Walking Through Westminster, WCF 3.5

Westminster Confession of Faith 3.5

"Those of mankind that are predestinated unto life, God, before the foundation of the world was laid, according to His eternal and immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of His will, has chosen, in Christ, unto everlasting glory, out of His mere free grace and love, without any foresight of faith, or good works, or perseverance in either of them, or any other thing in the creature, as conditions, or causes moving Him thereunto; and all to the praise of His glorious grace."

Summary

      God’s election of His people in Christ is completely gracious. It is in no way merited or deserved. God chose His people without any forethought of their faith, good works, perseverance, or any other thing. There are no conditions on His election, which is where we get the U in the helpful acronym TULIP, standing for “unconditional election”. God’s love is freely bestowed on all who believe, and it bestowed upon them because of grace, not because they believed. God’s election and predestination of His people is done entirely to the praise of His glorious grace; that all heaven and earth might at the Last Day look upon the redeemed people of God and give all glory and praise to God, He alone receiving the glory.

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Walking Through Westminster, WCF 3.4

Westminster Confession of Faith 3.4

"These angels and men, thus predestinated, and foreordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed, and their number so certain and definite, that it cannot be either increased or diminished."

Summary

Because God’s foreordination must be sure and certain, there must be a definite number of men and angels elected to eternal life, as well as eternal punishment. The words of Christ must be true, “Those whom You gave Me I have kept; and none of them is lost except the son of perdition”. (John 17:12b) The number of men and angels elected to eternal life can never be changed, whether increased or decreased. This doesn’t mean that the numbers cannot appear to fluctuate. When the gentiles heard the preaching of Paul in Antioch, they were converted to the Lord and born again. But we see that this isn’t a matter of people who were formerly not-elect suddenly becoming elect through grace, but rather “as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.” (Acts 13:48) And, on the flip side, any who for a time appear to be regenerated, but are lost in the end, were never truly born again, as the apostle John says, "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 they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us." (1 John 2:19)  In spite of appearances, God has so foreordained all things that none of the elect can ever be lost, nor can any of the reprobate ever be saved. Their numbers are fixed by the predetermination of God.

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Walking Through Westminster, WCF 3.3

         Westminster Confession of Faith 3.3

     "By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life; and others foreordained to everlasting death."

 Summary

 

      If God has foreordained whatsoever comes to pass, then by necessity He has to have foreordained the eternal destiny of all things, including men and angels. All men and angels are either foreordained by God to everlasting life or everlasting death. He executes this foreordination by decree. God decrees it to be so, and it must therefore be so. He does not do this arbitrarily, but for the manifestation of His own glory, which is the express purpose for which all things were created in the first place. Romans 9, along with other scriptures, deals with this issue thoroughly: “What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?” God will be glorified in and by both the just punishment of sinners outside of Christ and by the merciful forgiveness of sinners in Christ. God does not take pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ez 18:32). He is not vindictive in His foreordination, nor does He do it sinfully. As stated in WCF 3.1, God does not violate the will of wicked men, even in His foreordination to eternal punishment. God foreordains the elect to eternal life and the reprobate to eternal destruction, and He does so in such a way that their will is in no way violated or forced.

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