Yeah, it's up to God's mercy. I mean, no one can say, God, I deserved it. I mean, everyone of us, God, He, on Judgment Day, He could come down with a list on every one of us and say, look, I've got all these reasons to cross you off. But on the other hand, he's not going to be arbitrary. But on the other hand, he's not going to be arbitrary. He's going to have his reasons, but he doesn't have to explain his reasons to us. David Bercot, welcome back to the podcast.
It's good to have you on again. Good being here Reagan. So we did a previous episode with you about the book of Romans. And like you just finished, compiling a commentary based on the early church writings about Romans. And today I want to tackle a topic that I don't believe we've ever covered on this podcast, and that is predestination, Calvinism, that whole package, essentially, because a section of Scripture that's often used for that framework would be Romans nine.
And you address that quite a bit in your book. And I would be really curious to hear your thoughts on this. So we're going to plow into that and, and we'll see where it takes us. But before we jump in to the text, can you first define what is predestination, Calvanism, like what do we mean when we're using terms like that?
Okay. So predestination as it's used in Calvinism and before that from Augustine, the doctrine says that before the creation either of the world or of or of mankind, that God arbitrarily chose who he was going to save and who he was going to eternally. Damn. And that that arbitrarily is important In other words, it was not based on his foreknowledge that he looked in the future. And oh, Reagan. Yeah, this guy's living a godly life. This guy has faith in Christ.
So yes, I'm going to, have him among the elect. Is that doesn't have anything to do with you. It just he just picked you. You live a godly life because you are of the elect, not not the other way around. That he picked you because you were living a godly life. So, the basis and it all comes from Augustine was this thought that we play no role in our own salvation. Everything is from God, our faith, our initial belief, the godly works we do, the whole thing. God does every bit of that.
And yeah, we're basically, yeah, pieces of wood. You know, they wouldn't say that that that he moves around, you know, but, they wouldn't say that that last part. But I think the rest would be all language that they would be comfortable with, as in, like there is there's nothing we can do to, to choose or to become a Christian, etc., because God has chosen all of that for essentially like he's that, he's the mover, and that makes all this possible. It's nothing to do with us.
okay, so let's let's get into Romans nine then a little bit, because this is one that's going to come up quite a bit in conversation. So I'm going to pull a couple examples, just as kind of places to start. And we'll just kind of kind of use those as launch points. So for example verses 12 and 13, it talks about how God loved Jacob and hated Esau. It says in Romans nine verses 12 to 13, and it says before they were ever born, before the idea that done good or bad, you know, that's the claim.
Are people misreading that or they misconstruing that passage to use that to say therefore that's pre you know, predestination. Yeah. People are misunderstanding it. I think to be fair, it's not like people are twisting it. Like, where do you get that? I mean, I think somebody reading this, it would be easy to come to that conclusion.
But the problem is you then have to ignore all the rest of the Bible, you know, because every time God gives a commandment, the implication is obvious that we can obey it. I mean, why would he tell us to do something? Yeah, well, I can't I can't do it, you know? I mean, you have to take the whole Bible and say, well, there's this God who’s basically playing games.
He tells the Israelites to do this even though he knows they can't do it, or he tells them to do it, and he knows they will do it because he's he's going to do it for them, you know? And then Jesus complimenting like, just, yesterday in Sunday School, we were talking about this centurion. And Jesus says, I've never seen such remarkable faith. Well, if Calvinism is true, God gave him the faith. So what's remarkable? Why? Why praise him?
He didn't have anything to do with his, with his faith. So. And like I say, this began with Augustine in the fifth century. And, chapter nine was, you know, one of the ones. And like I said, I think it's fair to say just reading that apart from the rest of the scripture, you could reasonably come to that conclusion. Now, the early Christians didn't do that, though.
You know, they read this and they said, well, yeah, this sounds like this on the surface, but yeah, what about all the rest of the Bible? And they were having to deal with it because the Gnostics, many of the Gnostic groups who John identifies as the Antichrist, they taught predestination that, you know, there's nothing you can do about it. It's all been decided ahead of time. You're either part of the elect or you're or you're not.
So the early Christians actually talk about this subject a lot because they're having to counter the Gnostics. So and without the early Christians, I don't I mean, like I say, this was always a mystery to me. I knew it couldn't mean what it says on the face just because it contradicts other scriptures. But I never felt real comfortable. And the early Christians.
Yeah. I mean, it's just so amazing how they they could follow Paul's arguments even though they get, you know, sometimes very, what rearranged. I mean, Paul doesn't follow this logical order we were just talking about in the previous podcast. So this one, you go back to verse six and I mentioned just yesterday I was listing the six, points of Paul's great argument. And one of them is that God has not been unfair to the Jews in extending grace to the Gentiles and bringing them in.
And so Paul spends a lot of time on that. Now, that aspect of those six things, most of those I would have seen in Romans, I would not have seen that very much, that God has not been unfair to the Gentiles. They they recognize. Okay, Paul, is is bringing this up a lot because the Jews are making that argument. This if what you're saying is true, then God isn't fair. Okay. So and yeah, how can these Gentiles come in? They don't have the blood of Abraham.
So Paul points out, look, there are a lot of people who have Abraham's blood and they're not included as part of Israel. So he begins, he says, verse six, but it is not that the Word of God has taken no effect, for they are not all Israel who are of Israel. I think of Israel means of Jacob. Okay, so just because you're a descendant of Jacob, Paul is saying it doesn't mean you're part of the true Israel, the the Israel of God. Okay. And and this is a shocking thing to say to Jews.
Now, it's it should have been no issue to Christian Jews, but it apparently was the fact that he he has to explain it so many times. But to the Jews in general, that would have been, you know, just almost impossible for them to accept. Okay. So it says, nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham, but in Isaac your seed shall be called. So his line of argument is okay. You're saying that, just because we are fleshly Jews doesn't mean we're part of this Israel of God.
And and they're saying, all right, well, you know, you prove that. So his argument is okay, think about it now, there are a lot of people on earth who are fleshly descendants of Abraham, but they are not part of Israel. And you Jews yourselves recognize that. Look at Ishmael. Okay. So he was part of the covenant of circumcision. He's an heir of Abraham, but he's not included in Israel. All right. So just because you have Abraham's blood, it gets you nowhere.
Look at the sons of Keturah. Was it 12? Well, yeah, it's a number of sons. And they started tribes and all that. They're not part of Israel yet they all have Abraham's blood. So he says. So. Yeah. You have to agree with me that just because you have Abraham's blood, that doesn't get you anywhere. All right. That is those who are the children of the flesh. Okay. So just because you are a physical descendant, a genetic descendant of Abraham, these are not the children of God.
It doesn't make you a child of God, which is what John the Baptist preached. You know, he said, God can raise up children of Abraham from these from these stones. So this is all consistent with what we see in the Gospels. But the children of the promise are counted as the seed. Okay. And here's where it gets a little bit more in the Greek reasoning.
They're just a little bit harder to follow his argument, but he's saying, okay, it has to be people who are part of, the promise of of course, the Jews would have said, well, well, we are, but okay. He develops this at this time I will come and Sarah shall have a son. Okay. So so Abraham then had, I guess, 14 sons, if I count correctly, but only one of the 14 was a child of promise, and that was Isaac.
Okay, so like I say, the vast majority, all these people with Abraham's blood who are out there now, you know, make up a lot of the Arab world, probably who knows what other people groups would have some of Abraham's blood in them. They're not counted because they're not a child with the promise. But, Isaac was and the promise was, you know that. Sarah. She'll have a son. Okay. Now, here's where it gets a little bit more confusing. And not only this, but when Rebecca also conceived.
Now, this says by one man and their understanding it to say by one act of procreation, which is a lot more significant even by our father Isaac. Okay. So. Ishmael didn't have the same mother as Isaac, nor did the sons of Keturah. But now when you get to Jacob and Esau, you've got the same father, the same mother, the same act of procreation, you know, from one conception or one whatever. That's how close it is.
But he's saying, even though it's that close, one is part of the seed and the other one isn't. And it's like, so his point is, it doesn't mean anything. You can be that close to Abraham. You're his grandson. You are a son of Isaac. You know, your own brother is part of it. But you aren't.
Even though you're twins, you know, okay, for the children not yet being born, nor having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election now a better rendition today because election people think oh, that means predestination. Election just means to choose. Well, I mean, we're going to have an election here in the United States in two months. Yeah, we just choose somebody. Elect means who do you choose? You know, but because of Calvinism, you have people today.
Oh, election. That means predestination. No, it means it just was an ordinary Greek word. It means to choose. Okay. So God has chosen before they did that according to his choice might stand not of works, but of him who calls. Okay, now, one of the things that Chrysostom says quite a few times when he's discussing Romans is we've got to keep in mind what Paul's point is, because if you don't, you're going to go off on a lot of strange tangents and some wrong doctrines.
Okay, so what is the point? He's trying to get across. The point he's trying to get across is that the Gentiles are part of the promised seed through faith. And the Jews were saying, but how can a Gentile, a filthy Gentile, who worships stone idols, who probably lives in immorality, you know, eats all these defiled foods and everything, and they can just come in and be saved like that. And his argument is, you know, we get saved, we come in, not through works.
Okay. It is, you know, God's choice. And he's saying, okay, look at these two people groups, the Jews and the Gentiles. They're like Jacob and Esau. Now he's talking the promise to Rebecca. He said, in verse 12, the older shall serve the younger. And before that he doesn't quote it. He says, there's two nations inside of you. So he's talking about two nations that are inside of Rebecca.
One would be the Israelites, the descendants of Jacob, the other would be the Edomites, the the descendants of Esau. Okay, so it's two nations. He's not talking about two people. And this is where people get messed up that see, God decided to he hated Esau and he loved Jacob before they were ever born and all that. But he said, there's two nations inside of you, and the younger shall serve. The older shall serve the younger. Now that was never true with regard to Jacob and Esau.
Esau never served Jacob, if anything, was the other way around. You remember when Jacob came back, you know, boy, he bows down before Esau, you know, brings all these presents and all that. Esau never bowed down to Jacob or served him in any way. It was the Edomites and the Israelites, okay, the two nations.
And he's saying that, okay, before these either nation had done any works, he had already prophesied that the younger, which was the Israelites, would be served by the older the who would be the Edomites. Even though we were talking about a few minutes apart in birth. But, you know, you still had a younger and a and an older. Okay. Now, what always tripped me up in that most people, they don't go and look up these verses.
And so they're thinking that the scriptures are saying that God says, I love Jacob before he was ever born, just out of arbitrary. And I hated Esau before he was ever born. But Paul, they're the first one. The older shall serve the younger. That was the prophecy given to Rebecca. When he told her, there's two nations now, that last one is not a prophecy, it’s from Malachi. It's a prophecy only in the sense of God declaring his judgment on Edom. But this is long after Jacob and Esau are dead.
This is more than a thousand years later. And he's. When he says that when you read the whole passage is from Malachi, I may have it here in the, the commentary. He is saying this was the prophecy that the older would serve the younger. Now here is how it was fulfilled. It. And then he quotes. So he quotes Genesis and he turns right around and he quotes from Malachi. So let me see. I think I have it here in there. So it's in Malachi chapter one, verses two and three.
Jacob, I have love, but Esau I have hated, and I have made his mountains to desolation. And I've given his heritage to the jackals of the wilderness. So when you read that. So this is Malachi right at the end, towards the end of the Old Testament. So Genesis is the first book, and this is in the Protestant Bibles. Malachi is the last book. So he's saying, okay, this was the prophecy, and you see how it was fulfilled. He says, this is how these brothers will be.
But he doesn't say I hated him one and love the other until the end, until they prove themselves. And the Israelites, at least at this time, are serving God. Not very well, but this is after the, after the Babylonian captivity. And the Israelites, God loves them because they're serving him. The Edomites are persecuting the, the Israelites.
Well, and so really, you could say Malachi is not even referring to Jacob as an individual, Esau as individual, because he's writing hundreds or a thousand years later. Exactly. it's the name. Okay. I missed that too. It wasn't like I say, yeah, the early Christians, they got that I mean immediately. And it's like, And their knowledge of the Old Testament is just remarkable. I mean, they and they didn't have all the helps, you know, you know, I've got to go to a commentary to find it and.
Yeah, and all that. So okay, so he's saying but his point was just because you have the blood of Abraham proves nothing, you know, because with regard to Abraham's very sons, 13 out of 14 had his blood and that got them nowhere. Only, you know, only one of the 14 and then you get down to his grandchildren equally Abraham's blood the same, mother the same, you know, conception, and one is chosen and the other one isn't. And he says this by choice.
Now, this is where the early Christians would differ from Augustine and Calvin, that he doesn't say this choice was arbitrary, so they actually believed in predestination. The early Christians, that is, that God knows whether you're going to be among the eventual ones who will be in heaven, and whether, you know, I will, whether anybody you know in this room will be or won't be. God already knows that, but not because he arbitrarily chose it, but because of his foreknowledge.
He knows what the future holds. So he's already chosen us long ago. I mean, we are part of the chosen, assuming we are. You know, before, you know, Abel was was ever born or, you know, the world was created through his foreknowledge. So, yeah, for the early Christians, this was no big deal. Well, yeah, he knew what kind of person Esau would turn out to be and what kind of person Jacob would turn out to be. And then. And Paul shows will see his prophecy was correct.
Because when you get to Malachi. Yeah. Look how they turned out. The Edomites were worshiping idols. They attacked their brothers. You know, the Israelites, the Israelites are serving God at that time, not worshiping idols anymore and all of that. Okay, so the greater fulfillment, the point that and here's where if you compare with Galatians, Paul uses a very similar example in Galatians with regards to Sarah and Hagar, and he says that you think Sarah would represent the Israelites.
And Hagar, who was not, you know, his wife would represent the Gentiles or something. But Paul reverses it and he says, Hagar represents the Jews because they're in bondage. They're serving the law. They're in bondage to the law. And Sarah would represent the Israel of God, which is made up of Gentiles as well as as Jews. And he does the same thing here. So, Esau is the older brother. He's like fleshly Israel. They were here for 1500 years before Christ came.
Jacob would represent the church, would represent Christians, the Israel of God, who are the younger brother. They came along later. And so this is also a prophecy about the church, about, the Jews, that in the end, the greater one would be God would choose the Israel of God made up of Gentiles and believing Jews. The younger brother, in other words, or is going to be the chosen one, not the fleshly Jews. Now, you’re going to have to think on it. I mean, I yeah, I was on this for days.
It's like, okay, you guys are seeing this and let me go over this, okay. The so the older one. But then it all it kind of came together just like he said. Just like Ishmael persecuted. Isaac. Yeah. And it's the same way the Jews are persecuting the Christians in the same way here. You know that it's it's the Christians who are the faithful ones, and the fleshly Jews are the ones who, God has hated in the sense that they've rejected his son. I mean, the offer was still open to them.
We're just talking about as a nation. Wow. That's. Yeah. That's pretty interesting though because like if you're just taking a glancing reading at that, I, I can see like you said when we started out, you could, you could see someone using this to say, oh yeah, predestination right there. But we're like, you're, you're trying to like look at the layers that are here in the story. What it’s referring to back in the Old Testament?
You know, Genesis, Malachi, these are the places there's a lot more going on here, right? I yeah. Wow. I think it's going to take me a minute to untangle. I feel like I need to go dig into that some more. That is really, really interesting. Yeah. as I mentioned in the, the earlier session, the, it's one argument from the middle of the first chapter after he gets past his, you know, greetings and all that, all the way to the end of chapter 13. It is one long argument.
It was not divided into chapters, into verses and subheadings. It's one long thing. And a big part of that is God has not been unfair to the Jews. He has every right to pick the Gentiles to be his people. The Gentiles who believe, because he picked Jacob before Jacob had any works or anything, and before the Gentiles have any works, he picked them. He prophesied in Hosea that, you know, they would become his people.
But in both cases, Jacob did have godly works later on, and Christians have to have godly works later on too. But as far as his choosing, yeah, he's he did that, you know, from the outset before there was any visible evidence. But he knew in his foreknowledge how things were going to be. Wow. Okay. So, so let's, let's then look at the verse immediately after. Right. So if you look at verse 14 back in Romans nine here we see we're just looking at the Esau Jacob situation.
And then it says that God shows mercy on whoever he wills. And then if you keep going to verse 16 says, it is not of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. Yes. So that again, seems like we're pointing pretty strongly towards what Calvanism would say. See, there you go. That's that's what we're talking about. Yeah. And so what, the early Christians, because they're having to respond to the not to Augustine, but to the, Gnostics who were see, we don't have anything to do with it.
It's all predestined for us. And they said, okay, go to that passage where he says that to Moses. This was right after they made the golden calf. And, you know, God tells Moses, you know, stand aside, I'm going to destroy this people. And Moses said, you know, don't do that. If you're going to do that, blot me out as well. And God says, no, I'm not going to blot you out, but I'll have mercy on whom I choose to have mercy. And, I will have compassion on whomever I have.
Compassion. So all of the Israelites deserved to be destroyed, but he didn't destroy all of them. He only destroyed, a minority of them, who had worshiped the Golden Calf. And he doesn't have to explain to us his reasons why he had mercy on those people and why other ones got destroyed. I mean, we don't know. But he doesn't say it was arbitrary either. So he may have read the hearts where he can read people's hearts. We know when Jesus was here, he knew what people were thinking and all of that.
So maybe the ones he had mercy on or the ones that he knew would repent and and change their conduct, at least for a time, and that the other ones were hopeless. I mean, you know, he says nothing here about being arbitrary. I just that, hey, I decide who I'm going to have mercy on and salvation, either as a people group or as individuals. Yeah, it's up to God's mercy. I mean, no one can say, God, I deserved it.
I mean, everyone of us, God, he and Judgment Day, he could come down with a list on every one of us and say, look, I've got all these reasons to cross you off. But on the other hand, he's not going to be arbitrary. He's going to have his reasons, but he doesn't have to explain his reasons to us. So then, is it not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy? And again, this was one the Gnostics really, really used. And again, he's talking about the people group.
So he picked Israel. It had nothing to do with their righteousness. They were slaves in Israel when he picked them. They didn't like Moses. I mean, they started disobeying lost faith before they ever crossed the Red sea. Complained the whole time they weren't chosen because they were so great. I mean, God, God was the one who decided to choose them. And it's the same with the Gentiles.
When he decided, I'm going to include the Gentiles in this, the Jews can't say, well, that's not fair, because we're godly. And they weren’t. It's like, hey, when I chose you, you know, you were miserable slaves worshiping idols in Egypt. And you know, I had mercy on you. And if I want to have compassion on the Gentiles, I have every right to do that. And in the end, it's what I decide that's going to be the deciding factor, not what you know, those people groups do now as an individual.
So he's talking about people groups and that's how they understood it. But if we apply it as individuals, it's still true that again, there's never a thing of arbitrary. And I choose people without any reason, which is what Augustine is saying. If there is a reason, then then, then that means we do have a role in our salvation and all that. So is real important to Augustine that nothing to do with God's foreknowledge is just boom, boom.
I picked this one and I know he's he's not saying that, but he is saying that in the end. it's going to be up to God to show mercy. And that's going to mean more than anything we do. It doesn't mean that how we live and our faith won't be a deciding factor. But even with them, as I just mentioned, none of us on Judgment Day will be able to say, look, I had I lived such a godly life. My faith was so strong. You owe me heaven. No, it's going to be up to God's mercy in the end.
But that doesn't mean because there's so many other verses say he is going to look at the fruit we produce. He is going to look at how we we run, how we obey him, what our faith is. So you don't take one verse in the Bible and then cross off all these other verses. This is one thing I notice when I read the early Christians for the first time, which is now been nearly 40 years ago. It's like, oh, they take everything. I was used to church groups that would have these proof text.
They pick here, they pick there, they ignore this. The early Christians take the totality. You look at the whole Bible and particularly the whole New Testament. And what does the whole thing say? And then you read every verse in the context of the whole message and the whole message of the New Testament is, yes, how we live does play a role in our final salvation.
Our faith does play a role, but ultimately God's mercy is a bigger factor than either our faith or our obedience is what Paul is saying. Okay? And then he continues, for the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, for this very purpose, I have raised you up, that I may show my power in you, and that my name may be declared in all the earth. Therefore he has mercy on whom he wills, and whom he wills, he hardens. Okay. So again, oh, well he hardened Pharaoh. So he made Pharaoh do all this bad stuff.
And yet the other scriptures say there is no unrighteousness with with God. And I think that'd be pretty unrighteous to make you do something evil and then punish you. You know something, Reagan? Why did you do that? I had no say in it. You made me do it. That's it. Doesn't matter. Boom. I'm going to punish you anyway. It's like, well, that's not again. You're going to take the whole Bible. Look at the character of God.
Is that the character of God that he would do that makes someone do something bad and then turn around and punish them when they had no choice in the matter. So he doesn't say again that, this was all arbitrary. So in his foreknowledge, he could see what kind of person Pharaoh was. Now, there were other kings. If they had been given the signs Pharaoh was given, they would have repented. We know that for sure, because think of Nineveh. He didn't get given any signs.
It just had Jonah preach that God is going to destroy, you know, Nineveh and how many days it was no miracles at all, no nothing. And yet that king man, he repented. He told the whole nation, you know, we're all going to put on sackcloth, even the animals and all of that. So, yeah, some people respond, Pharaoh should have. I mean, he got shown all these miracles that would have convinced almost anyone. But God knew ahead of time. No, he's that hard hearted.
And in some of the when you go back to Genesis and read the account, it sometimes says Pharaoh hardened his heart. Sometimes it says God hardened his heart. So God already knew the response all of this would have. So if you recall the account in Genesis, you know God would do one of these miracles and Pharaoh would say, oh, please, you know, take away the frogs or whatever it was. You know, I'm sorry I’ll let the Israelites go. And so God would remove the plague.
Now he was hardening Pharaoh's heart by doing that, which sounds counterintuitive, but he knew what kind of person Pharaoh was that Pharaoh looked at that as weakness on God's part. Yeah. This guy gives in really easy. And so. Yeah. Then the next one. Okay, I'll let him go. Even knowing he wasn't going to let him go, because he saw this week God, Jehovah, who? You know, I can just, you know, monkey around with him.
And God played. Yeah. He he hard every time he did a miracle, it hardened Pharaoh's heart. He just got more sure that. Yeah, I'm the guy running the show here. And I'll make God take the the plague away. And each time God took it away until the very end. But God was doing this for a reason. He wasn't just playing around with Pharaoh. A great multitude of Egyptians left with the Israelites when they left. So Pharaoh's heart was being hardened by these these, plagues.
But there was a great company of Egyptians whose hearts were softened by the exact same miracles. It's like, wow, there is a genuine God out there who's more powerful than our God. So? yeah, the same act can harden one person's heart and soften someone else's. Origin’s famous example that I love is he said, take a piece of, wet clay and a piece of wax and put them out in the sun. Okay? The very same sun, the very same hour, you know, put them there together on a hot afternoon.
Now that wet clay is going to harden up from the heat of the sun, that very same heat is going to make that wax get very soft. It's the same action but two different results depending on the substance. And so it's the same way with God. When he did these plagues, it softened the hearts of many, most of the Egyptians. I mean more Egyptians than it hardened. And yet Pharaoh, it hardened his heart because of what he was inside, not because God made him that way, but because of his own evil heart.
So we have to keep you're basically saying you have to keep in mind the again, the broader context of that story and say, well, who was Pharaoh, what was he, how was he responding or choosing to respond to these things. Yeah. That makes yeah, that makes sense. Now, this is where Paul like we're we were saying earlier how he is hard. Now, another writer might have made these points a little bit more clear. You know, he throws it in there together.
And the early Christians I was trying to find this passage and I couldn't find it, before this interview. I think it's in Second Corinthians. But Paul, when he was writing, you know, said, I'm not I'm not very skilled at writing. And and none of us ever notice that. It's not quoted very much. But, the early Christians, almost every one of them quoted that is this is. Yeah. Paul. Yeah. He's, you know, a tremendous apostle, tremendous evangelist, tremendous church planner.
But yeah, when it comes to writing, he doesn't lay things out quite as clear as, say, James does. Or I was going to say. Yeah, you look at someone like like James, it's kind of it feels like, like you can kind of just read it and like, oh, okay, got it. Whereas the passages we're looking at are like, okay, we're going to have to there's layers.
There's yeah, there's a lot of pointing back to things, you know, even the stuff you're pointing back to in Genesis, in Malachi with the Esau Jacob thing was just I hadn't thought of that before, you know, it's like, oh, yeah, you would have to know those passages for that to make more sense. Like, what is Paul quoting here? Yeah. And think the way an ancient Greek Easterner thinks, which is different than than the way we think.
And it's interesting that doesn't get quoted as much as it should, but, Peter, he says, and I can't quote him verbatim, but, there's many things in Paul that are hard to understand and that, you know, the wicked and perverse twist. So that is the Holy Spirit telling us that in Paul there are things hard to understand. So when we jump in and think we can just take proof texts, we're ignoring the warning. The Holy Spirit has warned us, be careful.
He didn't say that about James. And when you read James, hey, be careful. There's things in order to understand. Or he didn't say that about Peter, but Paul, he says, yeah, in his letters there are things hard to understand. So the Holy Spirit is telling us, okay, he's my chosen vessel. He he writes like a prophet. He doesn't write like a lawyer who lays things out, you know, really, really clear. And so be careful when you're reading because there are things hard to understand.
But if you compare them with the rest of Scripture, they become clear or it helps to make them clear. But if you just grab, like Romans nine and you ignore all the rest of Scripture, yeah, you're going to come to some really, wrong conclusions. And would that have been maybe this is getting a little off topic, but back to the context of how we got here with the predestination Calvinism thing. Do you feel that is what Augustine would have been doing?
Like was he taking Romans nine just this chunk and extrapolating that into something, or was it part of something else that caused him to come up with some of these ideas, and so forth? Or maybe, maybe that's a bit off topic, but it'd be kind of interesting, know, like, where's this stuff come from? yeah, I know a lot of people. And there's good, cause behind it. But again, I can't read his heart. Now, I mentioned, you know, the Gnostics, they were using all of this.
And the early Christians discuss this because, of how having to counter the Gnostics now, I, I did not mention in the other session that origin had been a Gnostic, not origin. Augustine, and had been a Gnostic. Oh, interesting. Yeah. So he had a Christian mother, but he rejected Christianity. And then he joined a sect called the Manichean. They were a Gnostic sect, but he was mixed with a bunch of eastern religion from Persia.
The same time, I think he was 11 years in there as one of their disciples, and they would have taught predestination. So that has been one of the questions that all we can do is ponder, because I can't read his heart if they left that thinking in him, you know why he was so comfortable with grabbing predestination? Because that's how he had been thinking all of those years. It may not have been. You know, I can't I can't prove that.
But it certainly raises a question now, how did something that was part of Gnosticism that the church finally, you know, shut the Gnostics up, defeated them,, and then it suddenly comes in the church from someone who used to be a Gnostic. It's yeah, it definitely raises some strong suspicions, but I don't know. But like I say, on the other hand, yeah, he went into this crazy thing. I've got to counter Pelagius.
And even if I go against everyone who lived before me, you know, in fact, somebody pointed that out to him. Well, no one has ever taught this before. And Augustine's response was, well, they weren't having to deal with Pelagius. It's like, well, no, that's a dumb way to come up with doctrine, you know, that you come up with something. It's like, well, no one has taught that.
Well, yeah, but they weren't dealing with, you know, one of these megachurch pastors who's I mean, come on, Christian faith is a Christian faith. If a heretic comes along, we don't change it in order to shut the heretic up. I mean, that's that's a really dumb approach to to scripture, but, yeah, he gave himself away. This is yeah, I'm trying to counter him.
And so, yeah, I'm having to go, you know, and it's like, well, you've just basically condemned yourself with your own words and yeah, you, you have ended up corrupting Christianity because you want to get the better of the argument against Pelagius. And then ultimately these ideas continue on through these writings.
And eventually, of course, Calvin comes along from what I understand refines, hones these things and really builds them well, something that's obviously still talk and used quite a bit today. But really they're just building on each other. Is that a way of saying it like, Yeah. So Augustine like saying it became the official doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church.
But then during the Middle Ages, a Catholic church kind of pulled back because this is like, yeah, this is a little extreme to say, God predestined everyone and they haven't even done anything wrong. And so you're doomed to hell. And even what gives it away is Augustine says, now we got to be careful when we preach this, because, you know, it's going to, discourage people. Or maybe they'll quit living a godly life. And it's like, now wait a minute.
If we don't have any say or if we don't have any part in what we do, then you can preach whatever you want. Because if they've been chosen to be the elect, then they're going to do the right thing. If they're not of the elect, it doesn't matter what you preach. I mean, you can tell people to go out and do wicked. They're going to do what God has chosen for them to do. So why are you afraid to preach this?
You know, so yeah, it's funny how Augustine kind of and this was the other thing people said. So, you know, so why why do you preach than the need to live a godly life? And why do you preach against sin if it's all predestined? And his answer was, well, Paul did it well. Yeah, but you haven't proven that Paul taught predestination. Oh, Paul preached against sin. So I'm just doing what Paul did. Yeah, but you haven't proven yet that Paul taught arbitrary predestination.
Again, the early Christians would have said, yes, the Bible teaches predestination based on God's foreknowledge, but not arbitrary predestination, where God we do something because God made us do it, but rather God chose us before we were created because he saw in the future how we were going to respond to the gospel message. And that's, that's something I mean there's a lot
wow. There's a, there's a lot here because this, this is such a big theological framework that's used, but, and there's so many different angles and so many different opinions on this. But Romans nine tends to be like that would be one of the main passages, right. That that's used. It's not the only one, but I would say it's probably the key chapter. There's also I think it's the first chapter of Ephesians is, is is quoted as, as well. And yeah, you're asking about Calvin.
So his genius was he took Augustine what Augustine taught him and built a very nice system. I mean, his, the Institutes of Christian Religion. I, you know, I read those years ago and really, that's. I mean, that's a chunk. That's a lot of work. Yeah, it's a lot of a lot of words It was when I was on a search for what was true, and I was reading Luther and Calvin and the Anabaptists. And so when I read the three and it's like, oh, the Anabaptists fit what I'm reading.
And the I had read the early Christians before I got that far. And it's like, this is fitting. The early Christians, you know, where Luther and Calvin were both teaching predestination. We usually think of Calvin, but actually Luther taught it as well. Because they both were following Augustine. But what Calvin's genius was to take Augustine and build this system that is fairly logical, easy to to follow. And it's always obviously been successful.
I mean, it's still being taught, you know, today by by a lot of people. So, you know, I have to give credit to Calvin as a gifted teacher. I just think he's, you know, he's mistaken. It's not what he taught was not the historic faith. But, yeah, he was gifted nevertheless. And putting it together. So one other question here, what about the illustration of the potter in the clay. So it seems like that's saying God molds us however he chooses.
And we really don't have any grounds and we don't have any say in it. Like, yeah. Like what do we do with what do we do with imagery like that? Is that extrapolating too much into that imagery? Is that putting our perspective on something else? Yeah, explain that. I think reading that again, I think it's reasonable, you know, if someone reads what Paul says there and, and, that. Oh, he's just saying that we're nothing but clay and God does with with us. What he wants.
But I'm saying you could conclude that. But, Paul, it's not what Paul says. You will say then to me. Why does he still find fault for who has resisted his will? No man but who are you to answer back to God? So this isn't an Armenian that, you know, Paul is talking about and and God is saying, who are you to answer back to me? These are the Jews. Okay, so a lot of Romans, one reason it's a hard book to follow. And part of it, Paul takes on the persona of, unbelieving Jew.
Other parts he carries on a dialog with an unbelieving Jew and, but he doesn't lay all this out. It's crystal clear. I think most people reading it realizes, you know, in part of it he's dialoging with a fictional person, you know, but he just he'll be doing that. And then the next verse, of course, there weren't verses, but the next sentence, he's suddenly somewhere else. Again, origins, illustration of he's he's taking you on this tour of this.
You know, palace and and yeah, he just goes from room to room and you only see a little bit of it, and then you're in another room before you know it. So. No. Oh, man. But who are you to answer back to God? So the Calvinist would read the oh man that Paul is talking to is being, well, like, say, an Armenian, someone who believes in free will. Now he's talking to this unbelieving Jew who's saying God has been unfair, you know, and Paul is saying, you know, who are you to answer back to God?
We as humans can pry, can ask questions about God. But there's a limit to how far any of us are entitled to to pry into why God does this or that. I mean, there's a lot of things that as a fallen human, I would think, well, if I were God, this is what I would do. And, you know, we wouldn't have evil on the earth and we wouldn't have this or that. Yeah, but God's ways are different. They're higher than ours, so much higher that we're not going to comprehend everything he does.
Now, it doesn't mean that we can put wicked things on God and just say, well, you don't understand, but we're not going to fully understand all of his ways. And he's just saying, you know, who are you to, you know, form this or that? So you're complaining as a Jew, that God is being gracious to the Gentiles, but who are you to complain? God can be gracious whoever he wants. He can take these Gentiles. You know, John's words was he can raise children to Abraham from these stones.
You know, in the same way here he can take these Gentiles and make them into a vessel that is worthy. Now, the key, thing on this one that the early Christians point to is second Timothy two 2321 and this is such an illustration of why you never just take one passage of Scripture without looking at the whole picture, because Paul says something very similar there. We're here. He says, why did you make me like this out of this same lump of clay?
Makes one vessel for honor and another for dishonor. And it sounds like, oh, okay. He just arbitrarily does this. But then in second Timothy, this is still Paul. He says now in a large house, they are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and clay. Some are for honor and some for dishonor. Almost the same things he’s saying in Romans. But now listen.
Therefore, if anyone cleanses, cleanses himself from these, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified and suitable for the master's use, prepared for every good work. So there, he says, if we cleanse ourselves of the wickedness, then we can be a vessel of honor. So yeah, the early church, when they read Romans nine, they also read Second Timothy. They say, look at the other part that Paul says he uses the same illustration and he's showing.
No, we do play a role in this, that if we cleansed ourselves from wickedness, we leave those things behind. God can use us. Now, the other aspect of that is we're not going to do all of that on our own power. God, you know, plays a key role in, bringing us to faith. Jesus said, no one can come to the father unless I. No one can come to me unless the father draws him. And he said, without me you can do nothing.
So there's the early Christians would have seen, not Monergism, which is what Calvin to say, that there's only one force mono the the all of the force energy comes from God. We do nothing. And the early Christian was said, no, it's synergism. It's God's power, and it's us responding to God's power, not because it has to be that way. God could God could do the other. But it's not God's nature. He wants people who love him, so he gives us the opportunity.
But he knows in our fallen nature, without his help, we would never make it without him drawing us, him giving us power. On the other hand, he doesn't do it all for us. We we still have to believe he's not going to do our believing for us. He's going to do our obeying for us. But he will give us the power to make it possible to do both the believing and the obeying.
So it's the two things working together that we see when we take the whole Bible and not just, you know, select verses that it's it's man has a role and God plays a role, you know, in our salvation. wow. So this this is a lot to to untangle could because there is so much wrapped up in these frameworks, you know, with, with Augustine, Luther, Calvin, those are the big names. But there's others as well. And obviously what we're seeing in Romans and all throughout Scripture.
So first, as you're bringing this up, so do close someone listening to this. You know, they're like, wow, this is a lot of material. I want to look into this more. What are where some places they can go. If they want to learn more, they want to study into this more. Where's a good place they can start. Okay. So I mean, without, you know, you know, I'm going to recommend the commentary that I've just worked on now, just none of my brilliance in there.
I mean, I was just the same boat as everyone else was like, wow, this is a complicated book. Yeah. They taking the whole early church, all these different people who had the apostolic faith handed down to them by the apostles. How did they all understand this? You know, people who spoke the same Koine Greek as Paul, who lived in his culture, who thought like an Easterner, like like Paul does? Yeah. How were they understanding all of these things? And what other verses did they see?
So, but I wish I could say, yeah, there's another commentary I can recommend and all that because, yeah, I'm not I mean, I just don't know. I only did this because there wasn't one already available. I don't understand, I mean, to me it's it's crazy. Why are there's hundreds of commentaries on Romans and not one that okay, this is the early Christians. I mean, there is one series, the ancient Christian series, but they they mix Augustine in with the other early Christians.
It's like, well, it's one or the other. I mean, you can't just mix them together, you know? Otherwise it's a good series. I mean, I use them a lot, but it's always puzzled me that they don't seem to see that there's like a delineation point there. You're saying, yeah, in particularly in Romans, you can't mix Augustine with say, origin or Chrysostom or Clement of Alexander. Justin Martyr. I mean, it's like, hey, they're on two different sides of the fence and one was before the other.
You know, Augustine came after these people. And so you got to look at what was before Augustine. So that's what I've tried to do. I've tried to make it, like I say, user friendly, but again, it is nothing I can take credit for. I was as mixed up as anyone else. What do I do with Romans here?
And I had to like, say, a good year and a half of work in this, another, six months to a year of just the research of, you know, reading it for all of it to make sense, to get in my brain finally, you know, but, yeah, we can learn so much from the people who taught and learned it from the apostles, you know? I mean, it's like we have it it you know, God made sure those writings weren't lost. It's like, to me, it's just absurd that Christians don't go there.
I mean, that was my first thought was, well, how did the people who lived after the apostles, how did they understand it?
You know, and it's really odd to me that people don't go there, you know, but anyway, so that that might be an option then for some to start digging into some of that, that source material, you know, those early church writings, you know, and, and even some of the stuff you were pulling out here in Romans nine, like the different layers that you were saying, okay, here's here's what Paul saying, but it's referring back to this and, oh, yeah,
this Old Testament past like that stuff that's that's pretty easy to miss. You know, there's other layers in there and dig through that. So mean if you were going to pick just one person and you know, I took a pretty, you know, good sampling. John Chrysostom, who, was the well, he was actually an elder in the Church of Antioch when he preached through Romans. We have his sermons. He just went through verse by verse there online. I mean, you know, a person can download those for free.
His sermons on Romans, I was going to say. Yeah, if you want. Oh, I don't want David Bercot. Okay, fine. If you're going to just take one source now, like I say, I wanted to get a broad perspective. I mean, Chrysostom is a fallen human like everyone else. But, yeah, he's pretty good. He he sees these things. There are a few times that it seemed like most of the other early Christians were taking a little different position, but in general, what he says is what they were saying.
So yeah, that would be a a source that's available for free. And, and somebody who, like I say, would, would like to leave me out of the picture. That's that's fine. Yeah. Yeah. He's, he's up there. And so that would be another source. Yeah. Yeah. Well thanks for thanks for being willing to tackle this one because this is a, this is a big topic and I know it gets really controversial sometimes with people. And I'm really curious what the comments are going to be like.
On this one. Yeah. But but it's really important to engage with this stuff, you know, this this is, I know like, know, you know, especially as a teen, you know, I had a lot of questions about that because you read Scripture and some of it sounds very much like, oh, you were chosen by God. And then the next part is like, oh, no, free will.
And like, you're trying to put the pieces together and having people like yourself willing to to dig into it and share what you find, I think that's really valuable and I appreciate that. Yeah. Okay. Wow. Well, thanks. Thanks for coming on the podcast, David. You're very welcome. All right. Thanks for listening to this episode with David Bercot. If you found this interesting, you should check out the other episode we did with him on the book of Romans.
You can find that linked in the description below. If you enjoy Anabaptist perspectives, leave a rating and a review on your favorite podcast app. It helps more people find this podcast. Thanks so much for listening and we'll see you in the next episode.