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Predestination and the Glory of God
W. Robert Godfrey, Ph.D.
For God has bound all men over to
disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all. Oh, the
depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How
unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing
out!…For from him and through him and to him are all things. To
him be the glory forever! Amen.In Rome there is a church
by the name of Saint Peter in Chains. It is not the famous
Basilica of Saint Peter, but a smaller church, and in that church
there is one of the most famous pieces of sculpture ever done by
man, the "Moses" by Michelangelo. If you have seen that statue,
you must have been struck by the vitality Michelangelo has been
able to communicate to marble. Moses has come down from Mount
Sinai and is seated with the tables of the Law in his
hand—seated, yet almost as if he were about to rise up not only
from his seat but also out of the stone itself. It is an amazing
representation. As you looked at it you may have noted that on
the head of Moses there are two little horns. This is surprising
at first glance, until you remember, as I am sure you do, that
in Jerome's Latin Vulgate the passage that says, "When Moses
came down from the Mountain his face shone" (cf. Exodus
34:29-33) is mistranslated and reads, "his head was horned."
One wonders what Michelangelo might have done had Jerome
translated the passage accurately. Because what really happened
was that Moses had so basked in the glory of God on Mount Sinai
that when he came down from the mountain his face literally
radiated the glory of God. No doubt even Michelangelo would have
been defeated in his effort to represent in marble the glorious
shining of God's glory in the face of Moses. I fear that I may
also fail this morning as I consider the glory of God. What an
incredible subject to address: the glory of God in
predestination! Paul directs our attention to it in Romans 11.
Surpassing Glory As we think about God's glory it is good to begin with Moses,
because after Moses had come down from Sinai and had confronted
the sinfulness of his people, in his great distress he turned to
the Lord in prayer. His prayer, as we find it in Exodus 33, was
this: "Now show me your glory"—in the face of the disobedience
of your people, in the face of frustration and disappointment,
in the face of having broken the tablets of the Law-"show me
your glory" (v. 18). As we want to see the glory of the Lord, we
might follow Moses back up the mountain, remembering what Moses
saw as he climbed it. The mountain was covered with a cloud, and
in the midst of the cloud "there was a devouring fire." After
Moses had ascended the mountain God promised to show him his
glory. But he said, "You cannot see my glory as it is in itself;
I will hide you in a cleft of the rock, and as I pass by I will
put my hand over you so that you will not be destroyed and will
remove my hand as I pass by so you can just see my back, just a
portion of my glory, and I will preserve you so you will not be
destroyed." It was having seen that glory of God that caused
Moses' face to shine when he came down from the mountain. Then we read a little further on that this glory came down from
the mountain when the tabernacle, the Tent of Meeting, was
completed. God's glory was manifested among his people in the
Tent of Meeting. This gives some insight into what glory is. The root meaning of
the Hebrew word for glory is "weight." But as the Hebrews
expanded on the meaning of this root word, they moved from the
idea of weight to “wealth." Somebody who had a heavy weight (of
silver or gold) was a wealthy person. From the notion of wealth
the word developed the sense of "importance." Someone who is
wealthy is usually an important person. At last we find it
applied to God as the preeminently weighty, wealthy and
important one. Glory also became associated with the notion of light, since God
most often reveals his glory to man in the form of a visible
radiance. As he is in himself, God is, of course, inherently
invisible. But when God wants to display his glory to us, he
does it in terms of beautiful light, pointing to and
illustrating his purity and holiness. The glory dwelt inside the
Holy of Holies in the Tent of Meeting, because God could never
fully display what he is in himself to a sinful people. We also see something of the hiddenness of the glory of God in
Jesus. We read in John's Gospel: "We have seen his glory, the
glory of the one and only Son, ...full of grace and truth"
(John 1:14). Yet that glory is veiled. John says, "The Word
became flesh and lived for a while among us," using the word
that literally means "tented" or "tabernacled" among us. You
see, the glory of God is still in the Tent of Meeting, but the
Tent of Meeting is now Jesus Christ our Lord. In him we are in
contact with God's glory. Charles Wesley expressed it beautifully in his hymn "Hark, the
Herald Angels Sing" when he declared: Veiled in flesh the Godhead see;
Hail the Incarnate Deity. That expresses how the glory of God came down and dwelt among us
in the person of Jesus Christ. That glory is displayed even in
that most unlikely of places, the cross. For it is of the cross
that Jesus declared, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be
glorified" (John 12:23). The glory of the mercy of God is
displayed on Calvary. But in Jesus, too, we see something of the visible display of
God's glory. You remember the Mount of Transfiguration where
Jesus was suddenly transformed, and light shone forth as he
talked with Moses and Elijah. So, too, in the vision of our
ascended Lord that we find in the first chapter of Revelation,
Jesus is seen walking among the lamp stands of the church and is
described in this way: "His eyes were like blazing fire ... His
face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance" (vv. 14,
16). So much glory! So much to glorify the Lord for! It is with this
in mind that Paul is moved at the end of Romans 11 to praise
God, saying, "To him be the glory forever! Amen."
Mercy Upon All What in particular moved Paul to glorify God? There are so many
things for which we could glorify God. If you look through the
Psalms, you will find God glorified for a wonderful range of
activities. But Paul, in this verse, has been moved to glorify
God particularly by his reflection on God's mercy. When you think about it, all of Romans 9-11 has been a
reflection upon God's mercy to his people. When Moses asked God,
"Show me your glory," the Lord responded by saying, "I will
cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will
proclaim my name, the LORD…I will have mercy on whom I will have
mercy" Exod. 33:19). In response to the request of Moses to see
God’s glory, God said, in effect, "You will see it in knowing
that I am a God who shows mercy upon whom I will show mercy."
Paul quotes this passage in Romans 9. The discussion begins,
then, in chapter 9 and concludes in chapter 11. All sorts of men have been bound up together in disobedience to
God, so that the Lord in his mercy might bind up all men, Jew
and Gentile from every part of the earth, in the experience of
his mercy. That is what evokes Paul's doxology. What a wonderful
God we have! What a glorious God, who manifests himself in such
sovereign mercy! That is why Paul, in declaring his praise of
God, says, "For from him and through him and to him are all
things" (v. 36). A Mercy
Planned In these words we see salvation displayed: "from him," a mercy
planned; "through him," a mercy preached; "to him," a mercy
perfected. A planned mercy is what Paul was talking about in Romans 9
through 11, as he reflected on God's great purpose. This is what
Paul has reminded us of over and over. God from all eternity has
had a plan as to what he will do and what he will accomplish.
That plan is, above all, that he will have a people for his
name. His purpose is that the human race which he has created
for fellowship with himself will not be lost but that out of
fallen humanity he will raise up a people to have fellowship
with him. That purpose will not be thwarted, neither by the will
of Satan nor by the will of man, for God's will stands over all.
The tragedy of theologies that do not grasp this fact is that
they reduce God's plan only to making salvation possible and
therefore leave open the possibility that God may not have a
people for his name, that Jesus may have died but actually has
saved no one. This plan is profound in its richness. God has determined to
create a people composed of Jew and Gentile alike, as Paul
rehearses over and over again in these chapters. The church is
built out of all the peoples of the earth: "For there is no
difference between Jew and Gentile – the same Lord is Lord of
all and richly blesses all who call on him" (Rom. 10:12). This
is his richness, as he draws a people from every tribe and
tongue. Not only is God's plan rich. It is also wise. It is wise because
it accomplishes man's glorification. You remember the golden
chain of Romans 8:30: "Those he predestined, he also called;
those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also
glorified." That is God's wise plan, a plan that moves from the
beginning to the end. God will accomplish his purpose. He will
have his people manifest his glory. We cannot increase God's
glory. We can declare it. What a contrast between the wisdom of that plan and the
foolishness of men. Paul spoke eloquently about that foolishness
in Romans 1, when he wrote: “Although they claimed to be wise,
they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God
for images, …the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and
served created things rather than the Creator – who is forever
praised” (vv. 22, 23, 25). God’s wise plan is that we will be
creatures in fellowship with our Creator. The foolishness of man
is to miss that glory, reject that wisdom and, in the
foolishness of our understanding, to create images for ourselves
to worship. The Psalmist says, “All who serve them become like
them.” (Ps. 115:8). And, oh, the tragedy! We who are called to
reflect the image of the immortal God become reflectors only of
the passing things of this world. When we think on the riches and wisdom of God’s plan we dare
never be apologetic that we are reformed. If you do not talk
about the reformed faith, you are failing to give God all his
glory. If you do not talk about it, you are not sharing the
richness of God’s salvation with fellow Christians. Oh, do not
harp on it! Do not beat people over the head with it! But do
declare it! Declare the richness, wonder and glory of that plan.
A Mercy Preached There is also a mercy preached, for it is not only from him but
also “through him” that we know mercy. The first thing that
needs to be said as we reflect upon the mercy of God preached is
that this mercy is preached above all by God himself. God does
not make his plan and stand back. No, God remains active in the
preaching of his mercy. We read in Romans 9:33: “As it is
written: ‘See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes men to stumble
and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who trusts in him
will never be put to shame.’” So also in Romans 10:21: “But
concerning Israel [God] says, ‘All day long I have held out my
hands to a disobedient and obstinate people.’” God, who holds
out his hand in mercy and calls people to himself promises,
“Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” God
remains the great preacher and declarer of this Word in the
world. But God has also appointed preachers to carry that message. Paul
states that, and it is important for us especially who occupy
the official office of preacher to remember our great privilege
and responsibility. Some of us are occasionally tempted to just sort of trudge off
to church – either into the pew or into the pulpit – and take
this as a matter-of-fact affair. But it is an awesome
responsibility both to preach and to hear God’s Word. It is an
awesome responsibility of the preacher to handle the Word of
truth rightly, and it is an awesome responsibility to hear that
Word. The apostle declares that the preaching of the Word is the
savor of life unto life and death unto death (2 Cor. 2:16). For
those who hear the Word and treasure it, it is life. For those
who hear it and reject it, it is death. I remember hearing of an old Welsh minister, who preached in a
church that had a great high pulpit with a high staircase. He
would conduct most of his service from below. But when the time
came for the sermon he would climb those stairs and preach. Some
Sunday mornings he would walk to the bottom of the stairs, look
up into the pulpit and say, “I cannot go into that awful place.”
Then he would turn around and walk out of the church. This left
the elders somewhat disconcerted, as you can imagine. But it was
a good testimony to the awesome responsibility of being a
declarer of God’s Word. Moreover, it impressed upon the people
that preaching could never be merely commonplace and ordinary.
The pulpit was an awful place in the sense of inspiring awe and
reverence before God. Christ must always be the center of our preaching. That is why
Paul returns in chapter 10 to Christ as the essence of the
gospel. His declaration is that Christ is the “end of the Law”
(v. 4). Christ in his own life has fulfilled all righteousness,
has been obedient in our place, and then has gone on to bear the
wrath of God for us on the cross. Paul says he is also a
resurrected Savior, risen from the dead in the power of God, who
now declares his gospel to all who will come to him. In 2
Corinthians 4 Paul talks about “the light of the gospel of the
glory of Christ” (v. 4). This is Christ’s glory – that he is the
Savior of his people, that he has done it all: accomplished
righteousness, borne the curse, risen victorious over sin and
death, and now lives to make intercession for us. That is why we
must always return to Christ as the very center of the gospel. Luther once remarked, “People are always saying, ‘Give me
something new! Give me something new! I don’t want to hear just
about the death and resurrection of Christ.’” Luther remarked,
“What a tragedy! As if that great center of the gospel should
ever become old, stale or a matter of indifference to us.” When mercy is preached, it is preached in Christ. And it is
preached unto faith. This also echoes through Romans 9 – 11. The
preaching of faith is not all opposed to the preaching of
election. Paul weaves them together. In Romans 11 he declares:
“You stand by faith” (v. 20). In Romans 9:30 he speaks of “a
righteousness that is by faith.” This does not make faith the
one good work we do. Rather, faith is our link to Jesus Christ,
and we are righteous through faith because faith puts us in
touch with the righteousness of Christ. Christ and his work are
our righteousness, and faith is our link. What a stumbling block this is to pride! We all want to do
something, particularly in the new world. We have been taught
that we are to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. But Paul
says that there is nothing we can do – nothing, except to find
refuge in Jesus Christ. In Romans 10:16 Paul expresses this in ironic terms when he
says, “But not all the Israelites obeyed the good news.” Israel
was always talking about its obedience, but the people missed
the whole point. It is not in our obedience that we are made
right with God. It is in the gospel. Moses came with the Law so
that people might be driven to Christ. The Law was to show us
our sinfulness. But Israel missed that great function of the
Law. Therefore, instead of being driven to Christ as their only
hope and refuge, they took refuge in their pretended claim to
self-righteousness. That is why Paul says we must preach faith.
Paul warns over and over against being wise in our own conceits.
We are not to repeat the mistake of Israel and say, “We are
God’s covenant people. He’s obligated to us.” Oh, no! It is all
by mercy. We have to rest in him and his completed work. The contrast Paul draws in Romans 10 is between condemnation and
righteousness. In our self-righteous efforts to fulfill the Law
we will find only condemnation, but in Christ we will find
righteousness and hope. That is, righteousness is harmonized
with the theme of election. Election is never a threat. Election
never undermines our faith but rather under girds it.
Luther expressed that beautifully in these words: Now that God has taken my salvation out of the control of my own
will and put it under the control of his, and promised to save
me, not according to my working or running but according to his
own grace and mercy, I have the comfortable certainty that he is
faithful and will not lie to me, and that he is also great and
powerful so that no devils or opposition can break him or pluck
me from him (The Bondage of the Will). That is the certainty that election gives us. I do not want
salvation to be in my hands. I want my salvation to be in God’s
hands, because he is faithful and able. That is the mercy that
we preach and the confidence that we have. That is the mercy
that glorifies God, for it is a mercy grounded in God’s plan and
declared to his people. A Mercy
Perfected Finally, there is mercy perfected: “To him are all things.” God
is active from the beginning to the end. He will accomplish his
purpose, and God’s purpose is that he will glorify himself in
glorifying us. What an assurance that is! God’s original
intention was to give glory to his creature, man. You remember
the words of Psalm 8: “You made him [man] a little lower than
the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor” (v.
5). In 1 Corinthians 11 Paul declares that “man… is the image
and glory of God” (v. 7). Isaiah 42:8 says, “I am the LORD; that is my name! I will not
give my glory to another or my praise to idols.” But the amazing
thing is, although God will not give his glory to another god,
he does give his glory to man, made in his likeness. Man lost
God’s glory in his sinfulness: “All have sinned and fall short
of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). But God determined to restore
that glory – not the fading glory that Moses had shining in his
face when he came down from the mountain, the glory that passed
away – but rather a permanent, unfading glory. In 2 Corinthians
3:11 Paul develops this, saying, “If what was fading away came
with glory, how much greater is the glory of that which lasts!”
We are to grow in that glory even now: “We who with unveiled
faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into
his likeness with ever-increasing glory” (v. 18). Moreover, we
can spread that glory to others who have not heard: “The grace
that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to
overflow to the glory of God” (2 Cor. 4:15). Finally, we have the culmination in the fulfillment of glory
that awaits us. This must influence the whole way we live.
Everything that happens to us in this life must come under the
arc of God’s coming glory. Paul says, “For our light and
momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that
far outweighs them all” (2 Cor. 4:17). Paul, who had gone
through shipwreck, torture, imprisonment and who was now facing
martyrdom, can refer to these problems of life as his “light and
momentary” trouble in comparison to that eternal weight of glory
which is beyond all comparison. Calvin recommended meditation on the future life as a spiritual
exercise. He said the only way we could really bring things into
perspective in this life is to remember that our real home is in
glory. Evangelicals are sometimes accused of preaching “pie in
the sky by and by.” But meditation on the future glory does not
make us “no earthly good,” as some say, but rather gives us that
liberty as sons of God that was expressed on the lips of a
Spanish soldier in the sixteenth century: “I would rather face a
whole army than one Calvinist convinced he is doing the will of
God.” That is what happens when you realize that whatever goes
on in this world is only a momentary affliction. Paul did not say this easily or lightly. Paul knew the reality
of suffering. But he looked beyond this life to the eternal
weight of glory that awaited him. Our Lord said, “Then the
righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their
Father” (Matt. 13:43). Peter promised: “And when the Chief
Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will
never fade away” (1 Pet. 5:4). Moses had only a fading crown of
glory, but ours will be unfading. With that crown of glory we
will glorify God for eternity. This is what John saw in the
Revelation: “The twenty-four elders fall down before him who
sits on the throne, and worship him who lives forever and ever.
They lay their crowns before the throne and say: ‘You are
worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power’”
(Rev. 4:10, 11). There it is, you see. God glorifies us, and we
take that glory and consecrate it back to him, glorifying him
forever. Calvinists are a minority today, and we can sometimes be
discouraged. We can be discouraged by the surrounding secularism
and because we sometimes feel that non-Calvinistic Christian
groups are more successful than we are. That may be true in some
areas. But we have a great task to perform, and that is to open
to fellow Christians and to the world at large the depths,
riches and wisdom of God’s glory. We live in a day when many have eclipsed the glory of God in
their teaching. They have eclipsed it by ignoring God’s perfect
plan. The sinfulness of sin is reduced so that man’s free will
may be unimpaired, and therefore the work of Christ is reduced.
Man needs only a partial faith. By contrast, we who have looked
deeply into God’s Word know that we are dead in our sin and
unable to help ourselves. Therefore, at the right time Christ
died for us, and by the irresistible work of his Holy Spirit,
brought us to faith in himself. What a gospel that is! What a
Savior we have! “To him be the glory forever! Amen.”
Ó2008
Westminster Seminary California All rights reserved
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S. M. Baugh
R. Scott Clark
Iain M. Duguid
Bryan D. Estelle
W. Robert Godfrey
Michael S. Horton
Dennis E. Johnson
Hywel R. Jones
Peter R. Jones
Joel E. Kim
Julius J. Kim
George C. Scipione
Robert B. Strimple
David M. VanDrunen
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