On Free Will and Predestination

Part 2, The Inclusion of the Gentiles

How are we to think of the passages in the Bible where Paul speaks of predestination?

In my chapel talk I had the students step back to consider how Paul's gospel was being attacked and how he used predestination to defend it.

A major concern in many of Paul's letters is defending his evangelistic work among the Gentiles. The most contentious point was Paul's claim that Gentiles did not need to become Jews yet gained access, through baptism, to the promises made to Israel. This seemed perverse to many Jewish Christians. Paul's gospel was being criticized as an innovation, a novelty. Frankly, it looked made up, something Paul had conjured up by himself. (This is precisely why Paul is at pains to recount in Galatians 1 how he didn't make it up and had secured the approval of the Jerusalem leaders, Peter, James, and John.) Critics of Paul were arguing that there was an ancient plan, set forth in the Torah, regarding how to access the promises of God and join the covenantal family. You had to become circumcised and a Torah-observant Jew. Paul, however, was preaching some "new way" of becoming a child of Abraham. Paul's gospel was making God look like a poor planner, making stuff up on the fly. Critics could ask Paul, "If this is God's plan, why haven't we heard about it before?"

Paul's response makes an appeal to predestination. From the beginning, the inclusion of the Gentiles was always the plan. A plan set into motion "before the creation of the world." The inclusion of the Gentiles was "predestined." Consider Ephesians 1:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

The giveaway here is the word "adoption." This passage in Ephesians is directed to Gentiles, the adopted children of God. Paul is encouraging these Gentile believers by pointing out how their late and seemingly irregular entrance into Israel's story rests on solid ground. Paul assures them that their "adoption" was "predestined." True, Jews like Paul "were the first to hope in Christ." But the Gentiles, though latecomers, were not second class citizens: "In him you also [i.e., you Gentiles], when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit."

Even when Paul describes in Romans, controversially so, how God prepared beforehand "vessels of wrath" and "vessels of mercy" this discussion concerns the inclusion of the Gentiles. Set aside for a moment any triggered reaction you might have about the justice of God preparing "vessels of wrath" to step back and see, once again, how Paul is referring to a "deep plan," what he calls the "mystery" of God, regarding the late inclusion of the Gentiles. Even if we might radically rethink or even reject Paul's theology about "vessels of wrath" it's clear Paul isn't talking about heaven or hell. Paul is talking about first-century Israel's rejection of Jesus in contrast to the welcome of the Gentiles. The issue in Romans 9-11 for Paul isn't Judgement Day but the perception that God had unfairly "changed the rules" and perversely reneged on His promises in regards to Israel. Note, again, how references to vessels being "prepared beforehand" are used to defend the gospel of Gentile inclusion.

This context is what I pointed out to the chapel students. When Paul is talking about predestination he's not talking about us, our daily choices, or Judgment Day. Predestination isn't about God micromanaging our lives or picking who goes to heaven or hell. Predestination refers to God's plan for the Gentiles. What Paul was preaching wasn't new or irregular. It was the plan from the beginning of time.