The London Baptist Confession on Foreknowledge/Election

It is common in Christian circles to explain election/predestination on the basis of mere foresight. Predestination, it is reasoned, is merely God looking into the future and seeing what man would decide, and then electing the believing ones. The main point of this conclusion seems to be that it is an attempt to avoid concluding that God actually predestines who will be saved via a decree.

This explanation, though, is deficient on a number of different levels.

First, the Bible clearly refutes it (some quick examples: study Ephesians 1, Romans 9, etc).

Second, it is a self-defeating argument and philisophically bankrupt. You can't consistently hold that God's knows the future perfectly and that fallen humans have initiating autonomous free will to arbitrarily initiate whether they will be elect. Consider this: If God knows the future perfectly, which would include Joe being saved, is it possible for Joe not to be saved? Hence, the consistent application of this argument defeats its self by leading to the denial of its underlining premise. Most modern intellectual Arminians have recognized this dillema. When forced to chose between God's perfect knowledge of the future or their assumption of autonomous free will, they've chosen autonomous free will. This decision has led them to reject the fact that God has perfect knowledge of the future (this comes in various forms: Open Theism, Molinism, etc.).

The framers of the London Baptist Confession of 1689 anticipated this issue and spoke of it in Chapter 3: "Although God knoweth whatsoever may or can come to pass, upon all supposed conditions, yet hath he not decreed anything, because he foresaw it as future, or as that which would come to pass upon such conditions."

The language there may be a bit hard to grasp, but basically it outlines the following things:

1. God sees the future perfectly.
2. God sees what could happen hypothetically.
3. But when God decrees things, he doesn't do so because He saw them in the future as happening.

If God doesn't elect people based on His foreseeing of their choice, then on what basis does He do it? The confession answers with a very Biblical answer to that: "according to his eternal and immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of his will"

Is this hard to swallow? Sure. But it is the truth! And, really, it is a glorious truth!

How Am I Made Right Before God?

Romans 4:4-6: "Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: 'Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.'"

The issue of Justification by Faith is, and always has been, a very central issue in the Christian church. While pretty much everyone (Catholics, Protestants, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, etc.) concurs that faith plays a role in justification, when it comes to the sufficiency of faith they differ radically. Most often, the history of religion has been filled with people trying to make "minor" additions to the equation by saying "Yes, Christ is in the equation, but we need to add [insert whatever: circumcision, baptism, restitutions, good deeds, alms, time in purgatory, etc.] to make it sufficient". However, from Galatians we lean that such additions are not "minor". If any one of those things enter into our perception of how we are made right with God, we are frustrating the grace God! ( Gal.2:21)

The Biblical position is that the only thing that can make us right before God is the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ (Rom.4:23-25, Eph.1:7, etc.). This means that when God judicially declares a believer righteous, the only basis for that declaration is Christ's finished work, which excludes works ( Rom.4:3-4, Rom.3:28, Rom.11:6). The believer clings to that work of Christ made on their behalf via faith and receives His righteousness because his own righteousness is futile in regard to justification (Phil.3:9 ). Our works are not what is under consideration when God graciously saves us--if they were we would be all destined to eternity in hell ( Rom.6:23). And even that faith that we have, according to the Bible, is an empty hand grasping on Christ's sacrifice. And, incidentally, even the faith is granted to the believer by God (Phil.1:29, Luk.7:5, Eph.2:8, John 6:28-29, etc.). We stand as the poor, weak beggar on the receiving end in every aspect of our salvation.

Salvation is God redeeming us from our lawlessness unto a new life and that new life can only come about by a decisive act of God (Titus 3:5). This is not to diminish good works. God's delight is that those who are saved through faith be zealous about good works ( Mat.5:16. Tit.2:7-14, Titus 3:14, etc.) . We are God's workmanship unto good works (Eph.2:10). But the good works flow from the regeneration and the faith, not the other way around. So it is that we say that the Bible teaches Sola Fide (a Latin term used to refer to Salvation by 'Faith Alone'). A theologian put it well when he once said: "We are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone". This concept is supported by careful study of both Romans 4 and James 2 in their individual contexts.

Being justified by faith, we are not only liberated from the burden of trying to measure up to God's perfect standards with our filthy-rag works, but our hearts are changed as sons and daughters of the living God. We then should look for evidence of this lively faith. As the London Baptist Confession says of a believer's good works: "These good works, done in obedience to God's commandments, are the fruits and evidences of a true and lively faith; and by them believers manifest their thankfulness, strengthen their assurance, edify their brethren, adorn the profession of the gospel, stop the mouths of the adversaries, and glorify God, whose workmanship they are, created in Christ Jesus thereunto, that having their fruit unto holiness they may have the end eternal life."

Here are some quotes from the history of the church on the matter:

Jerome (347-420) on Romans 10:3: "God justifies by faith alone." (Deus ex sola fide justificat). In Epistolam Ad Romanos, Caput X, v. 3, PL 30:692D.

Chrysostom (349-407AD): The patriarch Abraham himself before receiving circumcision had been declared righteous on the score of faith alone: before circumcision, the text says, "Abraham believed God, and credit for it brought him to righteousness." Fathers of the Church, Vol. 82, Homilies on Genesis 18-45, 27.7

Ambrose (c. 339-97): "Therefore let no one boast of his works, because no one can be justified by his works; but he who is just receives it as a gift, because he is justified by the washing of regeneration. It is faith, therefore, which delivers us by the blood of Christ, because blessed is he whose sins are forgiven, and to whom pardon is granted." George Finch, A Sketch of the Romish Controversy (London: G. Norman, 1831), p. 220.

Augustine (354-430): "But what about the person who does no work (Rom 4:5)? Think here of some godless sinner, who has no good works to show. What of him or her? What if such a person comes to believe in God who justifies the impious? People like that are impious because they accomplish nothing good; they may seem to do good things, but their actions cannot truly be called good, because performed without faith. But when someone believes in him who justifies the impious, that faith is reckoned as justice to the believer, as David too declares that person blessed whom God has accepted and endowed with righteousness, independently of any righteous actions (Rom 4:5-6). What righteousness is this? The righteousness of faith, preceded by no good works, but with good works as its consequence." John E. Rotelle, O.S.A., ed., WSA, Part 1, Vol. 11, trans. Maria Boulding, O.S.B., Expositions of the Psalms 1-32, Exposition 2 of Psalm 31, ¡±7 (Hyde Park: New City Press, 2000), p. 370.

Martin Luther (1483-1546): "Therefore it is clear that, as the soul needs only the Word of God for its life and righteousness, so it is justified by faith alone and not any works; for if it could be justified by anything else, it would not need the Word, and consequently it would not need faith."

Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758): "This is evident by these words — 'that justifieth the ungodly' (Rom 4:5), which cannot imply less than that God, in the act of justification, has no regard to anything in the person justified, as godliness or any goodness in him, but that immediately before this act, God beholds him only as an ungodly creature, so that godliness in the person to be justified is not so antecedent to his justification as to be the ground of it. When it is said that God justifies the ungodly, it is as absurd to suppose that our godliness, taken as some goodness in us, is the ground of our justification, as when it is said that Christ gave sight to the blind to suppose that sight was prior to, and the ground of, that act of mercy in Christ. Or as, if it should be said that such an one by his bounty has made a poor man rich, to suppose that it was the wealth of this poor man that was the ground of this bounty towards him, and was the price by which it was procured."

Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892): ". There is no means among men of justifying a man of an accusation which is laid against him, except by his being proved not guilty. Now, the wonder of wonders is, that we are proved guilty, and yet we are justified: the verdict has been brought in against us—guilty—and yet notwithstanding, we are justified. Can any earthly tribunal do that?"

Monday's Question

Q. Can a Christian's salvation be lost?

A. This question actually contains several other questions. I would like to refer to three questions that are contained within this question, answer each one, and then proceed to provide Scriptural proof for my last answer.

Can someone who claims to be a true Christian be lost? YES

Can someone who seems to be a true Christian be lost? YES

Can someone who is a true Christian be lost? NO

The Bible passage which I will now present prove that a truly regenerated (born again) Christian can not be lost. This is not to say that they can't stumble and fall, just that they can't fatally. This is not to say that a person can say a "sinners prayer" and be assured of their they are saved no matter whether their life bears fruit of their salvation. We only have security in Christ only in so much as we are truly in Christ, and those truly in Christ WILL produce fruits and they WILL persevere in the faith.

The passages I'm refering to are divided into two basic categories: "Descriptions of a True Believer" and "Descriptions of What God Does For The True Believer".

Descriptions of a True Believer

• They will never perish and are never snatched out of Christ's hands (Jh.10:28)
• The will be raised on the last day (Jh.6:39-44)
• Their inheritance is imperishable, does not fade away, and is reserved in heaven (I Pe.1:3-4)
• They conquer and can't be separated from God's love (Ro.8:37-39)
• They are born again of imperishable seed (I Pe.1:23)

Descriptions of What God Does For The True Believer

• He protects them with His power through faith unto the end (I Pe.1:3-5)
• He perfects His good work in the saints until the day of Christ Jesus (Ph.1:6)
• He sustains them to the end so they will be guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ (I Co.1:7-9)
• He rescues them from evil and brings them into His heavenly kingdom (II Ti.4:18)
• Christ saves completely those who who come to God through Him, and always lives to interceed for them (He.7:25)
• He keeps them for/by Jesus Christ (Jude 1:1)
• He prevents them from being snatched out of Christ's hand (Jh.10:28-29)
• He lets them stumble but keeps them from falling, He upholds them with His hand (Ps.37:23-24, Ps.121:3)
• He keeps them in His own name (Jh.17:11)
• He is determined to lose nobody and will raise believers on the last day (Jh.6:39)
• He guards them from the evil one (II Th.3:3)
• He causes them to walk in His laws and obey them (Eze.36:27)
• He puts fear in their heart so they don't turn away (Je.32:40)
• He sanctifies them and keeps them, because He is faithful (I Th.5:23-24)
• He keeps them from stumbling and presents them blameless (Jude 1:24-25)
• He establishes them and seals them with His Spirit as a guarantee (II Cor 1:22, Eph.1:13-14)
• He doesn't forsake His saints, He preserves them forever (Ps.37:28-29)

These verses provide a comprehensive all-encompasing refutation of the idea that a truly regenerated (born again) believer could ever lose their salvation. On the basis of the believers new nature, their new status, and God's faithfulness and power, there is no way in which any true sheep of the fold of Jesus Christ could ever perish. Not only do all these texts support the idea that true believers never perish and always endure unto the end, the concept is indirectly supported by many Biblical concepts and doctrines, including but not limited to: God's sovereignty, election, God's love for the elect, the work of the Holy Spirit, the efficacy
(effectiveness) of Christ's redemption, etc.

As convincing as the evidence I have just presented is, there are some verses which are difficult (but not impossible) to explain and reconcile with the great doctrine truth of the surety of the "perseverance of the saints". Here are the ones mainly used by those who want to teach that truly regenerated believers can be lost: He.6:4-6, He.10:26-31, II Pe.2:20-22, etc. Giving an exegesis of those passages is beyond the scope of this answer, but that can be found elsewhere. These passages do genuinely speak of apostasy and departure from professed faith, but a survey of context and a careful attention to what the author is saying and not saying undoubtedly shows that they don't in one iota contradict what the Bible teaches about perseverance.

We see, in the visible church, many people who abandon their profession in the Lord Jesus Christ. This does not prove that true believers lose their salvation, because we are not infalliable and we can't see in their heart as to whether they were ever really true salvation. We can only share the suspicion that John had, "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us." (1 Jh.2:19 - ESV) The Bible does not say that those who do not continue in their faith lose anything, but rather that they do not have it at all (see II Jo.1:9).

As professing believers, we can have assurance of being presented blameless and above reproach on the last day before God on the basis of His work on the cross for us. However, we lose that assurance if we don't "continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel" (Co.1:23 - ESV). Why? Because true saving faith keeps on keeping, and if we don't keep on keeping, we don't have true saving faith.

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Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Monday's Question

I'm instituting a new feature. Monday's Question. On Saturday I post my Mini Codices and on Monday a "frequently asked question" coupled with my attempt at an answer.

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Q. If God predestines who will be saved, why should we go out and preach the gospel to the world?

A. First and foremost, Christians have a mandate from God's word to preach the gospel and evangelize, so that in and of itself should compel us to do so. We must consider that God's means of saving those He predestined is by the preaching of the gospel. Romans 10 makes this clear. So, by obeying God's directive to evangelize, we are potentially being used of God in His master plan to save sinners.

We need to also consider that while only the elect are saved--we as humans do not necessarily who the elect are. Our duty is to plant and water and leave the increase in God's hands. That means that Christian evangelism spreads the word to many (both elect and non-elect) trusting that God will bless the effort as He sees fit by opening hearts to receive the message. This is just like the parable of the seed and the sower, we KNOW that some of the seed will fall on bad ground. It is not the evangelists job to determine who is elect and who isn't, it is his job to faithfully carry out the assignment God has given him.

There is no contradiction between God predestinating individuals as per Ephesians 1 and a free offer of the gospel to all inhabitants of the earth. People that feel there is a conflict probably have unwittingly accepted a false cariciture of the doctrine of predestination.

Saturday's Mini Codices

Today's interesting snippets..

• I'm curious about what "Extracts from Adam's Diary" by Mark Twain is like. The full computer-generated audio book is available at Project Gutenburg.


• According to Christianity Today, it seems that Reformed theology is in a resurgence stage right now.


• Now I don't feel bad for having avoiding Spinach all my life.


• Sermon Cloud looks interesting. I've never seen any preachers I've heard of on there, but the concept caught my eye.


• Ochuck posted an interesting quote from Christianity today on how only a minority of the world's languages have a translation of the Old Testament, but that is slowly changing.