Introduction
The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church defines soteriology as “the section of Christian theology which treats of the saving work of Christ for the world.” I would dilate on that definition by adding, “It’s also the section of theology where there is the least agreement with the worst consequences.” Freud once famously remarked, “The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is ‘What does a woman want?'” In a similar vein, I would rejoin, “The great question that has never been answered, and which the Church has not yet been able to answer, despite its 2,000 years of research into the mind of God, is ‘What does God want?'” Important as it is to know what women want, it’s even more important to know what God wants. Yet if the last 500 years are any indication, there are many obstacles to figuring this out.
The Problem
The first obstacle appears to be that the Protestant Church thinks the answer to this question was discovered 400 years ago in Holland. The Synod of Dort, in the aforementioned country, pitted the adherents of John Calvin against those of Jacobus Arminius. What the Calvinists proposed was that God followed a policy of double predestination when dealing with his children. Some he elected or predestined to salvation in order to show his mercy. Others, however, he preterated or damned to perdition to manifest his justice. Arminius, though dead by the time of the council, had already gone on record as objecting to this model, based on the argument that for God to mandate rebellion in his eternal councils, he would be making himself the author of sin. Despite the validity of this argument, the followers of Calvin prevailed and double predestination became the law of the land for most Protestant traditions. To be sure, Calvin and his sycophants can be excused for arguing for God’s sovereignty, considering the prevailing Roman doctrine that man can manipulate God through sacramental observance. Nevertheless, by saying that the individual cannot have anything to do with their election or preteration, Calvin undermined the power and appeal of the Gospel. If God’s decisions are arbitrary, the most we can do is search for “signs of election” in our own lives, and steer clear of those around us who do not have such signs. Christians are left in doubt, appeals for morality are labeled Pelagian, evangelism is stultified, and Church schism is ensured. Although fellowship with the East had been abandoned centuries before, and Rome had responded to the Reformation with the Council of Trent, the Protestant Church had now painted itself into a theological corner out of which is could not logically emerge. Those who objected to this harsh double predestination either reverted to Rome, traveled to the East, or simply ignored the issue. The last time the Protestant Church met in ecumenical council to resolve its problems, the wrong side won. Welcome to the present day.
The second obstacle to developing a functional soteriology is that double predestination and the corollary of five point Calvinism appear to have the warrant of Scripture. A brief review of the basic terms of elect, election and predestination will show this to be true. It is a gross simplification to focus on only these three words, but they do embody the basic ideas Calvin and his adherents used to refute Roman arguments limiting God’s sovereignty on the one hand, and Arminius’ allegedly Pelagian claims on the other.
What are those verses? The terms elect, election and predestination appear in the Greek a total of 28 times in the New Testament. The instances that interest us in terms of context number fifteen for elect or election, and four for predestined; a total of 19 occurrences. Elect and election are both nouns, referring to the subjects of the process of election and the process itself, respectively. The former is used six times in the Gospels, three each in Matthew and Mark and are attributed to Jesus himself. The remaining 13 occurrences are in various epistles of Paul and Peter.
In the Gospels the word translated elect is attributed to Jesus by both Matthew and Mark in what’s known as the Olivet Discourse or the Little Apocalypse (Mt. 24, Mk 13.) Jesus has been questioned by his disciples about his statement that all the Temple buildings will soon be torn down. He replies with a deeper explanation about the events that would characterize the Roman invasion to take place in AD 70, in which Titus and his engineers would in fact dismantle the entire city. Jesus uses the term elect to describe those who would be spared the destruction that would come upon Jerusalem and most of its inhabitants. The Markan and Matthean accounts are essentially identical, with it being probable that Matthew simply copied Marks prior account.
The words elect or election next appear in Paul’s letter to the Romans (11:7, 9:11, 11:28.) What could be more clear? These verses state in plain words that God chooses some people for good things and others for bad. Whether Ishmael, Esau or Pharaoh, each in turn is passed by, at God’s sovereign discretion, in favor of others who are children of promise.
Elect and election are subsequently used by Paul in the Pastoral Epistles to Timothy (I Ti 5:21, 2 Ti 2:10) and Titus (1:1). In the first instance he appears to suggest that angels, in addition to people, are subject to election. This may be what he believes, or is merely a figure of speech to emphasize the obvious validity of what he’s saying. Apart from this mild departure, Paul uses the term the way Jesus does, to refer to those under the spiritual care of Timothy and Titus who have escaped the delusions of whatever they believed before they became Christians. Peter continues this usage, by addressing his audience in his first epistle, as elect, chosen by God according to His foreknowledge (1 Pe 1:10.) His use of the term election departs from this pattern, and I’ll address this in a moment.
The term predestined is only found four times in the New Testament, twice in Romans and twice in Ephesians (Ro 8:29, 8:30, Eph 1:5, 1:11.) In Romans 8 Paul appears to use the terms foreknew, predestined, and called almost synonymously, and adds the notions of justification and glorification. What he seems to be getting at is that redemption is a linear process, but one that begins and ends with God, and one that has actual, concrete results.
So these are the 19 times these seminal terms appear in the New Testament. Again, to the Calvinist, nothing could be more clear, or simple. So a third obstacle to developing a functional soteriology is that the doctrine of double predestination is simple to promulgate. Any competing theory would have a hard time matching it for parsimony. It solves a great number of problems with one response, “God decided it from before time and forever, and you needn’t bother yourself with asking why.” The acrostic TULIP has been developed to summarize the five simple points of Reformed doctrine. How much simpler can it get? It even reduces to a cute word, and one with Dutch associations, no less.
The careful reader of the Scriptures, however, will be troubled by a review of the linguistic evidence for double predestination. First of all, 19 occurrences in the whole of the Bible are hardly comprehensive. Secondly, there are many verses that seem to contradict the notion that all is determined by divine fiat and nothing is left to humans by way of volitional response. What of Paul in Romans 10 saying there is something to believe and something to confess? What about Peter, while using these very terms urging “make your calling and election sure,” and “exert yourselves to clinch God’s choice and calling of you?” The author of the Letter to the Hebrews says plainly in chapter 6 that it is possible for those who have been enlightened and filled with the Holy Spirit to fall away. Paul, in Galatians 5:4, points out that his readers may have “fallen away from grace.” Is there anything that these 19 passages share in terms of Biblical Introduction that would help explain what they are trying to say, if not a virulent doctrine of double predestination? A comparison of the texts reveals that there in fact may be a concern shared by the authors that explains this limited but consistent choice of these particular words for a particular purpose.
A Solution
Good exegesis requires that we start with the author. Who were they, to whom were they writing, and what was the axe they were grinding? What we see is that Mark, Paul and Peter all had a common interest in evangelism, specifically to the Gentile world. Mark goes to great lengths to explain Jewish customs, translates Aramaic words, and otherwise evinces an awareness of the needs of a Gentile audience. Paul, too, calls himself a minister to the Gentiles, and even Peter, the most parochial of the apostles, addresses his first letter to God’s scattered elect outside of Judea. Though coming from varied backgrounds, they have a common passion for bringing their message to those outside the Jewish world. Let’s review the manner in which Gentiles were treated by Jews in the early Church to see if it can shed any light on what these authors wrote.
As early as Acts chapter 6 we have problems between Jewish and Gentile Christians encountered in the ministry to widows. By chapter 10 we have Peter having of vision enjoining the inclusion of Gentiles in the Church, and Cornelius’ household receiving the Holy Spirit. What is the result of this expansion of God’s grace? Peter’s criticized by what are described as circumcised believers (Judaizers) who persist in their former practice of not visiting or eating with Gentiles. And whom does Paul teach in Pisidian Antioch, but “children of Abraham and you God-fearing Gentiles?” What were the disturbances Paul refers to in these letters other than the genealogies and arguments about the Law that Judaizers were using to bolster their own standing at the expense of Gentile believers? Does Peter’s speech quell the disturbance? Not at all. In Acts 15 we’ve got the same Judaizers saying unless you maintain the customs of Abraham, “you cannot be saved.” To resolve this issue, the first serious schism in the Christian Church, the first ecumenical council was held in Jerusalem. This Council produced a letter to the Church in Antioch and any other Gentile believers, stating that all God requires of converts is abstention from sexual immorality and avoidance of dietary practices that are abhorrent to Jews. Only in light of this early and persistent controversy can we understand the need to address the insecurities of Gentile converts.
Elect in the Gospels
Though Jesus was always careful to point out that he had been sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, by the time we get to the Olivet discourse he’s drawing a distinction, much as he does for the woman at the well at Sychar, between the New Covenant and the Old. Whereas he was sent to the Jews, he is now pointing out that it is not those who are Jewish racially who will benefit from his ministry, but rather those who are Jewish spiritually, those who submit to his authority as arbitrator of a new covenant based on allegiance to himself. What he is saying is that in the coming dislocations, the Temple and its theological basis, the Law, will not suffice for personal redemption. Those who survive will be chosen according to a new criterion, that of devotion to himself, not the outdated Temple. Jesus describes these people as “those who are considered worthy of taking part in that age and in the resurrection from the dead…”(Lk 20:35.) He does not describe them as “those who are arbitrarily chosen by my father to exhibit his mercy or his justice.” He does not stretch language to the point of being misleading. Thus, Jesus is opening the hope of redemption to all people, regardless of race, which had theretofore been restricted to racial Jews.
But what about Matthew? Didn’t he write to Jews, to prove that Jesus was their Messiah? Indeed he did. Literary criticism reveals that Mark is writing for a primarily Gentile audience, while Matthew is writing for Jews. Yet even though this is true of Matthew, he also said some things to show that Jesus is also the Savior of the Gentile world as well. He maintained a global, non-racial appeal in his account, for the field is “the world” and the Great Commission is without limitation. Mark’s concern for the Gentile world can be established from the outset if his audience was in fact the Church in Rome, who needed Jewish customs to be explained and Aramaic terms translated. If you accept the literary primacy of Mark with its clear attempts to be intelligible to a Gentile audience, Matthew’s inclusion of this passage verbatim can be easily understood. Both quote Jesus as saying that the elect will be drawn “from the four winds,” and from “one end of the heavens to the other.”
Elect and Election in the Epistles
An even stronger case for believing Paul wanted to bring encouragement to Gentile believers is found in the Pastoral Epistles of 1st and 2nd Timothy and Titus. Paul is addressing first Timothy, who is half Greek, and then Titus, who is a complete Gentile. Each has been left by Paul in charge of congregations consisting primarily of Gentiles in Gentile lands, who are facing the first problem to plague the Christian Church, and that is the proliferation of Judaizers. The situation that Jesus had predicted had come true, in that membership in the Kingdom of God was already passing from a racial basis to a spiritual one, and the Church was having trouble adapting. In addressing Timothy, who was left in charge of the church at Ephesus, a Gentile city, Paul points out that Timothy’s charges are “the elect” who must strive to “obtain” that which is freely provided in Jesus Christ, salvation. It would be suitable in this usage to substitute “faithful” in place of “elect.” Ditto with Paul’s letter to Titus, a Gentile in charge of a Gentile church in Crete, a Gentile island. Here he greets his protégé with an exhortation to serve his parishioners, the “elect,” who are recipients of God’s promises made “before the beginning of time,” no less than Jews. This theme of inclusion based on faith and response to the preaching of the Gospel continues in 1st Peter, where Peter identifies himself as an apostle of Jesus Christ who is writing to “God’s elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father…”
Now to Romans, long considered by Calvinists to be the clearest exposition of double predestination in the whole of Scripture. In order to understand Romans 11, however, you have to first read Romans chapter 9, and to understand Romans 9 you must first have read Romans 1. How does Paul start the epistle off? The very first thing Paul does in chapter 1, apart from greeting his readers, is to set forth the mechanism by which men are damned, and by contrast, how they might be saved. No election or preteration here! What he points out is that worship is paramount. Wrong worship leads to wrong thinking, a delusion if you will. That delusion, in turn, leads to godless behavior that is subject, rightly, to God’s wrath. People are not damned to show God’s justice, they are damned because they engage in wrong worship and subsequent wrong thinking and consequent wrong behavior. By the time we get to chapter 9, Paul is arguing that it is possible to be a child of Abraham according to the flesh, and thus heir of all God’s promises, yet to persist in wrong worship and as a consequence experience eternal loss. It is entirely possible, he points out, to be the rightful heir as being the first in line, as Esau was, yet to not be the child of promise as Jacob became. Jacob and Esau are a metaphor for the spiritual reality that is to follow. He is arguing that God has the right to change the rules of the game, from that which is arbitrary and ignorant of personal character, race or in this case being primogeniture, and substitute those qualities of honest self evaluation and correct worship. Pharaoh was not damned because God wanted pull rank, he was damned because he constituted in his very person, as Pharaoh, the essence of wrong worship. Those who interpret chapter 9 as a manifesto for double predestination are leaving a step out, and that is the step of worship: he hardens those who worship amiss with a delusion, which in turn leads to unrighteous behavior. This is an eternal law of the Kingdom of God, now true for Jew as well as Gentile. Paul seems to be saying that while God had indeed been arbitrary before in his choice of Israel, he’s now operating on a rational basis in a way that involves personal choice in worship; a very different thing. Again, a touchstone of Reformed soteriology?
Remember Paul’s intent. The argument of Romans, from beginning to end, is that all humanity is unrighteous, and that true righteousness comes from God and is imputed to mankind in a forensic transaction involving the death and subsequent rising to life of Jesus Christ. The term election occurs in 9:11, the term elect occurs in 11:7, and the term election recurs in 11:28. Like Jesus, Paul uses the term “elect” to refer to those who, in contrast to the Jews, escaped a hardening of their hearts and maintained God’s favor. Election, according to Paul, is used in to denote the process by which the elect are determined. In the first instance, election is contrasted with works and is equated with God’s calling, and in the second it is used to describe God’s promise to the patriarchs which preceded the disobedience of the Jewish nation when confronted with their Messiah. In keeping with the general argument of the epistle, Paul concludes by saying that all men, Jew and Gentile alike, have been bound over to disobedience at some point or other, so that He might have mercy on them all. To Paul, then, election means not an arbitrary choosing of some individuals to salvation and others to preteration, but rather God’s provision of a means by which a sinful humanity might be reconciled to himself. Election, therefore, is constant. Whether for the patriarchs and their children or for Christians, it is based upon faith in the mercy of the one who calls, not on works. The fact that the Jews had lost track of this fact and had developed the Law into a system that rewarded religious works is not germane; God still calls even when that call is misunderstood.
In Romans 9, Paul goes into the greatest detail yet in order to confound the claims of Jewish superiority over the Gentiles, which is his major thrust throughout this sublime work. He’s not saying God is arbitrary, but that Isaac’s children were a metaphor for the Jewish nation (the older,) and the Church, (the younger.) God’s plan of redemption would deal with groups of people, or types. Election here refers to a new Covenant, a new system, based not upon race and accidents of birth, but rather upon the content of a person’s character in terms of their response to God’s offer of new life in Jesus Christ. Jewishness is no longer a matter of genetics, but of faith and behavior. Election implies its opposite, preterition; just as it is possible to succeed it is also possible to fail. God is not becoming arbitrary, but rather is stating that from this point forth, those judged acceptable to God will be those who fulfill a new criterion, based not upon race but upon character. Remember that repentance is not a work, a positive action taken through human initiative. Rather, it is a gift of God, freely offered to all but not accepted by all. It is not a work, but the cessation of work; the willingness to accept a righteousness from God apart from any initiative of our own, and a new Spirit from God as well. Thus, Pharaoh, Esau and Ishmael fall short, not because they’re not chosen, but because they’ve chosen to exploit a path to righteousness that involves their own power, not God’s. They are not rejected because God is capricious, they are rejected because they tried to operate outside God’s one plan for human redemption that suffers no competition or emendation. Paul closes chapter 9 by emphasizing that the Jews failed not because they were somehow rejected by God, but because they had rejected God and his perfect plan of redemption first. This theme of God allowing humans to frustrate His plan of redemption is continued by Peter in his second epistle, where he points out that effort, resolve and personal application are required to make their “calling and election sure.” Election is no sure thing apart from appropriate response on our part, something the Jews resent but Gentiles welcome. The former object to the New Covenant because their place of privilege is being taken away from them. The latter rejoice because what was previously out of reach, inclusion in the Kingdom of God, has now been opened to them through the vehicle of faith.
Predestined in the Epistles
A similar pattern appears when we study the four instances where the term predestined is used in the Scriptures. Twice in Romans (Gentile audience) and twice in Ephesians (Gentile audience,) Paul uses the term to bring encouragement to his readers. He leaves no verb unused in his effort to tell his readers that in all ways, they have been targeted by God’s love, communication and provision that they might find themselves full and complete members in the Kingdom of God being built upon the justification and salvation accomplished by Jesus Christ. What he is saying to his Gentile hearers is essentially this, “In spite of the treatment you receive from Jews and Judaizers in your midst, God has known from before time and forever that you Gentiles would also need a Savior and Lord, no less than the Jews, and that the time has now come from the barrier wall of separation to come down, and for you to accept your citizenship in the new Kingdom of God.” This is what he means when he uses the terms “foreknew, predestined, called.” They, no less than Jews, are justified by the blood of Christ and thereby freed from moral guilt, and are also offered the gift of the Holy Spirit, that they might also be saved by the life of Christ from the coming wrath against fruitlessness. In no detail are they second class citizens. Same point in Ephesians, where Paul wastes no time in recounting God’s provision for the salvation of Gentiles as well as Jews. Paul says “We, who were the first to hope in Christ” to refer to Jews, but then immediately adds “…you also were included in Christ.”
An Alternative Soteriology
So if a virulent double predestination is not a legitimate result of this limited but telling exegesis, is there some other explanation that’s more credible? Remember the attraction of Calvin’s interpretations: they are simple and seem to solve insoluble problems while preserving God’s sovereignty. To come up with an alternative soteriology that is widely attested to, that reconciles the whole of Scripture, and that is relatively cogent and simple, you have to be on the alert for subtleties of language that Calvin and his adherents missed. Specifically, you have to make sense of Romans chapters 5 and 10. What Paul does in both is make a distinction between justification, the imputation of righteousness to a sinful humanity, which is universal, and salvation, the impartation of the life of Christ into the obedient believer that he might bear fruit for the Kingdom. This latter is particular and by no means universal, because it involves the ceding of the will on the part of each individual. This distinction, once made, allows for a simple typology of salvation that fulfills our requirements enumerated above. A graph will help depict what I’m talking about.
| Moral Actor | Problem | Judgment | Solution | Christ’s Role | Sacrament |
| God | Enmity with Man | On Sin | Death on the Cross | Savior | Baptism |
| Man | Enmity with God | On Fruitlessness | Pentecost | Lord | Eucharist / Confirmation |
There are two actors in the moral sphere, God and Man. There are two problems, God is offended by human sin, and man is running from God. This results in guilt on the part of man, and powerlessness to do anything about it. God and man are at enmity with one another. There are two solutions to these problems, both involving Jesus Christ. His death on Good Friday removes our moral guilt by covering it with his sinless blood. This applies to all people, in all times, and in all places. Justification is universal; we do not participate in it in any way, shape or form. That’s why we baptize infants; Jesus is Savior of all. This is a first judgment, on sin. The second problem is that of our powerlessness. There is a second judgment, a coming wrath of God, recorded in the Scriptures, in Matthew 18 and 25 and Revelation 20. This is a judgment on fruitlessness; on those who are forgiven, yet who blaspheme the Holy Spirit so that he cannot dwell in them effectually and bear fruit for righteousness. These people are content to be in Christ, but do not want Christ in them. The solution to this second problem is not Jesus’ death, but rather his life, as conferred on Pentecost. He will come to those who ask, who stop running and cede their will to him as Lord, and bear fruit through them. The only problem is that this second reality does in involve us, for it requires that we submit to Christ’s authority over ourselves: mind body and spirit. Those who let him be Lord are the “elect” of these passages. Those who refuse him as Lord are those who are preterit or lost. References to God’s foreknowledge and choice are not referring to his attitude with respect to individuals, but rather his decision in his eternal councils that only those in whom Christ is found will be elect, whoever they may be. The Book of Life contains the names of those in whom the life of Christ dwells. Categories, classes if you will, not individuals. Two problems, two solutions, two sacraments, a binary soteriology. Two is better than five, don’t you think?
It’s difficult to argue from silence, but the lack of emphasis on election and predestination when addressing other churches in Gentile areas can easily be explained. For one thing, not all churches were beset by Judaizers. In fact, in the case of the church in Galatia, Paul’s audience was the Judaizers themselves! Secondly, he still brings encouragement to Gentile Christians without resorting to these words per se. This is certainly true of his letter to the Phillipians. The other churches in Corinth, Colossae, and Thessasolica were all beset by behavioral problems Paul needed to address by means of reprimand, not encouragement.
Conclusion
In summary, we see that it would be an error to base one’s soteriology upon a limited number of passages without taking other passages, in the same book no less, into account. The fruit of what has become orthodox Reformed soteriology is bitter indeed. First, it defames God. Jacobus Arminius was right in saying that for double predestination to be true, God would have to be the author of sin. Secondly, Church health has been hopelessly compromised. Christians are confused about the product they’re selling, with one communion or denomination saying one thing, while all others say something else. As C.S. Lewis points out, the doctrine of predestination leads some to arrogance, and others to despair. Bad soteriology also leads to organizational schism. Which leads us to our third problem, and that is that theological inquiry has been thwarted. Reformed soteriology, taken in a literal manner, simply states that God does what he does in his eternal councils and it is beyond questioning or knowing. Pat excuses have been offered for legitimate questions, with the result that the Church is fractured with no hope of remediation. Calvinists need to face a reckoning: John Calvin can in fact be wrong. The Institutes of the Christian Religion is not the Bible, and JC doesn’t stand for John Calvin, it stands for Jesus Christ. In his commentary on Romans Calvin completely missed the distinction between justification and salvation, ascribing the double verbiage to a desire to emphasize, not distinguish; perhaps parallelism but not discrimination. Until we take him off of the throne Dort put him on, the Church will continue to be painted into a corner from which it is not able to extricate itself. If the Reformation seeks to genuinely reform doctrine, it must not only criticize that which went before, it must offer an alternative that is synthetic and acceptable to Christians of all traditions, Eastern, Roman, and Protestant.
Further, if I were a professor of exegesis I would give John Calvin a D for doing much right, but also doing more wrong. He had two handicaps we should not forget as we read him centuries later. First of all, he was engaged in a polemic with Rome. For an antagonist to overstate his case is understandable. Perhaps if he shot for the moon, he might be happy if he got into low earth orbit. Secondly, he approached a Hebrew canon with a Greek mindset. Whereas the Scriptures were written by Jewish authors and inspired by a Jewish God, the western or Greek mind appreciates nothing of this. In the place of synthesis the Greek seeks analysis, in the place of purpose he searches for process, in the place of meaning he settles for means. More importantly, the Greek or Western thinker tends to focus on individuals rather than families, tribes, nations or civilizations, as the Easterner does. The final faux pas is that Calvin failed to take the author’s perceptions of his intended audience into account, which is nothing less than bad exegesis. As Will Durant says,
“…we shall always find it hard to love the man who darkened the human soul with the most absurd and blasphemous conception of God in all the long and honored history of nonsense.”
The Rev. Robert McLeod is an Episcopal priest, canonically resident in the Diocese of Central Florida. He is the author of Everything You Know Is Wrong: The Case for a New Reformation, and manages the website RogueCleric.com. At present he resides in Colorado and attends an Anglican Church under the auspices of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America.
