Do We Know Predestination at all?
Part Three – Predestination as Prefigured in the Patriarchs
Written by Dan McDonald
This is the third of a four part
blog on the doctrine of predestination. The
two previous blogs are available on the links to the right side of this page. I have sought in these blogs to present the
theme of predestination as a theme that is Christocentric. The primary lesson to be discerned in St.
Paul’s understanding of predestination is that God has chosen us in Jesus Christ. There is a great mystery in this doctrine of
predestination, a mystery I cannot begin to explain. It is a mystery in keeping with the great
mystery of salvation wherein we know only in part, but we are by God in his
mercy fully known. So we learn to seek
his understanding and his insights but remain content not in what and how well
we know something, but in the consolation that in our weakness God yet has
fully known and chosen us in his Son. It
is my suspicion that our being chosen in the Son; is a blessing extended toward
us in our union with Christ by grace through faith. That is as God has chosen to bless his Son
from the foundation of the earth by making him the one in whom all things are
created, and by whom the many are redeemed to become the one in whom the
heavens and earth are unified and held together in Christ; so in our
participation in him by faith we are included so much in the predestined
purposes God has for his son, that we are thereby made as God’s adopted
children predestined ones in Christ Jesus.
Beyond that I acknowledge that this blessing is surely by grace and
through faith and a mystery of which I am unable to explain.
It is my desire in this blog to show
that God’s choice of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob provided blessing
for those around them and did not indicate God’s rejection from salvation of
those passed over for the blessings of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. For God’s choice of the patriarchs was his
choice of the promised seed through whom all the nations and families of the
earth would be blessed. Thus even though
there is a clear choice of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob the stories of these
patriarchs in Genesis always reveal blessing to those over whom Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob were chosen.
God chose Abraham, from out of the
nations to become the father of a new nation, of a great nation. One might suppose this meant destruction for
the other nations, but God’s promise was not the destruction of the other
nations, but that through Abraham’s seed all the nations and all the families
of the nations would be blessed. This
prefigures the blessing to come through Christ and expresses the eternal choice
of Christ from before the foundations of the earth.
What about God’s choice of Isaac
over Ishmael? The unfortunate modern
tendency, (especially by many American Christians) to treat Middle Easterners
with contempt because of their association with Ishmael is a bigotry not
supported by the Scriptures. The wondrous
and touching story is told in Genesis 21:1-21 of how Ishmael was cast out of
the house of Abraham along with Ishmael’s mother Hagar. Yes, God chooses Isaac over Ishmael in regard
to God’s choice to bless Isaac with the promised descendant rather than Ishmael. But there are hardly any more touching
stories in the Scriptures than how God consoled Hagar as she is cast out of the
house of Abraham. Hagar, without means
of providing for her son, cast away from the tents of Abraham, is tempted to
abandon her son. She cries out to God to
at least be merciful to hide from her eyes his death. But God consoles her, speaks comfort to her,
and expresses how he has heard Ishmael’s cries and will make of him a great
nation because he is of the seed of Abraham.
This narrative shows us that God’s plan for the nations involving the
choice of Abraham and Isaac is not meant for Ishmael and Hagar’s destruction
but for their blessing as well as that of Abraham and Isaac.
The same is true regarding Jacob and
Esau. The two brothers become hostile
and hateful towards each another. One
was manipulative and self-serving, while the other was careless and seems in
his youth to have chosen the temporary over the everlasting. In exile from Esau Jacob becomes blessed of
God, and begins his return to the Promised Land. But at the river Jordan he faces Esau who has
become powerful. Jacob’s entrance into
the Promised Land appears to be blocked by Esau. Jacob, from his abundant blessings arranges
to bless his brother and to seek reconciliation. He arranges his life like the Prodigal
younger brother trying to come to appeal to the older brother, but in this case
the older brother sees Jacob; and he races towards him and embraces him. Jacob’s entrance into the land is made
possible by reconciling with his brother.
Jacob blesses Esau from the abundance of blessing with which God has
blessed Jacob. (Genesis 33) Likewise Esau embraces Jacob having been blessed.
The stories of Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob are stories of how God chose to bless one to bless and not to destroy the many.
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