Paradox?

JSM17 · May 30, 2009

The following "Question" was asked by a member of the congregation at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, and "Answered" by their pastor, John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed by Anjela Paje of Spokane, WA, from the tape, GC 1301-Q, titled "Bible Questions and Answers Part 19." A copy of the tape can be obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412 or by dialing toll free 1-800-55-GRACE. ©1980. All Rights Reserved.

Question

I wanted your opinion on a specific doctrine that you hear both teachings. You hear the free-will doctrine verses the election doctrine as far as salvation is concerned. And, I wanted your thoughts on that.

Answer

Everybody in this room believes in predestination if they believe the Bible. Right? How many of you believe the Bible? You believe the Bible? That is good! God help the rest of you. You are either slow or heretics, I do not know which.

All right, everybody believes the Bible, right? Then you believe in predestination. You say, “No, I was raised a Methodist.” I don't care what you were raised, you believe in predestination, if you believe the Bible, because in Ephesians 1, it says, He predestined us before the foundation of the world. It says in Revelation, He has written our names in the Lamb’s Book of Life from before the foundation of the world. It uses the word predestination. Everyone believes in that, who believes the Bible. God predetermined who would be saved. Before they were ever born. That's in the Bible. You believe it. So, just accept that you believe it. Now, was not that easy? Absolutely painless. You believe that.

The Bible also says, “Whosoever will may come. Him who cometh to me I will in no wise cast out? You believe that? Okay. So, you believe that, too. So, you believe in man’s volition. Free will is not a biblical term, because man’s will isn't really free. It is bound by sin.

When you became a Christian, did you say to yourself, “Oh! I am elect! I think, I'll get saved.” No. No, you made a decision, didn’t you? You made a choice.

So, the Bible teaches God’s predestining plan, God’s electing plan. It says that over and over, "elect" according to the foreknowledge of God, "elect" in Him. You know, I have many people in that city, he said, you know, in the book of Acts who weren't even saved, yet, but they were already considered His people because they were elect. So, you believe all of that. Then, you believe in man’s choice as well. So, you believe both of those things.

The problem is not whether you believe those. The problem is how you harmonize them, right? You know how you harmonize them? No, you don't. You don't know how to harmonize them. Because there is no way to harmonize them. And, the way that I like to illustrate it is this, Is Jesus God or man? Both. Is He all man? 100 % man? 100 % God? How can He be 200 %? It is a paradox. Who wrote Romans? Paul wrote Romans? God wrote Romans. They alternated verses? Who wrote Romans? Was it Paul’s words from his vocabulary and his heart? Was every word inspired by the Spirit of God? How could every single word come out of the mind of God, and yet, Paul feel that every single word came out of his own heart? You know what is going to happen if you try to synthesize those things? Okay. You know what happened in the early church councils? They got so confused and said, “Okay, he is half God and half man.” And, you know what you have got when you have half God and half man? Nothing. What is half a man? There is no such thing. What is half a God? A nothing. So they come up with heresy. So, on the one hand they said he is all deity and the idea that he was a physical being is just a phantom. And, they came up with a phantom view. And the others said, “No. He was all man, and he is not deity at all. Because they tried to resolve it, they came up with heresy every time. They either said he is all God and not man, or all man and not God, or half and half, and that is a nothing. You have to leave the paradox.

Now, when you come to the writing of the Bible, some say that it can't be all Paul and all the Holy Spirit, so Paul just wrote what the Holy Spirit told him, and it all really the Holy Spirit. Is that true? You have just eliminated the Pauline authorship. But, on the other hand, if you say, “It is all Paul, like the liberals do and none of the Holy Spirit.” Then, you have eliminated God.

Let me ask you another question. Who lives your Christian life? Who? Do you? Do you? I hope you do. Is it just you out there living it up? "Not I, but," what? "Christ liveth in me. Nevertheless," what? "I live. Yet, not I, but Christ." Well, if it is all Christ, then I become a quietist: "Let go and let God." And, you have that movement. On the other hand, if you say, “It's me,” I become a pietist and a legalist. You just have to handle both and leave them in a paradox.

When it comes down to the whole area of sovereignty and will, you got to leave them where they are. And, as soon as you try to resolve them, you get all of the Calvinists who run over to this end of the seesaw and start screaming, “sovereignty, sovereignty! (bang) And, down goes the scale, right? And, they got God doing everything. One guy came to me one day and said, “God even makes you sin.” That is the ultimate...and, then on the other hand, you have got the Armenians who say, “No, no, no, it is all us, it is all us, it is all us.” And, if it is all us, folks, we are really in trouble. Why don’t you leave it alone?

Then you have the Baptists. Oh, the Baptists. And, the Baptists come together in the middle and they say, “Well, it is a little bit of predestination and a little bit of free will. You see, God looks down the road and He says, “Oh, that is what they are going to do. I see, so that is what I will choose..." No! Just leave it alone.

So, the best way to solve that problem is to believe both and let God resolve it. Now, if you could resolve all those problems, you would be God. And, then there would be other problems we have to deal with.

Now, let me tell you something. One of the greatest marks of the inspiration of the scripture is the fact that it has those incomprehensible paradoxes. Because, if a man or men had written that book, they never would have, number one, conceived them; number two, they never would have left them there. They would have resolved them. The fact that they are there and they stand all over the place in the Bible is one of the truest proofs that God of an infinite mind far beyond our own wrote those things. And, the very fact that there are those irreconcilable apparent paradoxes in scripture speaks of divine authorship. God understands how they harmonize. We don’t. And, that means God has a greater mind than we do. Aren’t you glad about that?
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Is this true, can all the years of debating be for nothing between the "Calvinst" and the "Arminian"? Could it be both in some respect? Maybe all the years of debating have led to this understanding?

Salty · May 30, 2009

Dr. Hammond of the Bluefield Union Mission has an interesting analogy.

Its like standing on a set of railroad tracks. At your feet, the tracts are quite a distance apart, but as you look at a distance, eventually, the tracks come together.

annsni · May 30, 2009

Spurgeon speaks on this:

I do not think I differ from any of my Hyper-Calvinistic brethren in what I do believe, but I differ from them in what they do not believe. I do not hold any less than they do, but I hold a little more, and, I think, a little more of the truth revealed in the Scriptures. Not only are there a few cardinal doctrines, by which we can steer our ship North, South, East, or West, but as we study the Word, we shall begin to learn something about the North-west and North-east, and all else that lies between the four cardinal points. The system of truth revealed in the Scriptures is not simply one straight line, but two; and no man will ever get a right view of the gospel until he knows how to look at the two lines at once. For instance, I read in one Book of the Bible, "The Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." Yet I am taught, in another part of the same inspired Word, that "it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy." I see, in one place, God in providence presiding over all, and yet I see, and I cannot help seeing, that man acts as he pleases, and that God has left his actions, in a great measure, to his own free-will. Now, if I were to declare that man was so free to act that there was no control of God over his actions, I should be driven very near to atheism; and if, on the other hand, I should declare that God so over-rules all things that man is not free enough to be responsible, I should be driven at once into Antinomianism or fatalism. That God predestines, and yet that man is responsible, are two facts that few can see clearly. They are believed to be inconsistent and contradictory to each other. If, then, I find taught in one part of the Bible that everything is fore-ordained, that is true; and if I find, in another Scripture, that man is responsible for all his actions, that is true; and it is only my folly that leads me to imagine that these two truths can ever contradict each other.

I do not believe they can ever be welded into one upon any earthly anvil, but they certainly shall be one in eternity. They are two lines that are so nearly parallel, that the human mind which pursues them farthest will never discover that they converge, but they do converge, and they will meet somewhere in eternity, close to the throne of God, whence all truth doth spring.
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swaimj · May 30, 2009

Is this true, can all the years of debating be for nothing between the "Calvinst" and the "Arminian"? Could it be both in some respect? Maybe all the years of debating have led to this understanding?
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I think this statement has been posted on BB before (the one by MacArthur). I agree with it. Call it a paradox or a mystery; regardless, there is an element here that we cannot comprehend and cannot explain. However, I question whether this statement truly reflects the teaching of 5-point calvinism. If you read a writer like James White, I think you will find that he would not accept this explanation, but would regard it as watering down of true calvinism. For this reason, though Spurgeon and MacArthur claim to be calvinists, I think that they are not really true 5-pointers. They are calvinistic and teach a modified version of calvinism. At that point, I don't choose to use the self-decriptive terminology that they use though I don't really disagree with their position.

Heavenly Pilgrim · May 30, 2009

John MacArthur Jr.: “you have got the Armenians who say, “No, no, no, it is all us, it is all us, it is all us.””
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HP: I see that as a flat out misrepresentation of the beliefs of the Arminians. I have been associated with many from that perspective and have never found anyone of them in all my personal contacts or in anything I have ever read or in the hundreds of sermons I have heard preached in their circles, that would express or imply in any way such sentiments.

JMJr: So, the best way to solve that problem is to believe both and let God resolve it. Now, if you could resolve all those problems, you would be God.

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HP: Hogwash. The problem is not that it cannot be resolved, but rather that as long as he remains hanging onto the false notions of Calvinism it is he that cannot resolves these notions. Dumping the absurd contradictions upon God that are the results of holding to the false principles of Calvinism is ludicrous. One can entertain many uncertainties in their theology but no one should allow clear absurd contradictions in their theology. Calvinism as taught by John MacArthur Jr.’s entertains clear absurdities. For instance. He tries to teach Lordship salvation, but if his Calvinistic idea of predestination is correct, either God predestines you to lordship or not, and your decisions cannot have the least to do with it. It is either predestined or it is not. Here again, I applaud him on trying to teach personal responsibility but he needs to realize that such teaching, while in the next breath teaching pure Calvinism, will continue to foment the maelstrom of confusion Calvinism invariably breeds.

JMJr would do well to come to the reality that predestination is indeed a Scriptural concept, but that does not necessitate or support the false Calvinistic interpretation and meaning of the term.

billwald · May 30, 2009

antinomy, not paradox

Both are true.

Heavenly Pilgrim · May 30, 2009

Annsni: Spurgeon speaks
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HP: And when he does he as confused as to the truth of this issue as any other Calvinist.

Paradox?

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