Election and Those Who Call on the Name of the Lord

In Romans 10:9-11, Paul writes these words: "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, 'Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.' The verse quoted in verse 11 is Isaiah 28:16. Then in verse 13 he quotes from Joel 2:32: "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."

Some people see a contradiction between the Paul of chapter 10 and the Paul of the preceding chapter 9, which focuses on the absolute sovereignty of God in salvation. In fact, there is no contradiction. None. It is simultaneously true and non-contradictory to say as Paul does in Romans 9:15-16 (quoting from Exodus 33:19), "He says to Moses, 'I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.' So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy" and then to state that everyone who wants to be saved and calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Unfortunately, some people seem to have this idea that there are people out there who want to be saved, who want to believe in Jesus, who want to love God, and the big bad Calvinist view of predestination somehow stops them. As if they were knocking at the door of heaven and they get turned away because they are not on the guest list drawn up before they were born.

Such a view is a caricature of the Reformed faith and an outright lie from the pit of hell.

According to this view, the group of the elect and the group of those who would like to be saved are like this diagram:

In this view the two circles represent the elect chosen for salvation (the blue circle) and sinners who want to be saved (the red circle). Notice that the two circles overlap, but there is a section of the red circle outside the circle of election. According to this false view, there are some people who want to be saved, want to believe in Christ and want to love God, but are prevented by God from being saved.

This view is utterly wrong. The truth is that outside the circle of election there is no one who wants to be saved, wants to follow Christ or loves God. Or to put it another way, there is no part of the circle of those who want to be saved outside the circle of the elect. The two groups are entirely coextensive. The true picture is found in this diagram:

Hopefully, once this truth is grasped, one of the lies told against Calvinism can be buried. There has never been anyone who called on the name of the Lord for rescue who was not rescued. There has never been anyone who believed in Jesus Christ who was not saved. There is no one who wants heaven—the reality of heaven and a covenant life with the triune God—but is not elect. Rather, the opposite is true, which is why the doctrine of election is a doctrine of comfort and help for believers and has been (and still is) considered by many to be a great spur for evangelism and mission. 

If you wish you were elect so you could be saved, this is surest sign that you are one of the elect. Never forget that, brothers and sisters.

Why Does God Choose Some and Not Others?

As ever, John Piper gives an excellent response to the question, "Why does God choose some and not others?" based on Romans 9.

 

 His book that he mentions, The Justification of God is an excellent exposition of Romans 9 as well.

Infralapsarianism Considered

Having previously provided some links to supralapsarian resources online, it only seems right to bring together some resources on the more common Reformed view of predestination, known as infralapsarianism.

Essentially, infralapsarianism is the view that the decree to elect some for salvation and reject others for salvation comes logically after the decision to permit humanity's fall into sin. Hence the term—infra (below, beneath or after) and lapsus (the fall).

This is by far the more common view among Reformed theologians, with some estimating that historically around 5% of Calvinists have been supralapsarians and 95% infralapsarians.

As with some other issues, it is difficult to neatly class John Calvin himself as either definitively infralapsarian or supralapsarian. The dispute among Reformed theologians that gave rise to these terms happened a generation or two after Calvin's death. However, at least in some passages, Calvin seems to view election as being from fallen mankind, which tends towards the infralapsarian view.

Likewise, some theologians seem to reject both infra- and supra- views, most notably Herman Bavinck, while Robert Lewis Dabney objected that the question had even been raised in theology. In the modern day, people like John Frame seem to reject having to choose between either option.

Others, such as Louis Berkhof and Robert Letham, do not decisively come down for infralapsarianism, seeing some logic to the supralapsarian stance, though they do not affirm it, they at least show some sympathy towards the other viewpoint.

The Canons of Dort are infralapsarian in their teaching. The Westminster Confession and Catechisms likewise tend towards the infrapsarianism held to by most of the Westminster divines, while being carefully enough worded that the supralapsarians in the Assembly could also support the chosen wording as far as it goes.

Some useful materials on infralapsarianism include the following:

"Infralapsarianism and Supralapsarianism" by Loraine Boetter: https://covenant-presbyterian.blogspot.com/2024/10/supralapsarian-links.html

"Divine Decrees" by Sam Storms: https://www.samstorms.org/all-articles/post/divine-decrees  

"Supralapsarianism and Infralapsarianism" by Barry Cooper: https://www.ligonier.org/podcasts/simply-put/supralapsarianism-and-infralapsarianism 

 "Predestination and the Divine Decree" by Robert Letham: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/essay/predestination-divine-decree/

 "Theological Primer: Supralapsarianism and Infralapsarianism" by Kevin DeYoung: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevin-deyoung/theological-primer-supralapsarianism-and-infralapsarianism/ 

 "Notes on Supralapsarianism and Infralapsarianism" by Phillip R. Johnson: http://www.romans45.org/articles/sup_infr.htm 

Personally, I favour a modified infralapsarian view. The standard infralapsarian view is correct insofar as it goes. I just rhink there is more interconnectedness in the internal workings of God's decree than infralapsarianism usually allows for. Infralapsarianism has a decision to create, then (logically, not chronologically) a decision to permit the fall, neither of which's purpose can be explained before a third decision to elect and reprobate. I believe that behind these is an overarching purpose which these elements of the decree serve, namely for God to glorify himself in Christ, in all things, through having a covenant people to glorify and enjoy him forever in love, friendship and fellowship with him. This primary purpose is alluded to in Ephesians 1:5: "he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will."

And this purpose or counsel of God ultimately is to the praise of his own glory. As Scripture describes God's purpose " The purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory" (Ephesians 1:11-12) and "For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory for ever" (Romans 11:36).  

Appearance of Age in Creation

Although I'm currently open-minded as to whether six-day young earth creationism is correct or not, I'm pretty sure that if God created the universe in six ordinary 24-hour days, then he certainly created a mature creation in that time. 

In other words, God created Adam and Eve as mature adults, not as babies, so if a scientist had been able to see them on the day they were made, every indication would be that they were 20-30 years old. The same would seem to hold for all the rest of creation: mature birds, fish and animals, full-grown trees in Eden, and so forth.

One of the main arguments against a young creation with a mature (i.e. much older) appearance has always been that this makes God deceptive in His creative acts.

I have to say that I find this one of the least convincing objections imaginable.

If God did create the universe that includes mature animals and plants in the way described in Genesis, how can God be accused of any deception? If this interpretation is correct, God has plainly stated the timescale of creation both in the Genesis accounts of chapters one and two and in the genealogies that follow in Genesis, and He has plainly stated that he made Adam and Eve as grown adults. Quite how this can be viewed as deceptive since God has explicitly explained creation in a way that demands a variance between appearance and actual chronological age I have never understood.

Deception would be to say he literally created in ordinary six days, but in fact took billions of years. (Note, this is not the same as arguing that the days are to be taken other than as literal history or are not ordinary 24-hour days). 

It is no deception to reveal He literally created in six days thousands of years ago if in fact He did so, even if the creation included an appearance of a history it never in fact had. How could a mature human being be created in an instant be otherwise? It is no more a deception than Jesus' miracle of turning water into wine at Cana could be considered deception, since the wine instantly created had all the appearance of having once grown as grapes, been picked, pressed, fermented, stored and matured, when it never had.

If I were going to be a young earth creationist, this would be where I would probably construct at least part of my argument for how it is possible to take the creation account literally without rejecting the claims of mainstream science. This is not a popular approach, even among young earth creationists, but I think the appearance of age must be at least part of the answer and can be arrived at on the face of the text in Genesis just as much as the days being 24 hours long.

I think the appearance of age view is a useful approach if a literal view of Genesis 1 and a young earth is advocated.