Does The Bible Teach That God Chooses Us Because We Choose Him?
A defense of Calvinism in Romans 8:29 and a bold call to preach the truth explicitly
For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
Romans 8:29
You can’t get around the fact that the Bible talks about predestination. The words are there. The concept is there. The doctrine is there. You will have to have a Thomas Jefferson Bible to say, “The Bible doesn’t teach predestination.”
But there are those who say, “Yes, the Bible does teach predestination but it teaches that God predestines us because He knew ahead of time who would have faith and who wouldn’t.”
To put it bluntly: This is heresy.
The “H” word shouldn’t be thrown around lightly—and I don’t intend to do so. But, it is true. There are numerous reasons why saying that “God chooses those who choose Him” is heresy.
Before moving forward: It needs to be said that the way we go about these conversations with others depends on the state of the person you’re talking with. Are they ignorant or arrogant? Are they trusting in themselves or Christ? Are they dangerously embracing heresy? What are they fearful of if they believe in the doctrine of predestination? We must speak the truth in love and not beat people up. Nevertheless, we have to stand on truth because there is no such thing as love where there is no truth. It is also important to understand what type of platform you’re speaking from. Is it a one on one conversation? Is it a small group Bible Study? Is it a larger group teaching? Is it a sermon? All these change the style of speech. Moving forward, I’m going to speak very bluntly, clearly, and unashamedly mainly to someone who is staunchly arrogant.
Heresy #1: God Looked Through The Tunnel Of Time
People have used Romans 8:29 to say that God only predestines because He knew before choosing anyone who would choose Him.
This is heresy because it denies very basic biblical and doctrinal truths about God.
It denies that God alone decrees all things. Nothing comes into existence except that which God decrees (Is. 46:10; Rom. 11:33-36; Eph. 1:11). There cannot possibly be any future actions or the presence of anything except by God’s decree. To say that there is a future that God sees that is somehow outside of Him is to talk about God (at best) as if He is Deist or (at worst) as if He isn’t the only sovereign (1 Tim. 6:15). Would one be implying that God has rivals?
It denies that God is omniscient. God knows all things because He is knowledge itself (Ps. 139:4; 147:5; 1 Jn. 3:20). He is perfect in knowledge (Job 37:16). He has never had to acquire new knowledge ever. He doesn’t learn anything by looking through the so-called “tunnel of time”.
It denies that God is eternal. By saying that God looked into the future to see what would happen is to deny His eternality—a crucial doctrine. He is outside of time (Ps. 90:2; Rev. 22:13). To go “into the tunnel of time” is to treat God as if He must enter time in order to find out what happens first and then come back to make a decision based on what He learned. If He has to first look through the tunnel of time and then predestine is to use time-bound language as if God has to have Step A happen first and then Step B. God is outside of time and, by definition, time is not eternal. God is eternal and timeless. There is not “time” that can somehow exist that God has failed to decree and fails to know altogether in one simultaneous “moment”.
It denies the fact that no one and nothing had yet done anything (Rom. 9:11).
It denies that God needs no one and nothing to be who He is and to do what He does (Ex. 3:14; Acts 17:24-28). He doesn’t need us to determine how He will decree. He doesn’t need a lesson in future prophecy before He can come to a wise decision.
It denies the fact that God does not change (Mal. 3:6). For God to look through the tunnel of time to see something that would happen and then respond to us is to deny that God does not change. God would be changing if He had to do something first and then determine His actions.
It also denies that God is impassible. God does not look through the tunnel of time to see what we would do and then this affects God in such a way that He then responds by predestining. God is a most pure spirit (Jn. 4:24) and is without passions (Acts 14:11, 15).
Let’s just say that God did look through the tunnel of time. What would He see? Nothing but your sin, wickedness, and misery (Gen. 6; Rom. 3:10-20; Eph. 2:1). No spiritual life can come to us that does not come from God (Jn. 15:1-5; Rom. 11:36). Therefore—even in this God-denying illustration of the tunnel of time—God cannot see any spiritual life in us if He were to look through this tunnel of time. If He does, this is Pelagianism at worst and Semi-Pelagianism at best—both heresies.
To keep with the tunnel of time illustration—how would this make sense of Ephesians 2:10? “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” All good works of ours are predestined. None of them originate from us. So, by using the tunnel of time argument, one would have to say that God is rewarding His own work. Did God not know something He would do? Or already did? Did He already do it in “a future” and then forget and then go back in the past to decree it? Did God already do something in the future before He decreed it? I’m not even sure how to ask the right questions because this is so confusing. The tunnel of time argument is beginning to sound like a more confusing and worse version of Interstellar.
It is hypocritical in nature to the very word predestination (which comes after the word foreknowledge). To pre-destine something is to destine something before it is there and before it happens. The Bible would be lying to call it predestination if God did not destine something before it happened. The tunnel of time argument implies that something is essentially already there that God learns about and then He makes His decision. This is a contradiction of the very word predestination.
In reality, this argument about the tunnel of time is not about God but about a god. It is idolatry. It is really about us trying to be God’s boss and tell Him what He can and can’t do.
Heresy #2: God Saves Us Because Of What We Do
In reality, the argument that God predestines us because He knew ahead of time who would choose Him is to say that God saves us based on what we do. This is a massive offense to Scripture. All over Scripture it describes our salvation being all of grace. The definition of grace is to receive favor despite deserving the opposite. It is not as if one is neutral. What one deserves is condemnation. There is nothing in them that deserves favor. Grace means to get the opposite of what you deserve. Therefore, when the Bible speaks about how salvation is by grace it will also talk about how it is absolutely not by any of our works.
Galatians 2:16 “Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.”
Romans 3:19-20 “Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.”
Romans 3:28 “For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.”
Romans 11:6 “But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.”
Ephesians 2:5 “Even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved”
Ephesians 2:8-9 “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
Titus 3:5 “He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit”
Honestly, we could go on and on with more verses. It is clear that God saves us by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. He does not save us because of what we do nor because He knew ahead of time what we would do and then responded to us. To say that God saves us because of a decision we make is to say that God gives us what we deserve or earned. By definition, that is no longer grace but wages. And we don’t want wages because our wages lead to death (Rom. 6:23).
It is preposterous to say that God says “yes” to us only after He knows we would say “yes” to Him. But, if we’re spiritually dead (Gen. 6; Jn. 3; Eph. 2), that “yes” cannot possibly happen unless He sovereignly decides to raise us from the dead. Dead people don’t come to life on their own. They either have life or not. There is no in-between. Somebody has to give us spiritual life because that life does not, cannot, and will not originate from us.
To deny spiritual death is to deny Scripture. To semi-accept where it says in Scripture that we are spiritually dead but then to go on and still say that we have faith residing in us or that wells up from within us by ourselves is dangerously close to blasphemy. By saying this one is claiming that they can bring something out of their own nothingness into existence. Only God can create and re-create ex nihilo. This is often evidence that someone wants to be their own Creator and just have God as a cheerleader and therapeutic life coach who only wants to listen to our story.
To say that God gives grace that can be resisted is not the same God of the Red Sea, Jordan River, and Resurrection. To say that there is a little work of grace He does first that only leads to regeneration if we don’t resist it sounds awfully close to a God who needs help for us to be saved. It also sounds like a works-based salvation which is directly contradicting Scripture. Either God gives us spiritual life monergistically or not.
At the end of the day, I will quote the great theologian The Hulk who said after he beat up Loki: “Puny god.” This is what we must say to those who adopt such heresy.
What Does Romans 8:29 Teach?
What does the word “foreknowledge” even mean? If the word means that God found out something that would happen ahead of time then how would we explain other verses that use this very same word.
Acts 2:23 “this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.” — Does God have two different wills? One for the Father and one for the Son? That would deny the Trinity! But, to say that this word foreknowledge means that God knew something ahead of time as if it existed outside of His knowledge is to say that God didn’t know Jesus would come to be crucified for us and then He decided to make it happen in retrospect once He learned that this would happen.
1 Peter 1:19-21 “but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.” — Did God choose to send a Messiah only because He looked into the future to see that there would be a Messiah?
The word means to plan or plot something in advance of acting. It means to personally become friendly with someone prior to their existence or acting in anyway. The word means to choose to love someone before they have come into existence and before any actions have been made. It means to choose someone sovereignly and monergistically and to determine their future—because they have no future that exists outside of God.
Here are some quotes from various commentators about Romans 8:29,
Doug Moo: “That the verb here contains this peculiarly biblical sense of ‘know’ is suggested by the fact that it has a simple personal object. Paul does not say that God knew anything about us but that he knew us, and this is reminiscent of the OT sense of ‘know.’…With this first verb, then, Paul highlights the divine initiative in the outworking of God’s purpose.”1
John Calvin: “But the foreknowledge of God, which Paul mentions, is not a bare prescience, as some unwise persons absurdly imagine, but the adoption by which he had always distinguished his children from the reprobate.”2
William Hendriksen: “Is it possible to interpret Paul’s words in this sense: Before the world was created God foresaw who were going to believe in him and who would not. So, on the basis of that foreseen faith, he decided to elect to salvation those good people who were going to exercise it? Answer: such a construction is entirely impossible, for according to Scripture even faith is God’s gift…In fact, even the good works performed by believers are prepared beforehand by God! (Eph. 2:10). On the contrary, the foreknowledge mentioned in Rom. 8:29 refers to divine active delight. It indicates that, in his own sovereign good pleasure, God set his love on certain individuals, many still to be born, gladly acknowledging them as his own, electing them to everlasting life and glory.”3
Herman Bavinck: “The term prognosis [foreknowledge] reveals the fact that in his purpose according to election the persons are not the objects of God’s ‘bare foreknowledge’ but of his ‘active delight.’”4
Thomas Schreiner: “The word ‘foreknew’ might at first glance suggest that God simply foresaw who would believe, and it certainly designates God’s foresight, but the word has a thicker and deeper meaning. The background of the term is in the OT, where God’s knowing refers to his covenant love, where he sets his affection on those whom he has chosen (cf. Gen. 18:19; Exod. 33:17; Ps. 18:43; Prov. 9:10; Jer. 1:5; Hosea 13:5; Amos 3:2). Romans 11:2 confirms the point, ‘God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew,’ which we can paraphrase as ‘God did not reject the people he selected.’”5
Everett F. Harrison and Donald A. Hagner: “This calling is further explained in terms of ‘foreknowledge’ and ‘predestination.’ The former term does not indicate advance awareness or knowledge of someone; it refers to God’s choice, his electing decision. This is rendered crystal clear from the use of the same word in 1 Peter 1:20. God’s calling is not haphazard, nor is it cold and formal. It is filled with the warmth of love, as in the Hebrew word ‘to know’ (Ge 18:19; Am 3:2 [LXX, ginōskō, GK 1182]). Though foreknowledge is not mentioned in Deuteronomy 7:6–8, that passage illumines the concept. The antecedent character of God’s choice precludes any possibility of human merit as entering into the decision (cf. Eph 1:4). Observe also that we are called according to purpose, not according to foreknowledge, hence foreknowledge must be included in the electing purpose.”6
Will The Real Reformers Please Stand Up?
It is time we bow down to God. While Calvinism was trendy back in the 2000s and 2010s, I’m afraid that now we’ve fallen back into being ashamed of the gospel. Guys don’t talk about sin but about sickness. Pastors don’t preach God’s sovereign salvation but a Jesus who treats us only as victims who need more self-actualization. Christians live in a world where they are told that if they really want to be sanctified then they need trusted guides who can listen to our stories and affirm everything we feel.
Where is the sovereignty of God preached today? Where is the power of God’s grace for wretched sinners? Are preachers ashamed of the gospel of grace (Rom. 1:16)? Are we hiding our cowardice of reformed theology behind the masks of being missional, contextualization, winsome, and hospitality?
Are we preaching salvation? Or are we preaching self-obsession and self-actualization?
The wrong response is to promote cage-stage Calvinism. That ought to be rebuked and repented of. The truly reformed Christians are those who humbly stand on God’s truth and proclaim the graciousness of His sovereign grace for wretched sinners. By the way, “of whom you once were” (1 Cor. 6:11; Eph. 2:13). The only reason why you believe the truth and have grown in sanctification is because it is all of grace. Therefore, repent of boasting in yourself and your knowledge.
This means that true humility is not cowardice and shying away from positively proclaiming the truth. That is false humility and a form a prideful people-pleasing and man-fearing. At the same time, as these truths are proclaimed humbly yet boldly in the fear of God. We do so with profound thankfulness and joy that God sovereignly has done all in us (Phil. 2:11-12).
We don’t make reformed theology in itself our thing. Reformed theology is a summary understanding the gospel that the Bible proclaims. The hobby horse isn’t reformed theology in itself. At the same time, we unashamedly proclaim these truths in word and definition in ways that people can understand and grow in using the words and definitions that the Bible actually uses.
We must actively and positively proclaim these truths—using the biblical words and definitions unashamedly and openly rather than in subtlety and hidden—but in such a way that we’re not trying to win someone to a “camp” but to Christ.
Let us repent of being ashamed of God’s clear truth. Let us repent of the hidden fear of man. Let us repent of our idolatrous desire to be liked by others while we build our own ministries. It is Christ’s Church. It is Christ’s Ministry. Let us proclaim Christ’s truth the way He would have us proclaim it.
And remember, Jesus did it very explicitly and it not only brought life but also death.
Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1996), 532–533.
John Calvin and John Owen, Commentary on the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 317.
William Hendriksen and Simon J. Kistemaker, Exposition of Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, vol. 12–13, New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1953–2001), 282.
Hendriksen here is quoting Bavinck: “H. Bavinck, The Doctrine of God, Grand Rapids, 1951, Vol. II, p. 343; my published translation of Bavinck’s Gereformeerde Dogmatiek; see above, footnote 16.”
Thomas R. Schreiner, Handbook on Acts and Paul’s Letters, ed. Benjamin L. Gladd, Handbooks on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic: A Division of Baker Publishing Group, 2019), 83.