WHO ART THOU, O MAN, TO QUESTION GOD?

by Barry Godwin

Bizarre Responses

Have you ever discussed election or predestination with someone who doesn't believe it? You get some bizarre responses. I had a friend years ago who believed that, yes, God is Sovereign, but that He chooses to limit His sovereignty in the area of man's salvation. In other words, God has the ability to disable Himself? God ceases to be God sometimes, huh? Now does that make sense? The same friend said if he thought election were true he'd never have children because there'd be too great a chance they might not be elect. Another friend told him he'd never have any children any way unless God had decreed it!

We were going through Romans in Bible College years ago when we came to Chapter 9, where after explaining election Paul says, "Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor?" Our professor made it clear that the "lump" (humanity) was already corrupt when God "found" it and so He chose to do something about it by electing some for salvation. One would get the idea that in his view God was strolling through the universe when, oops! He happened to stumble across this lump of clay that had turned bad on Him while He was away.

Well, I guess that's better than one local Sunday School Class that spent two years going verse by verse through Romans. And when they finished Chapter 8, the teacher announced, "Now chapter 9 is about the Sovereignty of God and that doesn't concern us. Let's move on to chapter 10."

Recently I heard a well known preacher on the radio "exegeting" Romans 9. "I know this looks like it says God elects some for salvation and passes over others, he said. Personally I just cannot believe that." End of discussion. And that was basically his "exegesis" of Romans 9.

We used to debate predestination in Bible College. I had a preacher friend who used to just get furious. He said if he heard the word "election" mentioned again he was going to punch somebody out! Later on he backed off that and told me, "Barry, I believe in election just like you do. But I'd never preach it to my congregation. They'd quit witnessing." Now there's an interesting approach: Keep 'em ignorant and they'll work harder! Who was it that said, "The truth shall make you free"?

You're probably starting to think I'm making these stories up but I promise you I'm not that creative. Yes, you get all kinds of crazy responses when you bring up election:

"That's not fair. It's mean!" "Then we can all just stop trying." "But God loves everybody." "I don't believe we are robots." "What about man's free will?"

Well, when you've answered all those and shown people the scriptures, there's usually still one hurdle they can't get over. It's been my experience that this one question lingers in people's minds more than any other like a dark cloud: "Does God predestinate people to hell?" We readily admit that this is a confounding problem.

Be Careful How We Answer

If we simply answer "yes" people will accuse us of presenting God as cruel, unjust and evil. And the scriptures always speak of election in the light of God's love. "He chose us in love; in love he predestinated us" (Eph. 1:4-5). "Whom he did foreknow (fore-love) he did predestinate" (Rom. 8:29).

If our answer is an unqualified "no, God does not predestinate people to hell." Then the question arises: What of the wicked in hell? Do they get there without being part of God's eternal plan? And if not part of God's plan, then do such events catch God by surprise? If we are afraid, as we should be, of charging God with evil, is the solution to charge Him with ignorance or impotence? Blasphemy! "Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, my counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure" (Is. 46:9, 10).

Does God predestinate people to hell? If the answer is not "yes" and if the answer is not "no", then what? Ah, let the God- breathed words of Romans 9:20 be as a hammer that breaketh in pieces: "Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?" In other words, who are you, O man, to question God? That's all the answer we need. Something is cockeyed, something is tilted off balance when the Creator is asked to give an account of Himself to His creatures.

In the 9th chapter of Romans, Paul fully discusses the theme of election, and he anticipates two questions that are very similar to the one we are dealing with: "is there unrighteousness with God?" "Why does he yet find fault? For who has resisted his will?" His answer is to rebuke the spirit of the question.

Some New Doctrine?

Paul is not the first to rebuke man for questioning God. Let the words of the prophet Isaiah be sounded from the mountain tops: "Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth therewith? or shall the saw magnify itself against him that shaketh it?" (Isa. 10:15)

". . . shall the work say of him that made it, He made me not? or shall the thing formed say of him that formed it, He hath no understanding?" (Isa. 29:16) "Woe unto him that striveth with his maker." (Isa. 45:9)

Oh, there are many other examples where this theme is laid out in Holy Writ. Remember the parable of the vineyard where the workers began to murmur? The reply of the good-man of the house was sufficient: "is it not lawful for me to do what I will with my own?" (Matt. 20:15)

But perhaps the chief example is to be found in that great poem of poems: The Book of Job. God's faithful servant loses everything he had by God's decree. And for 37 chapters Job and his friends have been trying to figure out what's going on and why. Finally the Lord speaks out of the whirlwind. The reader's heart is filled with anticipation. "At long last," he says to himself, "here comes the answer I've been waiting for." But instead of answering the question, God asks some of His own: "Where were you, Job. . . ? Who are you, Job. . . ? Job, canst thou. . . ?" And when it's over he's left stunned. Did he miss something? No. And then he realizes, his is but to bow before the Lord with Job and admit "I've said too much already."

Notice the Picture Painted

Does God predestinate people to hell? Notice the picture that question paints. Here's this mean ogre God blocking the gates of heaven to those who are not elect. Friend, nothing could be further from the truth. Man is not storming heaven's gate. He is running from God as fast as his legs will carry him. "There is none that seeketh after God" (Rom. 3:11). In his grace, God reaches out and saves some who would otherwise have kept on running away. God's sovereign election of certain ones to salvation is a merciful provision. "Except the Lord of hosts had left us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and . . . like unto Gomorrah" (Isa. 1:9). But for grace, all Israel, indeed all of Adam's descendants, would have perished in their sins. Election is a merciful provision.

You say, "well then, what about such passages as: 'The Lord hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil' (Prov. 16:4). 'Them . . . being disobedient: whereunto they were also appointed' (I Pet. 2:8). 'For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand . . . Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated' (Rom. 9:11-13). . . .vessels of wrath fitted to destruction (Rom. 9:22)." Well, what about them?

What if God, willing to give us a glimpse of His absolute sovereignty, puts passages like these in the Bible? Do we then turn around and charge Him with evil? Let us take caution just as a son sometimes has to be cautioned by his father: "Watch your tongue, boy."

Let's keep things in perspective here. Will not the Judge of the whole earth do right? It is you, O man, who is on trial in life. Not God. You've been charged with all manner of pride, envy, strife, lust, sins of commis- sion, sins of omission, and the evidence against you is over-whelming. Will you risk being held in contempt of court by insulting the Judge with your arrogant questions? The only hope for sinful man is, and always has been, to admit his guilt and throw himself on the mercy of the court. Oh, by the way, our Judge delights in mercy cases. They are His specialty!

From the Pit?

One world renowned preacher is quoted as saying, "The idea that God chooses some for salvation and passes over others is from the pit of hell." Can a doctrine be from the pit of hell that exalts the Creator as Lord over all and roclaims salvation for hopeless man -- not just in part -- but totally by grace? Or would you prefer a salvation where God does His part and man does his part? Please, don't answer that!

I am reminded of the words of the beloved C. H. Spurgeon: "Attempts have been made to prove that the Bible does not teach predestination, but these attempts so clearly do violence to language that I will not waste time in answering them." I'll tell you what is from the pit of hell: the idea that God is "trying His best" to save sinful man but having only limited success because "man won't let him!" The God of modern Christianity is but a pathetic effeminate caricature of the Almighty Lord of Hosts portrayed in scripture who has "predestined us according to the good pleasure of his will" (Eph. 1:5), and "works all things after the counsel of his will" (Eph. 1:11). Ah, whether we know it or not we serve an awesome God who wrote the script, then built the stage, chose the actors, and now produces and directs the play. Does this tempt you to ask as the fool, "Then, what's the use in trying?" Nay, it should only drive us to our frail knees in utter dependence on the one who has all power in heaven ad in earth.

"Cold" and "Heartless"?

But you object: "God's plan sounds so cold and heartless. It sounds like God is happy to be dropping sinners into hell." Suppose you had cancer in one of your lungs. You ould not be "happy" about having that lung removed. Yet in another sense it "pleases" you to have it removed to save the body. So it is, for the higher good God's decree includes not only righteousness but sin, not only joy but suffering, not only life but death, not only heaven but hell. "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, an create evil: I the Lord do all these things" (Isa. 45:7).

But before we criticize, let us first explain why, if God's plan is so "heartless", does it include His only begotten Son being crucified on a Roman cross for sinful man? Was the Father "happy" to see His Son hanging on that tree? No. "Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him" (Isa. 53:10).

God says, "I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked" (Ezk. 33:11). Yet at the same time "My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure" (Isa. 46:10). You say, well that just doesn't compute. Of course Not! You're only looking at a few small pieces of the puzzle with a mind darkened by sin. Yours is not to understand but to trust in the One Who does understand. That's the lesson Job had to learn (the hard way). And that's the lesson you have to learn. (My advice is to learn it the easy way!)

Do you still murmur and complain that predestination isn't fair? As our dearly departed brother A. W. Pink so aptly put it before he went home: "In choosing the ones He did, God did no injustice to the others who were passed by for none had any right to salvation. Salvation is by grace, and the exercise of grace is a matter of pure sovereignty--God might save all or none, many or few, one or ten thousand, just as He saw best. Should it be replied, But surely it were 'best' to save all. The answer would be: We are not capable of judging. We might have thought it 'best' if God had never created Satan, never allowed sin to enter the world, or sin having entered, if He had brought the conflict between good and evil to an end long before now. Ah! God's ways are not ours, and His ways are 'past finding out'.

Just A Glimpse

Do we understand all these things? Did Moses see the glory of God? He wanted to. But what did God say? "No, Moses, you couldn't handle that. But as I pass by, I'll let you catch a glimpse of my backside." (Godwin translation.) So it is with our knowledge. We see through a glass darkly. Perhaps someday, when we see face to face . . . . Who knows? But for now, the secret things belong to the Lord our God.

Erase any image you might have in your mind that predestination is cold and cruel, and replace it with the image of Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God slain for sinners from the foundation of the world. Cast yourself at the foot of His throne of grace and see your sins, which are many, covered under His blood. The depths of the truths you'll find there will be enough to keep your mind occupied for quite some time, without having to worry about how the wicked fit into God s decree.

We must view life in the proper perspective. It must always be our intent to exalt the Creator so that the creature may take his proper place before Him (in the dust!). His ways are not our ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts. "He doeth according to his will . . . and none can stay his hand or say unto him, what doest thou?" (Dan. 4:35). There's our answer. Do you love it? or do you hate it? Do you love it as one who in humble resignation accepts as a first-truth that the Judge of the whole earth will do right? Or do you hate it as one who objects in prideful rebellion: "We will not have this man to rule over us." Are you like Moses who said, "who am I, Lord?" or are you like Pharaoh who said, "who is the Lord that I should obey him?"

Let us lay aside that haughty spirit, repent of our arrogance, wipe that proud look off our faces, and humbly bow before Him proclaiming Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth" (Rev. 19:6)!