Chris Duncan #fundie outsidethecamp.org

[Extracts from the article The Wicked Westminster Confession - Italics original]

III.7. "The rest of mankind God was pleased, according to the unsearchable counsel of His own will, whereby He extendeth or withholdeth mercy, as He pleaseth, for the glory of His sovereign power over His creatures, to pass by; and to ordain them to dishonour and wrath for their sin, to the praise of His glorious justice."

In Matthew 11:25-26, Jesus is giving thanks to the Father for hiding the things of the gospel from the wise and prudent and revealing them unto babes. God the Father is said to be doing two things here: hiding from some and revealing to others. It is clear that a supposed "permissive decree" of God is not "expressly set down" in Scripture. Using the WCF's professed principle set forth in I.9, we go to John 12:40 for a fuller and clearer sense of what it means for God to hide these things from the wise and prudent: "He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with [their] eyes, nor understand with [their] heart, and be converted, and I should heal them."

God actively blinds eyes and hardens hearts. Why? So that they should not see nor understand and be converted. In Matthew 11:25-26, God is not passively hiding things but actively doing so by means of blinding and hardening.

[...]

The Scriptures that the WCF men put forth do not demonstrate that God is passive in His decree of sovereign ordination of the reprobate to wrath. Jude 4 and 1 Peter 2:8 make it clear that the reprobate are ordained and appointed to their respective condemnations. Those who stumbled at the stone of stumbling, those who were offended by the rock of offence, were not "permitted" or "allowed" to appoint themselves. They were appointed by God to stumble at the Word. If God is said to actively cause the reprobate of mankind to stumble at the Stone of stumbling, then will not the carnal response be: "Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?"?

The Scripture says that God raised Pharaoh up in order to display His power in him. How is God's power demonstrated in Pharaoh if God "passes by" him by giving him more freedom and "allowing" him to harden himself? In the Passover found in the book of Exodus, and in the final destruction of Pharaoh in the Red Sea, we see that God raised up Pharaoh (and by extension all the reprobate) in order to show His wrath and to make His power known in His active and unconditional hardening of Pharaoh. The hardening done by God in Pharaoh's heart is shown to be active and efficient because it is a display of His power, and the hardening is shown to be unconditional because God will harden whom He will.

Certainly there are aspects of God's counsel and will that are "unsearchable" (Romans 11:33; Deuteronomy 29: 29) to finite creatures. But God has clearly revealed in His Word exactly WHY He has chosen to have mercy on some and chosen to harden others: God wants to demonstrate His power and wrath in the reprobate so that those to whom He would show mercy might know that the riches of His glorious mercy found in Jesus Christ alone are what makes them to differ from the Pharaohs of the world (Romans 9:22-24).

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