According to the Concordance ... It's NOT (Calvinist) Predestination!
I used to be really scared of looking up words in the concordance. I was afraid that I would learn that my “free-will” view was wrong all along. But I was determined to learn the truth, even if I didn’t like it.
But, thankfully, the more I have looked up words and their meanings, the more convinced I have become that the Calvinist view of "predestination" is not correct. That salvation is a choice, that it’s not predetermined for us by God. God has made salvation available to all. We have the responsibility to choose whether to believe in God or to reject Him. And we will justly reap the consequences that go with our choice.
This post is a quick overview of some of the words that I have looked up and what I learned about them. (I did cover most of these in other posts too.) However, due to copyright laws, I cannot quote directly from Strong’s concordance. So I will do my best to explain it in my own words.
I already looked at this one in other posts, but I will restate here that the concordance says that “hardens” in this verse is basically a punishment from God for hardening our own hearts first. He does not arbitrarily harden hearts, against our wills. In His patience and love, He bears with our own self-chosen hardness for so long . . . before making it permanent. This is what He did with Pharaoh during the plagues. Pharaoh hardened his own heart for the first five plagues . . . and then God made it permanent.
God does not arbitrarily harden hearts. If He hardens a heart, it’s because that person first hardened their own heart, resisting God’s truth and His attempts to reach them.
The people hardened themselves, became ignorant and darkened in their understanding, lost sensitivity to God, and then gave themselves over to sensuality.
Calvinists will say that this verse means that God caused them to be ignorant by hardening their hearts. That He “forced” them to be blind to Him.
But actually, the word in the concordance is not “hardening” of heart but “blindness” of heart. And according to the concordance, “blindness” in this passage involves the idea of being callous toward something. And it comes from a word which is used of the Israelites who deliberately refused God’s ways and His Will.
It’s not that God chose to harden their hearts and make them ignorant; it’s that they chose to be callous toward Him, to deliberately refuse Him. And this led to their ignorance, their darkened understanding, and their insensitivity to God.
And “ignorance” is not just “not knowing” or “being unaware,” as though God never revealed Himself to them, never gave them a chance. According to the concordance, it is a deliberate, willful decision to be blind.
Refusing God’s way. Willfully blind.
This is basically saying, “They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because they have willfully chosen to be blind, due to their callous refusal of God’s Will and way.”
Once again, the decision to believe or not believe lies with mankind. We choose to either submit to the truth or to be blind to it!
And that’s why we can justly be held accountable for our unbelief. Because we choose to not believe. To be resistant Him. To walk down the path to hell by refusing His offer to get us off of it. He does not make that choice for us.
One more example of “ignorant” is Romans 10:3 (RSV): “For, being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.”
Paul says that the people are "ignorant" of the righteousness that God gives (through salvation in Jesus). But once again, "ignorant" in this passage does not mean "God never told me" or "I had no idea because God blinded my mind." It means to deliberately ignore something, being unwilling to see it.
Paul is saying that the Israelites knew the truth and chose to ignore it. It is a deliberate ignorance. They were unwilling to see it. They chose to resist it, to be ignorant of God’s way. And they created their own way instead.
This does not sound like “predestination” to me, like God made them this way. It sounds like they were responsible for their choice. And Paul knew it. And it’s why he grieved and why he worked so hard to reach them.
“And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, . . .” (Ephesians 1:13)
We have to hear and believe. “Hear and believe” refers to a responsibility on our parts to accept and embrace the Truth that we hear.
“Believe” in this verse does not mean “to believe, as though God has caused you to believe, with no effort or thought on your part.”
In the concordance, “believes” is active, not passive. It involves a conscious and willing action on our part. It is being persuaded by something, choosing to commit to it, and placing our confidence and our faith in it. You can only be "persuaded" by something if you have the ability to think about it, to reason through it, and to choose to believe in it, to accept it as truth. If God forces you to believe, there is no "being persuaded" by it. It would be "being forced into it."
The word “believe” is used in a way that implies that we allow ourselves to be convinced of the truth, to be convinced that Jesus is the truth. This supports the idea that we are responsible for being willing to believe in Him or not.
And the opposite of this would be to resist God, to reject the truth that we have heard and that we know deep down in our hearts. Willful blindness!
This is why no one will have an excuse for why they didn’t turn to God (Romans 1:20). Because God has made Himself clear to all, in His creation and deep down in our hearts. And we will be held responsible for our refusal to respond to this knowledge, for refusing to be persuaded by it.
4. “Unbelief”
“ . . . They were broken off because of unbelief . . . And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in . . . ” (Romans 11:20,23)
According to the concordance, “unbelief” is along the same lines as dis-believing something or being unfaithful to it. It is not just an ignorance of God, as though He blinded us or never revealed Himself to us. It is a refusal to believe in the God who calls to us and who has made Himself known. You can’t disbelieve something you never knew about. So this word “unbelief” refers to the idea of hearing the truth, but choosing to reject it. If we are “broken off,” it is because of our unbelief, our unwillingness to believe what He has revealed to us. But if we will choose to believe, we will be grafted in.
Another word along these same lines is “disobedience.”
“As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.” (Ephesians 2:1-2)
“Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient.” (Ephesians 5:6)
In the concordance, this “disobedience” implies the idea of not allowing yourself to believe something or to be persuaded by it. Instead of being persuaded by God’s truth, you deliberately and stubbornly refuse it or reject it. You choose disobedience by refusing to believe Him and obey Him.
It is not that God makes people to be disobedient or to not believe; it’s that we choose it by refusing to be persuaded by the truth. Once again, it places the responsibility on man to choose to believe or to choose to resist.
“And you also are among those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.” (Romans 1:6)
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)
“I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you.” (Ephesians 1:18)
If you look up this word in a concordance, you see that it involves the idea of being invited. We are invited to accept God’s offer of salvation. “Called” does not mean being “forced” or “compelled.” It does not mean God has pre-determined it and that we are just fulfilling a pre-written role. It means we are invited to believe, to have faith, or to fulfill a specific role, like Paul was called to be an apostle. And being invited means that we can refuse. (Look even at what Jesus said about the kingdom of heaven in Matthew 22 - the guests were invited to the banquet but refused to come.)
We can choose to agree with God, to put our trust in Him, to respond to His call. Or we can choose to resist. The responsibility lies with us.
“But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself . . .” (Romans 2:5)
“For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die.” (Romans 8:13)
There is an element of human responsibility in these verses, the idea that our choice of what to believe and how to live affects our eternity. God does not arbitrarily elect people to heaven or hell; it is based on our decision.
He calls to us all. He invites all of us to believe in Him. But He does not force us to believe or not believe. We choose to respond to the invitation or not.
[And if I may point something out about the Romans 1:6 verse. The NIV and ESV, among others, say that they were "called to belong to Jesus." This makes it sound like they were called to be saved, to be Christians, which could fit with Calvinism's views of election and predestination.
But the KJB and NASB, among others, say that they are "the called of Jesus." This is different.
"Called to belong to Jesus" is a verb, about what they are called to do. But "the called of Jesus" is a noun, a description of who they are, making it sound like they are people of Jesus Christ who were called.
But called to what?
Romans 1:5 specifies what the people were called to be ... and it isn't "called to belong to Jesus," It's called to be obedient apostles.
And if you look at this word "called" in the concordance, it basically means "invited, appointed to some office, or a saint." So if it's used as a verb, as it is in the NIV and ESV, then it should simply mean "invited to belong to Jesus." But if it's used a noun, as it is in the KJB, then it would mean "a saint of Jesus."
And I think "a saint of Jesus" is the better option because that's confirmed in Romans 1:7: "To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints..." And in the concordance, this "saints" is used to describe how God expects His people to live, as set apart, physically pure and morally blameless, not about them being chosen to be believers.
So technically and either way, it isn't about being predestined to be believers, to be saved. It's either about being invited (not forced) to belong to Jesus or about being "obedient apostles, saints" of Jesus, which I think the context supports. For more on the Calvinistic undertones of the ESV, see this post.]
“through whom we have received reconciliation.” (Romans 5:11)
“For if, by the trespass of one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.” (Romans 5:17)
The concordance says that the word “receive” involves the idea of deliberately grabbing ahold of something, of consciously accepting what is offered. Like the word “believe,” it’s active, not passive. It is intentionally reaching out and grabbing something, as opposed to passively acquiring something. There is a responsibility on our parts to grab ahold of grace and salvation, to not let it pass us by.
Let’s say you are sitting in a room with lots of people, and someone walks in and places a golden ticket into the hands of 10 of them. Then they say, “If you have received a golden ticket in your hand, you are going to the chocolate factory.” This is like predestination, the idea that God decides who gets the tickets and who doesn’t. And in this case, “receiving” is passive. It involves no effort or decision on your part to get that ticket.
But “receiving” in these verses (according to the concordance) involves the idea of reaching out and grabbing, of willfully and deliberately accepting what is offered. It would be more like someone walking into the room, placing a golden ticket down on the desk before each person, and saying, “Anyone who reaches out and grabs the ticket in front of them - who receives this gift - is going to the chocolate factory.”
This is more like the kind of “receive” we read in these verses. It is active. It involves a response on our part, our willingness to reach out and take hold of the gift that is offered to us. This is free-will. We choose to accept or we choose to reject.
Does this mean we were "chosen" for salvation? Does it mean that if we are not one of the “chosen ones” then we don't have a chance of being saved?
When I look up the word “chose” in Strong’s concordance, I can see that this word basically means that God deliberately selects someone for something or that He chooses to favor them based on His loving kindness. But importantly, according to the concordance, it does not necessarily mean that He rejects the un-chosen ones.
To me, this seems to say that it’s not that being “chosen” means that God predetermined you’d go to heaven and being “unchosen” means He predetermined you’d go to hell. Being “unchosen” does not necessarily mean you’ve been rejected. The way I see it, the offer of salvation is open to all. And anyone can become one of the “chosen ones” because God hasn’t rejected anyone from the beginning. But He has chosen to favor those who choose to love Him, to reward them with heaven. And anyone can choose Him if they are willing.
Ephesians 1:13 says “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, . . .”
[Added 2022 (I'm learning as I go, and the more I learn, the more wrong Calvinism gets):
Does Eph. 1:5 say that certain sinners are predestined to salvation/eternal life?
No. It says we are predestined to be adopted as children. And to know what “adoption of children” means (the NIV words it “adoption as sons”) go to Romans 8:23 (NIV): “… we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.”
“Predestined for adoption” is not about certain sinners being predestined for salvation/eternal life. It’s about the promise that God will redeem the bodies of all believers, that all believers will eventually acquire the full benefits of being a child of God.
(Also of note is that the concordance says "adoption" is NOT about being brought into God's family by spiritual birth, but about God promising to "adopt" anyone who believes into His family. Anyone who believes in Jesus, who accepts Jesus as Lord and Savior - and this offer is open to all - is predestined to be brought into His family and to experience the dignity/full benefits of being His child, being fully realized at the redemption of their bodies.)
And notice also that the second "predestination" (in Eph. 1:11-12) specifies that the "inheritance" believers get is what was predestined, NOT that certain people are predestined for salvation.
Basically, Ephesians predestination is saying that we who are “in Him” (as a result of choosing to believe in Him) are predestined to have our bodies redeemed, to get an inheritance, and to be “for the praise of his glory.” All of this is promised by God to anyone who chooses to put their faith in Jesus. And anyone can.
Even Ephesians 1:13-14 (NIV) confirms this when it says that “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession – to the praise of his glory.”
Notice that those believers were not included in Christ until after they believed. And after they believed, they were given the Holy Spirit as a promise that they will be redeemed. And they are guaranteed an inheritance. This contradicts Calvinism on at least three points:
First, it confirms that predestination is not about certain sinners being preselected for heaven, but it’s about believers being predestined for redemption/an inheritance. Second, it contradicts Calvinism’s idea that the elect are “in Christ” (essentially “saved”) from the beginning of time, because Scripture shows they were not in Christ until after they believed. And third, it contradicts Calvinism’s view that the elect have to get the Holy Spirit first, that He causes them to believe in Jesus, because it shows that they didn’t get the Holy Spirit until after they believed, as a result of believing.
"Predestination" is not about individual people being pre-chosen for salvation, but it’s about the destiny of anyone who chooses to believe in Jesus. And that's a big difference!]
Romans 9:22-23: “What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath – prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory . . .”
When I was studying this verse, I was getting concerned that it really did mean that God deliberately prepared some people to be destroyed in hell.
But as I researched it more, I learned that older Bible translations say “fitted” for destruction, not “prepared” for destruction. And according to Strong’s, “fitted” in this verse indicates a strong correlation between someone’s character and their destiny. It is written in such a way to imply that the objects of wrath prepared themselves for destruction. Not that God fashioned them that way.
Thankfully, this confirms what I think the rest of the Bible teaches, that we determine our eternal destinies by our choice. We cause ourselves to go to hell or heaven based on whether we respond to God or resist Him. Mankind was “prepared in advance for glory,” but we destine ourselves for destruction when we reject God’s offer of salvation.
Update - A Few New Additions:
9. "World" and "Whosoever believes"
(Taken from another post, with a small addition, "What The Best Way To Make People Agree With Your Calvinist Views?")
You have to watch out for the ways Calvinists change the meanings/usage of words in the Bible. For instance, I read of one Calvinist who decided for himself that "foreknew" (as in "Those God foreknew, He also predestined ...") meant "fore-chosen." He decided to make it "fore-chosen" because that better fit his Calvinist views. (How nice to be able to alter Scripture whenever you want, in order to fit your errant views!) But the word "foreknew" in the concordance doesn't have anything to do with the action of choosing something. It's about perceiving or having knowledge about something beforehand. BIG DIFFERENCE!
Sometimes Calvinists will even use the original Greek words to make you feel like they know more than you. After all, if they know the Greek words (and you don't) then surely they must know the proper meaning and usage of the word in that verse, right?
My dogmatic Calvinist pastor (from the church we just left) said that "world" from John 3:16 means "cosmos," as in the universal realm. I suspect this is a deliberate attempt to stop people from saying that "'God so loved the world' means that Jesus died for everyone's sin." And then he can more easily spread his view that "God didn't really die for everyone, only the elect."
Really!?! Do you really think God's love for the impersonal cosmos was so great that it caused Him to send Jesus to die? For what ... the impersonal cosmos!?!
Yes, the Greek word is "kosmos." But when you look it up in the concordance, it can mean several different things, according to its usage in the verse - such as the earth or universe, or the earth in contrast to heaven, or "the human race, mankind," or Gentiles in contrast to Jews, or the present condition of people in relation to God, or all temporary possessions as a whole, etc.
And the concordance says that John 3:16's "world" means mankind, the human race.
But since that would mean that Jesus died for all of mankind instead of just the elect, I guess he is going to define it as "cosmos" because it doesn't contradict his view as much. Even though "mankind" makes much more sense.
Interesting! Because the concordance says that "whosoever" is made up of two Greek words, which are essentially "all/any/every/whole" and "the/who." There is nothing about the "elect" or "believe" here. "Whosoever" simply means exactly what we think it does: "Any who" or "All who" etc.
And ... if "whosoever" in John 3:16 is talking about the elect, then "whosoever" (sometimes translated as "anyone" or "everyone") in these verses also has to mean "the elect" because the concordance says they all use the same Greek word:
"But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgement ..." Matthew 5:22
"But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart." Matthew 5:28
"Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery ..." Luke 16:18
"Everyone who falls on that stone [Jesus] will be broken to pieces ..." Luke 20:18
" ... a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God." John 16:2
"Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father ..." 1 John 2:23
Does it sound like it means "the elect" in these verses? No? Then it can't be said that "whosoever" in John 3:16 means "the elect" either.
"Whosoever" means exactly what we think it does - "anyone/everyone who."
And yet no matter how much you correct them on this, Calvinists will still go, "Yeah, it might say 'whosoever believes,' but only the elect can and will believe." And then they'll bring up all sorts of other verses that don't say that at all.
10. "Elect"
1 Peter 1:1-2: “To God’s elect . . . who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood.”
As I sought to understand this verse more accurately, I learned that the Revised Standard Version of this verse says this: “. . . To the exiles of the dispersion . . . chosen and destined by God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and for the sprinkling of his blood . . .”
The NIV's "elect" is simply translated "exiles of the dispersion" in the RSV.
To me, it sounds like Peter is not writing to the “elect,” as in “those predestined by God for salvation,” as Calvinists would view it But it sounds like he is writing to those Christians of the day who have been scattered under the persecution they were experiencing, to “dispersed exiles.”
The NASB uses the word "aliens" and the KJV uses the word "strangers," which, according to the concordance, refers to those who are sojourning in a foreign land, away from their own people. The concordance says that in this verse, it's a metaphorical reference to those who are residents of heaven but who are sojourning on earth.
This has nothing to do with being chosen or predestined for anything.
Calvinists make so much of the word "elect," but it's not what they think it is. And this isn't a "predestined to go to heaven" passage at all.
Predestination is definitely a biblical concept. But I think there are other ways to understand it than "God predestined people to heaven or hell, and there's nothing we can do about it."
I believe the 1 Peter passage isn't saying that we are predestined for salvation, but that we who are believers are chosen (predestined) for obedience to Christ. God foreknows who will believe in Him, and He has determined that believers, through the help of the Holy Spirit, will grow in obedience to Christ. It's not our salvation that was predetermined, but the path we take after salvation.
Also, to get even deeper, (hang in there, this is important!) this 1 Peter greeting sounds a lot like Paul’s greeting in 2 Thessalonians 2:13-14:
“But we always ought to thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth. He called you to this through our gospel, that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
But in various translations of the Bible, it doesn’t just say “from the beginning God chose you to be saved.” There are translations that say something like, “God chose you as His first-fruits.” This "first-fruits" adds a whole new meaning. And I believe it could be saying that they were chosen to be the first to believe in Jesus, simply because their lifetimes coincided with His.
[Also of note, according to Strong's Concordance with Vine's Expository Dictionary, the word "saved" in the 2 Thessalonians passage doesn't even refer to "eternal soul salvation." It refers to believers being saved from the wrath of God when He pours it out on unrepentant mankind at Jesus's coming, the end times. (Overall, 2 Thessalonians is an "end times" book anyway.) So it has nothing to do with God predestining who will inherit eternal salvation and who won't. It's more about God choosing to spare the Church from His end-times wrath, starting with that generation, the first "Jesus believers." Interesting.]
But reading it the way I stated above - that God predestined the path and plan of salvation but that we have to accept it, and that God predestined which generation would be the first to have Jesus and the Holy Spirit - keeps the Bible and God's character intact and consistent. He created the path and plan and destination, and He paid the price. We just have to accept it, to believe and receive. And that's not "working for salvation," like Calvinists say. It's simply accepting all the work that someone else did on your behalf.
This is how salvation works. This is how to mesh a biblical view of predestination with mankind's free-will and responsibility to make a decision.
And it is very different from the Calvinist view that God alone predestines who goes to heaven and who goes to hell, and there's nothing you can do about it.
There are so many other ways to understand "predestination" than "predestined by God to go to heaven or hell." And unlike a Calvinist's view of predestination, these other ways do not contradict the rest of the Bible and do not change God's character into something horrible, irrational, and contradictory. They keep the Bible consistent, and they keep God's character intact.
It doesn't even refer to "eternal salvation."
According to Strong's concordance, it's referring to being saved from the wrath of God when He pours it out on unrepentant mankind at Jesus's coming, the end times. (Overall, 2 Thessalonians is an "end times" book anyway.) So it has nothing to do with God predestining who will inherit eternal salvation and who won't. It's more about God choosing to spare the Church from His end-times wrath, starting with that generation, the first "Jesus believers."
Calvinists say that faith is a gift that only God can give us. By this they mean God has pre-chosen some people to give faith to (the "elect"), but He withholds this gift of faith from others (the "non-elect").
But is faith a gift God has to give us (i.e. "force" on us)?
One night, not too long ago, I was thinking about this verse, about how it sounds like a Calvinist verse. Like God gives faith to people, like He decides whom to give faith to. And so if He doesn't give it to you then you can't have faith.
In conclusion
The more I study this topic, the more thoroughly convinced I am that Calvinism is wrong. That it destroys the Gospel Truth. That it's heresy.
And the more convinced I am that the responsibility lies with us to make our decision about God, His truth, and His offer of salvation. He does not make the choice for us. And if we refuse to make a choice, we remain on the path we were born on – a state of being separated from God. Hell!
I don’t get scared anymore when looking things up in the concordance. Because the more I study it and the deeper I go, the more consistent it gets! (When you throw Calvinism out, that is!)
(I think that if Calvinists read the Bible alone with just a concordance - without the "help" of Calvinist theologians telling them how to read it - most of them would not believe in Calvinism. Calvinism requires Calvinist theologians to find Calvinism in the Bible. Because without their warped views filling your head, you simply would not find enough in the Bible alone to support Calvinism. I challenge any Calvinists out there to take my "Defend Your Calvinism" Challenge. But don't do it for my sake. Do it for yours and for the sake of truth!)
Next post in series: God Set Pharaoh Up