Divine Design: How God Saves Us From Hell

Jon

So Hey everyone, welcome to That's a Good Question, a podcast of Peace Church and a part of Resound Media. You can find more great content for the Christian life and church leaders at resoundmedia.cc. That's a Good Question is a place where we answer questions about the Christian faith in plain language. I'm Jon. I serve as a pastor at Peace Church and I also get to serve as the weekly host of this show. You can always submit questions at peacechurch.cc/questions. And today I am here with Pastor Nate.

Nate

Hey-o.

Jon

Great to have you here.

Nate

Great to be here.

Jon

We get to follow up today on an episode that we did together back on November 20th of 2023. So if you want to take a look back at that, you don't have to, you won't need that context for this episode, but if you want to, you can check that out. We got a great question about Arminianism. You can look at that episode to hear more about what that is, but we got a lot of questions following up this whole idea of Calvinism and Arminianism, and we'll talk about those words, and we'll talk about scripture. That'll be our primary focus and how these ideas play out, but we want to come back and answer some of those great questions. So that's where we're going today. Sound good? Sounds great. Let's do it. Producer Mitchell, you want to hit us up? Yep, here we go.

Mitchell

Here is our first question. How do we respond to people who say that Calvinism means that God doesn't love all people since he chooses some for hell by not electing them for salvation? Is that tied into universalism at all?

Jon

Yeah, awesome. All right, so real quick, we should try to define these Calvinism, Arminianism, fancy words real quick. So just so everybody knows, those are just kind of categories that people use to talk about different positions as you read the Bible and try to understand some of the tough passages we're going to look at in just a moment. John Calvin is the guy that Calvinism is named after, but really, it's just a way to sort of shorthand refer to an understanding of some different passages of Scripture. Absolutely. Is that what you say?

Nate

It gives a picture of a high view of the sovereignty of God, His rule and reign, His control over the universe. You brought up John Calvin as one of the original voices that we partner and we characterize this set of beliefs in, even though ultimately we believe it derives originally from the scriptures because we are Calvinist. We want to be clear about that. But in more modern times, someone who popularized it for a new generation via John Piper, you might have heard his name, another John, and I always like, he'll call it big God theology. And that's just the most simple way to say if you're a Calvinist you believe in a big God. And I think that's very simple. I know an Arminian would probably argue that they believe God is big as well, but certainly they would characterize His bigness in smaller ways. And so I think big God theology is a simple, profound way of kind of summing it up.

Jon

That's a very clever way of saying that. I like that. Yeah, we believe strongly in God's sovereignty, that he's in control, and we believe that when we look at Scripture and see different passages that talk about him planning all things from the beginning, him being in control of all things, all the way into even the human heart, and especially how we think about salvation and how that works is where this comes into play. So the other guy, Jacob Arminius, is the guy who the position Arminianism is named after. So in short, let me tell me if I'm reducing this too much, but to try to summarize each position. An Arminian would say that we have this free will that God does not interfere with, and maybe would say even cannot interfere with, and that we are sort of neutral and get to decide do we trust in Jesus and get saved or not. And as a Calvinist, we would say that actually when somebody preached the gospel to me, this is kind of my shorthand way of just thinking about my own story, is that when the gospel was preached to me and I decided to put my faith in Jesus, it's true that at that moment I decided to put my faith in Jesus, and so I decided to become a Christian and was saved. But really, as I've studied the Bible and as I've reflected and looked back on that moment, I've come to realize, actually, the reason I made that decision was because the Holy Spirit was stirring in my heart even before I decided that. That I was hearing the words of Scripture read or preached, and I was hearing somebody explain them to me, and the Holy Spirit was stirring in my heart, and I was responding to that. And in that way, God was sovereign.He was the one in control. He ultimately moved in my heart before I made some kind of decision. And so, is that too short or is that kind of a...

Nate

I think that's fair and succinct.

Jon

Cool. Cool. All right, so with those two things in mind, we want to make this, as always, about the text of Scripture, and so that's where we're going to go. So the question was kind of about how can God love people at the same time be in control of the plan and the execution of the plan for people who end up in hell? How can those two things be true at the same time? So I'd love to start with just a couple of verses, and you guys feel free to add to this, but a couple of verses, just what specific verses are we talking about? I think one that is probably in people's mind is John 3:16, God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. So that verse says that God loves the world, he loves his creation, human beings who he created. Another verse that comes to mind is first Timothy 2 verse 4 This says talking about God and it says who desires all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth Okay, so the Bible says those two things and at the same time they say this other thing that I think at first glance seems To be contradictory to us is John 6:44 says no one can come to me and this Jesus is speaking. No one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him. So sort of clearly saying that the Father, that God must be doing a work in somebody's heart, must be choosing, must be stirring in their heart before they can even put their faith in Jesus. What do you guys want to add to that?

Nate

I'd just throw the whole chapter of Romans 9 in there. That's the one when you get into this conversation, I think because it's probably the chapter that talks about this at the greatest length. There's times all throughout scripture where I see Calvinist theology, if you think of Ephesians 1, any time where it talks about predestination or election, somehow you got to have a category for that as a Christian. What does that look like then if you believe in a kind of a total free will or like the way you shared how some Armenians would characterize it as we have the choice to choose God or not and he either doesn't interfere with it or he can't interfere with it.

Nate

But Romans 9, I'll just read a short section of it and if you've never dug into that chapter, it's definitely worth your time. But I'll just jump in at verse 13 because that's where it starts to get really heated and it refers back to the Old Testament and says, "...as it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." I think we should talk about that a little bit. What does that mean? It's pretty strong language.

NateEsau I hated.

Verse 14 then says, "...what shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means. For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy. For the scripture says to Pharaoh, now this is going back to the time of Moses where right before the exodus when Moses is challenging Pharaoh, think of the plagues in that period of time. The scripture says to Pharaoh, for this very purpose I have raised you up that I might show my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth so then he has mercy on whomever he wills and he hardens whomever he wills so you might remember if you've gotten into those stories in Exodus that throughout the time of the plagues there's times where it talks about Pharaoh hardening his own heart and and closing himself off to the Lord.

And then there's times where it very clearly says that God hardens Pharaoh's heart so that he rejects what seems like the right or godly choice and instead turns inward to his own sin and selfish desires and keeps the Israelites in slavery when it's becoming more and more clear every day that God desires for them to be released to the promised land. And so then it just continues on and I won't read the whole chapter but I think it's worth just continuing for a little bit longer. Verse 19 and this is in Romans 9 again says, You will say to me then, why does he, God, still find fault? For who can resist his will? Verse 20 is really important it says, But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, Why have you made me like this? Has the potter no right over the clay, To make out of the same lump One vessel for honourable use, And another for dishonourable use?

What if God, desiring to show His wrath, And to make known His power, Has endured with much patience Vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, In order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory." And we could keep going from there. It gets into some more specifics on Jews and Gentiles, but I think you start to get the picture if you're listening to that and you haven't heard that scripture before and you're just hearing it now for the first time, you might be thinking, whoa, what in the world am I supposed to do with this? So that, because... And you wouldn't be alone. Many theologians have asked that question over the years. Absolutely. And it does seem to make a very clear, logical, progressive case that, well, we're not going to apologize for this, but that Calvinism is a reality that you must reckon with. I mean, in the same way, Jon, you read some of the key verses that challenge a Calvinist saying, okay, how could it be then, if this is the God we're talking about in Romans, how then 1 Timothy, how do we hear that God desires for all men to be saved if Romans 9 is telling us that's not how he is orchestrating everything out? How would you answer somebody who asked that question about God's desire or his will for all men to be saved. And especially if we take it at face value, I think the question alluded to it, then how does that not refer to not just Arminianism, but universalism? If that's God's desire, how does it not end up becoming reality?

Jon

It's a great question. So I'll share an answer, and then I'd love to hear you guys' thoughts, too. This is an answer that goes back to, actually, John Calvin and the Institutes, and I've heard other great Reformed teachers kind of share this answer as well. I think when we look at Scripture, I think we could talk about two distinct sort of wills of God. We talk about God's will, and I think we can talk about that in at least two different aspects. So, it's been called before God's sovereign will and his moral will. So his sovereign will being sort of everything that happens, right? We say that God is in control. God had a plan from, you know, before creation.

So everything that happens, it's within God's will, right? To say that something happens and it's outside of God's will would mean that God was surprised by it or that he wasn't in control of it. He was like, whoa, you know that happened and I didn't plan it or I couldn't stop it. So we read scripture and we say, we can't say that. That's just not true. God's sovereign, he's in control. So on the one hand, everything that happens is within God's will. On the other hand, we know that the Bible says things very clearly like, you shall not murder, and yet people murder, which means that things happen that are outside of God's will or against God's will. So we know that those things are both true at the same time.

And so I think what we do then is we say, well, I think scripture can be using God's will and sort of two different aspects or perspectives. On the one hand, everything is inside of God's will, because it happened and because God's in control. On the other hand, God has a very clear moral will. He says, you shall not murder along with plenty of other commandments that he gives us. And yet people violate those every day. And those things are both within the reality of God's plan, and yet they're outside of what God desires to happen in the world.

Nate

Yeah. No, that is, that's really helpful. And that starts to feel kind of complex when you're talking about these two different kinds of wills, of the everything that happens is a part of God's will in one sense, but then there is this aspect of human responsibility on this other sense. For me, as a pastor and as somebody who's wrestled with this throughout my life, because I've had great interactions and ministry partnership with Calvinists, I've encountered in some of my biblical training and just some of my life those who are Wesleyan or Arminian, who I see their heart for the Lord and their desire to follow the Scriptures. But what it comes down to for me is that there's always going to be this tension here between how do we work out these two components of God's sovereignty and human responsibility, which we see both in the Scriptures. And for me, if I have to put it in its most simple terms, coming back to the big God theology, I think honest Calvinists and honest Arminians feel a tension there and don't think, oh yeah, I have no idea how the other side could ever have any sort of a feelings or beliefs that they do.

For me, if I'm simplifying it in my own mind, I think it's unavoidable that there's this tension in the scriptures of the clarity of God's total sovereignty, but also this piece of human responsibility that we have to grapple with. And for me, the reason why I'm a Calvinist and I'm not anything else is because I think the clearest lens through which to interpret scripture is that God is big and people are smaller. It doesn't mean that we're not important. It doesn't mean that we don't play a role in all this. It doesn't mean that we're not held responsible and accountable. But I just, I cannot read the scriptures in any place, any book, any chapter, and walk away with people being big and God being small. And that might sound like a gross oversimplification to some, but for me, I've been on this journey and to be honest, there's been a part of my human selfishness where I haven't wanted to admit that Calvinism makes the most sense of the scriptures because in some ways it feels – there's aspects of it in our modern times that feels like a harder position to articulate and hold to because It can be so easily mischaracterized that god is this big mean bully who Makes all of our choices for us and then holds us responsible for something that we didn't even get to decide ourselves

And that's that's a really easy mischaracterization of it and in our modern individualistic Western society. I was just going to say that, especially for Americans. We struggle with that. To say, oh, you don't have as much freedom as you might think. And even I've noticed, I grew up in churches that would say that they were Calvinistic and still when the problem with evil would come up in the conversation, how can a sovereign God who's totally in control, all-powerful, all-knowing. How can he allow evil to exist in the world if he's in control and he's good? And even in my very Reformed Calvinistic churches, the answer that was the easiest, most palatable answer was, well, that's human free will. It's just God, you know, God's hands are tied. He would love to step in and make everything good, but he can't because our free will gets in his way. And even in Calvinistic settings, we would kind of use that as an easy conversation ender, just tie up a clean bow on it. The problem is, is that paints a picture of a God who, number one, is not the God we read about in the Bible, so that's problematic. small, weak, God that can't really help you very much. Well, if you have to say God's hands are tied at any point in your argument, that's probably not gonna work. No.

Jon

We love C.S. Lewis, but I mean, that's the problem of pain, his book, The Problem of Pain. I mean, that's kind of the argument he makes for evil, and I just don't think it works.

Nate

It can feel good in the short term, but if you really think about it, it's a terrifying thought to think that God, there's something more powerful than God, and that thing is evil.

Nate

Right.

Jon

Yes. Yeah, it's one thing to sort of say, oh man, this doesn't feel quite right, that God would be in control while these bad things happened. But what about the alternative? Yeah, you're right. God had no control. The world was out of control, and God couldn't do anything about it. That's a truly terrifying thought.

Nate

Yeah, absolutely.

Jon

Mitch, you want to add anything to this?

Mitchell

Well, I just had a question. You touched on universalism a little bit, but is there a connection between universalism and Arminianism? What is that, like, when they bring up universalism, I guess, what is that?

Jon

That's probably the better first question. Yeah, good question. So, universalism is the basic idea that everybody goes to heaven, that God is just a loving God. And so, yeah, no matter how much bad you do, God loves everybody, and so universally, everybody's going to heaven.

Mitchell

So, I guess the question would be, what's the problem with that? Why is that something that we would reject?

Jon

Yeah, the first clearest answer is that the Bible very much says the opposite of that. God is a loving God, and yet he's also a God of justice and we would in fact say that you can't have love without justice God is a loving and good God Because he punishes evil now the good news of the gospel is that Jesus came and took that Punishment on our behalf so that we could have eternal life, but God is not good. You know, we would look at Human court systems if a judge did not punish evil, that'd be a really bad thing. That'd be unjust, you know, we'd get rid of him, there'd be outcry. You have to punish evil. That's part of the nature of goodness. So for God to be good and loving and just, he has to punish evil.But Jesus came and took that in our place so that we can have eternal life. So universalism lacks justice. It lacks—I think it misses the key attributes that have to be true for God to be good and righteous.

Nate

Absolutely. And those are the clear theological, biblical reasons. Even just practically, I could hear someone saying, well, what does it hurt? Isn't that a better message to the world? It feels more uplifting, it feels more open and accepting. But it's actually the opposite. If what we believe is actually true, if what the Bible teaches is actually the way reality functions. And I remember having a conversation with a guy who he was trying to explain to me that he was a Christian but not a traditional Christian, and I asked him what he meant by that, and he said, well, I hope the stuff the Bible says is true, but I just don't believe in Jesus and if you haven't received his forgiveness and his grace, then you better hope that it's not true, because the Bible is very clear that not everyone just gets into heaven because God's a nice guy. The Bible's clear about heaven and how salvation plays a role in that and what our faith in Jesus, how that determines that. And so, practically, while universalism might sound nice and friendly, if what the Bible says is true, then it's a very insidious thing to tell somebody who's in danger that they're not.

Jon

Right. And we can also go down, this could be a long rabbit trail, but I'll just, if you're thinking about this, ask yourself the question, if you're thinking about universalism, if that sounds attractive to you, let me just ask you a question. Would it be good if Hitler were in heaven? Yeah, because that's what you got to, that's part of the practical reality of what you got to grapple with, is you're saying no matter how evil you were on this earth, and whether or not somebody paid for your sins, Jesus on the cross, you get to go to heaven. You know, is that really a good God, and is that really a heaven that you want to be in for eternity?

Mitchell

Yeah, I guess one more follow-up on Arminianism. Sometimes I think people looking at Calvinism look at it like it's this God that we're painting that's at the gates of heaven like a goalie saying like, nope you can't come in, you can't come in. Do you feel like that's an accurate picture? Or what would you say to someone who says?

Jon

Yeah, yeah, great question. You're right, you're right. That's the mental image that we tend to get in our minds. But I think a better mental image is more like a bunch of people sort of falling or drowning. And running to a cliff. Or running. Yeah, yeah, that's even better. They're running for their doom and somebody reaches in to save some, because that's the reality, is all of us are running towards hell and God reaches in to save some. It's not as though we're all running towards heaven and he rejects some. All of us are running towards hell and he saves some.

Mitchell

All right, here's our next question. We've got two questions that are very similar, so I'll read them both. First one is this. Long-time listener, first-time question asker, I've spent most of my time in a Reformed church and have always had lots of questions and doubts about things like Calvinism, God's goodness, hell, and faith in general. I appreciate that Peace Church, this church, is the first church I've attended where questions are allowed and doesn't just pretend like people don't have them. Following the recent episode on Calvinism, I'm curious how someone who is a Calvinist can justify having children due to the fact that they may be responsible for creating a life and a soul that is not predestined to be saved, but instead to eventually be punished eternally in hell. It seems like a risk not worth taking. All right, here's a second question. Why would God create a soul knowing that that soul would go to hell for eternity anyways? What do you guys think? Two really good questions. Yeah, great questions. I think all of us here have kids, so this is a great question for us.

Nate

Yeah, it's always when you're opening yourself up to the risk of probably the deepest pain you can experience as a parent of seeing your child not follow Jesus and thinking through the implications of that. But we all have kids anyway, and I think one of the reasons why we do that is we know that it's worth it. We know that God deserves the glory. He told us to be fruitful and multiply for a reason. And we have experienced, and I actually can say this as somebody who has, I feel like in various ways, I've kind of struggled through life. And there's been even times where I've wrestled with that kind of depressive state that different Christians, theologians, pastors have written about and wrestled with, going all the way back to the Bible, of saying, I kind of feel like I want to curse the day that I was born. I don't know if I like this whole existence thing. I don't know if life is truly worth it. But the more you grow closer to God and the more you experience the kindness and the grace of Jesus, the more you realize what a blessing life is, even with all the hardships, even with the brokenness of sin. And for me, it's a joy to be able to bring—I have three children—to bring them into the world. I believe it's more of a blessing to be born than to not. aware that there's the possibility that my kids could not follow Jesus.

I will say though as a family pastor, and this is where I'm going to get a little reformed here, but I do believe that while God preordains all the ends, He also preordains the means. And I believe if you as a parent, generally, if you follow the wisdom of Scripture and you raise up your child to follow Jesus, I believe more times than not you will see your children become followers of Jesus. That's not a guarantee for every child. We're very clear some of the parenting proverbs that get applied as promises, like if you raise your child up in the way you should go, he will not depart from it. That's a proverb. It's not a promise from from the Lord. And yet, what we see is that through generations of Christian heritage, those children who are raised, not just and told to follow Jesus, but get to see the example of mom and dad, faithfully following Jesus and enjoying the fruit of getting to be a disciple of the Lord, more times than not, they will follow in those steps and the legacy of faith that their parents set forth to them. Again, that's not a guarantee, that's not a promise, but in the Reformed view of how covenant children come into the church, come into the faith, so I would say there's a lot of things right there, but if I'm going to sum it up for that person, I believe God's original call to be fruitful and multiply stands. It's not our job to try to protect our future children from the potential of eternal damnation and thus try to preventatively keep them from existing in the first place. That's not our role. Our role is to multiply and bring more worshipers of God into the world, and I think we can can do that with confidence, knowing that even if the worst possible thing for, in most parents' minds, of my child not following Jesus, even if that were to happen, you can know that God is still good and God is in control.

Jon

Yeah. Yeah, I think this is one of those instances where people can try to take the concepts of Calvinism and take them beyond what Scripture actually says. They take them to what they think would be the logical conclusions of them but it's not what Scripture says. I mean like you said, Scripture very clearly says be fruitful and multiply. God gave us a mandate to fill the earth with people who follow him and worship him. And so that is in no way contradictory to what God also says about His sovereignty and choosing and things like that. So yeah, we are responsible to fill the earth with kids who worship Jesus. And yeah, it does terribly sadly happen sometimes that there are kids who go astray and don't walk with the Lord. That does happen even to faithful Christian parents. But scripture nowhere says, hey, so don't take the risk. And actually, I mean, even just to play that out practically, I mean, that would be, you know, that's the end of the human race, right? If we stop having children, you know, there's a lot of ways in which I don't think that adds up. So, yeah, so the meta question, right, is how, why does, you know, the second question that was asked is why does God even allow human beings to come into existence that will ultimately end up in hell? And that is a really important big picture question.

Nate

The way that I reconcile that in my mind, and I always do fall back on scripture's promises that we will not understand things in the exact same way that a completely omniscient, perfect God will. So his ways are higher than our ways, his thoughts are higher than our thoughts. But for me, at the end of the day, ultimately, I interpret both of those questions as, how can you really live with being a Calvinist?

How can you really live knowing at the end of the day that God created everything, knowing how it would go so wrong in so many ways? How can you really believe in that kind of a God and sleep at night. And for me, the way I sum it up succinctly, and this is gonna get a little bit philosophical and theological, but follow with me here. I can't explain why comprehensively, but I can sufficiently for my own self. And I believe that somehow, some way, that we'll see with total clarity that a history of redemption brings more glory to God than a history of perfection.

I don't know how that exactly works in a lot of ways to my Western mind that thinks in modern terms with modern categories and very limited. I can't explain how that could be the case, but somehow the falling away of humanity and God's redemption back in some way brings more glory to God than all the other alternatives. And although I can't fully explain it, what I do know is this. I do know that in all of our art, in our movies and our TV shows and every work of literature you read, there is a beauty to the story of falling away and a good God coming back. Of course, in a lot of our art, I think in some ways that reflects the truth of the gospel and the truth of the biblical story, but there's something in the human heart that sees this beauty of redemption. And we even see in the scripture that some of these pictures of kind of the angelic beings looking at with longing and the sense of there's a special relationship of humanity to the Lord, not just because everything was perfect, but because it wasn't.

Nate

Now, this is getting, that's getting really philosophical, and there's a reason why we didn't get here on our first episode about Calvinism, but we had enough follow-up questions, and you wanted to dig a little deeper. So, Pastor Jon, what do you think about that?

Jon

The history of redemption, history of perfection? I think that's a great answer, yeah. It's one of those things where we're searching back into sort of the mind of God at a very meta level and we do have to accept our limitations at some point. Yeah I think that's it is that you know for we don't fully understand why but God saw a redemption as the best story rather than Adam and Eve living in perfection and ultimately ending up that way. He could have created a different story. He didn't and that's how it happened. Another aspect I'd add to that is that, you know, we read the Bible itself in its own narrative account of this. Scripture in Genesis 3 is very clear that sin coming into the world is actually the fault of human beings. It doesn't say, well, it's this way because God wrote it this way. Now, we know ultimately that is true, that God allowed that to happen, that that happened. It was part of God's plan. But we do have to remember also just that we live in a sinful broken world. Punishment, justice, hell, those things are reality because we chose sin. Because Adam and Eve chose sin and so would all of us. So we have to kind of, I think, remember that part of the storyline as well.

And to go back to another thing that we've been talking about, we've been talking about this difficult tension between God's sovereignty and human responsibility. And I just want to highlight that one more time, because it's so important to remember, both of those things are true. This is what Calvinists believe, but both of those things are true, even though we don't know exactly how they go together. So it's true that God is sovereign, God wrote the story, God's in control, and yet God still holds us accountable for our actions.

We see that especially in the story of Jesus, that the Jews, the Romans, it says in different parts of Acts that they are the ones who are responsible for crucifying Jesus and yet at the same time it was a part of God's foreknown predestined plan and so God wrote the plan and yet human beings are held responsible for their role in it.

Nate

Absolutely. If we don't have all the answers I hope no one listening to this thinks well there's still some things left open-ended or some questions that don't have exact answers. We're not trying to hide that fact. If anything, I hope you heard some humility from both of us just to say there are things that there are answers that we trust are in the mind of God that we might not comprehensively understand but he has sufficiently revealed to us in the scriptures what we need to know for all of life and godliness and what it takes to follow him and enjoy the life he's given us and to worship him every day. But I'll just say one last thing, if you meet someone who does have every single answer for you, then that person by definition would be God themselves and you should follow them. But I would also be skeptical before you do that. So, good call. I like that.

Jon

It's good wisdom.

Nate

Food for thought.

Jon

Well, hey, this is a big topic. Like you said, a place for more resources on this, resoundmedia.cc. And maybe I'll mention this somewhere on Resound Media in the near future. But I think John Piper's five-part series called Tulip on the doctrines of Calvinism is probably the best lecture series I've seen on the topic. Just great stuff, great explanation. So I encourage you to check that out. Awesome, well hey, thanks everybody for listening. Thanks Pastor Nate, thanks Mitch. Have a great week.

You can find That's a Good Question at resoundmedia.cc or wherever you listen to podcasts.