Westminster Three: Of God's Eternal Decree

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1. God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass (Eph. 1:11; Rom. 11:33; Heb. 6:17; Rom. 9:15, 18): yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin (James 1:13, 17; 1 John 1:5), nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established (Acts 2:23; Matt. 17:12; Acts 4:27–28; John 19:11; Prov. 16:33).

This paragraph describes what is usually called predestination, but should more properly be called foreordination. The word predestination is usually applied in Scripture to the surety that the elect (once regenerated) will come at last to the resurrection of the body. But the truth represented by the common use of this word is still sure; before the world was made, from all eternity, God decreed the number of hairs on that yellow dog’s back. This is something He did in all wisdom. What was so decreed is settled, both freely and unalterably.

This was done in such a way that God cannot be charged with sin. This is of course true by definition (God cannot sin), but it is also important to reiterate the point. God is the Creator of a world which is now full of sin, and yet He cannot be charged with the guilt of it. This confession says that God ordains that sinful action y will take place, and yet He is not the author of sinful action y. Another position (Arminianism) holds that God foreknows sinful action y, and yet is not the author of it. Still another position says that God does not know the future, and created the world anyway (openness theism).

But if men can charge God with being implicated in evil, then they may with justice continue to charge Him as long as the doctrine of creation is affirmed at any level. There is no escape; if God is the Creator, then He is responsible for the presence of sinful action y. We might as well face it. If we have the authority to charge the Calvinist God with tyranny, then we also have the authority to charge the Arminian God with culpable negligence, and the openness God with being drunk and disorderly. Of course, as St. Paul would say, I am out of my mind to talk like this. But if God made the world, then He is responsible for it being here, and for it being in the condition it is in.

The only consistent position on this is the view that explicitly holds that God is exhaustively sovereign. All Christians who hold to

creatio ex nihilo are Calvinists in principle. They hold to exhaustive sovereignty implicitly, but won’t say so out loud, which leads to inconsistencies and contradictions.

At the same time, this view does not make God the master puppeteer. What He foreordained was a world full of free choices. He not only ordained that a man would be in the ice cream store choosing one of thirty-one flavors, He also decreed which flavor would be chosen. But this is not all; He ordained that the cookie dough ice cream would be chosen by this man freely. God ordains non-coercively. This makes no sense to some people, but how many basic doctrines do make sense? We do not understand how God made Jupiter from nothing any more than how He determined my actions today without annihilating me. But He does. Remember, the point being made here is not that divine sovereignty is merely consistent with secondary freedom, but rather that it is the doctrine that establishes it.

2. Although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass upon all supposed conditions (Acts 15:18; 1 Sam. 23:11–12; Matt 11:21, 23), yet hath He not decreed any thing because He foresaw it as future, or as that which would come to pass upon such conditions (Rom. 9:11, 13, 16, 18).

God does foreknow all things, and He knows all the possibilities and contingencies. He knows everything that could have been. And yet we are not to suppose that God foreordains based upon His knowledge of what the world would have done without Him anyway. He does not peer down the corridors of time, see what is happening, and then decree that it will happen. This would make God nothing more than a cosmic me-too-er. And at the same time, it is incoherent. If God saw what was going on down the corridors of time without Him, and then created that world, then His decision to create the world means that those events were not going on without Him. He is the one who decreed that they would be.

3. By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels (1 Tim. 5:21; Matt. 25:41) are predestinated unto everlasting life; and others foreordained to everlasting death (Rom. 9:22–23; Eph. 1:5–6; Prov. 16:4).

God does what He does, by His decree, and for His glory. This includes the apportionment of everlasting life, both to men and angels. Some are predestined to life, while others are foreordained to everlasting death. The use of different verbs here is significant. God’s predestination to life is assigned to men who are in a state of death. God’s decision to leave someone in his death is different in kind from His decision to remove someone from that death. Consider ten men on death row, all of whom deserve to die. The governor, for good and sufficient reasons, decides to pardon three of them. Has he done an injustice to the other seven? His action affects all ten, but his action toward the three is of a different nature than his lack of action toward the seven. God is not selecting individuals for eternal bliss or eternal pain from some morally neutral place. We are all of us condemned sinners, and the election to life is an election to pardon.

4. These angels and men, thus predestinated, and foreordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed, and their number so certain and definite, that it cannot be either increased or diminished (2 Tim. 2:19; John 13:18).

This paragraph in the Confession simply keeps men from messing around with the words—which, on a subject like this, they frequently want to do. Because the word predestination is in the Bible, something must be done with it. But we are basically dealing with two lists of names, which are fixed. The lists do not grow or shrink, and names on the lists cannot be exchanged. God knows the end from the beginning.

5. Those of mankind that are predestinated unto life, God, before the foundation of the world was laid, according to His eternal and immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of His will, hath chosen, in Christ, unto everlasting glory (Eph. 1:4, 9, 11; Rom 8:30; 2 Tim. 1:9; 1 Thess. 5:9), out of His mere free grace and love, without any foresight of faith, or good works, or perseverance in either of them, or any other thing in the creature, as conditions, or causes moving Him thereunto (Rom. 9:11, 13, 16; Eph. 1:4,9): and all to the praise of His glorious grace (Eph. 1:6, 12).

This is a fine statement of unconditional election, which is entirely different from arbitrary or capricious election. The truth being insisted upon here is that God has no reasons found in us for His election. He has many reasons, all of them good, for His selection. He does what He does according to His secret counsel and the good pleasure of His will. Further, the choice springs from His grace and love. This means that God has compelling reasons for election—it is not a question of eeny, meeny, miney, mo. But the good reasons do not include foresight of our faith, good works, stamina in either, or anything else that might be found in the creature which would enable that creature to boast in anything other than God’s goodness and mercy.

6. As God hath appointed the elect unto glory, so hath He, by the eternal and most free purpose of His will, foreordained all the means thereunto (1 Pet. 1:2; Eph. 1:4–5; 2:10; 2 Thess. 2:13). Wherefore, they who are elected, being fallen in Adam, are redeemed by Christ (1 Thess. 5:9–10; Tit. 2:14), are effectually called unto faith in Christ by His Spirit working in due season, are justified, adopted, sanctified (Rom. 8:30; Eph. 1:5; 2 Thess. 2:13), and kept by His power, through faith, unto salvation (1 Pet. 1:5). Neither are any other redeemed by Christ, effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only (John 17:9; Rom. 8:28–39; John 6:64–65; 10:26; 8:47; 1 John 2:19).

If God has elected certain men to salvation, then why pray, preach, witness, etc.? The answer is that God does not just predestine the end, which is, for example, the salvation of Smith. He also predestined, as a necessary part of the whole process, the varied preconditions and means which were necessary to bring Smith to the point of salvation. These preconditions included being fallen in Adam, redeemed by Christ, and called and kept by the Holy Spirit. The elect have all the preconditions preordained for them, and those who are not elect do not participate in the foreordained salvific preconditions.

God does not just ordain the end; He ordains the means as well. If He ordains the harvest, He also ordained the plowing and planting. If He ordained the pregnancy, He ordained the sexual union. If He ordained the dent in the fender, He ordained the fender-bender that caused it. We cannot isolate one small portion of an ordained universe and treat it in isolation, as though the rest of the universe were not that way. Let us at least learn simple logic from the pagan philosopher Zeno, founder of the Stoics. He caught a slave stealing, and gave him a good thrashing for it. The slave, an amateur philosopher himself, pleaded that it was fated for him to steal. And Zeno retorted, “And that I should beat you.”

7. The rest of mankind God was pleased, according to the unsearchable counsel of His own will, whereby He extendeth or withholdeth mercy, as He pleaseth, for the glory of His sovereign power over His creatures, to pass by; and to ordain them to dishonour and wrath for their sin, to the praise of His glorious justice (Matt. 11:25–26; Rom. 9:17–18, 21–22; 2 Tim. 2:19–20; Jude 4; 1 Pet. 2:8).

If this is done according to the unsearchable counsel of His own will, then we should not try to search it out. We may assert it, because the Bible does, but cannot plumb the depths of His counsel at this point. God may withhold mercy without injustice. If mercy could be demanded as a matter of justice, then it would no longer be mercy. Mercy and grace can never be demanded as a right. Why does God pass by some of His creatures, leaving them in their sin? He does this in order to manifest His justice, which is glorious. In order for justice to be manifested, it is necessary that sinners fall under dishonor and wrath. In a world without sin, two of God’s most glorious attributes—His justice and His mercy—would go undisplayed. This, obviously, would be horrible. This is St. Paul’s argument. What if God did this to show His wrath on the vessels of wrath, and to bestow the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy (Rom. 9:22-23).

8. The doctrine of this high mystery of predestination is to be handled with special prudence and care (Rom. 9:20; 11:33; Deut. 29:29), that men, attending the will of God revealed in His Word, and yielding obedience thereunto, may, from the certainty of their effectual vocation, be assured of their eternal election (2 Pet. 1:10). So shall this doctrine afford matter of praise, reverence, and admiration of God (Eph. 1:6; Rom. 11:32); and of humility, diligence, and abundant consolation to all that sincerely obey the Gospel (Rom. 11:5–6, 20; 2 Pet. 1:10; Rom. 8:33; Luke 10:20).

This truth should be handled gingerly. Sinners like to blame God instead of themselves, and they do so with particular impudence whenever they become aware of this truth. But the reason we emphasize it is three-fold. First, we must understand this in order to make our calling and election sure. Secondly, it gives rise to many occasions where God may be greatly glorified.

Lastly, this doctrine is a real humbler. Those who are proud of their knowledge of this doctrine (as opposed to all those modern evangelical semi-Pelagians out there) have the worst of all situations. The most obvious thing about predestination is that it exalts God and abases the creature. But this is not be confused with the exaltation of the creature who pretends to exalt God. As John Newton once memorably put it, “And I am afraid there are Calvinists, who, while they account it a proof of their humility that they are willing in words to debase the creature, and to give all the glory of salvation to the Lord, yet know not what manner of spirit they are of. Whatever it be that makes us trust in ourselves that we are comparatively wise or good, so as to treat those with contempt who do not subscribe to our doctrines, or follow our party, is a proof and fruit of a self-righteous spirit. Self-righteousness can feed upon doctrines, as well as upon works; and a man may have the heart of a Pharisee, while his head is stored with orthodox notions of the unworthiness of the creature and the riches of free grace.”

The Pharisee who went down to the Temple to pray actually began his prayer with one of the solas—

soli Deo gloria. “I thank Thee, God . . .” Perfectly orthodox. And he went home unjustified to boot.