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The Sovereignty of God in the Biblical Basis of the Theological View of Predestination

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The Sovereignty of God in the Biblical Basis of the Theological View of Predestination THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD IN THE BIBLICAL BASIS OF THE THEOLOGICAL VIEW OF PREDESTINATION BY ERNEST AUSTIN ADAMS THESIS SUBMITTED IN FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE MASTER OF ART IN THE FACULTY OF ARTS IN BIBLICAL STUDIES (NEW TESTAMENT) AT THE RAND AFRIKAANS UNIVERSITY SUPERVISOR: Prof. J.A. du Rand OCTOBER 1998 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I hereby wish to express thanks and gratitude to: God through Christ for His encouragement and guidance. I am grateful for His many blessings and love shown toward me. I thank Him for sustaining me and bringing to pass those things that He revealed to me years ago. Thank you Lord. My dear Michelle for her positive attitude and encouragement shown. Thank you for being the blessing that you are. Prof. Jan Du Rand for his guidance and supervision in producing this thesis. Your friendly and positive attitude is much appreciated. SUMMARY This research was conducted to establish greater clarity regarding God's sovereignty and His predetermined will. Many different views are held on this subject. Views on predestination have been much debated over the centuries with many believers being undecided or unsure on this subject. What adds to the confusion is that man cannot comprehend life outside of time and therefore finds it difficult to grasp the concept of God having knowledge of all things occurring within time. In order to gain a greater perspective and insight on the subject it was decided to trace the development of the concept of God's establishing His predetermined will through the Scriptures. Approaches to this subject in the past were clouded by the fact that many Christian groups held to the view that the Scriptures are the infallible Word of God. Many scholars in recent years have come to the realisation that the Bible, though containing the Word of God, displays the fallibility of man. This is the approach taken in interpreting Scripture for this thesis. The view was also taken that the revelation of Christ is seen as the key to interpreting Scripture (Heb. 1:1-3). The various factors influencing the writers of Scripture were also taken into account. The Pentateuch reveals God as all-powerful and sovereign. As creator He has the right to rule over creation. With the picture of an all-powerful God in their minds, the authors of the Pentateuch expressed a view that only those things happen that God has sanctioned. It was God who leads people into the hands of the murderer (Ex. 21:13) and God who places marks of leprosy on houses (Lev. 14:34). It was God who puts to death and gives life (Deut. 32:39). The authors of Old Testament Scripture prior to the exile did not have a clear picture of the spiritual fight between the forces of light and darkness. The fact that they believed God was responsible for all things that happen provided a platform for later saints to believe that all things that occur are predetermined by God. The writers of the Pentateuch did, however, allude to God bringing about His predetermined will dynamically in the lives of His people. The picture one gets is that God knew exactly what He wanted to do and like a master chess player brought this to pass. The emergence of God's predetermined will, providence and foreknowledge are traced in the Old Testament. These aspects of God's sovereignty are considered separately in order to identify the particular aspects related to each of them. God's will is separate from His foreknowledge. His foreknowledge is as a result of His will. God's providence relates to His providential care for His creation and people. The fact that many have not considered the foreknowledge of God separately from His will, have led many to misunderstand aspects of His predetermined will. God's foreknowledge relates to His knowledge of those things that occur. This point is seen in greater perspective when looked at this from God's perspective outside of time. From God's perspective this is actually knowledge and not foreknowledge, as God is outside of time and free from succession of time. In other words He knows all things happening within time, all of the time. He knows the beginning from the end. This does not, however, preclude God from entering into time to fulfil His will. Authors of Scripture during and after the exile propagate questionable views on God's predetermined will. The Book of Job and Psalm 139, believed to have been written after the exile, express views on personally being created by God and their days being ordaining before being born. Certain portions from the Book of Isaiah, believed to have been written by subsequent authors and bound together with the writings of Isaiah, expresses views on God planning things from "long ago." These writings appear to have been influenced by Greek philosophy, Stoicism in particular, which held that God of a supreme being predetermines all things. The book of Job, which expresses questionable views on God using Satan to afflict man, is believed by many to be a fictional story written to encourage the downtrodden in times of persecution and is not to be used in determining theological views on the way God operates. Writings from the intertestamental period indicate that many Jews believed in the providence of God in the sense that God was watching over His people. It was during this time, however, that the Jews fell under the rule of the Greeks who compelled their subjects to adopt Greek culture. Some Jews, like Philo of Alexandria, sought to align Judaism with Greek philosophy. Hermetic literature, which merged Greek and Oriental thought, also arose during this period. Josephus provides an overview of the different views on predestination held by the Sadducees, Pharisees and the Essenes. The Essenes, who were a minority sect, believed in the total predestination of all things. Many parallels exist between Essenic and Christian thought. The background to the writing of the Gospels is taken into account. It appears that Matthew originally wrote a record of the sayings of Jesus in Aramaic. This was possibly used as a source by Mark, with what he gleaned from the preaching of Peter, to produce his Gospel. The record of the sayings of Jesus later developed into what we know today as the Gospel of Matthew. The Gospel of Luke was written after the Gospel of Mark and he appears to have used the emerging Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Mark as a source. Many through the ages, from the times of the early church, have held the Gospel of Mark to be the most "accurate" of all the Gospels. The Gospel of John was the last canonical Gospel to be written and appears to have been written by a follower of John the Apostle. This Gospel contains many Hellenistic concepts and was possibly written to appeal to the Hellenistic mind. This Gospel goes much further than the other Gospels in endeavoring to provide theological explanations to Gospel accounts. Elements of a view on the predestining of the saved appear in this Gospel (Jn. 6:64-65). This is, however, in keeping with the Hellenism displayed in this Gospel. The Gospels do not generally propagate a view on the predestination of the saved by God or the predestining of all things by God. An endeavor is made to reconstruct the views of Christ held regarding God's sovereignty and His predetermined will from Gospel accounts. Christ often appeals to the "whosoever" and does not appear to be beckoning to a selected predetermined audience. He tells the parable of the sower indicating that the word goes out to all but that it is those that respond that are saved. He speaks of the vine and the branches and warns that those branches that do not bear fruit will be cut off and thrown into the fire. Christ does not appear to support the views of certain subsequent New Testament authors who believe that the saved were predestined from the beginning and that even the faith exercised for their salvation is a gift from God and not of themselves. The views of the Apostle Paul on predestination is contrasted with those of the Apostle Peter. Paul's views appear to have been influenced by Hellenistic thought whilst Peter appears to adopt a view closer to that held by the Pharisees of the day. Paul appears to propagate that the saved were predestined from the beginning and are saved without desert. This view was not novel and was believed by many Hellenists as well as the Essenes with which Paul is believed to have come into contact. Peter believed that the saved are predestined according to the foreknowledge of God which is very different from believing in merely being predestined. Peter's view suggests that one is predestined because God saw that person standing in his or her salvation. In other words believers are predestined because they were saved. As a result Peter can encourage the saved to make their calling and election sure (2 Pet. 1:10). Many other remarks made by Peter indicate that he did not hold to a view on the saved merely being saved by predestination. Many debates have occurred since the birth of the church regarding views on the free will of man and predestination. The major public disputes that have arisen in the church are those between the followers of Pelagius and Augustin (c. 410 — 418 A.D.) and the followers of Arminius and those of John Calvin (1610 — 1619).
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