Becoming Better Theologians (part 16)

Our Father in heaven, what a blessing it is to have a place to meet, to gather together with your people, to look at your word, even to examine difficult questions, deep questions that sometimes are difficult to fathom, to sort out.

Father, I pray that you'd bless our time as we just think about your love for us and what it really means and how you have promised to set your affection upon a people and to keep it there forever, to love them forever.

Father in that we rejoice, in Christ's name we pray, amen. Well I would like to start this morning by turning again to Romans 9 and that will become the reason for that will become apparent. For those of you who have the authorized version, maybe I should call it the new authorized version, the MacArthur Study Bible, I think it's interesting that Romans chapter 9 is entitled God's Sovereign Choice and I think that's exactly right.

I'm looking at Romans chapter 9 and again starting in verse 9, for this is what the promise said, about this time next year I will return and Sarah shall have a son. 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 continue.

We're going to be talking about that this morning, but let me just read that again. Though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad, in order with the purpose of, in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls.

She was told the older will serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob I loved but Esau I hated. What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means. For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.

So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy. For the scripture says to Pharaoh, for this very purpose I raised you up that I might show my power in you, that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.

So then he has mercy on whomever he wills and he hardens whomever he wills. Verse 19, you will say to me then, why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will? But who are you, oh man, to answer back to God?

Well, what is molded say to its molder? Why have you made me like this? Has the potter no right over the clay to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?

What if God desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory.

Even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles. As indeed he says in Hosea, those who were not my people, I will call my people. And her who was not beloved, I will call beloved.

And in the place, the very place where it was said to them, you are not my people. There they will be called sons of the living God. Well, I want to read a few quotes here. I found a few historical figures and a few contemporary figures and what they have to say about this doctrine of reprobation.

And again, it's the flip side of election. If God chooses to save some people, then he chooses not to save other people. And that would be reprobation. Jacob, he loved Esau. He hated before they had done anything.

Now listen to these quotes. Here's Augustine. He who said, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. Love Jacob of his undeserved grace. True. And we like that. And hated Esau of his deserved judgments.

We think of reprobation. I think it's important that we realize that reprobation is what? It is deserved. It's deserved. Martin Luther said this. The love and hate of God towards men is immutable, meaning unchangeable and eternal.

Existing not merely before there was any merit or work of free will. But before the world was made. So all things take place in us of necessity. According as he has from eternity loved or not loved. Faith and unbelief come to us by no work of our own, but through the work or through the love and hatred of God.

Does that make sense? If God. Before the foundations of the world, as we would read in Ephesians chapter one. Set his affection on us. Chose us in Christ. The those he did not choose in Christ. As with Esau.

We could say he hated. And we'll get into that more. But by virtue of the fact that what? He didn't love us. The opposite of love. Is not. Apathy. Well, I mean, it is. I guess it could be apathy, but ultimately the opposite of love is.

Hatred. God loves and God hates. We've read Psalm five five and how God hates. Sinners those who are in the practice of sin. Listen to Calvin. Now we're concerning the reprobate with whom the apostle is at the same time.

They're concerned. For as Jacob deserve deserving nothing by good works is taken into grace. So Esau. As yet undefiled by any crime. Is hated. Before they had done anything. It is said. What? Before they'd done nothing, either good or bad.

In order that God's purpose of election might continue. Not because of works, but because of him who calls. She was told the older will serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob, I love, but Esau, I hated before they'd done anything.

God's sovereignty. In salvation. Listen to Calvin as he goes on. And as Esau was deprived of this habitation. The prophet sacredly gathers that he was hated of God. Because he had been thus rejected from the holy and elect family.

On which the love of God perpetually rests. And I have no idea who this guy is. When piggies, this is Calvin continue. Continuing probably an opponent of Calvin. When piggies holds that God's election of grace.

Has no reference to or connection with his hatred of the reprobate. I maintain that reference and connection to be a truth. In as much as the just severity of God answers. An equal and common cause to that free love with which he embraces his elect.

Here's my question. Why would we object to God setting his wrath upon the reprobate? Why would we think God could not possibly have created people. With the purpose that ultimately they would be damned.

Why would we do that? Bruce. And it gets back to, Bruce is exactly right. In our eyes it would ultimately mean that God's not fair. Because he would be choosing some, passing over others. But that's what election is.

In other words, and here's why I framed it that way. Because we don't object to the idea that God loved us with an everlasting love. We don't object to the idea that God chose us in Christ. Before the foundation of the world.

And that in time he drew us. And that we now experience that love more fully. Not as fully as we will in heaven. But we don't object to that. But we object somehow to this idea that God would create people.

Ultimately with the idea of sending them into hell. Because that's something that we cannot fathom. But again, I will beat this dead horse because it's not dead. We struggle with this. And it gets right back to verse 19.

You will say to me then, why does he still find fault for who can resist his will? You know, that's not fair. Paul answers, but who are you, O man, to answer back to God? What is molded, or will what is molded say to its molder?

Why have you made me like this? Has the potter no right? But listen, in verse 21. Has the potter no right over the clay to make out of the same lump. If we just think of mankind as one lump. One vessel for honorable use.

And another for dishonorable use. What of God desiring to show his wrath? This isn't some condition that maybe possibly God wanted to show his wrath. It is an absolute condition. God wants to show his wrath.

Well, why would he want to show his wrath? Peggy. People focus on, Peggy's right. People focus on the love of God. They don't focus on his justice, his holiness. If we understood his holiness, and again, you know, well, let me make this analogy.

If holiness, for the sake of argument, is absolute, spotless, and white. And there was no sin. There was nothing to contrast with that holiness. If everything was a perfect reflection of God. If God never permitted, ordained, however you want to say it, sin.

How would we understand his holiness? He allowed it to, as it says in Romans chapter 9 again, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy. Pam says if you don't make this about individuals, then we wouldn't see somebody saying, well, that's not fair.

And Paul wouldn't have to answer that whole entire reason. Yes. And your name is? Michael. I'm not really sure. Okay. Michael says he doesn't need to see a deformed human being to understand what a human being looks like.

Well, I would just go back to Romans 9. And I would say this. It says, what if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy.

So I think we have two things going on here. One is to understand, I think, his holiness and understanding that if there was no sin, if sin were not permitted to exist, well, let's go back to this, the power of God.

Could God have deemed, decreed, ruled, made sure that there would never be sin anywhere in the universe? Why didn't he, Peggy? He gave us the law to show us how short we fall, yes. But that doesn't get into, why didn't he just outlaw sin?

He gets more glory when they're, well, but why? Bruce. If there was no sin, Christ would come to redeem what? He would come to die for what? The eternal, I mean, if God wanted to ensure that there was no sin, what would he have done?

Well, he would have created nothing. What was the purpose of creation? I mean, you know, sometimes people think, well, maybe God was just lonely. He wasn't lonely. Perfection of the Trinity, there's a perfect relationship there forever and ever.

I think, you know, Piper has often said that the purpose of God, and I'll paraphrase here, is that he might make manifest his glory. And he does that by showing us all of his attributes. I've said this before, or maybe I haven't, but if there was no sin, we could not understand his righteousness, his judgment, his wrath, and we wouldn't understand the glory of our salvation, as Bruce was saying.

No sin means no Jesus coming to die for us, no redemption, and no, I mean, everything's different. Bruce.

Yeah, no one suffered more than Jesus did.

He took an eternity's worth of wrath for every sin of everyone who would ever believe, he took it all on him in three hours. And you say, well, how can that be? Well, I don't know, because he's God, because he alone could withstand the wrath of God.

But again, getting back to this glory, the glory of God, how does he make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy? If we are sinless creatures, if we are not in need of forgiveness, if we are not in need of redemption, if we are not in need of some work of God to regenerate us, if we are not in need of God's mercy, then his glory is not on display.

God purposed to create a universe that would fall into sin. Why? So that he might redeem it. So that when the Father sent the Son into the world to die for sinners, to reconcile the world to himself, that it might have meaning, that it might have the ultimate meaning.

We thank God for setting his affection, granting us his mercy, redeeming us, because we recognize the sinfulness in part. I don't think we fully represent or fully understand the depths of our sinfulness, of how much our sin really offends God.

We will. We will. I think when we appear before God on Judgment Day, and we just think, when we really have a full sense of how we've offended God, will grace be amazing then? I think it will be. I think it will be.

And again, we don't like this idea that God sets his wrath permanently upon people. Well, I think it gets back to this. We like the idea of, and I mean we generically as human beings, we like this idea of free will.

We like the idea that we get to choose. God likes the idea that he gets to choose. I mean, it is written all through Scripture. God chooses. God makes decisions. God disposes of things how he likes. It's his creation.

We just read there in Romans 9, where Paul compares him to the potter and the clay. And the clay doesn't have the right to say, God, you can't do this. This isn't right. But that's what we want to do.

It was hard for me to listen yesterday at this funeral to people saying, now, I don't know. Nobody can know with certainty where Joan is. But it was hard for me to listen to people saying things like, she did this or she did that.

I mean, they're talking about sinful activities, but now she's at peace. And I'm not after anybody. I'm just saying this idea, there is this idea out there in the world that, how does salvation come? Salvation comes by, no, in the world.

Yeah, salvation comes by death. I remember, and I've mentioned this example before, I had a friend years and years and years ago in the sheriff's department, and there was a young woman who worked for me for a brief period of time.

And she obviously had trouble in her marriage, and I knew that because she was on the phone in my office all the time talking to her husband instead of working. But she and my friend eventually moved into a house together.

He was not her husband. The husband showed up. There was a gun. The gun went off. My friend died. And this female deputy put, you know, thank yous to everybody who came to the funeral and just said that John was now, my friend John, was now an angel, you know, looking over us.

And I go, here's the idea, that it doesn't really matter what you've done in your life. As soon as you die, then you are, you know, transformed into an uber kind of holy person. That's just not biblical.

We don't like the idea that people suffer, that there actually is this, but God says what? Talking about Esau, he says before he'd done anything, God said, I hate him. Well, wait a minute. What about Esau's free will?

Couldn't he later on choose things? Couldn't he change? That's not the way Paul frames it. Look at verse 17 again. For the scripture says to Pharaoh, scripture being equated with God, for this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.

Did God raise Pharaoh up in a spiritual sense? Did he make him a great spiritual leader? No. He was a great military figure, power, certainly had control over Israel. The Bible says two things, that Pharaoh hardened his heart, and that God hardened his heart, and why did God do this?

God did it so that God's name might be proclaimed in all the earth. You say, well, wait a minute. Poor Pharaoh. How could he resist God's will? We missed the point. We want to look at the individual actors of history and think, oh, that poor guy never really had a chance.

That poor person. The point of all history is what? Is mankind, the individual players, their ultimate destination? Or is it so that God might show his mercy? And again I ask, could we understand mercy?

If we didn't understand. We're not about to do a double negative thing. Could we understand mercy properly? If we had some kind of idea that we deserved it. Or that it's universally available. What sort of mercy would it be for God to say, you know what?

I extend mercy to everyone. All they have to do is just reach out and take it. Mercy is yours for the taking. Go ahead, take it. Since God knows our true condition, which is wicked and dead in our sins and trespasses, that's not mercy.

And getting back to Jacob. Before God, or before Jacob had done anything, the Bible says, God loved him. Before Jacob had chosen to believe, God loved him. Before Esau chose not to believe, God hated him.

Let me read some more quotes here because I think these are really good. John Robinson, who was the minister, and I say this just for us, the minister of many of the congregationalist settlers who journeyed to Plymouth Colony, New England.

Lastly, seeing it cannot be denied, but that Jacob as a faithful and godly man was in time actually beloved in God. In time, God set his affection on him because of his belief. And Esau, as godless and profane, actually hated.

It must needs follow that God, before the world was, purposed in himself accordingly to love the one and hate the other. Seeing whatsoever God in time does by way of emanation or application to and upon the creature that he purposed to do as he does it from eternity.

In other words, God purposed from eternity to love one and hate the other. And in time, in other words, in their lifetime, he loved one and hated the other. John Owen said this, We deny that all mankind are the object of that love of God which moved him to send his son to die.

We deny that? God having made some for the day of evil, Proverbs 16, 4. He hated them before they were born, Romans 9, 11 and 13. Before of old, ordained them to condemnation. Jude 4, talking about false teachers, right?

He ordained them to condemnation. Well, how could that be before they even had done false teaching? Being fitted to destruction, Romans 9, 29. Made to be taken and destroyed, 2 Peter 2, 12. Appointed to wrath, 1 Thessalonians 5, 9.

To go to their own place, Acts 1, 25. Reprobation is the issue of hatred or a purpose of rejection. Francis Turretin,. For as he loves a person or thing, wishes well, and if he can, does well to it, so true hatred and abhorrence cannot exist without drawing after them the removal and destruction of the contrary.

Now, let me see. I have a couple that I really wanted to get to. Here's one. This is John Kennedy. Not John F. Kennedy, but I liked him anyway. John Kennedy says, Universal love in these days, in which evangelism is in fashion, is but another form in which the same deceit is presented to the awakened.

This is something from which an unrenewed man can take comfort. And this brings me right back to yesterday. It is a pillow on which an alien can lay his head and be at peace far off from God. It keeps out of you the necessity of vital union to Christ and of turning unto God, and the hope which it inspires can be...

Let me just boil it all down. If we believe that God loves everyone, God just loves everyone, well, then I can be unredeemed and sleep well at night knowing that God loves me. If the message at a funeral is to everyone sitting there, God loves you.

Go home. God loves you? God loves everyone? God loves everyone with one qualification, that they be in Christ. There is one way to God. Jesus said that. We have this idea that somehow God is obligated, that somehow God is constrained by his nature to love everyone equally.

What's that? They don't know God. That's not the God of the Bible. He loves every single one equally who is in Christ. We don't see that kind of love for people generically in that same way. We see it in Christ.

Again, let's look at Ephesians 1, and let's just see the term in Christ and see how it pops up here.

Yeah, Dave. The amazing thing is that God hated Esau. The amazing thing is that God loved Jacob. Jacob was a scoundrel. He was a deceiver. And a scallywag. Yeah, yeah. All of those wrapped together. And God did not love Jacob because of how good he was.

He loved him because he purposed and said his love of God, even the hate of God. If you believe in the grace of God, God doing something for someone that they don't deserve, then you believe in justice.

God doing something to somebody that they do deserve. So you have to believe in the opposites of each one of those doctrines or attributes of God. And particularly if you believe that there were a finite number of people that were chosen, you have to believe that there's a finite number of people who were not chosen.

Great.

Great. And, you know, by the way, for anyone here who maybe doesn't believe in election, then you're really, your issue ultimately is with the Bible, because the Bible talks about it. It talks about God's choosing.

It talks about predestination. It talks about the elect. You either believe in election or you don't believe in the Bible. It's how you define it. And when you study it in context, and the issue often is just sitting in a context long enough to understand it.

But, yeah, Pastor David is exactly right. The amazing thing isn't that God hated Esau because Esau was just like us. The amazing thing is that God loved Jacob because Jacob's basically just like us too.

You know, what was the big difference between the two of them? God set his affection on one. He regenerated one, and he didn't the other. Let me read Ephesians 1, starting in verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us, listen, in Christ, with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him.

In who? In Christ, before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ. According to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us.

In whom? In the Beloved, in the Beloved Son, in Christ. 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.

In whom? In Christ. Things in heaven and things on earth. In him, in Christ, 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 the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.

In him. In whom? In Christ. You also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation and believed in him, were sealed with the promise of the Holy Spirit. This is the message. We don't have this kind of universal jello-like, you know, blob-like, filling everything love.

We have a specific love which comes through a specific channel. That is the Lord Jesus Christ. And listen, Kennedy goes on. He says, You have no right to regard that love which is committed in the death of his Son as embracing you if you have not yet believed.

There's no reason to lay your head softly on that pillow. A .W. Pink says this. Thou hatest all workers of iniquity, not merely the works of iniquity. That's Psalm 55, right? Here, then, is a flat repudiation of present teaching that God hates sin but loves the sinner.

Scripture says, again, he quotes Psalm 55,. Thou hatest all workers of iniquity. God is angry with the wicked every day. He that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God not shall abide, but even now abideth on him.

Can God love the one on whom his wrath abides? The answer is no. Let's see. James Montgomery Voice. Although hatred in God is of a different character than hatred in sinful human beings, his is a holy hatred.

Hate in God, nevertheless, does imply disapproval. Esau was the object of God's displeasure. Since the selection involved in the words love and hate was made before either of the children was born, the words must involve a double predestination in which, on the one hand, Jacob was destined to salvation, and on the other hand, Esau was destined to be passed over and thus to perish.

John MacArthur. In a very real sense, God hated Esau himself. It was not a petty, spiteful, childish kind of hatred, but something far more dreadful. It was divine antipathy, a holy loathing directed at Esau personally.

God abominated him as well as what he stood for. D .A. Carson. Fourteen times in the first 50 psalms alone, we are told that God hates the sinner, his wrath is on the liar, and so forth. I won't read any more of these, but if we understand that God had a... somebody else, I think, somewhere in this document that I have here said this, but if God had... would we agree that God had a genuine love for Jacob?

Yes. Yes. You know, some people say, well, God loved Jacob, but he loved Esau a little bit less, and that's what's meant here by Esau he hated. And the man who said this, or wrote this, said, well, think about it this way.

He goes, what if we reverse that? That the hatred that God had for Esau was genuine, but that he just hated Jacob a little less. He hated Esau, but he hated Jacob a little less. We would never go for that, right?

He had a pure, holy hatred for Esau. Jacob, you know, he just hated him a little bit less, and that's what we qualify as love. So why is it okay then to think that God loved Jacob, and he just loved Esau a little bit less?

You know, he was kind of... Jacob was his son of favor, and then Esau was the red-headed stepchild kind of thing. That's just not... that's not how it is. Love and hate have very specific purposes, but we object to this.

We don't like to think about it because we don't like to think about God having a free will, that this is God's world. We're living in it. God has set everything up from the beginning to the end. We are living it out in time.

We seem, in our own minds, we seem to be free. We seem to be making free choices. We are responsible for the choices we make. We are not robots. It's a difficult concept. I got an email this week from somebody who was in last week's class, and they're like, I'm still kind of, you know, my head's spinning over.

I don't even remember what the question I asked was. I wrote it down here, though, just so we'll... He goes, if we have free will, and God chooses us based on his perfect foreknowledge of our future exercising a free will, the Arminian view, then can we change our minds?

And if we can't change our minds, then do we really have free will? And the answer, of course, is no, we don't really have a free will. Because if God looks down the corridors of time and sees what we're going to do, and on that basis chooses us, and then we cannot change our minds, then we don't really have free will anyway.

Go ahead. Okay. But then in time, in time, we are then what? Constrained by his perfect foreknowledge, at the best, we don't have the free will to do something... You're right, that is confusing. I don't take that very seriously.

But we come back to this. There are really, ultimately, there are two... Well, there are three options. One is that I hope we all object to right away, which is that God is somehow learning as time goes on.

That God is sort of... He's created everything, and now he's just kind of going, oh, that's interesting. So I think that one's done. That's this idea of the cosmic watchmaker. It's an advanced idea of deism, actually.

But there are two basic understandings. One would be that God chooses us based on his foreknowledge of our free choice. The other one that would be what I propose is that God, based on nothing but his own glory, chose to set his affection on certain objects that he created.

And I think that's what we see in Romans 9. I think that's what we see in Ephesians 1. I think that's what we see over and over again in Scripture. And this idea of foreknowledge of an event, that God has foreknowledge.

The question is whether he has foreknowledge of a free will action, or if he has foreknowledge of his own divine decree. And I think, again, as we look at not just Romans 9, but if we look at Ephesians 1 again, in verse 11, we see, Now you could say, well, God doesn't really ordain all things according to his will.

Well, it says all things here. You might say, well, in this context, it has to do with salvation. And I'm fine with that. If all God does, for the moment, for setting aside all the other arguments, if all God does is make sure that all things pertaining to salvation occur according to the counsel of his own will, and we look back here and we see that in Ephesians 1, that he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, then what we would understand, again, is that God elects before the foundation of the world, that is before the world was created.

He brings it about, our salvation in time. He continues that on in time, and that was his plan from the beginning, according to Ephesians 1, 11. So I think either way you want to look at it, it's very difficult to make the corridors of time view without sort of imposing something extra biblical on what the text says.

So ultimately, then I don't think we should object to the idea that if God would choose some, if he would set his affection on some, and he would bring them in time, if he would, let me just read Romans 8, the golden chain of salvation, verses 28 and, or I'm sorry, 29 and 30.

Nobody reads this and, you know, like if we were in a courtroom, says, I object to that. For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image. And by the way, look at that. It doesn't say for those, for those whom he foresaw would believe.

It says for those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined, he also called.

And those whom he called, he also justified. And those whom he justified, he also glorified. We don't have a problem with that. And I don't believe we should have any problem understanding. Now, knowing this, that we do not know who the elect are.

We preach the gospel indiscriminately because we don't know who they are,.

But I don't know why we would have any problem that Bob. Of certain individuals.

Yeah. He's talking about a foreknowing of individuals. And again, I mean, even as you say that, you know, again, just to emphasize that in Romans 8, 29, it says for those whom he foreknew, these are people that he foreknew.

And to foreknow, to know someone, it means it's an intimate knowledge. It's a, it's a, a love. It's an affection. And it means he set his affection upon them before the foundation of the world, Pam. And then we have to close.

Yeah. Pam, Pam says, you know, every man chooses his own bride. Of course, she has something to say in it too, but so the analogy sort of breaks down, but, um, although it's really not a bad analogy. I mean, I like that.

Yeah. Karen. Yeah. Karen raises the point. She says, look, if a, if a couple goes into an adoption agency and takes a child out of a, out of a home or what have you, you know, they're heroes. Well, when God rescues some out of, as it were, uh, the family of Satan, if we looked at, uh, you know, Ephesians chapter two, they're by nature, children of wrath.

And when he takes those, when he makes them, takes them out of the kingdom of darkness, as it says in Colossians and brings them into the kingdom of light, no one says, well, why didn't you bring everybody?

Or they shouldn't say that, you know, God, you weren't fair because you didn't adopt everyone. God, you didn't save everyone from the kingdom of darkness. God is not obligated to save anyone. If you were, it would not be mercy.

It would not be grace. And we would not see his, his love in action. Well, let's, uh, let's pray. Father, we take no delight in the biblical truth that there are people who are in hell, who will go to hell.

We take no personal delight in the fact that you have hated with a holy hatred. Some from before the foundation of the world, just as you have loved before the foundation of the father, we were, we are in awe that you would choose to save anyone.