What hath God especially decreed concerning angels and men?

God, by an eternal and immutable decree, out of his mere love, for the praise of his glorious grace, to be manifested in due time, hath elected some angels to glory,[1] and in Christ hath chosen some men to eternal life, and the means thereof:[2] and also, according to his sovereign power, and the unsearchable counsel of his own will, (whereby he extends or withholds favor as he pleases,) hath passed by and foreordained the rest to dishonor and wrath, to be for their sin inflicted, to the praise of the glory of his justice.[3]

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Commentary

The reformers chose the words "immutable" and "eternal" to introduce the decree of election, and election is the subject before us. Immutable, though seldom heard outside theological discussions today, means "unchanging." In other words, God has spoken and this cannot be changed. Eternal being added then to reinforce this unchangeable decree to indicate there will be no future circumstance whereby God will change this decree. The church (Reformed or otherwise) only stands as long as God is sovereign. A sovereign cannot have need to change a decree, or he isn’t "perfect." The most vivid example of this in my mind comes from the biblical story of Esther. Many have picked points to cavil about through the years with this explanation, but nonetheless, I find it to be the best analogy for us mere mortals to grasp and thereby understand the reason why God must be immutable not only in His decrees, but everything He says or does.

In the story of Esther an earthly king has made a decree. The fact that he was deceived, or tricked into issuing the edict does not matter. He cannot simply repeal his edit or he has "proven" himself capable of error and thereby "unrighteous" (unjust). His solution is to issue another edit, but he never rescinded the original. This standard was in place in Eastern kingdoms as far back as we have recorded history. It is easy then to see that God as the ultimate Sovereign cannot change, ever, or He is no longer God. The idea of divine being, deity worthy of worship is that they are superior to mere flesh and are all wise. They cannot make error, and once they have created a law (given a decree) they too are subject to that law. In other words the sovereign has spoken, it is law, and that law cannot be broken, even by the sovereign who spoke.

In this sense then, every thing that God says must be perfect and righteous. For this cause Jesus said I have not come to destroy the law but fulfill, and not one jot nor tittle will pass away. Divine Words whether in the form of an eternal decree or not, will stand forever. From this, surely we can see then that indeed the decrees of God are eternal and immutable, and in this closer focus, not subject to even the fulfillment that Christ brought to the Old Testament Law, in that they didn’t disappear in the fulfillment, "... not one jot nor title will pass away.".

Here then we have the grounds for the so called "Theonomist" of today’s church. They hold, and I believe rightly so, that the laws of the Old Testament have an ethical application for today. Christ said no less when He said search the Scriptures for they speak of me. It is a "divine" word, and cannot pass from history. In this sense we are all Theonomists or we are "antinomian" (law breakers). However like all things in the hands of man this has been carried to extremes by some who demand the Mosaic law be applied today, both to the church and civil government without any change; whereby adultery is a capital offense for example. As a general rule of thumb, all extremes are bad and this is no exception.

I am somewhat amused at the choice of the reformers for God’s reason for making these decrees, "out of his mere love." I would like to have had the opportunity to have sat in on the full discussion of this passage. Yet, how else can one measure any single attribute of God, compared to the whole? Though I believe what the reformers were trying to point out was that God did this out of love and not because of any hidden agenda so to speak, nor because of the use of His divine foreknowledge, whereby it could be thought some in some other way earned their salvation. We see this developed more completely in the conclusion of this sentence, "for the praise of His glorious grace." Again we see it as free of anything except the unsearchable will of God (grace), as God holds true to Himself whereby the purpose of all creation was for His glory. This consistency in the presentation of one doctrine (precept) after another without a single break in the unity of the whole has only been surpassed by the Holy Spirit in the writing of the Bible itself. While others who hold to another of the Reformed confessions may make the same claim, I don’t think any covered the full scope of theology as completely as the Westminster Divines.

In this answer we find most of the elements of the TULIP once more rising from the testimony of Scripture to show God’s glory and radiance in the decree of salvation for the elect and the ordering of the condemnation for the rest. Passages like this cause one to stop and wonder how any could deny the truth of God underlying either of these classic points of Reformed theology. Depravity being first established, whereby all have sinned and came short of the glory of God makes Limited atonement and punishment of the sinner a thing of glorious righteousness, brought to perfection by the same love and grace that chose the elect to be glorified. The Tulip only points to the perfection of God in all areas, including justice and wrath. How we all gather to ourselves the words love and grace, but try so desperately to close out justice and wrath from our minds. For a Holy God must also be a Just God. And here we have come full circle, a Just God must have then eternal and unchangeable decrees! So the doctrine of the decrees of God flow as a necessity from there being a God.

This only leaves one point to cover briefly in this treatment of such a great work as the reformers handed us in this question; namely "the means thereof." What a fantastic God we serve who has never required from us anything He did not first furnish to us. Thereby, the means for entry into His eternal presence in glory, were provided; the Word, preaching, sacraments, and discipline of His church. I have used some liberty here as traditionally the Word of God and sacraments have been used as the Reformed view of the "means of grace." However by Word it was understood to include preaching of both the law and gospel. I have chosen first to present the Word as Scripture, then the practices of the church that are a natural outflow of this Word put into practice. I included the church, meaning the true church of God whereby all the other means are given a visible manifestation in this world, and the last addition of discipline for judgment begins in the house of God and as such is a grace bestowed upon believers.

Now while every denomination I know of outside Reformed/Presbyterian denominations deny these tenets of the Reformed faith, I do believe they miss the true meaning of the Scripture and rob themselves of a great comfort. According to the Bible we can know we are saved. If the classic points of the Reformed TULIP stand what comfort then God has given His people. Having been chosen by God from the foundation of the world and knowing I am a part of this divine family by right of adoption, I am free to be about the duty God has assigned, and do not spend all of my earthly life in fear I have committed some great sin and God is going to take away the gift of eternal life. I am safe in the all powerful hand of God and none can rob me of the glorious future I have in Christ. Death holds no sway nor fear in my life, for I am an eternal being, destined to enjoy God forever. Can you sense the power having such a position in the eternal scheme of things gives?

We might ask then why Christ has sent us into all the world to preach the Gospel to all creatures? Because for His own purpose God has chosen the foolishness of the preaching of the Gospel to call His own from darkness into the glorious light of His Son. Why all creatures? Two reasons, first, because God has not so marked the elect and all being in the image of God we are to love all. Which person can we say we love and not have a tremendous desire to share the good news of Jesus Christ? Second, there is a present blessing and advantage for knowing and obeying God’s law, whether elect or not. Consider Nineveh in the day of Jonah. This wicked city repents and is spared the wrath of God for several generations. Nineveh was destroyed some one hundred years or approximately three generations later. I do not think the book of Jonah indicates the giving of grace and eternal salvation, but the pouring out of God’s mercy because they repented and honored God were given temporal blessings. Another reason I admit to be somewhat alone in presenting is that God must vindicate Himself for His own glory before all of His creation. This means that the more patience shown, and knowledge revealed, the more guilty the nonbeliever is in the rejection of the grace of God.

God reveals Himself to all mankind. Only those to whom God has given the gift of faith will see Christ and desire God. However the justice of God is vindicated, and the out pouring of God’s wrath toward the children of wrath is found to be just. While I am comfortable with what is known as a supralaparsian position, that is God made all these choices without the rest in view, some hold an infralapsarian position that says God has in view the fall, then chose whom He would save according to His own counsel and purpose and likewise decreed all others to condemnation "because of sin," a phrase we find in the Synod of Dordt, and the document they prepared called the Canons of Dordt. You can find verses to support either position and this has never been a measure of orthodoxy in any of the Reformed churches. All Reformed churches agree God made the decree unto eternal salvation without using His foreknowledge whereby some might boast and claim God saw the good within, or the future good deeds of a particular individual and chose that person because of this good. That is what election is all about, God chose those that would be saved, both angels and men without regard to anything except His own eternal will and purpose, to glorify Himself. To deny this is to deny God’s Word and most all churches will concede this point, but many will begin to immediately undo this by finding ways man chose God instead of God’s eternal choice of some men.

I find peace and comfort in knowing God loved me before I was ever born and that God has placed a claim on me out of His love and mercy before the foundation of the world, and nothing can change that. Thus in the depth of sorrow at an earthly event I cannot become angry at God and take myself out of His presence though I might rage against God and try to do so. I can ponder life and even the Scriptures and because this sin darkened mind doesn’t understand, I will not be condemned and tossed out of the family. In other words I have life and that more abundant because God has said so, not because I earned it, I chose it, nor anything else I do or do not do. I rely not on my faltering and feeble faith, but God’s faith toward me, and the exercise of God’s love in my life, whereby because He loved me first, I dare stand and love all created in His image.

Out of love for His children, and to remove the last struggle among the elect, God removed from us the heart of stone that belongs to man by nature and gave us a heart of flesh whereby we are enabled to receive and share the greatest of the attributes of God, love. This part of being transformed by the Holy Spirit into the image of the Son is so great that the Apostle Paul after listing all the great gifts of the Spirit to man and the church says here is a more excellent way, that is, here is something more to be sought after than speaking in tongues, having the gift of healing or any other spiritual gift, here is the way of life in the Spirit; and from his pen then God wrote the love chapter First Corinthians thirteen. What shame then rests on us of the church that we allow the gifts to be debated and divide the body of Christ, when the application of the greatest gift of all would of necessity bring peace and unity.

We find so much of this fantastic theology we know as Calvinism in other systems of theology, but not the full fruit of it because of the darkness of man who would claim for himself some of God’s own glory. How sad to watch those brought up in this biblical doctrine deny the gifts of God’s Holy Spirit to His people and hang on to the application of these gifts as manifested in worship, pointing to the end of the chapter in the Bible that gives the direction for their use, First Corinthians fourteen. They quote these few words, "... decently and in order" then jump to mere shadow of implication and claim the gifts are no longer manifest. The gifts are real and for today. All the gifts of God are without shadow or turning. Else the Holy Spirit wasted time and ink in giving to us the directions to use the gifts for the good of all and how to let them be manifest in the worship of God.

In conclusion I submit the decree was for the election of the children of God. While the passing by of all others, there being no other way of salvation amounts to the certainty of a decree, God merely so ordained this would too be ordered for His own glory, and did not make the decree. God indeed foreordained all that happens, at least in a passive manner, speaking as a mortal. But the limit is with the election, and all else can be changed or ordered by God. That all are ever before present before God and God laid His plan before the foundation of the world does not mean predestination as some are want to think or present it. Prayer works and changes earthly events. Miracles happen and the gifts are still operational among men. Nonetheless not one soul not elected of God, nor angel of heaven (who do not have souls for they are spirit) will be saved is as true as not one so elected of men or angels will be lost.

For further thought: Is the atonement limited? How and why? How and to whom does God vindicate Himself? Is there a difference where Bible uses the word saved concerning salvation, that is what difference is there between mercy and eternal salvation in these passages?

For further study: In a concordance find the word elect, elected, and election. Like wise ordained, ordain and variations of the two. If the atonement is limited, how are we to understand passages that seem to indicate all, such as "come whomsoever," "For God so loved the world," and "call upon the name of the Lord and you will be ..."

[1] I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, that thou observe these things without preferring one before another, doing nothing by partiality. {preferring...: or, prejudice} (1 Timothy 5:21 AV)

[2] According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. (Ephesians 1:4-6 AV)

But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth: Whereunto he called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Thessalonians 2:13-14 AV)

[3] For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? {repliest...: or, answerest again, or, disputest with God?} Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: {fitted: or, made up} (Romans 9:17-22 AV)

At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight. (Matthew 11:25-26 AV)

For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ. (Jude 1:4 AV)