The following "Question" was asked by a member of the congregation at Grace Community Church in Panorama City, California, and "Answered" by their pastor, John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed from the tape, GC 70-14, titled "Questions and Answers--Part 42."  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. Copyright 1993 by John MacArthur Jr., All Rights Reserved.

Double Predestination is the view point that God in eternity past, just basically, laid out, for all intents and purposes, all of humanity that would ever be born and just said, "Okay you go to hell, you go to hell, you go to heaven, you go to hell, you go to heaven, you go to hell," and just went down the line. That’s what is called "Double Predestination." He predetermined some to salvation, and he predetermined and selected some to damnation. That is not taught in the Bible. And that’s why I don’t believe it.

What is taught in the Bible, is that we are chosen for salvation. Nowhere in the Scripture does it say that God chooses people to be damned--no place--it does not say that. In fact, the Old Testament says that, "God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked"--none. Jesus said, "You will not come to me that you might have life." Jesus sat and wept over the city of Jerusalem and said, “How often would I have gathered you, as a hen gathereth her brude [chicks], but you would not come.” And he wept. Isaiah said, “Ho! Everyone that thirsts, come!” (Isaiah 55). Jesus said in John 6, “Him that comes unto me I will in no wise cast out or turn away.” The end of the Book of Revelation says, “Whosoever will, let him come.” Jesus said to the Jews, “If you will not believe on me, where I go you can never come.” But, he always ties damnation to unbelief, never to predestination, never to predestination, always to unbelief.

A good illustration of that is a little bit technical, but I think you’ll understand it; it’s in Romans 9, and Romans 9 is a very important passage, because here the Lord is talking about this very issue. Verse 23 talks about vessels of mercy, I won’t go into the whole text, but it talks about vessels of mercy, "Which 'he' prepared beforehand to glory." Now "vessels of mercy" would be Christians, believers. God prepared them before time for glory; he chose them for glory. Go back to verse 22. God is active then in the preparation of those for Glory. Back to verse 22. "What if God, although willing to demonstrate his wrath, and make his power known, 'endured,'" not "prepared," but, "endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction."

Now the difference is this, this is where it gets a little technical; the verb in verse 23 is active. An active verb, if you remember your English class, is when the speaker does the action. The subject does the action. A passive verb is when the action is done to the subject, right? I hit the ball, is very different than, I was hit by the ball. In an active verb, the subject does the action, and in a passive verb the subject receives the action.

Here you have an active verb in verse 23, God actively preparing the vessels of mercy for glory. You have a passive verb in verse 22, you have certain vessels of wrath that were prepared for destruction, God is not the actor he receives the action. So God never takes the responsibility for damnation. Except for the fact that he will be the judge and the executer, but he is not responsible for the unbelief. So you don’t have double predestination.

People go to heaven because they believe, and were chosen before the foundation of the world. People go to hell because they do not believe, and that’s as far as the Scripture goes, and I know that’s hard to understand--very hard, and there’s really no way around it.

People say, “Well, I feel a lot more comfortable if God doesn’t choose anybody and everybody does what they want.” If everybody did what they want nobody would be saved. But, even if everybody did what they want, and some people chose not to be saved you would have to ask the question, “If God knows everything and if he knew that when he created them, they wouldn’t choose him, why did he go ahead and create them?” You’ve got the same problem. If you’re trying to get God off the hook, you do have a problem. You can’t get him off the hook, and it’s just an impossible thing to harmonize in your mind, it’s impossible to harmonize in my mind.

I can’t understand how people go to hell and they are fully responsible for rejecting Christ and they’ll go to hell because they fail to believe, and on the other hand they go to heaven because they believe, because they were chosen and God is all responsible for that. How does that harmonize, I don’t know? But it isn’t important that it harmonize in my mind. If I fully understood that I’d have the mind of God. That's by the way, is one of the great proofs that the Bible was written by God, because it doesn’t resolve those apparent paradoxes. You know all you have to do is just think for a minute, if this Bible was edited by any committee they would have taken all that out. I work with editors all the time; they take everything out that doesn’t square. I would just like to point out the fact, that if you have trouble that, you also have to realize you have trouble with a lot of things.

I can just illustrate this by just asking you a few simple questions. Who wrote Romans? Paul. How many of you think Paul wrote Romans? Any other answers? Holy Spirit. How many of you think the Holy Sprit wrote it? This is a basic question folks; we’ve been here a long time. Who wrote Romans? You say well Paul wrote a verse, the Holy Spirit wrote a verse, Paul wrote a verse, the Holy Spirit wrote a verse--alternating. You say, every word was out of the mind of Paul, every word was out of the vocabulary of Paul, every word was out of the experience of Paul, the heart of Paul--that’s right. And every single solitary word came from the mind of the Holy Spirit, right? How can that be? I don’t know. I don’t know.

What about the doctrine of security? You say we’re secure, we’re kept, we’re kept by his power forever. Once we’re saved, we’re kept forever. But the Bible also warns us, don’t fall into unbelief, because you must persevere. There’s a persevering side that’s our part, there’s a keeping side that’s his part. If he’s keeping us why do we have to worry about persevering? But, that’s the way the Scripture outlines it.

I’ll ask you another question, since you’re doing so well on these, Is Jesus Christ God or man? Yes, good. That’s very good. Yes, how can he be fully God and fully man? It’s incomprehensible. Let me ask you another question, who lives your Christian life? Who lives it? You ought to know this because this is you folks. Who lives your Christian life? If it’s both of you the Lord is doing a much better job for his part, right? In fact anything good that happens in my life he did it, anything bad, I did it. It’s impossible. You say, it’s me, it is me I beat my body to bring it into subjection! It’s me! Then you have some people come along and say, "Let go, and let God." So, you have these, and there is a kernel of truth in that, Paul had it, Paul had it. You know how he said it? He understood it fully, this is what he said, Galatians 2:20, “I am crucified with Christ, never the less I live, yet, not I.” See he didn’t know either. It’s the same kind of tension. John Murray the great theologian says, “In every major doctrine in Scripture you have apparent paradoxes.” You want to talk about the Trinity there is another one. It’s a long answer, but it’s an important category of questions.

Don’t get caught up in trying to harmonize everything in the mind of God. You can’t you have to take it by faith; leave those doctrines where they are. Leave them at the poles they’re at, if you harmonize them in the middle you destroy both of them. And God will resolve it, sometime in the future when we know as we are known.

Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "MacArthur’s Questions and Answers" by:

Tony Capoccia
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