Predestination And Free-Will
Why Would God Predestine Anyone To Hell?
This is surely a sixty-four thousand dollar question. It of course relates to the paragraph above (Why does God save some people and not others), but it goes beyond that question to the real heart of the matter – the matter of man’s heart:
Jeremiah 17:9 – “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”
The heart of man is wicked and deceitful, and so he will never have a proper or perfect understanding of the justice and mercy of God. In his unsaved condition, he will always think that God is not fair with regards to the damnation of sinners. How can we tell God whom to love and whom to save? If you were king of a kingdom, and you were infinitely smarter and holier than any of your subjects, would you not think it presumptuous of any of them to tell you whom to love and whom to have mercy on?
To better understand the doctrine of predestination we must come to grips with the fact that God does not love everyone even though that may be what we were taught in Sunday school or in seminary. Not all popularly held beliefs in the Church are scriptural, as these verses point out:
Psalm 5:5 – “The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity.”
Psalm 11:5 – “The LORD trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth.”
Leviticus 20:23 – “And ye shall not walk in the manners of the nation, which I cast out before you: for they committed all these things, and therefore I abhorred them.”
Hosea 9:15 – “All their wickedness is in Gilgal: for there I hated them: for the wickedness of their doings I will drive them out of mine house, I will love them no more: all their princes are revolters.”
Zechariah 11:8 – “Three shepherds also I cut off in one month; and my soul lothed them, and their soul also abhorred me.”
Malachi 1:3 – “And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.
Romans 9:13 – “As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.”
Believe it or not, a Christian cannot honestly go around saying to everyone indiscriminately “Jesus loves you.” and “Jesus died for you.” Nor can a Christian honestly state that “God loves the sinner but hates the sin”. Before and until God saves a person, they are His enemy:
Romans 5:10 – “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.”
Why, you ask, would God create people that He hates? Certainly a ‘fair’ question, but I am not God and so I can not necessarily answer such a question to your satisfaction. However, I can tell you what God has said about this subject:
Psalm 76:10 – “Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee: the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain.”
God uses the wrath of man to glorify Himself. In spite of what anyone may think, God really is in control of this earth:
Proverbs 16:4 – “The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.”
God will restrain evil when He sees fit and He will allow the wicked to commit evil to bring glory to Himself at some later date:
Psalm 2:1-4 – “1 Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? 2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, 3 Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. 4 He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.”
The wicked and their demise are a testimony to the justice of God. We must remember, if God was to be “fair” (i.e. treat everyone equally), then He would cast every single human being who was ever born and who will ever be born, into Hell for all eternity. But, in His infinite mercy, He has gloriously decided to save some, to have a people for Himself, who will share in His glory for all eternity, through no merit of their own whatsoever. Thanks be to God, for saving a wretch like me!
Summary: This article is a section of a much larger article on the Bible doctrines of Election and Predestination called “Who accepts Whom?“. You are urged to check out that larger article for many other thought provoking questions pertaining these “Doctrines of Grace”. — RM Kane