David E. Gray
“Election”
Dr. David E. Gray
Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church
1 Timothy 2: 1-4; Romans 8: 28-30; Ephesians 1: 3-14
July 12, 2009
This morning we join with churches throughout Christendom in celebrating the birth of John Calvin 500 years ago. Calvin was one of the most significant figures in the Protestant Reformation and perhaps the most significant figure in developing the ideas at the center of our Presbyterian tradition.
Parts of the order of our worship service, our Book of Order offices of elder and deacon, the civil codes of central Europe, and parts of the theological concepts of calling, knowledge of God, original sin and salvation by grace were developed by Calvin. Yet perhaps none of Calvin’s contributions has gotten the attention as does the concept of predestination, or election as Calvin sometimes referred to it. Predestination was not an original idea of Calvin’s, nor was it the most important concept to him. In his seminal work, the Institutes of the Christian Religion, Calvin didn’t discuss it until well into the third portion of the book and then only for a few pages.
Predestination is not our most popular subject. We don’t like to talk about it, we don’t like to preach on it, and most of us would like to ignore it. But we can’t.
If you were to ask your average American what they know of Presbyterians or of Calvin, many would say, “Aren’t Presbyterians the folks who believe in predestination?” Or “isn’t Calvin the guy who believed in predestination?”
Predestination is a nuanced and complex issue that is hard to get our minds around. I don’t have all the answers for you, but I do hope to make you think today. I think it’s important that we have a sense of this historical concept in our tradition and what it means for our personal faith. What are its positive characteristics and what parts we find challenging, even troubling. What does our denomination say currently on the issue. And how we feel God is speaking to us through the scriptural passages on the subject. As Calvin believed strongly in the priesthood of all believers, I think it’s important for us to consider what this concept that is so associated with Calvin means to each of us.
If we want to explore the origins and roots of predestination as a concept we must begin with the texts of Paul’s letters to the churches at Rome and Ephesus that Calvin himself relied on to develop his understanding of election. Reading now from the 8th chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans. And then from the first chapter of his letter to the Ephesians.
What is predestination? Well, one thing it is not is providence. Predestination is not about whether God knows what color shirt you’ll wear tomorrow morning or causes things, good or bad, to happen next week. The doctrine of God’s guidance, control and active involvement in the world is the doctrine of providence.
Predestination has to do with our destination. With salvation. With where we are going in the afterlife. It is a doctrine that many people disagree with and many Christians who say they believe in election disagree about what they mean by election. It comes out of the idea that we cannot earn our salvation by our actions, but are saved by God’s grace.
Generally, predestination is about whether we are chosen or “elected” by God to be saved ahead of time, before we were created. In C.S. Lewis’ Narnia series, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, at a pivotal point, the lion Aslan tells the White Witch of things that existed “before the dawn of time.” Predestination is about things decided ahead of time about whether people are to be saved from their sins.
Many of you got to hear from Dr. Lloyd Ogilvie preach at my installation. He tells a story from being the pastor of a church in Pennsylvania . One day a man came to his office and started yelling at him, accusing him of being intolerant. Ogilvie was taken aback and asked why the man was accusing him of being intolerant. The man marched Ogilvie out to the church parking lot where there was a sign and the man pointed to it and said, “See, this sign says ‘Presbyterians only’.” Ogilvie responded, “Sir, I think you should read it again, it reads, ‘Pedestrians only.”
Carl Sandburg was once asked what the dirtiest word in the English language was and he answered, “The word - Exclusive.” We too bristle at the idea that only some exclusive people are chosen to be saved from their sins.
In Shakespeare’s Othello, written in 1604 during a period of the great spread of Calvin’s ideas throughout Europe , the Bard of Stratford includes a tongue-in-cheek conversation between Cassio and Iago about predestination. Not only predestination, but the idea of double predestination, that some are elected for salvation and others not to be saved.
Cassio says, “Well there’s God above and there are souls to be saved and souls not to be saved.” Cassio and Iago both state that they hope to be saved, and then Cassio says that he hopes to be “saved before the ancient.” Implying a pre-destination.
John Calvin himself believed in double predestination. He wrote in the third chapter of his Institutes, “Predestination, we call the eternal decree of God, by which He has determined…what would have to become of every individual of mankind. For they are not all created with a similar destiny; but eternal life is fore-ordained for some, and eternal damnation for others.” We cringe when we hear that, don’t we?
This idea begs the question of what about the much of the world that never have or will have a chance to come into contact with the idea of Christianity. Still, this view was encapsulated by the Westminster Confession and is still a central focus in some denominations. Double predestination. When you say it fast it almost sounds like “double secret probation,” from the movie, Animal House, and it’s just about as popular.
How did Calvin develop his view on this idea? Donald McKim, one of the best writers on Calvin that I know, writes that “For Calvin, the doctrine of predestination emerged out of a very practical situation. Why was it, he wondered, that some people believed in the Christian gospel and have faith, and others didn’t? That was a pastoral problem. Calvin’s answer was that some people believed because God through the Holy Spirit granted them the gift of faith. That was the sign of election.” Secondly, from the theologian Augustine in the 5th century. Third, he got it from scripture. In Matthew 22, Jesus says, “Many are called, but few are chosen.” Jesus, in John 13, says, “I know whom I have chosen.” In John 17, Jesus said “I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those who you gave me.” The focus on justice in both testaments and the passages in our second lessons from Paul’s letters to Rome and Ephesus support this idea.
Throughout most of history, when the Christian church had opportunities to repudiate this doctrine, it didn’t. In the 4th century A.D., some Christians supported the ideas of a monk named Pelagius who believe that human beings could choose good or evil without divine intervention. Yet the church sided with Augustine, though today I believe the majority of Protestant churches and certainly Catholic churches are as semi-Pelagion. During the Reformation, a similar controversy over sin and grace arose between the followers of Calvin and those of a Dutch theological named Arminius and in the early 17th century the church sided with Calvin.
But finally in the 20th century, the Presbyterian church broadened its understanding of election and placed this concept of election side by side with another important concept. God’s love.
Reformed theologians like Karl Barth reframed the doctrine of election. In Barth’s view of double predestination, only one person was destined to spend time in Hell and that is Jesus, who spent three days there before rising from the grave. For Barth, because of God’s love, Christ suffered the punishment that we all deserve so that we could have life.
So our denomination amended its understanding of the Westminster Confession of Faith to read that “the doctrine of predestination is to be ‘held in harmony with the doctrine of [God's] love to all mankind . . . [and] with the doctrine that God desires not the death of any sinner, but has provided in Christ a salvation sufficient for all.’”
And there is strong scriptural support for this view.
We heard in First Timothy that Nancy read that “God desires everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth.” In 2 Peter we hear “that God is patient, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.” Moreover, we know that Jesus is the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” The central tenants of Christianity from John 3: 16 and continuing into verse 17 reads, “God so loved the world that he sent his only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world might be saved through him.”
Paul himself writes to Corinth that “All die in Adam so all will be made alive in Christ.” He writes to the Colossians that God was pleased to reconcile “all things” to himself. And to the Romans, “one man’s act of righteousness leads to the justification and life for all.” And also that “God imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all.” Paul writes to the Ephesians that our God is a gracious God who “gathers all things to him in Christ.”
There is a reason why I have quoted from a variety of passages all written by Paul that seem to contradict each other on election. Paul clearly struggled with the issue. So has the church has throughout the centuries.
However you view predestination, and the Bible supports a variety of nuanced views on the subject, I think we do best to focus on the areas where scripture is consistent and that is on the gracious acts of a sovereign, loving God. That is the heart of election for me and the part that I have found to be most the comforting, the most helpful, that feels most real and that I believe is most supported by scripture.
The passages on both sides of the election debate depict God as a sovereign, in charge of our present and future. Paul wrote to the Ephesians about “the mystery of God’s will,” and I believe mystery remains, for I do not believe we were meant to fully understand, let alone obsess about, be competitive about, try to earn or worry about God’s process of salvation. Salvation is God’s business, not ours.
Scripture depicts God as loving. I return to Paul’s letter to the Ephesians that is at the center of his discussion of election, that God has a plan to “gather up all things (to Godself) in Christ.” Like a loving parent lovingly gathering her children.
Shirley Guthrie writes, the Bible “never directly or explicitly talks about a plan from the beginning of time to save some people and damn the rest.” Instead I think of Dietrich Bonheoffer who wrote, “Through every event, however, untoward, there is always a way through to God.”
And God is gracious. Election depends on God, on who God is and what God does, rather than on who you are and what you do. And thank goodness we do not have to rely on ourselves.
I believe that rather than simply making all decisions ahead of time and then leaving creation on its own, God is still actively involved in our world. Electing us for service in the world and giving us hope for a future life in Christ. Showering us with grace even when we do not deserve it. Each of us here has the stirring of the spirit at some level to bring us here. God is speaking to us, calling us, and our faith is the fruit of it. And I have great hope for what that means for our eternal futures. For our God is a God who gives us the benefit of the doubt.
One of you wrote me this week about those small moments of God’s grace. The God I know through prayer, meditation, scripture and those small moments of grace where you just know the Lord is present makes me think more about God and worry less about myself. Because the God I read about and the God I have come to know is a God that gives us the benefit of the doubt.
God did not give up on Jonah and continued to pursue him. God sent prophets to Israel when they fell off the path. Like Jeremiah who tried to run away from God’s election. And God sent God’s son to us. Jesus gave the benefit of the doubt, even saying to the criminal on the cross at the last minute of both their earthly lives, “today you will be with me in paradise.”
God did not give up on Calvin either, and because of that Calvin did not give up on himself. In 1538, two years after Calvin wrote his first draft of the Institutes, Calvin was kicked out of Geneva and forced to live in Strasburg. There he struggled. He had to sell many of his precious theology books to buy food. He learned the meaning of exile. He also learned the meaning of God’s sovereignty, love and grace. When he returned to Geneva he was a more mature, thankful, and focused man who thought less of himself and more of God. He had been saved in his own way. And his revisions of Institutes reflect that.
Whatever God has decided, is deciding or will decide, have faith that the fundamental character of God is not to give up on us, but to give us time and the benefit of the doubt. And because God has not given up on us, neither should we. Thanks be to God. Amen.
