Tim, in his post “Why Doesn’t God Choose Everybody?”, gives a reasonable and sound answer to an inquirer’s question. The problem as posed is basically expressing a need to understand how a good God can allow anyone to go to hell when (obviously) it is within His power to prevent it.

As the good Reformed theologian that he is, Tim leans heavily on election and God’s sovereignty to provide his response. He admits that some things about God and His ways are beyond our comprehension – and he is surely right about that – and quotes Rom 9:18-19 in support of his reply to the question:

So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires. You will say to me then, ‘Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?’”

The sole concept that I would add to Tim’s already-sufficient response grows out of a couple of statements he makes as well as a passage from the same chapter of Romans. Tim writes,

As mere created beings we have no right to question His sovereign decrees . . . As Wayne Grudem says in his Systematic Theology, ‘If God ultimately decided to create some creatures to be saved and others not to be saved, then that was his sovereign choice, and we have no moral or scriptural basis on which we can insist that it was not fair.’”

The passage is Rom 9:22-24, in which Paul asks and answers his own question:

What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles.”

That Christians would dare ask such a question – and it does seem to be Christians who ask it most frequently – reveals an audacity and arrogance that belies the depravity of our flesh. It is not just an attitude found in the affluence of our day. Paul apparently encountered the same mentality in his own day, as is evident in his sharp rebuke to objectors crying “foul”:

On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, ‘Why did you make me like this,’ will it?” (Rom 9:20).

Questions about God’s goodness or fairness are manifestations of the flesh, i.e., everything that is within us that is hostile to God and contrary to His purposes. It is evidence that we, at such times, are not walking in the Spirit – which would result in humility – but are acting and thinking like fleshly unbelievers:

For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Rom 8:5-8).

It is difficult impossible for us to assume our position as mere creatures before the Creator if we have our minds set on the flesh. When our minds are fixedly set on the flesh, it demonstrates that we are unsaved; if periodically fixed on the flesh, that we are carnal (1 Cor 3:1-4).

Believers belong to God: He owes us nothing but gives us everything; unbelievers are His, too, and He can do with them as He will. This is Paul’s point in his statement above: if God wishes to create some people who then prepare themselves for destruction, He owes them nothing. This is His creation, not ours; He is bound by His character, not ours.

There is a flavor of Christian thinking that sees the goal of history and the purpose of God’s activities residing in the salvation of humankind. This is as wrong-headed as it is narcissistic.

Simply put, this – that is, all of creation and history and everything that transpires anywhere at anytime – is not about us. It is all about God. We have no say in the matter, no voice, no value other than that which He has bestowed upon us. He owes us no answers, no explanations, and feels no need to defend or justify Himself when we ask our self-righteous questions (as though we have thought of something better – the salvation of all – than God has thought of).

The salvation of all might be the greatest good for all mankind, but it is obviously not the greatest God as far as God is concerned. If such a course of action were the most glorifying to God, He would have saved everyone. But He knows things we do not know – and things we likely will never know – and we need to accept it, bow before Him, and be still.

He is the Creator, we are the creatures. Period. End of discussion. No questions allowed.


2 Cor 1:13