Audio Transcript

Welcome back to witchcraft and wizardry week on APJ. We asked, “Is there good magic and edifying sorcery?” — a debate we hear all the time over Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter and other fantasy literature. Pastor John dove into that big debate on Monday, with a twist of his own (as you’d imagine), in APJ 2121.

And another question about witchcraft and wizardry comes in today from Archie, a listener who is putting together three texts coming up in our Bible readings this month. “Pastor John, hello,” he writes. “In our Bible readings coming up in the Old Testament, we read that sorcerers and those who practice witchcraft are to be killed. That’s very clear to me according to Exodus 22:18 and Leviticus 20:27. But when Jewish Bible scholar the apostle Paul enters Ephesus, a city full of magic, he calls for no one to be executed — simply for all the books to be piled up in the city center and to be burned. That I see in Acts 19:19. Certainly Paul would have known full well the contrast from what he saw in Scripture from what he was calling for. Why is the Old Testament more violent here? And why is the same sin handled so differently in the New Testament?”

Well, this is huge. I mean, it has to do with the relationships between God’s way of working in Israel in the Old Testament and his way of working today.

God’s Dealings with His People

Let me back up and start with Abraham. With the calling of Abraham in Genesis 12, God brought into being a people for his own name. That people was defined both by physical lineage (as Jewish) and by covenant, in which God pledged himself to work for their good on their behalf as they trusted him and obeyed his laws. Now, from the beginning, this people was both a political and a religious reality. They were a nation-state, and they were in a privileged position toward God. The laws of the religion, Jewishness, were the laws of the state. They functioned among other political nation-states, this nation did (Israel). They had a standing army. They claimed a geographic territory as the rightful place of their earthly national existence.

So, for two thousand years, from Abraham to Christ, there was this primary focus of God’s saving work on that people. That’s the way he worked his redemptive plan in the world. He focused on Israel. Paul said 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.

One of the reasons that God established his presence among the nations through the people of Israel in this way — this particular national way — was to demonstrate the hopeless condition of humanity and to prepare them for the coming of a Savior. The history of Israel is not a history of successful relations with God. It is mainly a history of failure. The law was given to Israel to show that salvation by law-keeping was impossible because of how deeply sinful humans are.

Paul sums it up in Romans 3:19–20: “Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law [as Jewish people], so that every mouth [that’s the nations] may be stopped, and the whole world [not just Israel] may be held accountable to God.” That’s why he created Israel the way he did and gave her the law the way he did. And then he continues, “For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.”

So, one of the purposes of God in dealing with Israel the way he did for two thousand years was to show that not only could Israel not be saved through law-keeping, but how much less could anybody else in the world be saved, who didn’t have the privileges of Israel. All of this was preparatory for the coming of the Savior, Jesus Christ. Since during those two thousand years, Israel, God’s people, were a geographic, political, national state with religious laws functioning as her national laws, therefore the punishments for disobedience to those laws were carried out by Israel in her capacity as a national political state. God’s aim for those centuries was to make vivid on earth the nature of his holiness and the seriousness of sin.

An Example of Such Dealings

Thus, for example, the carrying out of capital punishment was part of the lesson book for the nations. The law of God was being fleshed out in Israel. This is how serious sin is. And so, sorcery was a capital crime (Exodus 22:18). Cursing your mother and father was a capital crime (Leviticus 20:9). Bestiality, having sex with an animal, was a capital crime (Exodus 22:19). Adultery was a capital crime for both the man and the woman (Leviticus 20:10). Homosexual intercourse was a capital crime (Leviticus 20:13), and so on.

This was to show on earth, among the nations (and for us in our Bibles), the ultimate standards of God’s holiness — and therefore we should not read this history, the history of God’s dealings with Israel, and say, “Well, that shouldn’t have happened. That shouldn’t have happened in those days.” We should not say that. We shouldn’t call God’s way in that time into question. God chose that it happened that way, and he did it in order for us to tremble at the prospect of committing sin and to send us flying to Christ.

“It’s only a matter of time until all sin that is not repented of and forsaken will be brought into judgment.”

In those punishments, God was showing his intense opposition to attitudes and behaviors that exalt human self-determination and belittle God’s laws. Such punishments were indeed severe, but they were no more severe than the punishments that await such flagrant sinning in our own time, for God will come to judge the quick and the dead. It’s only a matter of time until all sin that is not repented of and forsaken will be brought into judgment, a judgment every bit as severe as capital punishment in the Old Testament — indeed, far more severe.

How Jesus Changed the World

But with the coming of the Messiah, the Savior, Jesus Christ, profound changes came into the world and transformed the nature of the people of God and the way this people witnessed to God in the world. “The kingdom of God [is] taken away from [Israel] and given to a people producing its fruits” (Matthew 21:43). The new people of God, the church of Jesus, are no longer those who are ethnic by origin or by circumcision, but only by faith in the Messiah Jesus. That’s who’s made a part of the pilgrim people of God, the Christian church.

We are not a nation or a political entity. We have no geographic location, and therefore there is no direct correlation between the laws of the state and the law of Christ in his church. We are transferred out of darkness into the kingdom of Christ (Colossians 1:13). “[Christ’s] kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36). Otherwise, we would use the sword to enforce his rule, but we don’t.

We are sojourners and exiles scattered among the nations, and we are defined not by national or political or geographic borders or political structures. The old covenant, Hebrews says, has passed away. The priesthood is replaced with Christ. The sacrifices are replaced with Christ. We’ve died to the law. All foods are declared clean, so you don’t have those ceremonial laws in the church anymore. The temple is no longer the center of our religious life, and our life in this world has been put on a new footing.

Life in Christ as God’s People

This new life in the church in Christ is characterized by the fact that Jesus came not to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved (John 3:17). The church is on a mission to rescue sinners from condemnation by offering them forgiveness through Christ. That includes forgiveness for sins that once would have been immediately executed as capital crimes. Paul lists some of those sins in 1 Corinthians 6:9–10 that would have been executed, and then he says, “Such were some of you. But . . . ” (1 Corinthians 6:11). Here you stand with your head still on. In other words, instead of being executed, repentant sinners are justified, cleansed, sanctified, forgiven, folded into the new people of God.

The sins are just as serious now. They were serious in the Old Testament. They’re just as serious today. And the punishment that awaits those whose sins are not repented of and forsaken will be far more severe in hell than anything the Old Testament ever did through capital punishment. The same standards of holiness prevail today as in those days, but we live in a day of mercy, a day of reprieve, a day of salvation and reconciliation with God. And so, the church continues to bear witness to the absolute holiness of God and yet makes the world aware: “Now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2). “Be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:20).

Audio Transcript

Happy Friday, everyone. I mentioned last year, back in APJ 1720, that in our emails, the most asked-about chapter of the Bible is Romans 9. It’s not even close, and understandably so: the chapter raises a truckload of theology questions. And within that chapter, Romans 9:22 is the most mentioned text, the most asked-about verse in our entire inbox, because that verse raises the difficult but necessary topic of predestination and double predestination, or reprobation — the divine design of “vessels of wrath prepared for destruction” (Romans 9:22). It is a sobering text raising many questions — relevant and important questions.

We’re not in that text, but we are back to the theme of double predestination through a different text, in a question from a listener named Josh. “Dear Pastor John, thank you for all the resources for people like me, seeking Bible answers. I have a question about 1 Timothy 2:4, and how it, when read in context, pertains to the doctrine of double predestination. To me, double predestination seems a logical result of the doctrine of predestination. This verse seems to refute it. How do double predestination and this verse hold up together? Also, if addressing 1 Peter 2:8 would be applicable, I would appreciate that as well. My understanding of one verse contradicts my understanding of the other. I know the Bible is cohesive, but I’m unsure how to reconcile these texts.”

Yes, the Bible is cohesive, it is coherent, it has integrity — and that’s a good assumption to start with. First Timothy 2:4 has been perceived for centuries as a problem, not just for double predestination, but for any predestination or any unconditional election of who will be saved.

So, let me say a word about double predestination (since it’s brought up in the question) and then show how I think 1 Timothy 2:4 is not a contradiction of predestination or double predestination.

Some Predestined to Believe

Predestination refers to God’s appointing the final destiny of a person before creation. So, for example, Ephesians 1:4–5 says, “[God] chose us in [Christ] before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will.” So God assigns, or destines, the elect for adoption; that’s the destiny. He plans for his chosen ones before creation. Hence, the term pre-destined — destined beforehand for adoption.

These predestined ones always correspond in real life with those whom Jesus calls to himself and those who believe on Jesus and are justified by faith. And we know that the predestined and the believers always correspond because of Romans 8:30, which says, “Those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified.” And we know that justification is by faith and no other way. So those are believers. Those whom he called he brought to faith and justified, and those whom he justified he glorified.

“Human beings are morally accountable, even though they do not have ultimate self-determination.”

So, the predestined ones and those who are justified by faith in Jesus are always the same group. Because God not only predestines, but he also calls people to himself, and brings them to faith, and justifies them, and finally glorifies them. There are no predestined ones who do not believe, and there are no believers who are not predestined. God is sovereign in the whole process of salvation — beginning to end, eternity to eternity, in every aspect of it.

Some Destined to Disobey

Now, the term double predestination is used to refer to the fact that if God destines some for salvation and adoption, then he passes over others, so that their destiny is judgment and not salvation. Now, some people think we should not call this passing over a second predestination, since the Bible does not speak of it that way. And I would agree that we at least shouldn’t make a focus out of what the Bible does not make a focus.

But in fact, while not using the word predestined for unbelievers who perish, the Bible does refer to the reality of it. And it’s not just a logical deduction. Sometimes this gets a bad rap because they say, “There you go applying your crusty, wooden, cold logic, which the Bible doesn’t do.” Well, forget that. We’re not talking about a logical deduction here — we’re talking about texts.

For example, consider these three texts. First Peter 2:8, the one that was mentioned, refers to those who “stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.” Romans 9:22 refers to those whom God “endured with much patience” — namely, “vessels of wrath prepared for destruction.” Proverbs 16:4 says, “The Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble.”

Now, each of those texts needs careful attention and true interpretation. But my effort over the years has yielded the fact that I think they do in fact teach that God plans the destiny of each person, whether judgment or salvation. And that, of course, is very controversial. But it’s also very important.

I mean, think of it. It’s not marginal. Think of what it says about the sovereignty of God either way, or about the nature of saving grace and its power — its sovereign effectiveness. Think about the implications for prayer and evangelism and assurance and so many other things. This is not a marginal issue, as though you could just shunt that aside and say, “We’ll just talk about other things.”

‘Free Will’ or Sovereign Grace?

Now, the primary objection to this biblical teaching of predestination — whether you call it single or double — is that it seems to result in people being punished when they are not morally accountable. So this seems to be unjust. It seems unjust to people and unjust in God. The alternative view says that God does not decide anyone’s destiny before they exercise their ultimately self-determining free will.

The assumption of this alternative view is that a person cannot be morally accountable unless each one has ultimate self-determination — which is usually called “free will,” but “[ultimate self-determination” is the crucial definition. The text that most often is appealed to for this view (which is not my view, I’m not in favor of this) is 1 Timothy 2:4, which Josh specifically asked about. It says God “desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” Then the inference by those who read it is drawn from this verse that God cannot choose only some to be saved because he desires all to be saved.

Now the problem is this: both interpretations admit that God prioritizes something above his desire for all to be saved — because not all are saved. Something restrains God from saving all. And one view says that what restrains God is that he prioritizes ultimate human self-determination above saving all. Better to have some perish than that all should be deprived of ultimate self-determination (usually called “free will”).

The other view (this would be my view) says that what restrains God from saving all is that he prioritizes the glory of the freedom of his sovereign grace above saving all. Better that some perish than that the freedom and greatness of God’s grace be diminished.

God Grants Repentance

So the question is, Which of these two explanations is the biblical explanation of why God doesn’t save everybody? Is it God’s commitment to ultimate human self-determination? Or is it God’s commitment to his own freedom and the glory of his predestining grace?

Now, that’s a massive question. But let me give one pointer from inside Paul’s letters to Timothy. I’m very, very jealous here not to be controlled by a system. I know that whatever view you have, it is very easy to be controlled by other truths besides the text you’re dealing with, rather than looking in the context to see what it really means. So, I want to stick with these — what are called the Pastoral Letters of Paul. Let’s just take 1 and 2 Timothy and show how close the language is between 1 Timothy 2:4 and 2 Timothy 2:25.

So in 2 Timothy 2:24–25, Paul uses language like this. And what’s close about it is the phrase “coming to a knowledge of the truth” in both texts. But here’s what he says:

The Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth.

That’s the same phrase as in 1 Timothy 2:4. Now, what seems clear to me from this verse is that Paul does not believe in ultimate human self-determination when it comes to the all-important act of repentance. In this verse, repentance does not ultimately depend on human self-determination; it depends on the free gift of God to a person in the bondage of sin and Satan. “God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 2:25).

“Human beings are morally accountable, even though they do not have ultimate self-determination.”

Therefore, within these two letters of Paul to Timothy, he shows that what keeps God from doing what he at one level desires to do — namely, save all — is not his commitment to ultimate human self-determination. No one is saved unless God grants repentance. Repentance is not the product of ultimate human self-determination. It’s a gift of God.

Predestined and Accountable

Here’s the paradox — not a contradiction, a paradox. Lots of people try to make this out to be a logical contradiction. It’s not. It runs through the whole Bible. Human beings are morally accountable, even though they do not have ultimate self-determination. There is no injustice with God (Romans 9:14). No one is punished who does not truly deserve to be punished. And the measure of the punishment is always in righteous proportion to the measure of the evil. Though God predestines who will be saved and who will not be saved, no one comes into judgment who does not deserve judgment.

This is not a logical contradiction, which so many try to make it out to be. It is a mystery. I don’t think the Bible makes plain how both of these truths — God’s sovereignty and man’s accountability — are in perfect compatibility. But the whole Bible testifies to both truths. They are compatible. The Bible teaches the truth of both. And they are profoundly important to embrace for the good of our souls, and for the integrity of God’s word, and for the health of the church, and for the advancement of God’s mission, and for the glory of God’s grace.

That Sunday evening, between the hours of 7:00 and 9:15, is permanently etched into my memory banks. I was 17 and had just arrived in Aberdeen, “The Granite City” (as it has long been known because so many of its buildings and houses are constructed of gray granite).

I was there to begin my studies at the university. I had never seen it before and knew almost nothing about it. But my first duty was already on my mind: “When Sinclair goes to Aberdeen,” an acquaintance of my father had said to him, “tell him to go to hear Willie Still of Gilcomston South Church — he gives great Bible readings.” Following up on that suggestion has left a permanent mark on my life and, I trust, on my ministry.

First Service at the ‘Gilc’

I had never heard of Willie Still and had no idea where Gilcomston South Church might be — “Gilc,” as I later discovered people referred to it. And as for “Bible readings” — I had no real concept of what they were. But having attended morning worship at the college chapel, I walked into the town center to find out where “Gilc” was, came back to my residence for a meal, and returned at the stated hour of 7:00 for the evening service.

Around 7:25, after singing and two prayers, a seemingly elderly, balding figure in the distant pulpit began to read from the Old Testament. He took around half an hour to read through two chapters, interspersing the reading with a variety of fascinating comments (he did not know then, I suspect, that the Westminster Assembly’s Directory for Public Worship frowned on such interruptions to the reading of the sacred text!).

Then we sang a hymn. I stood standing at the end of the last verse, but realized everyone else was sitting down. Assuming this was a signal that instead of a benediction there would be a closing prayer, I bowed my head and closed my eyes. It took only a second or two, however, to realize that the words I was hearing were not the opening words of a prayer but the first words of a sermon. An hour and fifteen minutes later, he pronounced a vigorous “Amen! Let us sing hymn number . . .” — and then, at last, the benediction.

A “Bible Reading,” I realized after a few weeks, was not what Mr. Still had done earlier in the service. It was evangelical speak for systematic exposition, what is traditionally referred to as the lectio continua approach to biblical exposition. That approach is now so common that many have little idea how novel it seemed in the post-war English-speaking world.

I was shy and socially a little awkward (only a little?). It was another eighteen months before I spoke to him for the first time.

Meeting Mr. Still

Born in 1911, Mr. Still became minister of Gilcomston South Church in 1945. He remained there for over fifty years. He was my minister for six years and remained a mentor and friend until his death in 1997.

It would be difficult to calculate what I owe to Mr. Still. We were very differently wired. His preaching style was not one I could have or should have imitated — perhaps mercifully. Because of illness, he had received little or no formal education between his early teens and his mid-twenties. That lacuna left its mark on the way he thought — rarely, it seemed, in a straight logical line, although on many occasions he would follow a biblical-theological line through the whole Bible in order to bring depth to the passage from which he was preaching. I often thought that listening to him was like watching a deep-sea diver disappear into the water, eventually surfacing with a precious pearl in hand.

His conduct of worship was one of his spiritual gifts — “bathed in prayer,” as he often said. The church met for prayer on Saturday evenings, summoned by the weekly Lord’s Day announcement, “The elders will meet for prayer at 7:00 and the congregation at 7:30.” The meeting usually concluded just before ten o’clock in the evening — but in those hours it was often difficult to get a word in edgeways, such was the flow of prayer.

I have sometimes likened that gathering to a helicopter ride round the globe, dropping down in places I had never heard of to intercede for the advance of the kingdom and people of God there. To be in the services the following morning and evening was evidence enough of God drawing near to those who draw near to him. We were, as young students, often bowed down in “wonder, love, and praise” at the end of the services.

“Mr. Still delighted to bring out new treasures, and he never tired of putting again on display treasures that were old.”

It is not possible in brief compass to describe Mr. Still’s ministry in detail. His approach is well summarized in his little book The Work of the Pastor. I have heard numbers of men who never met or heard him comment on this book’s impact on their own ministries. Some of the recurring themes in his preaching are expressed in his Towards Spiritual Maturity, not least what he often referred to as “the three dimensions of the Cross” — Christ’s atoning work dealing with sins (plural), sin (its reign), and Satan (our ultimate enemy). As he liked occasionally to put it, Christ dealt with “the root, the fruit, and the Brute!”

Somehow — I think under the earlier influence of authors probably more pietistic than Reformed — he had grasped the Pauline emphasis on the death and resurrection of Christ as not only the foundation for our justification, but the ground plan and pattern for the whole of the Christian life (“Many deaths and resurrections for us,” as he would have put it). Significantly, his brief autobiographical book is entitled Dying to Live.

Poring Over, Pouring Out

Here there is space to reflect on only one particular lesson that I hope I learned from him — although I should emphasize that this was not because he spoke to me about it with any frequency (he “mentored” not in the modern vogue of “discipling,” but — at least in my own view — in a more biblical pattern of friendship). He modeled for us what it means to pour the word of God into people’s lives. This was the focus of his whole ministry — feeding the flock of God whether in his preaching, pastoral visiting, pastoral counseling, or pastoral writing to and for them.

This last dimension he developed in the congregation’s Monthly Record, which included an extensive pastoral letter, news of the congregation and the much larger “congregation” beyond who were upheld in prayer, and Daily Bible Reading Notes that he wrote himself. By the end of a ministry that extended through six decades, he had probably preached and written his way through the entire Bible three times.

I use the word pour deliberately here. It actually began with his own poring over God’s word. He loved it deeply and obviously. And the poring over of his own study and meditation (never one without the other) emerged in his pouring out what he had learned for himself. In that respect, he was a “scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven,” who “is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old” (Matthew 13:52). He delighted to bring out new treasures, and he never tired of putting again on display treasures that were old. But what struck me preeminently was the sense that the poring over and the pouring out were conveyed by what I can describe only as a pouring in of God’s word — into the minds and hearts of the congregation he served.

He certainly loved the word and studying it. I think that he did indeed love to preach. We are accustomed to seeing both of these characteristics in many preachers. But on their own, they do not constitute the same quality of pouring in. They lack a third essential ingredient for true ministry — namely, pouring into the people to whom one preaches “the affection of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:8) in the understanding that “the aim of our charge is love,” not merely knowledge (1 Timothy 1:5).

Preaching with Depth

Mr. Still had come to recognize long before I met him that what is requisite for such a ministry is sharing the Pauline experience of being among the people “in weakness and in fear and much trembling” (1 Corinthians 2:3) — a profound, sometimes almost debilitating consciousness of one’s own inadequacies. Paul later calls this experience being “weak in him” (2 Corinthians 13:4) — being weak not apart from him, but precisely because of our union with him. When up close and personal with Mr. Still, this deep costliness of the ministry of the Word was self-evident.

“Mr. Still’s preaching became the chariot on which the presence of the blessed Trinity was carried into our hearts.”

It was this element in ministry, it seems to me, that Paul was describing when he told the Thessalonians that “being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us” (1 Thessalonians 2:8). And it was this element that took Mr. Still’s preaching beyond the level of surface exegesis and analysis of passages of Scripture to evoke the living realities of which they spoke. There was in his exposition of the word of God a manifestation of the truth and a manifestation to the conscience (cf. 2 Corinthians 4:2).

This gave a kind of emotional and affectional depth to his preaching. But more than that, it brought a sense of God himself, of his worshipfulness, into the preaching. The late Jim Packer used to say about Martyn Lloyd-Jones that he had never heard preaching that had “so much of God about it.” What I am describing here belonged to that same order of reality. Mr. Still certainly honored Calvin’s dictum that we give the same reverence to Scripture as we give to God because it is his word.

But (if one may put it this way without being misunderstood) while that was true, he never lost sight of the fact that God himself is not to be reduced to words to be analyzed and discussed in their interrelations, plotlines, and literary structures. He is the One whose throne is in heaven and whose footstool is the earth, the One whose greatness none can fathom, the One whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain — and yet is willing to look to him “who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word” (Isaiah 66:2).

Mr. Still longed for this reality himself and for the congregation to experience it in worship and under the ministry of the word. And thus his preaching became the chariot on which the presence of the blessed Trinity was carried into our hearts. Looking back now with gratitude, I nevertheless believe those days spoiled me. For when we experience this, we can never be satisfied with less.

Written on My Heart

One day when I was a graduate student, Mr. Still gave me something. In itself it was of no real consequence, but having known him for several years as pastor and friend, I said to him, lightheartedly and somewhat teasingly, “You have known me now for several years — but this is the first time you have given me something!” I passed the gift back to him, saying, “You will need to write your autograph on it.” He pointed to the object, brushed it away, and said, gently but clearly conscious I would not doubt the integrity of his words, “That is not where I want to write my autograph.” Then, pointing his finger at my heart, he said, “There is where I want to write it.”

That is what lies behind and is expressed in and through a ministry in which the word of God is poured into the hearts of his people. The ink in which Mr. Still’s ministry has been written into my heart is now dry; but please God, I hope what he wrote will remain clearly legible to the end of my life.