You see my little scrawl at the bottom there — “email death of a husband.” That makes no sense to you. It’s to trigger my mind. I want to tell you in an illustration, and there’s an email I want to read you.

This is crucial. At this point in the seminar, what I’m saying is, I have mysteries in my theology. I have things in my theology that I, to my own satisfaction and probably to yours, cannot give a rational account of. I don’t think they’re irrational. I don’t think God’s irrational. I don’t think we should be irrational. But there are things that at any given point in our lives we may not have the ability to press through to show the complete rationality of things.

This is one of them. That God chooses who will believe before the foundation of the world and thus undeservingly, because they’re all going to be sinners in Adam, undeservingly be saved in spite of their sin. And he thus also decides who will rebel by not choosing Esau and deservingly — deservingly, and therefore justly, not unjustly, be lost.

And this is where Paul’s going to go in just a minute. Romans 9:14 is going to be, Is there then unrighteousness with God? He knows our problem. He’s with us.

Calvinism and Arminianism: Capacity for Mystery

Let me read you an email and tell you a story of how this lands sometimes. My email is on my phone. I don’t know what your capacities for mystery are. One of the reasons there are different theologies in the world, let’s just use some names here, Calvinism and Arminianism. One of the reasons there are divisions like that, there are many reasons, but one is capacities for mystery.

I remember being in seminary and being told by some people who didn’t like where the class was going in theology that, “You Calvinists are just logic choppers. You’re so precise, you’re so rational. You just try to force God into your boxes.” And I would listen because I went to seminary as a non-Calvinist. I went to seminary as a flaming freewiller.

You may have heard me tell the story. I was standing in front of Jim Morgan one day after he had argued about the sovereignty of God, and I held up in front of his face like this, my pen, and I dropped it. I said, “I dropped it!” Like that proved it. “I’m in charge. I have a will for goodness sakes. Don’t tell me God’s in charge of that. I dropped it.” Well, I changed before the end of that class, but that’s where I came. That’s where I came. I was that.

And so when they said to me, “All you Calvinists are just logic choppers forcing God into your little boxes,” I was thinking I don’t think it’s that way. It looks to me like the Calvinists are asking me to believe imponderable mysteries and the other group has their boxes. Don’t want to offend anybody. Yeah, I do, but I don’t want to alienate anybody. Let me illustrate with this email.

What I mean is, everybody I have ever talked to about this who disagrees with me, argues largely from, “It cannot be and so the text can’t mean that.” Instead of saying, “The text sure look like they mean that, so it must be, and there’s something wrong with my head.” That’s the way I think. I see what’s in the text and I say my head’s the problem. It’s too small. It’s too self-centered, it’s too something, but I’m the problem not the Bible.

Whereas others come and they have their convictions, like, “If that were true, there’d be no free will, ergo, it can’t mean that.” I say that’s a box. That’s squeezing God in your free will box. It’s never been my experience that the Calvinists are the logic choppers and the box fitters. It’s that the Calvinists seem to be the people who see texts and say, “I don’t get it, but there it is. It’s just there and I’ve got a bow. I don’t even know what I’m going to do with this.”

I mean, I wept for a whole semester in college when I was 22 years old because my life was falling apart. My Sunday school theology was falling apart. And when your paradigms fall apart, it hurts. I mean, there’s emotional terror almost inside that what you thought could be wrong.

The Glorious Freedom of Taking the Bible

Last year I got this email from somebody that had just gone to a conference with a philosopher, and I’m not going to give you his name. I’m not going to give you any names. If you want to know the philosopher’s name, I might tell you if you ask me in the break, because I don’t think it’s any secret, but in this setting it might not be appropriate. Listen to this.

“This week I spent time with [blank].” So this philosopher teaches at an evangelical seminary. “He does not like Calvinism too much. He began to talk about how the mass majority of the exegetes,” now that’s Bible people, Bible interpreters as opposed to philosophers, “that the exegetes adopt Calvinistic interpretations while the mass majority of philosophers and apologists opt for Arminianism. We came to some fascinating conclusions, all of which I will not share, but he did say, ‘It is true Calvinists have the exegesis behind them, but we have philosophy and I think libertarianism,’“ that means free will understood as self-determination. “‘I think libertarianism trumps exegesis and must determine it.’ I said to him, ‘So we have to bring our theology to the text?” Answer, ‘Yes.’ He responded. ‘The ethical implications of Calvinism are too severe.’“

So a major evangelical philosopher says the exegesis is on the side of the Calvinists, philosophy is on the side of the Arminians, and you have to bring your philosophy to the text, otherwise, the conclusions you draw are too severe.

Now, I do not think that way and you just need to know that. If I see something that feels too severe, I cry, I struggle. I may not preach it right away. I talk to people. I just, “God, help me please. I am not going to rise up over your word. I’m not going to rise up over your word and tell this book what it has to mean.”

I mean, that’s what liberals have done forever. Picking and choosing from Jesus what teachings they like and what they don’t, or picking from Ezekiel 16 what part you like and what part you don’t. You know what happens if you do your theology that way? It’s just a reflection of your culture or your family or yourself.

Whereas there’s a glorious freedom, if you’re willing to live with tension and live with mystery, there’s a glorious freedom in just taking the Bible for what it, after very rigorous effort, is meaning. So that’s my email.

Finding Comfort in the Bigness of God

Now here’s my story. I decided in 1987. I could give you her name. I have it right here. She still goes to my church. I decided to preach a series on the minor prophets. And so I was going to do one sermon per prophet. And I did it. That’s online somewhere. Everything I’ve ever said is online somewhere.

And so the sermon in October of 1987 was on Malachi. And I thought, “Now what am I going to say about Malachi?” Got one sermon for the whole book, four chapters. I put in the bulletin Malachi 1:1–5 because I do believe it does set up the book, to understand the whole book.

So I knew I’m going to preach a message that has in at the sentence, “Jacob I loved, Esau I hated” and it’s going to be hard (Malachi 1:2–3). I’ve been there seven years at this church. All the changes theologically and ecclesiological have not happened that I wanted to happen. So I got a lot of people out there not on board with where I am. And so I’m going to preach this and I’m just pleading with the Lord, “Make it edifying, make it helpful.”

And that morning, just before the first service, this woman’s husband collapses and dies at church. I hear about it as I come out of the first service, that she’s gone with the ambulance to the hospital and the word is, he’s dead. And I take a deep breath and say, “God, what am I going to do now? Should we just not have service? Should I have a season of prayer?”

I’ve never faced this before as a pastor. Everybody knows this man. The word’s spreading quickly. We have a second service coming and I’ve got half an hour to make a decision about how to do it. And I decided, “Okay, I will begin the service by telling everybody what happened and praying for his wife who is down at the hospital.”

And that’s what we did. We started, it was an unbelievably heavy moment. Couldn’t believe that he was gone and we were all interceding for his wife for a few minutes. And then the service proceeded pretty much as usual and we don’t do chipper services at Bethlehem, so that was not a problem. We do serious services, so I didn’t have to cancel all the jokes and all the skits, because we don’t do jokes and skits.

As the sermon is approaching, she walks into the balcony. This balcony, I see it right now. She walked into the balcony and sits on the front pew of the balcony. Her husband is dead as of half an hour ago. And everything in me said, “What are you doing here to hear ‘Jacob I loved, Esau I hated’?”

And so I did another mental calculation. “What should I do?” I said, “God knows what’s going on here. He planned the sermon, he took the man, he brought her back for a reason. He knows. Preach what you had with the greatest gravity you can think of.” So I did. Pretty much the kind of thing we’re talking about right here: mystery, opposition, unconditional election, all those things. There it is. Just laid it out.

When I was done, I’m shaking people and she disappeared. And I’m wondering, almost everybody’s gone and she comes up to me and I just squeezed her and cried. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry for your husband.” I named him. And she said, “I know.” And I looked at her and I said, “You came back for worship.” And she said, “I had to hear the word of God. I had to hear the word of God and thank you. Thank you for a big God and putting a rock under my feet.”

That’s been my experience over and over again. That people, when the winds are about to tip your boat over like the wind of your husband having just been taken away, I would guess they were in their late 40s. You need ballast in your boat. That’s what I was trying to say last night, that sometimes it’s just the bigness of a great and mysterious and weighty God that is a place to stand.

Unconditional Election in the Bible

This is going to be a good break time. Let me just see if there’s anything else I want to say before I let you take a break. Let’s take just a few more minutes — not more than say five and ask this question.

For some of you, the doctrine of election unconditionally by God, before the world was, before you were born, may be new. And so it might be good just to look at a few other passages I have, I don’t know, several, but let’s just read them then we’ll take a break. So Ephesians 1:4–5, “He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will,” So he chose us before the foundation of the world.

And later on, maybe near the end of our time, this “in him” will become very important, which is one of the reasons by the way, I stretched our text into Romans 10:4, which ends, “The goal of the law is Christ for righteousness.” So there’s a crucial text on election: Ephesians 1.

Here’s Romans 11:7: “What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened.” We’re going to see that in the next few verses — same kind of problem with hated and hardened.

Acts 13:48: “When the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.” Why did you believe? You were appointed for eternal life, not the other way around. We’ll talk about big implications for our hearts and our humility and our joy later on about this doctrine.

This is John 17:6: “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.” So anybody who came to Jesus was being given to Jesus by the Father who already had them.

Acts 18 — this is a relation to evangelism: “The Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, ‘Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people.’” That’s the way we think about evangelism and world missions. God has a people, he has ransomed a people from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. Go preach the gospel. God will draw them to himself.

Why Unconditional Election Is Good News

Why is unconditional election good news? We’ll do this and then stop. No one can say: “I have sinned too much to be elect.”

Let me give you a situation. You’re in a counseling situation, a person’s come to you and they’re not a believer and you’re going to witness to them. You’re going to tell them about the gospel. You’re going to hold out Jesus Christ to them. You’re going to invite them to faith. And they say, “Well, that sounds great for you and all these squeaky clean people at this church. You don’t know what I have done. You don’t know what I have done. There is no way I could be chosen.”

Now, if anybody said that to me in my counseling office, I would rise out of my chair. I’d take them by the collar and hold them up like this: “Don’t ever say that. Who do you think you are telling God what he cannot choose? God Almighty says, ‘Before you were born had done anything good or evil, I choose.’” There is zero list of sins, I don’t care if it’s 10,000 miles long that you could put over against unconditionality.

This is very, very effective in evangelism, for people who believe they’re hopeless. For people who think I probably qualify, they won’t like this doctrine because it tells them you don’t. And it doesn’t make any difference if you did. But for the person, and there’s a lot of them in the world, who feel utterly hopeless, absolutely, totally sinned out of heaven, they cannot be saved.

“You don’t know how many times I’ve sinned. You don’t know how much grace I’ve offended against. You don’t know. I cannot be among the elect.” The only doctrine that helps at that moment is the doctrine of unconditional election. You can’t give me any conditions you have failed to meet because none of them count anyway. If you would just believe, if you would come, he would have you. Trust him.

Theological Implications of Unconditional Election

So my first argument for why this is good news is that it’s really good news for hopeless people, who have just assigned themselves to hell and said, “There is no way I could be chosen because of what I’ve done.”

Second reason: The praise of the glory of God’s free grace is preserved unto the praise of the glory of his grace. None of you in this room qualify to be chosen. If you are a believer, if you’re on your way to heaven, it is not owing to anything in you ultimately or decisively. It is totally God. And if that could emotionally ever land on us, we would be among the most humble and broken and grateful people. But theologically, we don’t let it sink in very well.

Number three: Boasting in man is excluded. A boasting, a proud Calvinist is an absolute contradiction. It’s an oxymoron. And I know there are a lot of them. But it’s not the way it should be, and it probably means that they are head Calvinists, not heart Calvinists. They’ve got their little system that they’re loving to argue about exegetically: “Yay, we win the exegesis argument. Yay, yay, yay.”

And they’re not heart Calvinists. That is, “I don’t deserve anything. I don’t deserve anything. Every breath I take, every millisecond of faith is a gift from God. How could I ever exalt myself over anybody? How could I ever not serve you? Count others more significant than yourselves. How could I not have the mind of a servant? And yet that’s how inconsistent and sinful we are.”

And number four: Our security is as deep as deep as the eternal decrees of God. This is the effect it has. I have had so many, and here again, don’t want to step on any toes, but I like being called a charismatic, and then I qualify. But not this, not that. Which means, when I use the term charismatic, it’s not a negative word to me. Extreme or some other, put some adjectives on it, it would get negative.

At our church, we’re located downtown, Minneapolis is a big religious hodgepodge. Lots of big prosperity churches, lots of big charismatic churches, and they trickle over to Bethlehem and over and over again, people get awakened to truth and doctrine and Bible and something more than emotion, something more than signs and wonders.

And then they’ll make appointments with me and they’ll come in and they’ll say, “I felt so wobbly and so insecure in those days and like I didn’t know whether I would be saved today and lost tomorrow. And since I have learned what you’ve been teaching about God’s sovereignty and his election, I have felt so stable. Like my feet are finally on a rock.” That’s just one of the emotional effects it has, and God means it to have that.

“Those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified” (Romans 8:30). He means for our rootage in election and predestination to have an effect on our sense that I’m not going to fall. He’s going to take care of me. If I ask you the question, which I do people all the time: What makes you think you’ll wake up a believer tomorrow morning? And how you answer that question is a watershed of theology.

If you answer it and say, “Well, because I have a will and I choose to believe every morning.” I say, “That’s a very fragile answer. You don’t know that.” You have no idea whether your will will incline that way tomorrow morning unless you believe God keeps you. God wakes you up a believer tomorrow morning. And he wakes you up a believer because he’s committed himself to do that, because he chose you from the foundation of the world. If he left you to yourself, you wouldn’t wake up a believer tomorrow morning, you’d wake up a skeptic, a doubter, an unbeliever. You’d just walk, right away, from God. I have felt it. I have felt it. I know that’s what John Piper would do.