The Will of Men Versus the Glory of God

"In Him [Christ] we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him [the Father] who works all things according to the counsel of His will, so that we

The Library of Celsus in Ephesus

who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of His [i. e., Christ's] glory."
- Ephesians 1:11-12

I'll be the first to admit that I am completely mystified by the Arminian use of Scripture. In the case of an unbeliever, I can understand that he simply rejects the authority of Scripture. The Arminian, on the other hand, professes to believe in the Bible as God's revelation. Yet, he ignores the plain statements of the Bible that go against his theology. These verses are one example.

Arminians and Catholics claim a form of predestination. They say that God looks ahead in the future, sees who will believe, and then predestines those individuals. That is, predestination is a reaction to, not the cause of, a person's faith.

That claim is simply not allowed by this sentence. How are we predestined? Is it according to our faith? No, it is according to His purpose. Is it a preview of something that would occur in the future? No, it was according to His will. Unless, of course, it was a response to what His will would be in the future, which is silly. Yet, that is the same logic that the Arminian uses.

And what is God's goal in our predestination? Is it a reward for our wisdom in believing in Him? No, the purpose was His own glory. That is the key: predestination is not for our sakes, but for Christ's, that He would be glorified in our salvation.

I understand why Arminians want this passage to read differently. Just as with their Pelagian predecessors, the Arminians want to maintain the sovereignty of man. They talk about "free will," but their definition of it is the right of men to choose their destinies, not the right of a sovereign God, just as Satan offered to Adam in Genesis 3:5. Yet, God does not concede His sovereignty (Isaiah 42:8, 48:11).

Not only do these verses assign priority to God's will, but the same writer, the Apostle Paul, elsewhere explicitly denies it to men: "So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy" (Romans 9:16, see also John 1:13). So, even in the face of all the calls of "free will," the Bible says that it is not by the will of men, but of God.