Editor’s Note: Given the ongoing debate over free will and predestination, we are running both articles from multiple perspectives.
How can a good God send people to Hell? For many people, the idea that God would decide to send some men to Heaven and the rest to Hell is repugnant. In his book, Against Calvinism, Arminian theologian Roger Olson said that a student once asked him if he would still worship God if Calvinism was true. Olson wrote, “I knew the only possible answer without a moment’s thought … I said no, that I would not because I could not. Such a God would be a moral monster.”
If you have lost non-believing friends or family, or have reflected on the reality of Hell, you can sympathize with this perspective — at least at first. But your sympathy should then give way to a different question: How can a good God send people to Heaven?
That is the real question — the question that Scripture asks, the question that Jesus asks. How can men who are lost and dead in their sin turn to God and be saved? According to Jesus, this requires predestination. Everyone has sinned, and their sin deserves Hell. (Romans 3:9-20; Matthew 5). Thus, “No one can come to [Jesus] unless the Father … draws him” (Jn. 6:44). Before a person is saved, he is “dead in sin,” and God must choose to give him life — life that he does not deserve (Ephesians 2:1-10). And God gets to decide who receives that mercy (Romans 9:14-16). Unless a person receives mercy from God, he has no hope of salvation. As Jesus told Nicodemus, “Unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).
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So, God predestines, but not because God is bad. It’s because we are bad and need Him to choose us. Predestination is an expression of God’s goodness. God is good because He does more than punish sinners with Hell — which would be just, but also saves some sinners from Hell to show them His love. This is clearly seen in the book of Exodus, when Moses says to God, “Please show me your glory,” and God responds,
“I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy” (Exodus 33:19).
For many, it is still hard to accept that God is “good” for predestining some people to Hell. You might ask yourself, “Shouldn’t people at least have a choice?” But again, that is the wrong question to ask. It is because God gives people a choice that they go to Hell. People freely choose to sin, (James 1:13-15), and that choice leads to Hell — freely! Jesus said, “For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many” (Matthew 7:13-14). Only those whom God has chosen and saved — against their will — are given a new heart to trust in Christ and choose eternal life. As Paul writes in Ephesians,
“[God] chose us in [Christ] before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace … God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved — and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus … For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 1:4-6, 2:4-8).
If you are on the fence about predestination, you might ask yourself, “Does any of this even matter to my Christian life?” And the answer is yes, very much so, for three reasons.
First, the doctrine of predestination is true, and knowing the truth is always liberating to the soul (John 8:32). As Jesus prayed to the Father in the upper room, “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17). Christians should thus care about the truth that is taught in Scripture.
Second, predestination is a source of assurance. Jesus repeatedly comforts his disciples by reminding them that they cannot fall away from him because they were loved and chosen by God before they were born — before the world began. Jesus said,
“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one” (John 10:27-30).
Third, predestination urges humility and action. Jesus repeatedly warned those who rejected Him that they might be doing so because God had rejected them. Jesus warned those who had “seen [him] and yet do not believe” that only those whom “the Father gives me will come to me” (John 6:36-37). And He warned the Pharisees, “you do not believe because you are not my sheep” (John 10:26). The reality of predestination is meant to lead people to immediate and urgent repentance so that they can experience God’s grace and “make [their] calling and election sure” (2 Peter 1:10).
This humbling aspect of predestination is perhaps the most difficult part to accept, but it is the most important to our walk with the Lord. “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6). When God shows us His glory and goodness, declaring, “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious,” (Exodus 33:19), He wants us to worship him for saving us sinners — not to accuse Him of sin.
God doesn’t owe us anything but condemnation. If He saves anyone at all, it’s an expression of His divine love. Until we understand this, we will keep making grave theological errors.
Steven Begakis is an attorney who practices constitutional and administrative law.
