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CHAPTER ONE

 

INITIAL REVIEW

 

In an initial review of some of the appetising elements of this territory, we shall cast thought to various issues, all gloriously resolvable in terms of the Biblical propositions, some of which major ones appear at the outset in Predestination and Freewill. The aspects will be explored from various angles, like the scrutinizing of a crystal or gem, in the light as it is considered from below, above, around itself; and the serenity of the whole systematics of the revealed perspective will be appreciated in its awesome splendour.

 

An account of the areas of interest here appears in Chapter 1. Thus our first line of additives to the original work, Predestination and Freewill, items which are selected from the total now available in our site Index, deals with the overview.

 

As has been shown, not merely are these issues resolvable in terms of these propositions, the Biblical teachings on the point, but other aspects appear in amazing, but to faith, understandable profusion. Nothing else does resolve the issues, and further, nothing else could: this is a simple, expository, analytical fact. This forms the second chapter, entitled, THE NECESSITY OF BIBLICAL TRUTH on PREDESTINATION AND FREEWILL. That is Chapter 2.

 

What however is presented in Holy Writ that can be more fully savoured ?

 

Next, then there is the marvellous and basic coverage on the nature of what is determined, from God indeed predestinated, and what is free, and THEREFORE accountable. You do not blame a screw-driver for its screwy tendencies if it IS a screw-driver by design and derivation! It would not be rational or even meaningful. In fact, of course, in terms of the all-resolving biblical premises, man is BOTH free and bound, in different dimensions, and the latter is a pathology, originated in misused liberty, rendering the matter accountable. Hence responsibility arrives, as it is in fact found and indeed even assumed in practice by such theorists, even in such nihilistic irrationalities as Communism (cf. SMR pp.  127ff., 925ff., and Index). On the other hand, God does not abdicate in order to make man free, for if He did, as shown in detail (Acme, Alpha and Omega: Jesus Christ Ch. 8), He would not be God, rather a mere transience subjected to the environment of creation and frustration, of mutual dependency and ignorance, of will surpassing ability and designs without wisdom.

 

Unchangeable (SMR Ch. 1), God does not relinquish control because He invents liberty; nor is His control such as to countermand liberty, though sin erodes it, another matter entirely, this residing in the nature of misused equipment, like tyres on front-end in a car, left out of alignment IRRESPONSIBLY. Rather the Lord impacts on the CONSEQUENCES of misused liberty, so that they are contained according to plan. In a simple analogy, it would be like a father shutting a son into a dark cupboard for 15 minutes, so that the FREE folly of the child could be expressed in a way sufficiently shameful to be a rebuke, and yet contained, so that it is limited as desired, without in the least preventing the yelling or other disturbance proceeding from within the confined space!

 

This proceeds so far in principle, that if and when God elects that some be PREDESTINED to eternal separation from Himself, pronounced hell, this in no way either excludes the passion of His love or the power of His might. Love is restrained, and considers the nature of the person loved, not to extract or extort love in return, but to seek it; and when God loves, nothing is left out, and only the final severance can attest the consequence; for Christ would rather weep for Jerusalem, than invade it (Matthew 23:37). He would rather give it every reason to believe in Him (John 14:1-10), than raise an insurrection against reason, His own invention for man in this processive world, however much it be misused, merely violating the spirit of man, and pretend that force in ANY way is at all  relevant to the EXACTION of love! Such exaction would be the monolith to imprecision and the artifice of the unlovely!

 

The world has long known this and discovered it in endless romances, and ugly histories where it has been ignored, as well as charming actualities, where the heart is warmed by the understanding and mutuality really shown where love in some degree of sincerity, actually is; or even in open hearted cordiality.

 

The PRE-TIME (in our sense of the term ‘time’) decision on these things in no way affects the NATURE or the PRINCIPLES of the decision, or HOW it is wrought! It merely makes the eventuation the more sure, for  all being foreseen and known, nothing is left to chance; and all being instituted in its eternal significance before time even began, time cannot distort,  nor mere psychological disturbance claim an eternal toll: the Eternal One has disposed of the matter in truth and reality, in love.

 

That is Chapter 3, the Conspectus.

 

While this has been dealt with in the original volume, various facets are treated, further, and this is provided for in Chapter 4, LOVE AND PREDESTINATION! It really is biblically just as depicted, and it is not another thing. So often shrunk, or made fatuous by mere human importation, the love of God is in this chapter pondered biblically, with the implications, so that the effect of scriptural injunctions and protestations, judgments and warnings may be felt and discerned with justice, so leading to the amazing coherence, conclusiveness and harmony which the Lord presents in such issues in His word, being better appreciated.

 

In Chapter 5, further discussion and exhibition of the nature of LIBERTY is given, with reference to far more from the index. This is then seen in actual operation the more readily, when what we experience is conjoined with the plans of the Ultimate Person, God Himself. The achievements of the Almighty are unlimited, His Lordship total, His grace and mercy pure, lavish, yet His image bearers, for all their sinfulness and spiritual blindness, are not merely marshalled into the kingdom: called they come, with violence to nothing but the sin which they happily discard from its rule. His sovereignty is loving and His love is free. The face of liberty is not distressed, nor is it cancelled; rather is it fulfilled.

 

 

Chapter 6 deals errors which, with whatever excellencies mixed, have led to much needless controversy. Extremes intervene into the glorious harmony of the word of God.

 

Here we consider the approach of  Calvin in contrast to such as Wesley, in their contest, at a basic level, in some more detail, and shows the amazing fact that each party in some measure went far too far, avoiding the WHOLE COUNSEL of God in the scripture; though it is fair to say that Calvin did a magnificent job in systematisation, regrettably being apparently carried away beyond the needs of his just, five points, to areas which understandably exercised Wesley, and  millions more since, and do not even match the word of God.

 

This helps one to  realise that God has servants, and that these are used, like bricks that stand out in a wall, most conspicuously; but this is no  warrant for idolatry, and certainly no ground for disobeying I Corinthians 3, which forbids calling yourself after the name of some doctrinal propounder, such as Apollos (and hence Calvin, Wesley, Luther or other), however heroic and gifted that party may be or have been.

 

It brings man back to Isaiah 2:22 level, “Cease from man whose breath is in his nostrils, for of what account is he ?”

 

It is NOT that we should not be exceedingly grateful to those who so laboured, and do; nor that we should not appreciate with relish what the Lord has done through them,  to help;  but there is ONLY ONE TEACHER, Christ, and neither Protestant theologian nor papal idol may be named as the ground, or a basis of doctrine.  This, in I Cor. 3, it is by divine order. Why should this be unheeded more than any other! Man may present what is there, but may not become a criterion by name. It is as simple as that, and as simply violated as that.

 

In this way, we explore the various emphases, understand the passion of their utterance, but avoid the extra miles traveled without scriptural  warrant or contrary to it, so bringing or at least attested grounds of peace. This is also seen in a chapter to which reference is made, in which a NUMBER of SUCH ISSUES is seen, outside our present field, in need of similar peace from similar refinement to the scriptural dimensions, neither more nor less! (see Tender Times for Timely Truths Ch. 2).

 

Just as Chapter 4 has insisted on the love of God scripturally defined, so that this be not corroded, eroded, or dilated to evanescent dimensions, but kept to what the Bible defines, so now in Chapter 7 we consider the love of God in its integrity in contrast to the posings of irrationality and the reductionist distortions which can never understand because they omit the topic in their discussions.

 

 

At the same time, the programmatic reductionist works of psychology or philosophy are given some attention BY WAY OF CONTRAST. The comprehensive coverage of reality provided in the scriptural presentation on this topic is thus  able to be seen in its stark beauty the more readily, its comprehensive coverage of realities experienced and constantly basic to human operation like a diamond with shafts of light, yet one laid near a black background, something quite useless in itself, but interesting for a setting to the splendour!

 

 

In Chapter 8, approach comes to current modern clash. We face the issues of clones and caperings about chance, showing the impact of sovereignty and individuality on biological and mathematical concepts of this type. This is very much  a chapter of APPLICATION, and involves therefore delineation of some of the models in mind in this century, when the realities are discussed. Here too the matters are shown quite simply, as is so much of mathematics, for example, ONCE you understand thoroughly and CORRECTLY the underlying principles which in fact operate.

 

 

In Chapter 9, the relationship of delay and discipline is then considered in connection with this love of God, and here lies coverage of some of the historical expression of love, as it refines, challenges, warns and proceeds in its own ways. While such actions of the Lord may often be past our understanding on earth, it is frequently because of simple ignorance (as was the case carefully DESIGNED for Job, in order to make the test effective!). Thus when the case is revealed, the purpose and the end of the matter, all is simply explained. Seen in the scriptural indications and cases presented, it is not at all difficult, wholly understandable; but it was hidden from us for the time, just as the correct answers may be in an examination, for our own response is required!

 

In this chapter, previous matters are compounded with new ones. Pain, suffering and blight will also come into the situation, in terms both of freedom and structure, of wisdom and love and these things, so far from being extraneous, to the glorious totality of the revelation in its consistency and inter-related actions, will be seen as natural outcomes of invested categories from God, and directly or indirectly, of invented categories from man.

 

Part of the irony is of course always this, that when man treats God as meaningless, his own life tends to become the same, if he ever pauses to think, and there is THEN an element of truth in his own finding about himself, so often now made, as a fragment without integral meaning. After all, if you cut yourself off from God, it is like a finger being removed from its basis. It was a ghoulish discovery of some in the Vietnam War, or some similar occasion, that the bodily members of friends do not seem so … personal, when seen lying about the landscape, detached!

 

When man insists on this dismemberment from where he belongs, then it is not so much a matter of “if the cap fits, wear it,” as of this: “if the severance is made, bear it!” It is a vacuous proposition then to complain about the detachment, as if a suicide should blame God for the final plunge of the dagger to his own heart. The heart was available. If he dismembers it from its functional environment, so be it; that is not a comment on its design, but on his own designs upon it!

 

 

In Chapter  10, the special relationship between grace and liberty and love and liberty, and both with faith,  is considered and seen first in some isolation, showing again the perfect harmony of all components in this field. It is seen that love and liberty are correlative, each essential to the other, and only in a love beyond man that makes liberty is liberty possible, while at the same time, predestination is the correlative of both.

 

First however, the rank pollution of predestinative considerations with carnal substitutes receives attention, the vagrancy of the latter a ground and stimulus of perception of the integrity of the former,  our awareness of it thus buttressed with more knowledge.

 

In all these things, the stark simplicity and operability, harmony and comprehensiveness of the biblical presentation is contrasted with the total inability of any alternative, any option, any fabrication of man to cover the case, and so in this field is found not only a justice and reasonableness in handling the various aspects of human life, but an exclusiveness in adequacy for the same. This is one further verification of the Bible, and in this volume an even wider-ranging coverage is thus provided for the same or a similar purpose.

 

It is rather like a happy marriage. The more you look, the more you marvel.

 

Four Supplements then supply further background, with considerable material new to this volume.