Double Predestination

One of the worst doctrines to ever hit the church is the doctrine which came in under the Reformed label and it is the doctrine of double predestination. Basically this doctrine says God chooses who goes to heaven and who goes to hell and people have no choice in the matter. There is no such thing as human freedom to choose whether or not to follow God, repent, believe in Jesus and receive eternal life. This doctrine is held up to uphold the notion of God’s sovereignty and is usually bandied about by semi-academics. This doctrine is thought by some to be the high watermark of the Protestant Reformation and the strength of the church in the 17th and 18th centuries. The doctrine and the historical analysis are both untrue. First for history, the strength of the Protestant Reformation came from three other doctrines, not double predestination. The great energy which changed Europe and the world came from three rediscovered truths by the early reformers. The first truth was justification by faith, the second was faith in Christ alone as necessary for salvation and the third was the authority of scripture over church tradition. The rediscovery of these three doctrines rocked the world and they are still rocking the world. The truth is the doctrine of double predestination killed the momentum of the reformation and is the main doctrinal reason the church is nearly dead in Europe today. This is because double predestination is nothing more than fatalism with Christian language attached to it. Double predestination cuts the heart out of evangelism and purpose for the church and renders the church listless and uncaring. The worst part about double predestination is that it makes God responsible for evil. If humans have no free will then God is the one who set Adam and Eve up to fall, God is the one who created and destined Hitler to kill 6 million Jews and set the world to war. It would mean that it is God who created the rapist to rape and the murderer to murder all for some sovereign plan we are told we can’t understand. We are told to be quiet in our ignorance because His ways are higher than our ways. Well His ways are higher than our ways, but this doctrine makes His ways lower than our ways. It makes God out to be the author and orchestrator of evil. Abraham said “will not the judge of all the earth do right” because he knew he couldn’t worship an unjust God, and neither can we. If double predestination is true we may fear God and serve God but we will not love and worship Him because we will see Him as less fair than we are, and if we don’t see God as all good we will not be able to give Him our total worship. Double predestinarians say their doctrine is scriptural, relying a lot on Romans 9, but nearly the whole rest of the Bible refutes this position. Not only does the Bible tell people to choose one way over another, time and time again, (see Genesis 4, Deut. 28 and Joshua 24 as examples) but the Bible is full of commands or imperatives. Every command, every imperative implies a choice. God is saying do this, or don’t do that. Commands make no sense without choice. It’s not that there is little evidence for human volition in the Bible, but the whole Bible is about God acting with humans with volition. The Bible is a book about how God works out His salvation with people who are free. He implores, invites, judges, corrects, woos His people but never overrides their choice to love and follow Him or leave and reject Him.

How bad do we want the next level?

We want to go to the next level of intimacy with God and fruitfulness in God. We want revival in the church and transformation in our land. What Christian would argue with those statements? But the truth is we don’t want those things if they come with a price tag. And they do come with a price tag and it is a price we are seldom willing to pay. It is not the price we normally hear about, pray more, give more. In fact the price will be different every time. But almost always the price will be offensive, costly and unexpected. The Jews wanted their Messiah, he came, but he was from Nazareth, came from an unwed mother and didn’t look at all like King David. God had answered their prayer but in a package they didn’t recognize, He was offensive. I have been in situations where we have been praying for healing and one person gets healed and another doesn’t. It’s confusing and awkward, it leaves unanswered questions. Many would rather not have healing if it comes in that package, better to back away from it then have confusion. I have heard pastors say I want more power but I don’t want people to fall in church. God send it, but send it my way. And whatever happens don’t let attendance and giving go down. What if God sent revival and it meant you had to travel a long way and have a preacher you found offensive lay hands on you? What if it meant leaving a secure job and moving somewhere where you had to trust God to provide? What if it meant being misunderstood by family and losing some friends? The owner of the field sold everything to get the pearl of great price. Proud Naaman had to submit to Elisha’s direction and dip seven times in the dirty Jordan to be healed of leprosy. God wants to know do you want the answer to your prayers enough to pay the price. Are you willing to embrace the offense, whatever it is, and go and do things he says without having all the answers and surely being misunderstood. The price tag will be different every time but three things are sure, it will be costly, it will be unexpected, and it will in some way be offensive. How bad do we want the next level?

Will not the judge of all the earth do right?

The second way to answer the question of God’s fairness is to look at our sense of justice. Unless we had a sense of justice, of right and wrong we would never question the fairness of God. Our questions come from our sense of what ought to be done. But where does our sense of justice come from? The Christian answer is that it comes from God. If this is true then we can be sure that our sense of justice is not higher than His. Water does not rise higher than its source. God cannot give us a sense of fairness that is superior to His; therefore we can always trust God to do the right thing. In the end there will be no one in heaven or hell who will be able to say, ‘God wasn’t fair’. There is a great illustration of this in Genesis 18. God is letting Abraham know about His plans to judge Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham questions God’s fairness by asking God if He would kill the righteous with the wicked. Abraham barters God down to find out if He is fair. At one point Abraham asks, “Will not the judge of all the earth do right?” This is a profound question. Abraham becomes satisfied that God will not judge the righteous with the wicked, in fact he will spare the wicked for the sake of the righteous. Until we become convinced like Abraham that the judge of all the earth will do right we cannot trust, worship and love Him. But if we know that God is not less fair then me, He is more fair. And God is not less merciful then me, He is more merciful. Then we can freely worship Him and know in the end He will be fair and more then fair, He will be merciful. The judge of all the earth will do right.

Is God fair?

The issue of hell raises questions of God’s justice. Is God fair? The question arises how eternal punishment is fair for someone who stole a nickel from their mom’s purse. This question is answered in two ways: First, it is not the nickel that is the problem it is the bent in a person to steal, to take something for themselves that belongs to another. Stealing is selfish as are all sins. It is the bent in us all that tries to make the self the center of the universe that is damnable. Unless this bent is repented of it will keep us away from God simply because He is the center of the universe. We need to deal not so much with sinning as with sin. If sin is at the center of our lives we will not want to go to heaven, we can’t be in control there, we cannot be the center, God is the center. The only way to enjoy heaven and to enjoy God is to let Him kill that bent in us so that we can be at peace with the truth, He is the Creator we are the creature. He is the center, it is all about Him, and we orbit around Him and find ourselves in Him. Heaven is the place for people who accept the truth, want the truth and willingly submit to the truth. Hell is the place for everyone who still wants to be the center. That is why stealing the nickel and mass murder can both send a person to hell, they are both imposing the self over others and God and are both a symptom of self-centeredness instead of God centeredness. The way to kill that self-centeredness is to repent, surrender our wills to His, invite His Lordship over our lives and receive His gifts of forgiveness of sin and new life in the Spirit that come by faith. The next ramble will deal with the second way to approach the question of God’s fairness.

Locked from the Inside

Eschatology is the study of the last things, and the ultimate last thing is heaven or hell. Clearly the doctrine of hell is the most troubling of all doctrines for Christian people, if it is not something is wrong with us. How can the God we have met as Father and Savior send people to hell, if He is good and powerful why not save them all? If it wasn’t for Jesus teaching on the subject I would probably be an universalist, for make no mistake about it, it is not Paul or the Old Testament writers who make the case for hell, it is our Lord Himself. As always the answer lies in the heart of God. God gave us choices, freedom, and our freedom is real. God’s ultimate value seems to be love and love is one of those choices. We choose to love people and we choose to love God. Romantic love, infatuation, simply seems to happen, it is not hard to fall in love. But real love is a choice we make. So to love God we must choose to love God, we must seek Him and find Him and follow Him. God has made this possible through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. So far so good, but there is a problem and the problem is us. We don’t want to follow God, we don’t want the universe on His terms we want it on our terms. This is sin and it is no small problem. It is so deeply ingrained in us it stops us from seeking, loving and following God. It is only when God’s grace reaches us and woes us that we awake to the reality that our lives are in Him. At this point we have a choice, we can repent of our self centeredness and believe upon Jesus or we can insist upon our own will being done. That choice is the choice between heaven and hell. Hell is not the place people go for not having correct doctrine or for any particular sin, hell is the place people choose to go to keep God out of there lives. I think it was Calvin Miller who said, “The gates of hell are not locked on the outside to keep the damned in, they are locked from the inside to keep God out.”

Love Drives Out Fear

So if fear is such a negative thing and so detrimental to our faithfulness and fruitfulness in Christ how do we get past it? Faith is the antithesis to fear but love is the antidote. The Bible teaches that “perfect love drives out fear”. This makes perfect sense. Faith requires living by taking risks based upon God’s voice and God’s promises. Fear is simply the state we live in when we really don’t believe the voice or the promises. Love is the answer. If we know that we know that we know God loves us, then we know He won’t let us down when we step out in faith. If we know He loves us we’ll pursue and have a level of intimacy with Him to know His voice so we won’t doubt when we hear Him or even be afraid of hearing wrongly. After all if we make a mistake trying to listen to Him and do His will, if He loves us He’ll put us back on the right track. We will believe His promises, act upon them, see His faithfulness and rejoice in His goodness. The answer for the overwhelming and paralyzing fear that grips a control bound Western Christianity is nothing other than the love of God. We are like little children on the edge of the pool wanting to jump in for the first time. Daddy is in the water with His arms extended and promising to catch us. How do we know He’ll catch us? He has a track record of love and faithfulness, but the only way to be sure is to jump. How do we get past the fear into the arms of a good and loving God, trust His love and take the plunge. Give the money you are prompted to give, start the class you have been nudged to start, reach out to the neighbor or co-worker God has placed on your heart. Base your next decision not upon the fear based prognosis of the current economy but on the voice of God revealed in your heart and in the scriptures. We can live lives of adventure and freedom outside of fear and in the arms of love. Jump.

Perilous Times?

I got an email one time with a ‘prophetic warning’ that started out by saying, ‘in these perilous times’. That should have been a tip-off. The warning was useless, and uninformed. But the phrase ‘in these perilous times’ caught my attention, I didn’t respond at the time, but I have since reflected on that phrase. My question is what about these times is more perilous than other times? I think all times are perilous for those rebelling against God and His Christ, but what makes the times perilous for those in Christ. My answer is nothing. If we are in Christ the times are not perilous they are glorious. Paul says, “To live is Christ and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21) In other words we cannot lose. If we live, we live in Christ and have marvelous friends and great ministry opportunities. If we die we enter our reward. So why the fear about perilous times? I think it comes from bad eschatology, and a distorted image of God. The bad eschatology is based upon a system that thinks things are going to get worse and worse until at the very last second we are raptured away. After that things will get real bad for seven years until Christ returns. I think this eschatology is built around a misinterpretation of scripture which interprets scriptures meant to describe the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. for today. But the bigger problem than the eschatological question is the image of God question. The phrase perilous times given to Christians imply salvation hanging by a thread. It pictures a God who is looking for an excuse to condemn; one slip and you’ll lose it all. I am not arguing here one way or another about eternal security, but I am saying God has revealed His will in Jesus Christ as a God who is willing, able and eager to save. Christians, seeking to do God’s will, living by faith and taking risks are not in peril. It is too bad many live their lives in fear of a God who loves them and miss the largeness of His saving heart.

More on Fear

One of the worst ways we hide fear is by hiding behind our Bibles and theology. This happens when knowing all the right answers and being able to correct others becomes more important then knowing and loving God and knowing and loving people. This is often the way of the religious who are afraid of real relationships. We all have been hurt by life and instead of risking more hurt we decide being right is more important than being real and vulnerable. The Bible, and theology can then become tools to actually keep God and people at arms length. This is the way of the Pharisees. Don't get me wrong, the Bible is true and good theology (what we think about God) is important. In fact if we truly understood the word of the Bible and had good theology we would be set free from fear and hiding. Sadly that seems to be too hard for all of us sometimes and for some all the time. So we use our knowledge of the Bible and theological correctness to bully people and keep threats away, we use phrases like 'where is that in the Bible' to protect us from God encounters, and 'that's not biblical' to protect us from changing our minds. As I said, I believe this kind of Pharisaical thinking is rooted in fear. It keeps people isolated, unchangeable and mean. The very antithesis to the heart of God, who wants us in real community, repent, teachable, kind and lovable.

Fear, Wisdom, and Stewardship

Fear is so prevalent in Western Christianity we have theological names for it to hide behind. Two words we use to mask fear are wisdom and stewardship. We use the word wisdom to mean let's maintain the status quo, it would be unwise to change what we are doing, and problem free comfort is the primary goal. We use the word stewardship to justify selfishness with our money and property, we hoard these things for the saints instead of risking them missionally. New Testament wisdom is living by faith, and as John Wimber used to say faith is spelled R-I-S-K. Faith leaves comfort, prays for the sick and expects them to get well, casts out demons and is often leaving familiar places and people for God adventures. And in the New Testament money and property are not evil at all, but seen as tools to expand God's Kingdom on earth, they are given away generously for the cause of evangelism and mercy. Whenever I hear the words let's be wise or practice good stewardship I listen carefully to hear if it is the voice of fear or faith behind these words. All too often out of my mouth and the mouths others it has been the voice of fear.

Sometimes I Ramble

In our evangelical culture we have raised our kids trying to protect them from the world and the devil. This is a posture of fear. We are so concerned they will be swept away we teach them to be bigger cowards then we are. And they never see a vibrant aggressive faith so they end up being swept away. We bring upon us the thing we fear. It is time we raise kids the world and the devil need to be afraid of. We are on the offense, we have the ball. If we live a vibrant victorious life, taking risks by faith and living like we really believe what we want them to believe, then we have nothing to fear from R rated movies or college philosophy courses. They will know the truth of our doctrine by our lives, they will embrace it, take it to another level, and the world and the devil will need protecting from them.