Why predestination?
Context: Ro 8:30 mentioned predestination without explaining it. Questions provoked by Ro 8:30 are now spelled out and answered in Ro 9-11. For a wider analysis of other passages of Scripture on this subject, see here.
Warm-up: Did you like pottery projects as a kid in school or later in life? Why or why not?
Read: Romans 9
1) vv1-14: What do you find makes questions about predestination difficult or even painful?
- vv1-6a: What troubled Paul, and why did he describe his anguish in such strong terms?
- v6a: What made it appear as if “…the word of God had ‘failed'”? => “failed” in what sense?
- Read Ro 8:30. If God calls, justifies and glorifies everyone whom he predestined, how did the history of the Jewish nation seem to contradict this?
- Is everyone (equally) ‘called’ whenever someone preaches to them? [General calling: Mt 22:1-6, 14]
- What makes God’s calling ‘effectual’ (i.e. that it accomplishes God’s purpose)? => How so? e.g. 1Pet 1:23-25; Jn 17:6
2) vv7-14: Read again v14. What kind of predestination doctrine did Paul teach that makes it appear as if God were unjust?
- Hints: If God elects anyone at all (in whatever sense), one would expect that his choice must be influenced by ours, and that everyone must have an equal chance. Why?
- Read Jn 6:64-65. => Is the ability to believe Jesus a matter of equal chances granted to everyone?
- Was God’s choice ‘to love Jacob, and to hate Esau’ determined by his foreknowledge of their own choice(s)? v11
- Hint: If predestination were simply God’s foreknowledge of our ‘free will’, would anyone still object (as Paul expected) that this is unjust?
- Ro 9 mentions the election of specific Israelites (Isaac, Jacob). To what end?
- Did Paul mention them as odd exceptions? Or as proof of a general principle that everyone is predestined to believe or not believe? v18 [whomever]; cf Ro 8:30; Jn 1:13; 6:64-65 (s. above)
- v8: What are possible meanings of the expression “children of the promise”?
- Why not simply say “promised children”? Or “children with a promise”? cf 1Pet 1:23; Heb 6:17
- Does the expression “children of the promise”* apply to every believer, or only to a subset of Christians? cf Ro 4:11-16
3) vv14-19: How does the quote of Ex 33:19 in v15 prove those wrong who charge God of injustice?
- Hint: Where did our notions of God’s justice originate? Ps 103:6-7
- What was revealed specifically to Moses in the quoted passage (Ex 33:19) about God’s justice?
- To what end did vv17-18 introduce the example of Pharaoh. To prove what exactly? v16
- Hint: Why did Paul so insist that God’s choice is not caused by ours?
- v19: What objection did Paul anticipate against this teaching?
- How does that tell you whether you have understood Paul’s biblical view of predestination?
- What is wrong with our own sense of justice that it is so offended by this biblical notion of predestination? Ex 33:19-20
- What helped Moses to grasp that “…God’s just judgements are unsearchable” (Ro 11:33), i.e. beyond man’s comprehension?
4) vv20-21: Why did Paul compare men to vessels of clay?
- Read Gen 2:7. Irrespective of whether you believe in evolution or in special creation, why does it humble you to consider that man was not made of gold in heaven, or by intercourse among celestial beings?
- What emotion might have led Paul to exclaim “…oh man…”?
- v21: The metaphor of the creator as a potter implies that everyone is created for a purpose. In the exemplary case of Pharaoh, what was he created for? v17; 2Tim 2:20
- v22: What do you make of the image of a “vessel of wrath prepared for destruction”?
- How do the life and death of Pharaoh illustrate the meaning of this dreadful metaphor?
- Do you think Pharaoh felt treated unfairly by God’s predestination? Why did he prefer what God gave him in this life instead of sharing in the sufferings of Moses and his people?
- vv22-23 mention twice that God’s purpose was “to make known…”: What is made known by God’s predestination?
- Why can God’s power and the “riches of his glory”not be made equally known by any other means? v24; cf 1Cor 1:27-30
- vv25-29: How do the quotes from Hosea and Isaiah prove this? [Hosea: Unmerited favor on undeserving Gentiles, 25-26; Isaiah: Total inability of the Israelites to choose salvation (v27) by their ‘free will’, 27-29]
5) vv30-33: After explaining that everyone is predestined for some purpose by God’s free will and not by their own, how did Paul apply this doctrine to the specific case of Israel’s unbelief?
- What got in their way? v33
- Why did Christ become to them the stone of stumbling as Isaiah had predicted centuries before it happened (Isa 28:16)?
6) Personal & application
- Does it matter to you what kind of predestination Christians believe in? Why or why not?
- What do you think makes the biblical doctrine of predestination a hot button theological question? =>
- What made it a hot button issue for Paul himself, v1-4?
- Why is it bound to provoke objections?
- If it is bound to offend, why can’t we simply get rid of this source of disputes by being silent about it?
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