Pastor Matt's Blogosphere

This Is Interesting

This is not my entry (in fact, I forget the name of the person who originally wrote this), however, I thought it was quite interesting. I had not seen this before. See what you think.

January 5, 2008
My Entry in the Disagree with Piper Essay Contest

From tomorrow’s sermon:
I do not believe that the term “double predestination” is a helpful term because God does not predestine people for wrath in the same way that he predestines people for glory. It is not as though God takes some morally neutral clay and makes one person to glorify and then in the same way makes another person to torment. No, all mankind are hellbound because of their own sins and then God shows mercy to some of them and he withholds mercy from others. You may say that the end result is the same. But it is still an important distinction for thinking rightly about the character of God and it is a distinction that Paul himself makes here in verses 22-23. Notice two phrases. “vessels of wrath prepared for destruction” and “vessels of mercy prepared for glory”. In most of the English versions the word “prepared” is used in both verses, but Paul actually uses two different words and the first one is passive while the second is active. So vessels of wrath are, passively, prepared for destruction in the sense that they are fit to be destroyed because of their own sins. But the vessels of mercy are actively prepared for glory in that God gets his hands dirty and remakes us into people fit for heaven. Why would Paul change his verbs like that unless he intended to communicate that God is not involved in the preparation of vessels of wrath for destruction in the same way that he is actively involved in the preparation of vessels of mercy for glory?