Predestination and Free Will

"The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever..." - Deuteronomy 29:29

The paradox of the sovereignty of God's will vs. free will is a paradigm that can make one's head spin. Some emphasize that God is in total control of everything and that nothing can happen that He does not plan and direct, including man’s salvation. Others teach that man has free will and that God will never interrupt or take that free will away, and that God has obligated Himself to respect the free moral agency and capacity of free choice with which He created us. I think both are true. This is much like the concept of God is one; and, yet he exists in three persons. In our finite minds we can't understand how 1=3 or how God can be all powerful and all knowing and yet we, who are made in the image of God, are given the freedom to make choices for ourselves that have eternal consequences?

Certainly, the Bible does teach that God is sovereign, and that believers are predestined and elected by God to spend eternity with Him. Nowhere, however, does the Bible ever associate election with damnation. Conversely, the Scriptures teach that God elects for salvation, but that unbelievers are in hell by their own choice. Every passage of the Bible that deals with election deals with it in the context of salvation, not damnation. No one is elect for hell. The only support for such a view is human logic, not Biblical revelation.

Election and predestination are both Biblical doctrines. God knows everything and therefore He cannot be surprised by anything. He is beyond the constraints of mass, acceleration and gravity, therefore He is outside time. He knows, and has known from “eternity past,” who will exercise their free will to accept Him and who will reject Him. The former are “the elect” and the latter are the “non-elect.” Everyone who is not saved will have only himself to blame: God will not send anyone to hell, but many people will choose to go there by exercising their free will to reject Christ.

On the other hand, no one who is saved will be able to take any of the credit. Our salvation is entirely God’s work, and is based completely on the finished work of the Cross. We were dead in trespasses and sins, destined for hell, when God in His grace drew us to Himself, convinced us of our sin and our need for a Savior, and gave us the authority to call Jesus Lord. Is this grace, this wooing, this courtship, irresistible? No, we have free will and we can (and do) resist, even to the damnation of our souls, but God does everything short of making us automata (preprogrammed puppets) to draw us into His forever family.

This subject will never be understood fully or revealed completely this side of life. However, someday, every person who has ever lived will stand before the throne of judgment and then comprehend fully what the Bible reveals to all within the context of each person's life.

In the Wilderness

The story of the wilderness in the Bible is a theme that apples to every Christian's life today. Abraham, Hagar, Moses, Elisha and Jesus all experience God in the wilderness. In Hebrew, B’midbar means "in the wilderness," which is the real title of the book of Numbers. The Greek translators called it Arithmoi, and in Latin it was Numeri, because the translators focused on the two census takings at the beginning and the end. But "the wilderness wanderings" is perhaps a more appropriate name. Numbers picks up where Exodus left off. And it's really a book about arrested progress. In a sense, it never should have happened. It took only 40 hours to get Israel out of Egypt - the Passover. But it took 40 years to get Egypt out of Israel. At Kadesh-Barnea, Moses sent out twelve spies to check out the new land. Ten of them came back terrified, and for good reason. They said they saw the Nephilim, the giant "fallen ones."

Numbers 13:33 records, "…and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight." Goliath was also one of those. He was nine feet tall. They had reason to be scared. And yet, it was also a lack of faith. Two of the twelve spies, Joshua and Caleb, had a different attitude and brought the "minority report." They said, "This land is rich, it's full, it's marvelous. Let us go up at once and possess it for we are well able to overcome it." By their own strength? Of course not. By faith! God said, "Go take it." When God is on our side, our enemy is outnumbered.

Unfortunately, the people rallied around the ten spies with their bad report. "And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron: and the whole congregation said to them, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt, or, Would God that we had died in this wilderness" (Numbers 14:2). That was a big mistake. God was listening and heard their murmuring and gave them their desires. God said to Israel, "Your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness and all that were numbered of you, according to your whole number, from 20 years old and upward, which have murmured against me" (Numbers 14:29).

Only two in the entire group, Joshua and Caleb, survived to go into the Promised Land. Joshua was the military leader who took over after Moses. Caleb was his sidekick. Together, these two rout a powerful group of nations on the earth at that time.

Why does the Bible record all the things that happened during those 40 years? The Scripture tells us it was for an example. These things happened to them for our admonition. Paul makes a point in 1 Corinthians 10:11 that everything written then is for our application now. Every one of the events in Numbers has a lesson for us. And that's why it is so important to study this book in detail.

The word "example" in Greek is tupos, which is "a figure, an image, a pattern, a pre-figuring." That's where we get the term "type," or model. Engineers speak of a prototype, which is from the same root. Types are common in the Bible, where some event, some object, or some situation is a lesson, in advance, of what's coming. The manna we read about in the book of Numbers is a type, as is the brazen serpent and the water from the rock.

The Book of Numbers is a fascinating study in many ways. Expositionally, it demonstrates the integrity of Design. Homiletically, it reveals that these were real people with practical problems. Devotionally, we see that "crossing over Jordon" is not "going to Heaven" - life is warfare. Each one of us is in our own wilderness and every day is our "Kadesh-Barnea." Will we trust God and conquer the land? Will we resolutely try to surmount the obstacles that lie in our way? Or will we shrink from the apparent difficulties and remain slaves to the sin in our lives?

Realizing that we are in the "wilderness" is the first step of Christian maturity. It is the battle of eternal life over death. The decision that one makes in the wilderness determines where you will spend eternity. When I hear people "murmur" at church about how unhappy they are in their faith, I shudder. It is not about us! It is about God. We would do well to study these "types" so that we can be armed with the word of God to overcome the world.