[AI translation] Dear brothers and sisters! As I announced last Sunday, I would like to continue the sermon on predestination, God's eternal predestination. You may remember, we got as far as saying that predestination is actually the happy experience that Matthew had when a call came to him, a precious call, "You follow me". In response to that call, he was touched and touched by the eternal love of God, and he was enabled to get up from the triangular table and follow Jesus, to be Jesus' forever. So that the atmosphere and perspective of eternity might surround his life on earth. Yes, predestination is the joyful experience of being found by God, of being received into His eternal forgiving love, into His grace.That I could be His, that I could believe in Him at all, that I could share in fellowship with Him for ever: it was not at all up to me. It is a gift. Grace! I got it! I, of myself, deserved nothing but wrath and separation. And yet, lo, I was given mercy. I realize with treachery that a mysterious power above me has disposed of me without me. He decided for me, so now I can decide for Him. He has agreed with His divine love. Therefore I can now be His forever. This happy experience is predestination.
But dear brothers and sisters, predestination is not only about salvation. So this electing grace of God, by which He calls us into communion with Himself, does not only apply to the salvation that we will share sometime after death, but also to the whole of our life on earth. As important as the problem and certainty of our own individual salvation is for each of us, let us never forget for a moment that Jesus proclaimed, above all, the coming of the kingdom of God. And this means that when he called Matthew, and me, and you, it was not in fact in spite of others - the reprobates, let us say - or in spite of them, but for the sake of others. It happened precisely so that now the others who have not yet heard the call are called to faith in Jesus Christ in the same way that we ourselves have come to faith. So predestination, or election, not only means election to salvation, but at the same time it means election to service and obedience. It also means a witness, a witness to the spreading of the kingdom of God, a witness to the fullness of the reign of God. For every person who does not believe - who does not yet believe - is to be seen as someone for whom Jesus died just as much as for those who believe in Him. Matthew was not called by Jesus, neither you nor I, so that this Matthew, you or I, might now shut himself up in a happy sense of his own election, and thus be separated from other men, but was called to apostolic service, as an apostle of Christ to other men. This is what the apostle Peter writes to the believing churches reading his epistle, when he says: 'But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people to be saved' - and he does not go on to say, 'Be at rest therefore, your salvation is assured,' but thus: "that you may proclaim the mighty works of him who called you out of darkness into his light." So God has chosen you for eternal fellowship with him, that by your word and the testimony of your life he may call others to the same salvation. You became a believer so that through you others might become believers. You have heard the call so that through you others may hear the same call. So the privilege that you already know God, that you have heard, that you know the grace in which God has received you: you are bound. It obliges you to make that same grace known to those who do not yet know it, because God wants all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. It is written word for word in a letter of the Apostle John. And it is precisely to the carrying out of this will that he has called you and me as instruments.
Are you surprised that it is you? I am convinced, brothers and sisters, that Matthew was also surprised that it was him - but one can only wonder! There is no other way for the elect to live and confess their own election than in such amazement. And he who is not moved by this awe to serve and to testify of God's grace to others has not yet truly marveled at the grace he himself has received. So, Matthew, know that God has called and chosen you for apostolic service.
It might be all right for a while, since it is nothing new. Another question immediately arises here. This one, of course: If there is predestination, if there is predestination, does Matthew have the freedom of choice, the freedom of will to choose Jesus? For if it is from God that Matthew could decide for Jesus, is it not also from God that another man could not decide for God? Does not predestination imply that the destiny of every man is predetermined, that each one is set on a certain course which he must follow whether he wills it or not? Was it because Matthew was predestined to write the gospel named after him for posterity? And Judas had to betray Jesus because he was commanded to do so? If it is not Matthew's fault that he was able to become such a blessed apostle, then it cannot be Judas' fault that he betrayed Jesus!
Brothers and sisters! I know very well that here is the most serious logical contradiction in the whole train of thought of predestination. But it is also only apparent, and it is also mostly due to misunderstandings. You see, most people somehow imagine predestination as some kind of philosophical determinism. I said the other day: the biggest problem is that we think in philosophical categories instead of biblical thinking. Many people think of predestination as God having forcibly, from eternity, ordained, fixed everything that will happen from then on. But where does that leave man's freedom of choice and responsible action?! For then the whole of history is in fact nothing more than a great game of chess in which the human pieces are moved to and fro by an invisible hand of a higher order. Or like a large, variegated carpet, already woven in eternity without any human contribution, which in our time is simply unravelling. But if this is so, where is the space left for that which gives meaning and dignity to human life: responsible, free action and will? If the whole of life is nothing more than simply the "unrolling" of what is already finished. Let me say it again, this is the most typical example of the extent to which we can only think constantly about the problem of predestination in philosophical categories.
I would like to tell you, brothers and sisters, in the strongest and most humble terms, that the question of the relationship between God's eternal predestination and man's free will will never be resolved logically. But it is not important. For it is not the resolution of the question that is important, it is how we approach this question that is far more important. From the outside or from the inside? From the outside: I mean sitting in a box, as an audience watching the life of another person or group of people; or from the inside: from the point of view of my own sense of responsibility. Let me try to illustrate this with an example. There are other factors that determine and determine a person in his free will and action. A great deal depends on the environment in which one has lived or is living, and on the character and other qualities one has inherited from one's ancestors. For example, the child of an alcoholic father will undoubtedly have a greater propensity for alcohol than the child of another father. He will find it harder to resist temptation when the time comes. From the outside looking in - from the point of view of the audience - one might say that the poor man cannot help drinking, such is the damnable legacy he has inherited from his ancestors. It's an inherited trait. But inside? He himself, this man, will never feel it as a saving circumstance. He's a drunkard himself, despite his inherited burden. He feels and knows very well that it was his own freely performed act of responsibility that he drank more than he should have again. So there is a hereditary compulsion on the one hand and the possibility of free will on the other hand in the same person. The two exist almost in parallel. It's not logical, but it's true. For man is never only a passive object of his endowments, but always at the same time a subject and a responsible executor. If a man has a passion, and he unleashes this passion and acts on it, he will never say that I cannot help it, that my passion has done this, but will always be able to say that I have done this. I.
So, in a way, this is the duality that we feel in predestination all the time. On the one hand, there is the verb: God works in us both the will and the doing of the thing for his own good pleasure. From this verb, if it stood alone here, we could logically draw the conclusion that, therefore, I do not have to do anything. God is working in me the will and the doing, so why should I exert myself? At the same time, another verse is linked to this: 'With fear and trembling, work out your salvation'. So the fact that God is above everything, including my decision, does not condemn me to servile passivity, but rather frees me to make an active decision and to act responsibly. I can only express this with a paradox, an absurd paradox, which goes like this: I do my best, because nothing depends on me. Is that a logical contradiction? No, just two parallel lines, which we know - we have learned - that they intersect and meet in infinity, in eternity. Here, in our vision, in our vision of the earthly world, these two parallel lines will never intersect. Therefore one cannot be played off against the other. In eternity, in infinity, then there these two will meet, and it will turn out that they were in fact one and the same truth. Just seen from two different sides of the same truth. But until then - until eternity - both are true. Both are valid. Both that God works in us both to will and to do, and also that you work out your salvation with fear and trembling. And brothers and sisters! It is not as if God had already woven that "carpet" a long, long time ago, sometime in advance. No. It is that God is weaving the carpet of our destiny out of His eternal "now", that is, out of the eternity that surrounds time. He weaves your free choice into the whole work of life. So God does not stand over your life and your decisions like a man pulling strings over marionettes, but rather like an artist weaving the flow of your series of decisions into your whole destiny, and thus a master weaving the development of your destiny into the whole world-work. So that when you look back on each stage of the journey you have taken, you say with amazement and reconciliation, "This is the way God wanted it! Well, then, that is how God wove Judas' betrayal into the accomplishment of his eternal great plan, the work of redemption. Therefore Judas cannot say, alas, it is not my fault. I was predestined to do that. It was the role allotted to me from eternity, it was mine to play out. The best Judas can say for himself is that he was a victim of the consequences of his own money-hungry and restless nature. He himself does not even think of what always occurs to his audience, that is, only from the outside; inwardly, he himself does not even think of blaming God for what he has done. But we know that he is crumbling under the weight of the responsibility of his own despicable deed, and flees to suicide. Then again, it is the infinite power and wisdom of God that He has woven even this greatest evil into His plan for the accomplishment of the greatest good, as a means of redemption.
I know very well, brethren, that here, at this point, the question remains open. But I told you in advance last Sunday that I do not want to explain the mystery of predestination, but only to describe the mystery more deeply. I don't want to give you a logically well-contained, well-rounded system of thought, but only to point out the mystery itself more strongly. But note very well that from a neutral position, that is, from an indifferent position, you cannot even talk about predestination. It is always within faith. And within faith, predestination is not a logical system, but a happy experience. You cannot approach God with inquisitive questions. God does not give answers to the curious questions of the audience. This is one such question, what about Judaisers and unbelievers? Well, dear brother, are you pained about the fate of the Judaisers and unbelievers, or are you just curious? For this question, what will be done about this or that, is only entitled to one consideration: if it hurts, and if it hurts so much that you are able to rise from your seat and go after the Judaisers and unbelievers and tell them that there is mercy for them too. And you will do everything in your power to make them believe in Jesus Christ, and then they too will be convinced that they too have been chosen for salvation by God, the gracious God.
And so I want to go back to what I said at the beginning: that God has chosen you to be in communion with himself, so that others may also know through your vision that they too are called to salvation by the God who has chosen them to grace. When you have done this, leave the rest to the gracious God. Don't try to decide at all costs what is God's business. What Jesus said to those whom he had first chosen to be his apostles is your duty: "Go ye into the wide world, preach the gospel, make disciples of all nations." If you do this, you will experience the blessed and liberating truth of God's eternal, predestinating grace. I do not say that then everything will logically unfold and no more mysteries will remain, nor do I say this for the world, but only that, dear brothers and sisters, these mysteries, which will remain, will no longer lead you to curiosity, but to a happy, astonished confession of faith. As the Apostle Paul says in his letter to the Romans, "O riches of God, and wisdom, and depth of knowledge! How inexplicable are his judgments, and his ways unsearchable! ... For all things are of him, and by him, and for him. To him be glory for ever."
Amen.
Date: 20 August 1967.