The Dreadful Decree

According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. EPHESIANS 1:4

It is impossible to write honestly about Calvin without writing about predestination, and impossible to write about it without care. It is the doctrine most often associated with his name, and the one most often misunderstood — by admirers and critics alike. The first thing to notice is where Calvin placed it. In the final edition of the Institutes he did not put it at the beginning, with the doctrine of God, as if it were the foundation of everything. He put it near the end of the third book (3.21–24), after faith, repentance, justification and prayer. He treated it as a truth for believers, to be pondered by those who already know themselves saved by grace, not as a riddle to be solved before coming to Christ.

Neither curiosity nor silence

Calvin opens with a double warning (Institutes 3.21.1–4). On the one hand, human curiosity makes this subject dangerous. If we try to break into the secret places of God’s wisdom, he says, we will enter a labyrinth from which there is no way out. We must go as far as Scripture leads and stop where it stops. On the other hand, we must not be so afraid of the subject that we refuse to speak of it at all, for God has revealed it in His Word for our good. The rule, he says, is to be neither more curious nor more silent than Scripture.

The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever. DEUTERONOMY 29:29

He preached the same caution in his sermon God Will Have All Men to Be Saved, in the Ochorus library: “We must not strive to know any more of God’s counsel, than what is revealed in holy writ.”

What Calvin taught

Calvin defines predestination as God’s eternal decree, by which He determined with Himself what He willed to become of each person (Institutes 3.21.5). Some are foreordained to eternal life, others to eternal condemnation. He believed Scripture taught both sides of this: that God freely chooses some in Christ, from no merit of their own, and that He passes by others, leaving them to the just consequences of their sin. This second part is usually called reprobation.

For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth. ROMANS 9:11

He did not pretend this was easy. In Institutes 3.23.7 he says of the decree that it is dreadful, and he admits it. His Latin word can also mean awe-inspiring, but either way he was confessing that it made him tremble. He insisted that God acts justly, even where we cannot see how, and that those who are condemned are condemned for their own sin, which they cannot blame on God. And he warned repeatedly against asking why God chooses one and not another. In the sermon he says plainly: “we know not why this man was chosen in preference to that,” and still we must confess that whatever God does is just.

The purpose of election

What Calvin cared about most was the use of the doctrine, and here he is warm and pastoral. Election, he says, has three great fruits for believers.

First, humility. If God chose us before we were born, before we had done good or evil, then we have nothing to boast of. In the sermon he says that election “serveth to humble us, knowing that our salvation hangeth not upon our deserts.” We are no better than others; we all come from the cursed root of Adam.

For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? 1 CORINTHIANS 4:7

Second, assurance. Calvin believed that the believer can rest in God’s choice, because it does not depend on his own weak hold on God but on God’s unchanging hold on him. “We are as birds upon the boughs,” he says in the same sermon, “and set forth as a prey to satan.” What assurance could we have of tomorrow unless God, who called us, will finish the work He began?

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. JOHN 10:27–28

Third, gratitude and praise. Election is a doctrine that ends in worship, as Paul’s great argument in Romans 9–11 ends in doxology.

Christ the mirror of election

The most important pastoral counsel Calvin gives is this: we must never try to discover our election by looking into God’s secret decree. That way lies madness. We must look to Christ. He calls Christ the mirror in which we must, and without self-deception may, contemplate our own election (Institutes 3.24.5). If we are in communion with Christ, we have a sure testimony that we are written in the book of life. The question is never, am I elect? The question is, do I trust Christ? And if I do, I may be sure.

All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. JOHN 6:37

Honest cautions

Having said all that, the reader must be told plainly where Calvin should be read with care.

First, his teaching on reprobation — that God actively ordains some to condemnation — has troubled many who love his teaching on grace. Scripture certainly teaches God’s sovereign choice. It also teaches, with great force, His sincere love for the world, His pleasure in the repentance of sinners, and His free offer of Christ to all. Calvin believed these could be held together, and he speaks of God’s will in two ways, His secret counsel and His revealed will. But many faithful Christians, including many in his own tradition, have found that his system at times lets the hidden decree overshadow the open invitation.

Second, his reading of certain texts is open to question. In the sermon on 1 Timothy 2:4 he insists that God will have all men to be saved means all sorts and conditions of men, not every individual. That is a possible reading, but not the only one, and the reader should weigh it against the whole of Scripture.

Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord GOD: and not that he should return from his ways, and live? EZEKIEL 18:23

Third, it should be said in his favour that the very same sermon is full of urgency for the lost. Because God will have people of every nation saved, Calvin says, we must labour to bring those who are far off and pray for them. “Jesus Christ is not only a Saviour of few,” he says, “but he offereth himself to all.” Calvin’s doctrine of election did not make him careless of missions; Geneva sent preachers into France at the risk of their lives.

The wise reader will hold the doctrine as Calvin at his best held it: with trembling, with humility, and with eyes fixed on Christ.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. If this doctrine troubles you, do not try to look into God’s secret counsel. Look to Christ, and ask whether you trust Him.

2. Read Romans 8:28–39 and notice how Paul uses God’s purpose to give comfort, not to raise fear.

3. Let election humble you. Name one way you have thought yourself better than others, and confess it.

4. Pray this week for someone who seems far from God, remembering that Christ offers Himself to all.

5. Where you cannot reconcile what Scripture teaches, write down the texts on both sides and hold them together before God.

A PRAYER

Sovereign Lord, Your ways are higher than mine, and Your judgements are past finding out.

Keep me from prying into what You have hidden, and from being silent about what You have revealed.

Let me find my assurance not in my own grip on You but in Christ, who will never cast out any who come.

Make me humble, thankful and urgent for the salvation of others, and let all my thoughts of You end in worship. Amen.