behind both of them is the important thing that we need to bring out, which is that God is working through human choices.

That's the important thing that we want to look at. So, let's look, Samson, Judges 14, the first four verses.

Samson went down to Timnah, and at Timnah he saw that one of the daughters of the Philistines, then he came up and told his father and mother,

I saw one of the daughters of the Philistines at Timnah. Now, get her for me as a wife.

Now, I'm going to stop there and just say, why does he tell his parents? Because marriages were arranged back then.

So, the parents had to arrange that marriage. He couldn't just choose a wife. Verse 3. But his father and mother said to him, this is not a woman among the daughters of your relatives or among all our people that you must not go and take a wife from the uncircumcised

Philistines. But Samson said to his father, get her for me, for she is right in my eyes.

I'm going to stop there and say, do you see the choice? He's making that choice. Verse 4. His father and mother did not know it was from the

Lord, for he was seeking an opportunity against the Philistines. At that time, the

Philistines ruled over Israel. So, you see, the mother and father are trying to say, don't do this, son.

This is not right. This is against what God has commanded in Scripture.

And yet, what you end up seeing is it was actually from the Lord. God was working through Samson, so the choices he made, even though there are sinful choices, wrong choices,

God is going to use that to bring about his will. So, again, the doctrine of concurrence in its precision.

Let's look at another. This is 1 Samuel 2 .25. 1 Samuel 2 .25 gives you some time to turn there, but God wants

Eli's sons to die, and for that reason, they won't listen to Eli.

Thus, it was God that caused them not to listen, because that was his will.

So, that's what we're going to think about here. So, let's look at what it says in 1 Samuel 2 .25. If someone sins against a man,

God will mediate for him. But if someone sins against the

Lord, who will mediate for him? But they will not listen to the voice of their father, for it was the will of the

Lord to put them to death. So, what you end up seeing is Eli is rebuking his sons, and they're not listening to his father.

And he wants them to repent and do what's right, but they can't.

Why? The scripture says they can't because it's the will of God.

It's the will of the Lord to put them to death, therefore, they will not listen to the voice of their father. And you say, but that's their choice not to listen.

Right. It's their choice. You see this dilemma that we saw earlier when we talked about Calvinism, Arminianism, and the struggle with choice.

We could look at this and say, well, God, as an Arminian view, would look at this and say, well, God is forcing them not to listen.

I mean, that's what it looks like. It says, but they would not listen to the voice of their father, for it was the will of the

Lord to put them to death. And yet, we also know it was their choice. How do we satisfy that? Well, again, we see the doctrine of concurrence here, but we see

God working through their choices in such a way that though they chose not to listen to the voice of their father, they were choosing exactly what was

God's will. And so we see it again. One more for you, and then we're going to start wrapping this up.

I know. You're saying like 40 minutes in and you're just getting done with the introduction. Yes, but I'm building this up because I want to make sure this is really, really clear to you because this is something

I really want this episode to be one that you share with people that disagree with you on the

Calvinism, Arminianism debate. Notice I didn't say which side you're on, because I believe everyone's kind of on the same side for the most part, and it's very little we're actually debating over.

We're debating over human thinking and not divine thinking. That's really what I think it comes down to. One more.

1 Kings chapter 12, verse 15 is going to be the important one, but let me give the context here.

This is where Rehoboam is choosing to take the advice of his young men. And what's that advice?

You end up having Rehoboam, who is the son of Solomon. Solomon dies.

Rehoboam becomes king and he goes and the people come to him and say, please, your father was so hard on us.

Lighten the load. And he goes to the older men, the counselors that were his fathers and said, what should

I do? And they say, if you show leniency, they will be your people forever.

But he goes to his young counselors, the young men, his friends, and get counselors, what do you say?

And they say, you should say, man, my little pinky is going to be heavier than my father's thigh.

In other words, you thought you had a heavy load before. I'm going to give you such a heavier load.

You're going to wish for my father, essentially. Not good advice. Young men did not give him good advice, but they felt entitled.

And this really is the difference of advice between an entitlement mentality and someone that appreciates and is grateful for all they have.

So what we see is as he takes the advice of the young men, we see this in verse 15.

So the king did not listen to the people for it was a turn of affairs brought about by the

Lord that he might fulfill his word, which he spoke by Elijah, Elijah, the

Sidonite to Jeroboam, the son of Nabat. So what we saw earlier in Kings in first Kings is the fact that Jeroboam was told by a prophet of God that he will reign over 10 of the tribes of Israel.

So much so that he ended up fearing for his life with Solomon had to flee to Egypt. Solomon knew that God split the kingdom in two, and there would be a tribe of 10 in the northern tribe and a tribe of Judah in the southern tribe that was prophesied by God in time.

But what does it say here that this was brought about? So Rehoboam's choice to follow the unwise counsel of the young men, that came about because that was the will of God.

God brought it about. How did he brought it about? Again, the doctrine of concurrence, the same notion that's in the doctrine of superintending, that God works through the choices of people.

Okay, is it sinking in now? Is this sinking in that we see that theologically, we see biblically that God works within people so that the choices they make

God can work in so that the choices they make either God gets all the credit or none of the blame, depending on whether it was something sinful or not.

But the essential point being that though these individuals, each one of them, they made a choice, we see that their choice was as God wills.

So now, after 45 minutes or so, let's wrap this up and see how this resolves the issues.

So what we end up seeing here as we apply it now to regeneration and this whole issue of belief, did

I believe in Christ and repent to later be regenerated?

Or did God believe in me, choose me, so that I would be, based on what his choice, be regenerated and then

I would believe? Which is it? Well, I would say it's simultaneous. I would say that God worked through me such that my choice to believe was exactly as God intended it, such that God gets 100 % of the credit and I get none.

That becomes the way to resolve the issue of the belief, which is where the major issue is.

The biggest issue we see is in the issue of choice. Who chose first?

And I say yes, both, because it was simultaneous, because God is outside of time, works within time.

And therefore, what we see is we can resolve this major part of the debate by realizing that God works through the human agents in such a way that their choice to believe,

God bringing about the conviction of sin in the person of the Holy Spirit, because we must remember that's what the ministry of the

Holy Spirit does, is convict of sin. He convicts us of sin prior to our salvation.

And remember, salvation is something within time. But to God, outside of time, he knew before we were born we would be saved.

He knows that. And this becomes important for the next part, because we have to remember who

God is and we're not like him, so we tend to put him in our thinking. But when it comes to our choice, the answer is both, because God worked through us so that the choice that we made is what he intended.

And so it's simultaneous. And I think this resolves much of the debate. It resolves the issue,

I think, of election. Why? Because did God choose to elect us before the foundation of the world?

Well, to God, there was no before the foundation of the world. Everything is an eternal now to him. You and I are,

I'm speaking into this microphone. At the same time, you're listening in God's mind. Abraham is offering

Isaac. Jesus is on the cross. Adam and Eve are in the garden. It's all an eternal now to God.

We cannot conceive that. So there is no chronological ordering with God. And he just knows all things.

These two attributes of God are important because when we speak in theological terms, we have to always have it rooted in the nature of God.

And this is rooted in the nature of God. Once you start saying God looked down the tunnels of time and saw who would be saved, you now bound

God by time and limited his knowledge to our decisions. When you say that God decided before he created a world, he knew who was going to be on earth and he picked them.

Wait, what? No, he just always knew. It wasn't that he had to see what they would do in any way.

So our choice was God's choice. That's really what it comes down to. So now that we've resolved the issue of our choice, what's the second big issue people have problems with?

And that is limited atonement. Now, I think that so far

I've kind of wrapped up, if you recognize it or not, the election. Because that is, with the election, when we speak of election, it's

God is not thinking chronologically as we are. I've addressed the idea of, and let's start with total depravity.

We've addressed that in a different one. But total depravity is the idea that not that we're as sinful as we could be. Total depravity is the idea that we are in not just our thinking and our emotions, but also our volition.

We're sinful. So that's the sin nature. So unless you deny that we have a sin nature, you know, if you accept that we have a sin nature, that it affects our will, our choices, then that would be total depravity.

So unconditional atonement, or sorry, unconditional election, I've addressed that, that it's that God is outside of time.

And so we speak within time. I'm going to stop with the limited atonement. I'll come back to it.

But irresistible grace is this doctrine of superintending. That's really what irresistible grace is. Irresistible grace is the idea that God worked through us so that we would choose him.

So is it irresistible? Now, the way some people will say it, well, it's irresistible means that God chose and therefore we can't stop it.

It's like as if we're believing against our will. But I really think what the idea of irresistible grace comes to is that because we are making that choice, but we're making that choice because God intended it to be.

And that's why it's not against our will. It's with our will. He's working within our will. Just like he works with Paul to write

Romans, within Paul's will to write the words he wrote. And so Perseverance of the

Saints is the last one. And I think we already addressed that in Colossians where because everything, all sins have been forgiven at the cross, there's no sin that we could say, well,

God didn't see that one coming. No, he knows it. So when he says he paid for all sins at the cross, he actually meant all because he makes it clear in that passage.

So now let's go back to limited atonement. As I said earlier, very few people believe the atonement is unlimited.

If you believe that anyone is in hell, then you believe the atonement is limited.

Okay? It is. It's limited in its application in some form. Now the only discussion is how limited is it?

Because if there's someone in hell, then they did not have the atonement at that cross paid for them.

So as we look at it, some, maybe a universalist would say, they would look at that passage that we looked at in Corinthians and say, well, clearly it says that Christ died for all sin.

And therefore, if he died for all sin, nailing it to the cross, it's not limited to anyone.

Well, that would be a misrepresentation of that because Paul is writing to believers in Colossae.

He's being specific to make distinctions between believers and unbelievers because he's writing to people that claim to be believers and are not.

So when he says you, he's being specific to believers. You can look at the context there because in verse six, it says, therefore, as you received

Christ Jesus as Lord and walk in him. So this is to believers that he's saying.

So he's not saying that everyone, everywhere, that every single human being has been forgiven.

He's saying specifically those that have been forgiven, that all at the cross, all of their sin has been canceled.

All of their sin to believers. What about the unbelievers? And this is the area of debate.

We know that it's obviously applied in its application. What about in the offer?

And this becomes the question is, can you say that Christ died for all people?

And this is going to be the area. I know that I've been called a heretic because I'm a

Calvinist. I've been called a heretic because I'm not a Calvinist. Everyone only agrees on one thing. I'm a heretic, but I'm a man of the word, and I'm not going to let my theological positions dictate the interpretation of scripture.

As I said in the last episode, it is more important to have a right interpretation of scripture.

And so I want to make sure that my theology is in line with the word, not the word in line with my theology.

That said, let me read a passage of scripture, the clearest passage that deals with this.

This is 1 John 2 .2. It says, He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

So propitiation is the payment of wrath. That's what this is. It's the payment of wrath.

And so what we see here is that it's saying that Jesus was the payment of wrath, not for ours only, but for the whole world.

So he was paying a wrath for sin. This becomes a thing where with some people, because they want to argue for their theological issue, they say, well, this whole world doesn't mean every human being.

World can mean just every human being, but it can also mean when it says the whole world came out to John the

Baptist when he's baptizing, that doesn't mean every single person in the world, because clearly that's not the case.

So when he quantifies world with whole world, okay, well, still, still we can argue, and I think a case could be made, that whole world just means all the nations.

That is a way you could view this. And so let's be clear with the text and say that there is room to say this is referring to every single human being in the world, or there's a way of saying this is referring to all the nations.

And so what some do, and I think they're driven by their theology, is what some do is to say that this is the

Jew -Gentile distinction. And this is speaking of the us and not us, is the

Jews versus Gentiles, because the key to this text is the question of who's being spoken to in the text.

There are two groups of people mentioned that Jesus was a propitiation of sin for, the us and not us.

That's the key. The key of it is not in the whole world, whether it's the world or whole world, the key is who's the us and the not us.

That's the key. That's what we have to answer. Thus, the question is, who is us in this passage?

And many will claim that this refers to the Jewish people versus Gentile people. So the argument would be the us are the

Gentiles who now believe and that those that are not us are the

Jewish people. So saying the Jews of old and the Gentiles now. Here's the problem that I see with that.

By the time of the writing of 1 John, there was no Jewish -Gentile issue anymore. Furthermore, the issue

John is dealing with in 1 John is Gnosticism. Gnosticism is this belief that people that claim they're believers, but they're not believing.

They're believers who claim a belief, but they claim a superior knowledge and they would allow for sin in living.

And this was a major distinction that we end up having. And so you got to address who's he writing to.

He's not writing to Jewish people about the Jewish -Gentile distinction. Furthermore, there's no other reference in 1

John to the Jewish -Gentile distinction. Therefore, it doesn't fit with the context.

The context provides the answer in verse 1 where he says, he says the us is my little children.

This was John's way of speaking to believers. So if the us and our are referring to believers, then who are the not us?

When he says not us only, it must refer to non -believers. Now that flies in the face of many people's view of limited atonement.

I understand that. Can I believe in limited atonement? Yes, I can. Because my definition of a limited atonement is that the atonement is limited in its application such that not all people go to heaven.

It's also limited in its efficacy, not in its offer. And this is something you see throughout with the

Puritans. The Puritans would make this case often, that the gospel offer can be offered to all people.

That it is in its offer is general to all people's elect and not elect alike.

But it's applied to few. It's effective, efficacious for few. And that is the idea that we end up seeing.

So can I hold to the fact that Christ on the cross died and his death in its application was only for believers?

Yes. So therefore that in some circles would make me a Calvinist. I understand. And in other circles, because I say that Christ's death was sufficient for every single human being that ever lived, some would say

I'm not a Calvinist. Okay, but here's the thing that I'm saying, is that when Christ died on that cross, his death was the punishment of sin.

It just wasn't applied to all. So let me give a poor illustration, and I don't want to be Leighton Flowers and start interpreting interpretations and using illustrations to interpret scripture.

That's what Leighton Flowers does. He ends up taking illustrations and making his illustration the interpretation of scripture.

But sometimes an illustration does help. If I was to walk into a restaurant and if I had the funds and walked into a restaurant and announced, everybody, your meal is covered.

Say it's a very expensive restaurant. I know that there's just human nature.

There's some people who are going to say, I'm paying my own bill. You are not going to pay my bill. I know that because I've actually had this happen multiple times when friends of mine and I would share the gospel with someone in a restaurant, and we want to give a gift to them.

And offer a meal. I actually remember once where somebody got so upset that a friend of mine,

Mark, paid his meal after we shared the gospel with him, that the guy paid his meal twice, which the restaurant didn't refuse.

They said, thanks for the money. He was going to pay it his own way. And I turned to him and said, when he did that,

I said, you know, my friend Mark offered to you the gospel message, the gospel of grace. And you refused it.

And I said, you refused God's grace just the same way you refused Mark's grace of paying for your meal.

He offered you grace. He just offered it to you. But you, in your pride and arrogance, you, as you said, want to pay it your own way.

And you did. And that's the same thing that you're going to do with Christ. Even though Christ died and paid the punishment, a prideful, arrogant person wants to do it his own way.

And therefore, he does pay. He pays on his own. And in that payment, what you end up seeing is the payment is he's going to suffer.

Because even though Christ may have made the punishment, it wasn't applied to him. That if this is so hard for you, let me put it this way.

The view I hold says that Christ suffered far more than what we would think if you don't hold to that view.

Because it says that Christ's penalty, his punishment was enough to pay for every sin, every sin.

It satisfied the full wrath of God. But it's just not applied to people. Because even if I walk into a restaurant and offer for everyone's bill to be paid, some people will still, in their pride and arrogance, will pay their own way.

And that's true with salvation. People's pride and arrogance are such that they're going to want to pay their own way.

And God's going to let them have it. If you're in that category listening to this, I don't want that for you.

Come to repentance. Turn from trusting yourself as a good person. Turn from thinking your good works will save you.

Or maybe your genealogy, you're born Jewish or born Catholic or whatever, and that's going to save you.

No. Being born in a Christian family won't save you. You have to turn from that. Turn from your pride and trust in Christ.

That's what you have to do. Otherwise, you are under the full wrath of God. You can either accept his payment or you will pay it on your own.

You say, but Andrew, you've been saying this whole time, that God is the one that's going to choose me. He does.

He does bring repentance through your choice because that'll be exactly as God intended.

So may now be the appointed time of salvation for you. I hope that this has been helpful. I've probably created a lot of enemies and there's going to be people that will use this against me.

I understand. There's plenty of people who like to take things, take it out of context and not give the whole thing.

So here's my challenge is, if you received any part of this, listen to the full context.

Share this in whole so people see, because we build up to the points that people would disagree with.

And so I really hope this is helpful. I hope this helps you as we dig into the doctrine of regeneration, which is hard for many to understand.

I hope this becomes helpful. And that's why I wanted to do this as a bonus episode. So I hope that you got a lot out of this.

I hope you share it. Let me also mention just for folks to know, Logos 10 has just come out.

And if you want to upgrade, you can get five books with your upgrade from Striving for Eternity by going to our affiliate link with them.

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Logos is L -O -G -O -S. So if you go there, you'll come to our partner page where you will be able to get five free books with your upgrade.

You'll still get the same 30 % discount that's being offered. You can get that upgrade with us and that helps to support this show and also gets to get you five free books with the same 30 % discount.

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