1 Corinthians 1:21-23 “For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. (22) For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; (23) but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness.”
In the previous section, we saw that the first step in the pattern that God follows in the creation of man is His foreknowledge of them. That now brings us to the second step in God’s pattern, which is His predestination of man, bearing in mind that in this series, we are only looking at one aspect of the predestination of man, i.e. salvation. In this section we want to discuss more specifically God’s predestination of the unbelievers, for as we will see in a later section, God’s predestination of believers, is substantially different. We will see in this section that because of God’s predestination of unbelievers, there are none in heaven today that should be in hell. And so, based on God’s foreknowledge of the unbeliever’s unwillingness to submit themselves to Him, they are not chosen for salvation. But even though God knows that these cannot be saved, He still cannot arbitrarily condemn them to destruction, for that would make Him unjust. And so, the way that God overcomes the problem, is in the method that He has chosen to save mankind. In the above passage of scripture, the apostle Paul tells us that God has chosen through the foolishness of the message preached, to save those who believe. So why did God choose this method to save mankind? The answer to that question is very simple. Because through the preaching of the gospel, every man makes their own decision as to whether they choose to believe or reject the message preached. And so, because God does not override the free will of man in this life, He remains just in not choosing the unbelievers for salvation.
Michael E.B. Maher
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