Theology of Predestination, Part Six

MUSINGS ON THEOLOGY AND PREDESTINATION, PART SIX

Continued from Part Five

I believe that the Bible teaches that on this side of the veil we pray for the lost, preach the gospel and plead with them, reason with them and beseech them to turn to Christ, to decide for Christ and to seek God with all their hearts. We should follow Paul and use all means to bring people to Christ.

How they are saved is the mystery. Daniel Whittle’s hymn speaks to this thought, “I know not how this saving faith to me He did impart, nor how believing in his Word wrought peace within my heart.” For five stanzas he confesses, “I know not why…I know not how…I know not what…I know not when…” “BUT I KNOW whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I’ve committed unto him against that day.” What is not clearly revealed in Scripture I leave with God to sort out. “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever” (Dt. 29:29).

On a different note, Paul had the audacity to say that “some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of good-will…But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice” (Phil. 1:15ff). If Paul could rejoice over the preaching of the gospel by those with false motives and malicious attitudes toward him, how much more should we rejoice when the gospel is preached by those who do not subscribe to the particular theology that we have adopted, and do not practice our forms of evangelism?

To make snide remarks about those who preach the gospel, to question their motives, to repudiate their efforts in evangelism because they do not dot the i’s and cross the t’s in their theology as we wish they would has brought me much pain and grief. We need bigger hearts and more humility to recognize that maybe we also have blind spots. Jesus taught us, “Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy.” We all need mercy because we all fall short.

“For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known” (I Cor. 13:12). In glory we will know more perfectly than we know down here. In the mean time we seek to follow Paul’s example of using “all possible means” to win men and women to Christ. And we do not become upset when others say that the sun sets when in fact we know that the sun only sets from our standpoint.

Continued in Part Seven