For Calvinists: Struggling with Matthew 22:14

ViaCrucis said:

Believe the Gospel--Christ died for everyone, and God wills that all be saved.

Predestination is not about God picking and choosing who is and isn't saved. Predestination is about God's gracious choosing us before the foundation of the world.

Scripture teaches that God has predestined us since before the foundation of the world. It does not teach us that God predestined anyone to damnation; on the contrary, we are told that God desires and so wills that everyone be saved--and indeed, Christ died for all.

From a Lutheran perspective this is why both Calvinism and Arminianism get it wrong--in fact both are two sides of the same coin, and rooted in a faulty theology and errant use of reason. That is, we'd say that the proper use of reason is ministerial (reason serves faith) not magisterial (reason rules over faith). Thus just because Scripture presents us with a paradox does not mean that we subvert the word of Scripture to conform to our sinful reason; but rather we confess the paradox in faith.

It is certainly reasonable to conclude that if God has predestined us to salvation, then it must follow that God chose, or at least passed over, the rest. But that isn't what Scripture teaches. Scripture, again, teaches that we have been predestined, but it does not teach that God passes anyone or has chosen to damn anyone. The usual prooftexts from Romans 9 to support this fail to account for the larger message and context of St. Paul's letter. Specifically this: People need to keep reading beyond chapter 9 of Romans, because Paul's conclusion doesn't come until chapter 11, "God consigned all to disobedience in order that He might have mercy on all" (Romans 11:32).

Thus we must confess this:

1) The Law condemns all men as sinners, for by sin man is unable to accomplish the righteous deeds as proscribed by the Law, and thus all man's works are reckoned as unrighteous on account of sin.

2) Because God is unwilling that any perish, but that all be saved, He sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law. Christ has accomplished, once and for all, the perfect and finished work for all universally.

3) It is by God's unconditional election and gracious will to predestine us in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we can be confident, that as we have heard the Gospel preached and proclaimed, and have been baptized into Christ, that we are indeed true sons and daughters of God.

4) It is not by some inscrutable will of God that God has predestined us, but rather through the revealed Means of the preaching of the Gospel and His Sacraments, through which we receive faith extra nos, apart from ourselves, as the pure gift of God and by which we are freely justified.

5) And so having heard and received the word, we can be confident that we are the possession of Jesus Christ, and thus the possession of God. And that all of God's word and promises are true and inviolate--what He has said cannot be unsaid, what He has done cannot be undone, what He has promised is certain and sure. Our sins are forgiven, we have received the righteousness of Jesus Christ, the Spirit dwells in us as the guarantee of these things, and so ours is the inheritance of everlasting life and the resurrection of the dead. Amen. The word of the Lord endures forever.

-CryptoLutheran

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St_Worm2 said:

Hello Tania, the Bible tells us that God created us upright/in His perfect image, but as the preacher tells us later, we sought out many devices .. e.g. Genesis 1:26-27; Ecclesiastes 7:29.

To be specific, God created our progenitors in His perfect image, but we, their progeny, are begotten in their tarnished image instead. The good news is, God began to remedy the problem for us before our first parents had left the Garden of God .. Genesis 3:21

--David

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St_Worm2 said:

Hello again @Tania11, I should add that predestination in the Bible is always to life (God does not need to work iniquity into hearts that are already filled with it .. e.g. Romans 3:10-12, 23; Ephesians 2:1-3).

There is a sense of a passive double-predestination that is implicit in the Bible however (which is what Spurgeon was, no doubt, referring to), because only those who are drawn by/given to Jesus by His Father will come to Him for salvation. Further, ~all~ who so drawn 1. will be saved and 2. will never be lost.

John 6
37 ~All~ that the Father gives Me ~will~ come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.
38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.
39 "This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of ~all~ that He has given Me I LOSE NOTHING, but raise it up on the last day.
40 For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.”

44 “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me ~draws~ him; and I will raise him up on the last day."

65 And He was saying, “For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been ~granted~ him from the Father.”​

--David

Psalm 51
5 Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
.​

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ViaCrucis said:

Well, what does Scripture say?

The Scriptures say that God created man in His image and likeness. They say that God so loved the world that God sent His only-begotten Son so that all who believe in Him will not perish. They say that God demonstrates His love in that even when we were sinners Christ died for us. They say that God is the Savior of all people, especially those that believe. Etc and so on.

God didn't create anyone to be damned.
God wills that everyone be saved.

-CryptoLutheran

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