Ephesians 2:1-10
You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, doing the will of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else, but God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ —by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we may walk in them.
A good Presbyterian arrives at the pearly gates and there are 2 lines. One line is labeled “predestined” and the other line is labeled “free will.” The Presbyterian is proud of his reformed tradition and gets in line under “predestined.” A few moments later an angel approaches him and asks why he is in the predestined line. He says, “I am a good presbyterian and I chose to be in this line.” The angel replies, “No…If you chose this line, you should be over there.” So the Presbyterian changes lines and is waiting in the “free will” line when a different angel approaches him and asks why he is in the line, the man replies, “the angel told me to be here.” The poor Presbyterian cannot win!? And welcome to the wonderful, sometimes confusing world of predestination!
As we continue in our sermon series Untangling Tricky Theology, we are untangling the doctrine of predestination today. It’s a loaded statement and one that I think presbyterians or reformed traditions get labeled with without a great understanding of what it really says. For some people, predestination brings comfort. It means God is in control and nothing can separate us from God’s purposes. For others, predestination raises some pretty serious questions. If God has already decided everything, do our choices matter? If God chooses some people for salvation, what happens to everyone else? And if God has already determined our eternal destination, what kind of God are we talking about? Those are not silly questions. They are important questions about the character of God, the meaning of grace, and the kind of lives we are called to live.
I want to be honest that this is one doctrine I have wrestled with deeply. I grew up in a United Methodist context which focused on grace and our pursuit of that. But as I entered seminary, I was placed to serve in a PC(USA) church for the first time in my life. Like many others in the world, I had my own preconceived notions about what presbyterianism was. I can distinctly remember sitting in worship the first time we ordained and installed deacons and elders and as I heard the third ordination question, “Do you sincerely receive and adopt the essential tenets of the Reformed faith as expressed in the confessions of our church as authentic and reliable expositions of what Scripture leads us to believe and do, and will you be instructed and led by those confessions as you lead the people of God?” thinking I don’t think I can ever call myself a presbyterian if an essential tenet is predestination. As I’ve grown in my understanding of the Reformed tradition and of this particular doctrine, I could answer that question in the affirmative. Looking back now, I should have approached the question with curiosity instead of certainty, something that is now a core part of my own theological understanding. Sometimes, when we encounter a theological idea that makes us uncomfortable, the best thing we can do is slow down, ask questions, and see whether there is more to the story than we initially thought.
It’s helpful to start with identifying predestination as a doctrine of the Church. When we speak of doctrine we are speaking of a set of beliefs or understandings created by human beings to better understand God. Doctrine is also often taught or accepted by denominations or religious groups as helpful. Ideas that miss the mark of understanding God or work against other doctrine can be declared false or heretical.
But most importantly, I think it’s essential to remember that predestination is an understanding developed by humans so that we might better understand God. And maybe you’ve noticed this before, but when humans get involved we can occasionally over complicate things. As we said in the prayer of confession this morning, we have a human desire to understand God – and that is a noble pursuit. We study Scripture, we ask questions, we debate, and we develop theological language to help us express what we believe, but God is bigger than us. God is bigger than the capabilities of our understanding so some things will be out of our depths.
So let’s unpack some of the myths related to predestination…
Myth #1: Predestination means God has already decided everything for our entire lives. This is a myth because predestination is not determinism. Determinism and predestination often find themselves lumped together. Predestination is doctrine and determinism is a philosophical understanding. Determinism is micro-management of every single action. Claiming that every action has already been determined for you. What you will eat. Where you will live. Predestination in its most doctrinal form is not about each of your individual actions but that God is sovereign especially in the realm of salvation.
Myth #2: All people are either saved or eternally damned and this was decided before our births. This is what some people believe when they believe in double predestination. Double predestination holds the position that God elects some to salvation and some to damnation. I’m sure there are some presbyterians who may believe in double predestination, but that’s not where we are sitting today. Rather than seeing predestination as a divine list of who is in and who is out, we can understand it as an affirmation that salvation begins with God. The emphasis shifts from asking, “Who has God rejected?” to asking, “What does it mean that God has acted to save us?” And that brings us back to Ephesians. Listen again to the beginning of verse 4: “But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us…” Those two words, but God, are at the heart of this passage. The author has spent the first few verses describing the human condition. We have wandered. We have sinned. We have participated in the brokenness of the world. We have failed to live as God calls us to live. And then comes the turning point: But God. But God is rich in mercy. But God loves us. But God acts. Even when we were dead through our trespasses, God made us alive together with Christ. Notice what the passage does not say. It does not say that we finally got our act together, so God decided we were worth saving. It does not say that we earned enough points to get God’s attention. It does not say that God waited for us to prove ourselves before offering grace. It says that God acted out of mercy and love. That is the good news. Now, does this passage answer every question about who will ultimately be saved? No. Christians have debated those questions for centuries, and this passage alone does not settle every aspect of that debate. But it does give us a clear place to begin: with a God who is rich in mercy and whose love comes before our accomplishments. And if that is where we begin, perhaps we should be careful about using predestination to decide who is beyond the reach of God’s grace. After all, if salvation is God’s work, then we are not the ones who get to draw the boundaries of God’s mercy.
Myth #3: If you believe in predestination, you can’t believe in free will. This is once again the difference between determinism and predestination. Those are not the same thing. Predestination doesn’t say that we no longer have the opportunity to choose anything else. Predestination and free will have been understood in different ways by different Christian thinkers. Some traditions emphasize God’s sovereignty in ways that leave little room for human freedom. Others understand God’s grace as working alongside meaningful human choices. We do not need to pretend that every theological tension has been resolved. But we can reject the idea that believing in God’s grace means our choices are meaningless.
Predestination as a concept (while found in the scriptures) really gets its start in the Reformation. And for those of us anxiously awaiting, next Sunday is Reformation Sunday… For those of us who may be a little rusty on our Church History, in 1517, Martin Luther took issue with the Roman Catholic Church and clergy for charging money for salvation and the supreme authority of the Pope. He posted his 95 Theses, NOT Reese’, against the Church on the door of a church in Germany. Luther did not set out to create a schism in the Church. In fact, Luther hoped that his theses would spur a renewal within the Church. Luther was excommunicated from the Church less than 5 years later and went on to translate the Bible into German harnessing the power of the printing press giving many access to the scriptures on their own. While Luther changes the shape of the Church in Germany, Scandinavia, and the Baltics, John Calvin and Ulrich Zwingli are changing the landscape of the Church in Switzerland, Scotland, France, and other countries in those areas.
What we find in our text from Ephesians today is deeply connected to what Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli were expressing in the Reformation. We are saved by grace alone. There is no religious hierarchy that gets a say in our access to salvation. There is no human who gets to make that determination. God alone is the initiator of salvation. God is sovereign. God has offered us grace. This grace is freely available to us. Not because we have done anything to earn it and it turns out, there’s nothing we can do to lose it. It is in this grace that we can be made alive with Christ.
We’ve unpacked some myths and we talked about how and why this doctrine has come about, but what truths can this hold for our lives?
Truth #1: Predestination is about God’s sovereignty, not micromanagement. It is a theological affirmation that God is sovereign, especially in the work of salvation. We do not have to imagine God controlling every decision in order to trust that God’s purposes and grace are at work in the world. This truth should change everything for us. It tells us that we never have to decide who is in and who is out. And I think we know that we would get it all wrong if we tried to play God. Thank God that it’s not up to us!
Truth #2: Predestination is about the assurance of God’s grace, not a list of who is in and who is out. We can understand predestination as a way to better understand God’s initiative in salvation and the depth of God’s grace, rather than a declaration that some people were created to be condemned. God has offered us grace. This grace is freely available to us.
Truth #3: Christ has made us free. If we believe this doctrine of predestination holds truth for our lives, then we can more fully step into the grace that God offers us. God’s grace allows us the freedom to do good works. As our text from Ephesians says to be “made alive together with Christ.” Our “works” are a response to the offering of grace made to us – not to earn salvation or human favor or brag about the good we have done. It is a gift to God in gratitude.
These truths offer a hopeful way to approach predestination: God’s grace is not a script that controls every moment, a verdict that requires us to despair over who is excluded, or a reason to stop making meaningful choices. It is a reminder that salvation begins with God, whose grace is greater than our ability to control or fully understand it.
You may still be on the fence about predestination, and that’s okay. Our text this morning speaks of a God who is rich in mercy, a God loves us with a great love even when we are deep in sin. God knows our propensity for sin. God knows that we have a hard time choosing what might serve us well so God comes to us. God knows that we can be foolish. God knows that we will slip up on our promises. And yet, God has opened God’s own arms to welcome each of us. Not because we have earned. Not because we deserve it. Not because we are good enough. But because God loves us too much to leave us alone. God has prepared a way. God has offered us grace so freely. That is the gift that predestination can give us. A better way to understand a god who doesn’t want to leave us in pain and grief. And perhaps that is the gift predestination can offer us: not a detailed map of every decision we will ever make, and not a secret list of who will be welcomed into God’s kingdom, but a reminder that the story of our salvation begins with God’s love rather than our own accomplishments.
We are invited to receive grace, to trust in the God who is rich in mercy, and to walk into the world as people who have been made alive together with Christ.
And when we encounter suffering, we can offer compassion rather than easy explanations.
When we encounter people who are different from us, we can offer curiosity rather than judgment.
When we encounter uncertainty, we can continue to ask questions while trusting that our understanding of God will never be as big as God actually is.
And when we wonder whether we have done enough, been good enough, or believed enough, we can return to the words of Ephesians: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.”
A gift. A grace. A love that begins with God and invites us to live in response.
We may not be able to untangle every mystery of predestination. We may never fully understand how God’s sovereignty and human freedom fit together. But we can hold on to this: the God we meet in Jesus Christ is rich in mercy, generous in grace, and at work making us alive. And that is good news worth living.
Thanks be to God. Amen.