Last Update: 2024, March 12
Certain ideas or beliefs can drastically alter our thought processes and perspectives in life. Sometimes, the questions we ask can expose our lack of understanding, ignorance of Scripture, or missing pieces in our theological connections. For instance, the Sadducees didn’t didn’t believe in the resurrection of the dead. It formed the basis of their theological worldview, which led them to asking the wrong question: “In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife of the seven will she be? For they all had married her.” (Matthew 22:28, LSB).
Many Christians today find themselves in a similar situation. Ignorance of Scripture and God’s ways can lead us to reason according to our own understanding, making us wise in our own eyes. I used to ask many unnecessary questions and struggled to comprehend many of the deep things of God, until I realized that God uses various means to work in our lives. This shift in perspective transformed my thinking, and Reformed Soteriology became much clearer to me. Consequently, my reasoning became more aligned with God’s truth (cf. John 17:17).
Questions or objections like these can be easily addressed,
“If God already determined who would be saved, then what’s the point of evangelism?” (see here)
“Why pray if God already knows?”
Non-Calvinists who persist in asking these types of questions, hoping to corner Calvinists, show that they “are mistaken, not understanding the Scriptures nor the power of God.” (Matthew 22:29, LSB).
There are a lot of Scriptures I can go through, but for now I’ll leave you with an excellent excerpt by Wilhelmus à Brakel,
God has ordained that living creatures be preserved by food and drink, and He himself provides this for them. “O Lord, Thou preservest man and beast” (Ps 36:6); “He giveth to the beast his food, and to the young ravens which cry” (Ps 147:9). God does not need to avail Himself of means, neither can the means preserve the creature without His preserving influence. However, God uses the means to manifest His wisdom, power, and goodness, so that rational creatures would the better discern His hand, rejoice in this, and magnify God because of it.
God ordinarily uses the means, but occasionally He acts in an extraordinary manner to demonstrate His majesty and sovereignty:
(1) At times He preserves by means which otherwise are insufficient. In this manner God preserved Elijah, the widow, and her son for a long time by means of a small measure of flour and oil (1 Kings 17:10 ff.) In like manner the Lord Jesus fed five thousand people with five loaves and two fishes (John 6:9-10).
(2) God preserved some for a period of time without food and drink—for example, Moses, Elijah, and Christ, each for a period of forty days (Exod 34:28; 1 Kings 19:8; Matt 4:2).
(3) God has preserved some by holding natural powers in abeyance. God preserved the three young men in the fiery furnace in this fashion (Dan 3:17). He delivered Israel out of Egypt by causing the water of the sea to stand as walls on both sides until Israel had proceeded through on dry land (Exod 14:22); this also occurred at the Jordan (Josh 3:16). The Lord caused the sun to stand still (Josh 10:13) and to move backwards by ten degrees (2 Kings 20:11).