[AI translation] Dear brothers and sisters! Several people from this congregation have repeatedly asked me to speak about predestination. For a long time I have been reluctant to comply with this request, because it is very difficult to speak about something that cannot be spoken about. It cannot be spoken simply because it lacks the right human words and human concepts. Even much greater theologians and preachers than myself have not been able to explain this miracle, this mystery, this predestination, in a reassuring way. And I believe that one of the greatest misunderstandings about predestination is precisely that many believers want to understand it as a doctrine rather than experience it as a truth. Because predestination cannot be understood any more than, for example, the omnipresence of God can be understood; but predestination can be experienced just as God's omnipresence can be experienced. I am therefore happy to speak about this question now, because I know that there are many other obstacles to experiencing, not understanding, but experiencing this mystery. That is why I do not wish to formulate a rounded system of thought out of the doctrine of predestination, but simply to remove the unnecessary obstacles from the way of our gaze, so that we may see the mystery itself.A great many believers, on the basis of old teachings, imagine that God, in His perfect good pleasure, has chosen some for salvation and others for damnation. In this sermon today, we will stick for the moment to the question of predestination to salvation and damnation. And many people imagine that this act of God in choosing some for salvation and others for damnation has been done before all time, that it is predestined, that it is an eternal decree that cannot be changed. This is called double predestination, because it refers to the election of some on the one hand and the rejection of some on the other. It is natural that, taking predestination in this sense, people should draw many harmful consequences for their own beliefs, because some people may become presumptuous in thinking that they belong to the elect, and therefore, from this higher, imaginary superiority, they may look down on others who are not elect. Others, on the other hand, may become desperate, those who do not dare to count themselves among the elect, and think: "In vain does the gospel tell me of God's grace, and am I elect? They have this tormenting uncertainty in their souls: if I happen not to be chosen for salvation, then no amount of effort to believe will help me. There may be further harmful consequences, because it is easy for someone to think: if I am chosen for salvation, I will be saved no matter what I do, so it is not worth the effort. But if I am not chosen for salvation, then again, I can do whatever I want, but I will not be saved. So again, it's not worth my while to strive for what is good, it doesn't help me to try to do what is good with all my efforts. So in both cases, I can simply wait with my hands folded to see what God has decreed for me. After all, with God the question of the salvation or damnation of man is already decided forever, so what difference does my decision make? There are, after all, logical pitfalls of this kind in people's beliefs about the problem of predestination.
Well, my dear brothers and sisters, let me say in the strongest possible terms that this whole idea I have been telling you about predestination is absolutely wrong, and everyone should put it out of their minds. It is nothing but the introduction of human philosophy into biblical thinking. And for once we must also say very humbly but very firmly that our Reformed predecessors also fell into this error when they formulated the doctrine of predestination. This is not predestination. It is not that God, before creation, or sometime very long ago, decided in advance, eternally, the fate of some to salvation and others to damnation. Or at least these words in the Bible, which we have just heard repeatedly in Ephesians, "predestined", are certainly not to be understood in the way we usually understand them. And I believe that the main cause of any misunderstanding is this tiny word: predestinated. In principle, it means: long ago. These are purely human concepts. Let us understand this very well. They are words and concepts that correspond to our earthly, temporal categories, because we humans simply cannot think and speak in any other way than in terms of time and temporal categories. We measure time, we measure our earthly time in terms of before and after, pre- and post-, before and later, past and future. We perceive our existence as happening in a passing time. It takes place in successive minutes, weeks, months, decades. That is, a progressive time that has a beginning and an end. Where is the beginning and where is the end? - is a different question altogether. But it is! But it's all our dimension of time, of human beings, here on this earth.
Well, God lives in a very different dimension from us humans: the dimension of eternity. But let us imagine eternity not as time extended to infinity, but as eternity above time. Eternity is an eternal moment, a permanent present. So it is not a progressive process like our time. In eternity, there are no successive minutes, hours, centuries and millions of years. There is no beginning, no end, in eternity there is no pre- and post-, before and after, there is an eternal "now". And this eternal "now" is just as close to the time in which man, the first man, appeared on this earth as it is to the time in which Jesus died on Calvary, and as it is to the time in which we are living here, now, at this moment, and our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will live in the centuries to come. So our passing time is embraced, surrounded, carried by eternity, that eternal "now". Our time, with its fleeting minutes and millennia, floats in eternity. When we say that God predestines, that God predestinates, we are in fact speaking in a wooden circle - but we speak out of convenience. For we speak of God in terms of a temporal measure. The God who has no pre- and post-, before and after, but who is above time - but we cannot express it in any other way. Because we have no words and no concepts to express the dimensions of God, we are forced to speak of eternity in terms of time and our dimensions.
So does God predestinate, predestine? Of course, but let us not imagine this as before all time, sometime very long ago, or even before creation, but yes: God predestinates, but from the eternity of our whole time in his hands, from the eternal "now" God predestinates. Therefore, when God speaks to me today, and says what Jesus said to Matthew, "Come and follow me", then in this eternal word of his that I hear today, something of the same timeless "now" touches me, from which it was once said, "Let there be light". And also, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I delight". In our understanding, "Let there be light" was uttered a long, long time ago, and "This is my beloved son, in whom I delight" was uttered two thousand years ago, a distance in time. But measured by God's standard, both are from God's eternal "now", the "now" of eternity, where there is not this distance that we perceive, 2,000 years, and a hundred thousand years, but "now". So, yes: I could say that before all time, that is to say, God has chosen me in advance for communion with himself. For this 'in advance' is as much a part of God's eternity as the moment in which I hear, accept and obey this eternal word of his choosing me. Now, brethren, let me illustrate all this with an example of what I have just said: Matthew is sitting at the tax collector's table. All at once Jesus stands before him and says to him, "Come and follow me." Matthew had no idea a minute before that he was about to become a disciple of Jesus, that Jesus was choosing him. But God doesn't have a minute before and a minute after! And not a hundred thousand years ago and a hundred thousand years from now! So Jesus - or shall we say God - knew Matthew from eternity. He knew him from eternity and spoke to him from eternity. From the eternal "now", which was the same eternity before creation as the moment in which Matthew heard this eternal word. Matthew did not seek Jesus, Jesus found Matthew. Matthew did not choose Jesus as his Lord, Jesus chose Matthew as his disciple. So the electing love of Jesus, as it were, preceded Matthew's choice. And at the same time, it enabled Matthew to make the decision to get up from the table, to go and follow Jesus, to follow him for all eternity. So that's predestination.
We can only express it as predestination by God. Or it can be predestined by God. God's love has preceded my decision for Him. He foreknew. By how much? Five minutes? Half an hour? Fifteen thousand years? No: by a whole eternity. The eternal "now" of God. And what He has conceived and decreed of me in His eternal "now" is realized in my now, in that temporal now when I hear and accept His word and go forth and follow Him. So I could say that predestination is really nothing more than the happy experience that everything is by the grace of God. It is God's grace that He has spoken to me of all people, that He has told me that He loves me, that He wants to take me as His Son, and that He wants to give me salvation. But it is also God's grace that I have been able to hear him speak to me, that I have been able to take note of him, that I have been able to return his love, that I have wanted to follow him. It is also God's grace that I can believe in Him at all.
That is, predestination wants to underline very strongly that it is grace that I can accept grace. Predestination speaks of the sovereign freedom of God's grace. It is about the fact that in Matthew or Abraham, in you or in me, there is no reason, no attribute or ground on which God has chosen us for salvation. We have no moral or other qualities that would have prompted God to call us to fellowship with Himself. When God gives His grace to someone, gives them the grace to receive His grace, it is by grace. So, in the end, predestination is not talking to us about chosen people, but about God choosing us. And it tells us about God that He is a God who gives us the grace to receive His grace that He has communicated in Christ.
Has it not been your experience, and the experience of all believers, that it was not ultimately through your moral or religious efforts that you found your way home to the love of God and became a believer? It was not because of any qualities you possessed, but solely because of the precious calling voice that touched you from eternity and the guiding hand that reached out to you from eternity in Jesus. An eternal will has been realized in your life. A decision of love from eternity has been embraced by God. In a way, brothers and sisters, it is like a gate, say the gate of the kingdom of God. When I am outside it, I stop in front of it and I see the inscription above it, "Come unto me, all of you..." - a great invitation. And I see the call, I go. I arrive, I look back at the same gate, and from inside the same gate is the inscription "Welcome". "Come" - I go. But when I arrive, suddenly I am wonderfully happy to find that God has brought me here, that everything was God's doing. I have him to thank for everything: for calling me, for letting me know, for listening, for letting me come, for wanting to be his and believing in him.
Do you ever feel that such an experience of predestination does not make you arrogant, presumptuous, much less desperate? For it means precisely that I can know, I can know with certainty, that God calls and elects people - sinners, tax collectors, miserable people like you and me - to salvation, to communion with Himself, solely and exclusively on the basis of Jesus. So it means the joy and the encouragement that God looks at us not according to our own excellence or inadequacy, but according to the merit of Christ alone. And so it is with a full sense of my responsibility before God that I now proclaim that God has chosen you and God has chosen me! God has chosen us for salvation. For the merit of Jesus Christ alone, for His sacrifice on Calvary. And this does not lead us to speculation, but to repentance and faith! Matthew, for once acknowledge that you are chosen and called by God! Well, get up and follow me, what are you waiting for?! Jesus has already decided that you are to be His disciple. He has decided in eternity, He has made it known to you in time, so follow Him, so join Him, so live with Him - for you can live with Him forever! This is predestination.
There is nothing in predestination, brothers and sisters, about people being divided into two different categories: some into the category of the elect, others into the category of the reprobate. Not like there are white people and there are people of color, or like there are male people and there are female people - not like that! In God's eternal counsel there are not two kinds of lists: one on which the names of the elect are written, and one on which the names of the reprobate are written. There is election and rejection, but this election and rejection does not refer to two types of men, but to the same one man: your field and mine! My unbelieving, stumbling, rebellious self, the self that the Bible calls the old man, is rejected, condemned to damnation, eternal damnation. But my new man, the one who looks to Jesus, the one God's grace has created in me, is chosen for eternal salvation. When I look at myself, seeing in myself a terrible amount of misery and wickedness, I cry out with the apostle Paul: "O wretched man, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" But at the same time, when I look up in faith to Jesus, I continue to rejoice with the apostle Paul: "Thanks be to God, who gives us the triumph through our Lord Jesus Christ." So there is double predestination, but the battlefield of double predestination is the life of the believer! There it is played out again and again, the taking of the old man and the saving of the new man.
Finally, one might ask: "Are there then no reprobates at all? There are none! There are none! But unfortunately there will be, because God will one day set man on his right hand and on his left. And to one company he will say, 'Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom', and to another he will say, 'Depart from me into everlasting fire'. There are no rejected, but there will be. Until then, however, all men, without exception, are under the proclamation of God's grace in Jesus. Until then, all are called equally by God, the God who chooses us for salvation, and until then, all who are not yet believers are also our sweet brothers and sisters, because Jesus died for them too, and grace is extended to them too if they accept it.
The grace of God is as universal as it is sovereign. It is your duty at this moment to be called by God. Now, in this moment, you are the "Matthew" to whom Jesus says, "Come, follow me". Go then! Go on living with Jesus, in the certainty, the joy and the responsibility of being called and chosen to eternal life by a gracious God!
Amen.
Date: 13 August 1967.