Has God written the Future?

In his letter to the church in Ephesus, the apostle Paul rejoices with the Christians there that they share with him God’s good favour in his choosing us, predestining us for adoption to himself according the purpose of his will, and in praise of his glorious grace, the redemption we receive through the shedding of the blood of the Lord Jesus. What a wonder! Then he says in verse 11 that we have received this wonderful inheritance because we have been predestined “according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.” It was on the basis of this almost casual reference to God’s eternal will that the writers of the Savoy Declaration penned Chapter 3, ‘Of God’s Eternal Decree’ that states quite plainly “God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass.” This is a huge statement about how God operates, for it ascribes the outcome of every act that from the outside might appear arbitrary or even random, as a result of God’s fore-ordination. On reading this, you might find yourself pushing back on it in your mind, thinking surely this couldn’t be true, you mean everything that happens? Well, think of Isaiah 46:9-10 God says “I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose.’” Then look at Matthew 10:29-30 when Jesus says that not even one sparrow falls to the ground without the Father’s consent. From these and other Scriptures, we have to conclude that nothing is accidental, everything that happens must be within the plan of an all-powerful sovereign God. Again, a frequently heard objection to this position is that it’s fine to say that God controls all the earth and the creatures within it, but when it comes to human beings, we have free will surely, we make decisions based on our own thought patterns. Well the bible would take a different view. Paul says in Phillipians 2:13 “it is God working in you both to will and to work according to his good purpose.” This means that not only the action that results from the thought processes, but those thought process themselves are under the fore-ordination of God. Every seemingly free, contingent decision that each and every human being makes is under the working out of the will and purpose of God. Now, we could attempt to get around this mind-blowing fact by suggesting that maybe God simply sees what will happen in time, and ordains whatever that is. This seems like a neat solution, we get to keep our sovereign control over our own actions, and God is able to claim his ordination of all things based on his fore-knowledge. But this will not do, for the bible knows nothing of God acting contingently, that is as a result of something else happening. God doesn’t react to the actions of others, but instead the bible teaches that God ordains events prior to their happening, ruling out his dependence on those acts. God doesn’t have to wait to the end of all things to see how they turn out and then set his counsel. Listen to Paul again in Ephesians 1, verse 4 and 5, “For he choses us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before him. He predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ for himself, according to the good pleasure of his will.” For believers today, this is great news! If God had to wait to see signs of a believing heart before ‘ordaining’ or choosing us in him, then it would never happen, for we need God to move on our hearts, lift scales from our eyes, and gift us that spiritual sight of our sinfulness and his glory that is necessary for our putting our faith in him. The Savoy denies that God looks into the future and makes his will to fit: “Although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass upon all supposed conditions, yet hath he not decreed anything because he foresaw it as future” The godly men who put the Savoy together knew the doubts that would spring into our minds on hearing about this all conquering God and his eternal decree. For that reason they cover two more objections in the first article; the problem of God authoring sin, and the problem of undermining man’s freewill. On the basis of James 1:13 “God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one” the Savoy declares that God is never the author of sin. The poor choices that lead human beings into sin are really their own choices, and while God ordains it to be, is not culpable for the sin, the responsibility remains with the individual sinner. In Acts 2:23 we get a glimpse of how the eternal decree of God intersects with the apparently free will of man. “this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.” It was always the definite plan of God for Jesus to be delivered up, crucified and killed, but it was human beings who decided to act in their sinfulness. So they acted of their own freewill, but God ordains it so.

Our minds expand as we discover more of God’s almost unfathomable power and majesty. Proverbs 16:33 prompts us to accept that even something as apparently random as the roll of a die is decided beforehand by our wonderful God, “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.”