The Goal Of Predestination
THE GOAL OF PREDESTINATION
In his first epistle to the Corinthians, Paul makes the point that men do not come to God on the basis of their intellectual reasonings. It is not the intelligent who are chosen by God. It is often just the opposite. Not the wise, but the foolish. Not the mighty, but the weak. Not the noble, but the base and the despised.
I can imagine Paul sitting back for a moment to reflect over the status of the membership of the church at Corinth. He asks the Corinthians to do the same.
For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble (1 Corinthians 1:26).
Paul is speaking to believers. He exhorts them to consider their calling. They have been called to become followers of Jesus. To put it in the terms that Jesus used, they are among those whom the Father has drawn.
There were very few among the Corinthians believers who were rich or powerful or famous or influential. To be sure, Paul does not say that there were not any wise or mighty or noble. But he does indicate that the majority of the church did not fit this description. Why is this? Why do most Christians come from the ranks of the foolish and the weak and the base and the despised? Karl Marx suggested that it was because the oppressed classes and the weak turned to religion as a crutch to hold them up and to stabilize them. But this is not a Biblical answer. Paul says that the reason Christianity is filled with the foolish and the weak and the base and the despised is because God has chosen these kings of people to be in His kingdom. Notice the emphasis that Paul places upon the elective activity of God. Three times in this passage Paul repeats that it is God who has chosen: For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; 27 but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, 28 and the base things of the world and the despised, God has chosen, the things that are not, that He might nullify the things that are, 29 that no man should boast before God. 30 But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, 31 that, just as it is written, “Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 1:26-31). The phrase “God has chosen” is repeated three times in this passage. It emphasizes the fact that our calling and our salvation is God's choice. God has not chosen to leave these things up to blind chance. Paul's entire point is that it is by His doing you are in Christ Jesus (1 Corinthians 1:30). The point is made that God has not chosen the wise or the strong or the noble. Why not? Why have the wise and the strong and the noble been rejected? It is so that no man should boast before God (1 Corinthians 1:29). No man can ever say, “I found God as a result of my clever intellect or as a result of my strength of will or because of my noble birth.” You will never be able to boast that you gained eternal life by choosing God, for the truth is that He chose you. The result of understanding this truth is that God is glorified. If a man were saved on the basis of his own decision, then he might boast that he at least had the good sense to come to Christ and to place his faith in Christ. But Paul removes any such ground for boasting by showing us that we have been chosen apart from any reason within us. The result? “Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.”