John Calvin, and so many who later followed him, was confused about predestination, thinking that God chose some people to be damned.

But God wants all people to be saved and takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked.

This is the third in a series of posts responding to Calvin’s explanation of predestination in Book 3, Chapter 21, of Calvin’s Institutes.

In our first post we learned what “predestination” is, who Calvin is, and how he was confused about it.

In our second post we summarised Institutes 3.21, heard Calvin’s excellent description of how the Bible should be read about predestination, but also that he applied these principles inconsistently.

In this post, we start looking directly at what key passages of the Bible Calvin discusses in Institutes 3.21 actually say. And we’ll start with the part of the Bible that speaks most clearly on the doctrine of predestination: Romans 9-11.

1) Romans 9-11: Answers Six Questions About Unbelieving Jews

In 9:1-5 Paul sets up the whole of chapters 9-11 as an explanation for why many ethnic Israelites are not saved. He opens by saying that he so desires the salvation of all ethnic Israelites, that he would accept his own personal damnation if it saved them.

The rest of the three chapters are organised around six questions:

1) Has God’s Word failed because not all ethnic Israelites are saved?

God’s Word has not failed, because Abraham’s children have always been defined by the promise, not physical descent (9:6-8; Genesis 21:12). The promise says that God elected a certain physical line to serve God’s purpose (9:9-13; Abraham/Sarah → Isaac/Rebekah → Jacob rather than Esau; Genesis 18:10, 14; Malachi 1:2-3).

2) Is God unjust because not all Israel are saved?

This does not make God unjust, because he told Moses salvation depends on God’s mercy (9:14-16; Exodus 33:19). For example, God hardened Pharaoh to serve God’s purpose of the whole world knowing him (9:17-18; Exodus 9:16).

We cannot understand this (9:19-20). God is a potter, who is being patient with unbelievers to fulfil his purpose: that the elect from the whole world (i.e. Gentiles) can come to faith (9:21-24; Jeremiah 18:1-12).

God has done this before with Israel, when they themselves had become effectively Gentiles, he called them to be his (9:25-26; Hosea 2:23; 1:10). And Isaiah prophesied this would happen, both that many ethnic Israelites would reject God (Isaiah 10:22-23), but also that the remnant in Israel would be saved by God’s mercy (9:25-29; Isaiah 1:9).

3) So, why are Gentiles saved while ethnic Israelites are lost?

Gentiles are saved because they trusted God’s promises by faith, but ethnic Israelites are lost because they trusted in their works (9:30-33; Isaiah 28:16; 8:14). Paul wishes all ethnic Israelites would be saved by faith, but their problem is they are relying on their own righteousness, not God’s in Christ (10:1-4).

Even Moses taught that the Law is based on works (Leviticus 18:5), so we are only righteous by faith (10:5-8; Deuteronomy 30:12-14). This means we should have faith Jesus is Lord (10:9-13; Isaiah 28:16; Joel 2:32).

4) How do people get faith and why don’t Israel have it?

Faith comes to us as we hear the Gospel, so God has sent preachers of the Gospel (10:14-17; Isaiah 52:7; 53:1). Israel have heard the Gospel (Psalm 19:4) and understood it, but Moses said that because they didn’t believe the Gospel, it would go to the Gentiles (Deuteronomy 32:21), and so the Gentiles will have faith, despite Israel’s continual unbelief (10:18-21; Isaiah 65:1-2).

5) Has God rejected Israel?

God has not rejected his remnant from Israel who are chosen by grace (11:1-6; 1 Kings 19:10, 14, 18). The elect obtained righteousness, but the rest were hardened in judgment (11:7-10; Isaiah 29:10; Deuteronomy 29:4; Psalm 69:22-23)

6) So why has God hardened Israel?

God didn’t harden Israel to make them fall, but so that through their hardening, salvation would come to the Gentiles (11:11-12). If they believed it would be even better, so the more the Gospel is preached the better (11:13-16).

Salvation is like an olive tree: branches are broken off through their own unbelief, other branches are grafted in by God (11:17-24).

So, Israel have been partially hardened so that all the elect Gentiles and eventually all true Israel will be saved (11:25-27; Isaiah 59:20-21).

All the things God does are to serve the same purpose:

• God’s use of the Law in hardening Israel and judgment of all sinners;
• God’s use of the Gospel in the election of physical Israel and giving mercy to the Gentiles

…are all so that God may give mercy to everyone (11:28-32).

That doesn’t make sense to us. We can’t understand how or why God is working in this way—so don’t speculate (11:33-36; Isaiah 40:13; Job 35:7).

2) Calvin’s Key Confusions about Romans 9-11

We can illustrate Calvin’s confusions by asking how Paul answers several key questions in Romans 9-11:

Why and how are people saved?

Paul says some people are saved purely because of God’s mercy:

it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. (Romans 9:16)

God’s mercy comes to them through faith alone:

if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (Romans 10:9)

God gives them that faith through the Gospel:

So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. (Romans 10:17)

So God calls preachers to give people the Gospel:

And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? (Romans 10:14-15)

Calvin gets some of this right, but is confused about how faith is created and sustained. He thinks that confidence in God’s mercy is at least in part created in us through seeing the work of the Law in others:

We shall never feel persuaded as we ought that our salvation flows from the free mercy of God as its fountain, until we are made acquainted with his eternal election, the grace of God being illustrated by the contrast—viz. that he does not adopt all promiscuously to the hope of salvation, but gives to some what he denies to others. (Calvin’s Institutes 3.21.1)

Calvin is in disagreement with Paul when he makes the reprobation of others part of the way Christians become assured of God’s mercy. Because assurance of God’s mercy to me in Christ is faith.

Paul explains in Romans 10 that faith is given through the Gospel. This is consistent with the wider context. Back in Romans 3, Paul had explicitly said that God’s righteousness does not come through the Law, only through the Gospel.

But Calvin makes this mistake because he is confused about what Paul is actually saying about why God hardens people:

Why does God harden some people?

Paul has shown us the pattern of judicial hardening in Romans 1:18-32. It is a work of the Law, God’s wrath, which is his judicial/legal response to sin, his “righteous judgment” (Romans 2:5).

God hardens judicially: he gives sinners over to the unbelief and rebellion they have chosen. Paul presents this as God’s response to human sin, not a predestined decision to harden. It is part of the whole work of the Law in Romans 1:18-3:20, which is not an end in itself, but in order to lead people to Christ (Romans 3:21-22).

Now here in Romans 9-11, Paul says nothing different.

God hardened Pharaoh so that his name would “be proclaimed in all the earth.” (Romans 9:17)—this proclamation is the Gospel.

God hardened Israel in judgment (Romans 11:7-10). Paul quotes the curses of Deuteronomy (29:4), showing that this is a work of the Law. And then explicitly raises the question of whether this hardening is for the purpose of Israel’s damnation—and denies it:

So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means! (Romans 11:11)

Instead, the purpose of this work of the Law (the hardening of Israel) was to lead the Gentiles to Christ:

Rather, through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, (Romans 11:11)

And so make Israel jealous:

…so as to make Israel jealous. (Romans 11:11)

So that, in turn, Israel themselves would be led to Christ as well:

…in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of them. (Romans 11:14)

Paul is saying that God’s hardening of some (a judicial/legal response to sin) does have a purpose. But this purpose is not to “illustrate” the principle of free election as Calvin claims that by “giv[ing] to some what he denies to others” (Calvin’s Institutes 3.21.1). But Paul is actually very careful to always attribute the assurance that God is gracious to me (i.e. faith) to God’s mercy, never to his judgment.

In contrast to Calvin, Paul says that the purpose of God’s work of the Law and hardening is so that the Gospel may go out to all and that all may be saved. And by chapter 11, Paul even explicitly says that God’s goal is for the Gospel to return those who were at one time hardened so they may also be saved.

Why are some people not saved?

Paul says some people are not saved purely because of their own unbelief:

They were broken off because of their unbelief, (Romans 11:20)

Unbelief is not “believing the wrong things” or “not believing something” but is trust in yourself, rather than trusting in Christ:

they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. (Romans 9:32)

In contrast, Calvin locates the reason for unbelief in God’s decision before the beginning of time:

the eternal decree of God, by which he determined with himself whatever he wished to happen with regard to every man (Calvin’s Institutes 3.21.5)

But nowhere in Romans 9-11 does Paul say this.

Paul never says unbelief is because God chose people not to be saved or does not want them to be saved. In fact, he explicitly says the opposite. God has patiently and genuinely held out open hands to unbelievers:

“All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.” (Romans 10:21)

Why did God choose the physical nation of Israel?

Paul explains that God chose the physical nation of Israel so that the “purpose” of God’s election would continue (Romans 9:11). God’s “purpose” is for the Gospel to be preached to all (Romans 9:17), and ultimately for all to receive mercy:

they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy. For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all. (Romans 11:31-32)

Calvin is confused about this, because he thinks the election of the physical nation of Israel is given as an illustration, or example, to teach us about eternal election:

This God has testified, not only in the case of single individuals; he has also given a specimen of it in the whole posterity of Abraham, to make it plain that the future condition of each nation lives entirely at his disposal (Calvin’s Institutes 3.21.5)

If you read Romans 9 carefully, Paul never says the election of physical Israel is an illustration of eternal election. He explains carefully that the election of the physical nation has a salvation-historical purpose so that the Gospel can be proclaimed to all the world. And he lists the key ways that the election of physical Israel achieves this in Romans 9:4-5:

They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.

In summary, in Romans 9-11 Paul tells us that God’s purpose in all things is so that all may hear the Gospel and believe it. For this reason he chose the nation of Israel. For this reason, he has mercy on some and hardens others. For this reason he grafted in the Gentiles. For this reason he sent preachers to preach the Gospel.

He tells us that all those who have faith in this Gospel do so only because God elects them and grafts them in.

He also tells us that all those who fail to receive this Gospel do so only because of their own unbelief.

Why has God elected some in this way?
Why does he harden some and have mercy on others?

The only answer Paul gives us is not a hidden decree of damnation, but God’s revealed saving purpose: to make his name known in all the earth, to bring mercy to Gentiles, to provoke Israel to jealousy, and finally to have mercy on all.

But if that is God’s goal why does he work in the ways he does?

Because it doesn’t make any sense to me. Paul agrees, but on this question, God has not spoken other than to say:

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counsellor?” (Romans 11:33-34)

And therefore, when we get to this question, we must follow the method that Calvin wisely told us to use, but did not follow himself:

the moment we go beyond the bounds of the word we are out of the course… Let it, therefore, be our first principle that to desire any other knowledge of predestination than that which is expounded by the word of God, is no less infatuated than to walk where there is no path, or to seek light in darkness. Let us not be ashamed to be ignorant in a matter in which ignorance is learning. (Calvin’s Institutes 3.21.2)

To this, I say: “Amen.”