Our corporate worship service on Sunday, Feb 16 has been cancelled due to the Winter storm.

See you Thursday for prayer meeting!

Who Ultimately Causes Reprobation?

February 2, 2025 Preacher: John Bell Series: Sunday School: Soteriology

Unit 2: “Vessels of Wrath”

“Who Ultimately Causes Reprobation?”

  • God the Potter Prepared Vessels of Wrath for Destruction
  • God Destined Certain People to Disobey the Word and Stumble
  • God Designated Certain People for Condemnation
  • God Did Not Write the Names of Certain Individuals in the Book of Life
  • God Hid Jesus’s Message from the Wise and Understanding
  • Double Predestination: Are Election and Reprobation Symmetrical? (See Table 1)

 Table 1: Two Views on Double Predestination

Equal or Symmetrical
Double Predestination

Unequal or Nonsymmetrical
Double Predestination

God elects and reprobates

people in the same way.

God elects and reprobates

people in different ways.

Election and reprobation are equally active decrees.

Election and reprobation are not equally active decrees.

In reprobation, God sovereignly chose to work unbelief in certain unfallen individuals and condemn them.

In reprobation, God sovereignly and justly chose to pass over non-elect sinners and withhold his regenerating grace.

 

 Table 2 Eternal Death and Eternal Life in Romans 6:23

 

Eternal Death

Eternal Life

The payment for sin (a deserved paycheck)

A gracious gift from God (an undeserved present)

Not a gracious gift from God

Not a payment for righteousness

Highlights that God is just

Highlights that God is gracious

 

Table 3: Two Views on the Logical Order of Different Aspects of God’s Decree

Supralapsarianism
(May Affirm Equal OR Unequal Double Predestination)

Infralapsarianism
(Affirms Unequal Double Predestination)

1. Decree to elect some and pass over the rest

1. Decree to create humans

2. Decree to create humans

2. Decree to permit all humans to fall

3. Decree that all humans would fall

3. Decree to elect some and pass over the rest

4. Decree to send Christ to provide and accomplish salvation for the elect

4. Decree to send Christ to provide and accomplish salvation for the elect

5. Decree to send the Spirit to effectively call the elect

5. Decree to send the Spirit to effectively call the elect

 

  • God freely decided to supremely magnify his glory to his intelligent creatures.
  • In order to do this, God decided to create the universe, and our world in particular, as a theater for his extrinsic glory and placed his creatures within it to enjoy that glory.
  • God determined, however, that his glory be supremely magnified in the redemption of his creation and his particular image-bearing creatures—human beings. Thus, election finds its grounding in the broader scriptural motif of redemption.
  • Redemption is not necessary unless God has decreed humanity’s fall and that of creation as a whole.… God’s glory is best magnified in the juxtaposition of creation, fall, and redemption. Note that the accent never rests on evil (the fall), but always on redemption’s triumph over it.
  • God could have chosen to redeem all his image-bearing creatures, but he determined that redemption magnifies his glory more greatly when some are damned (reprobated) and others redeemed (elected).This merciful and gracious work of redemption is accomplished only through the incarnated Son of God so that he exists as the center of God’s glory.  (Scott Christensen)