God of the Means and the End

The following was submitted by Pastor Douglas Wilson (to his church via their email system and also on his blog) September 15, 2009:

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"Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. The saying is trustworthy, for: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful — for he cannot deny himself" (2 Tim. 2:10-13).

Paul is a thorough-going predestinarian -- all the elect are predestined to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. But he is no fatalist. Note what he is willing to do for the sake of the elect. He endures everything, he says, for the sake of the elect, so that they might obtain . . . what? What Paul believes them to be predestined to obtain is the salvation that is in Jesus Christ, along with eternal glory. Lesser hearts than Paul's reason fallaciously in one of two ways. They either say that enduring everything matters, so the elect must not really be elect. Or they say that election is real and that it matters, and that it is therefore not necessary to endure anything. Que sera sera. But Paul knows that God ordains everything, including the means that He has ordained to accomplish His intended ends.

Paul knows that the ordained destination is reached by the ordained road. And if the destination is reigning with him, then that is reached by enduring. If the destination is living with Him, the road is dying with Him. The saying is trustworthy. The God who ordained the harvest also ordained the planting. The God who ordained the pregnancy also ordained the sexual union. The God who ordained that a man reaps what he sows also ordained that a man sows what he reaps. Predestination does not make Paul shrug his shoulders whatever. It makes him roll up his sleeves, and any other response betrays a misunderstanding of what God has revealed.

There is a flip side, with an interesting twist. If we deny Him, He will also deny us. But if we are faithless (merely), He remains faithful. To be faithless to struggling sinners would not be to deny them; it would be to deny Himself. He will never leave us or forsake us -- despite our faithlessness.

Cordially in Christ,
Douglas Wilson