The Need for Control and Why Biblical Election is Odious
Walt Henrichsen April 20, 2014
Part One
My impression of the culture in the United States and Europe is that it is a combination of wanting control and fearing that people cannot obtain what they want. Insecurity robs people of humility. For these people, meaning in life is found in getting rather than giving, using others rather than serving them. Kindness, manners, deferring to others, gratitude – all are signs of weakness.
Culture argues for transparency, but only to a degree, with care given in avoiding being too vulnerable. Commitments are fragile and tenuous. The culture is characterized by anger, bitterness, and narcissism, all because people are not in control and thus their expectations are not met. Words like entitlement, victim, and abuse form the ethos of life.
I know that there are wonderful exceptions to this, and hopefully you are one of them, but I suggest that this attitude forms the environment in which you live. The objective of this short series is to look at the various components that form this worldview.
Election
All people want to elect; they insist on the freedom of choice. In this series I will consider election, choice, decide, determine, and select synonyms. There are obviously some things you cannot elect, and we will look at these later, but you wish to decide whom you will marry, your vocation, choice of friends, etc.
For this reason, most consider the biblical doctrine of election odious. The idea that God decided who goes to heaven and who does not offends their moral sensibilities. The Bible teaches, “…and not only so, but also when Rebecca had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad, in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of his call, she was told, ‘The elder will serve the younger.’ As it is written, ‘Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated’” (Romans 9:10-13).
Anticipating a negative reaction, the Apostle Paul presents two objections: “God is not just” in verse 14, and “Why does He find fault” in verse 19. Both questions deal with a moral issue, and the Bible teaches that election is not a moral question; it is merely a question of who gets to elect. God is no more obligated to have a relationship with His creatures than you are to love and treat two animals the same. You decide to take one chicken as a pet and kill the other for dinner. God insists that He has that freedom with His creatures as well.
Control
In order to elect you need to be in control. A man asks a girl to marry him, and she refuses his offer. He has no ability to control her answer, while realizing that if he could control her response, she would be a robot. And so it is with all interpersonal relationships; do you want others to determine whether or not you like them and want to be their friend? Thus, people are torn between wanting to control and not wanting to control.
Control belongs to the strongest. Under certain circumstances the man can force the girl to marry him. It is axiomatic that justice is defined by the strongest. Because God is sovereign, He defines justice; He is in control. Therefore, a person may be in control because he is the strongest, such as the dictator of a country, or he may have control because authority has been delegated to him – as exemplified by the traffic policeman standing in an intersection stopping a semi-truck by the raising of his hand.
The absence of control produces fear, illustrated by the businessman who watches his net worth disappear because of a bad market, and he has no power to stop it. This means that in some areas, we desperately want to be in control, while in other areas we are glad we are not in control.
Grateful that God is in control,
Part Two
Genesis 3 teaches that God created man with a will and the desire for autonomy. When God placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, He told them what they could and could not do, implying that they had both a will and the power to obey or disobey. God prohibited them from eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, i.e., they had complete freedom with the exception of deciding for themselves what is good and what is evil. They insisted that they should make that decision, and this introduced sin. Their desire for autonomy was not the result of their sin but rather what caused their sin.
God created you with a will and a desire for autonomy. The will is essential in order to elect and control. Without a will you are not a person; you are a robot. You want to elect what you consider serves your best interest. You want to decide what is good and evil for you.
Certainty
A belief in certainty is a desire to control. If you are uncertain of the future, you are out of control. Uncertainty produces fear in those areas in which you care what happens. Because none can be certain of the future, you calm your propensity to fear with assurance. For example, when you take a commercial flight to another destination, you realize you cannot be certain the plane will safely deliver you, but you calm whatever apprehension you may have by reminding yourself of the safety of the airline. If you fly enough, you cease thinking about it.
However, God destroys the illusion of control by at least three means:
1 – The realization that none can solve the problem of inequality. You are not as bright as you would like to be and can do nothing about it.
2 – Perpetual opposition seen in adverse circumstances. You watch a loved one die of cancer. You work hard, and someone steals your wealth. Life is a myriad of discouragements and disappointments.
3 – Law. Those stronger than you make rules and force you to comply. Your boss wants you to work extra hours. The police will not allow you to ignore a red light when you are in a hurry. The illustrations are legion.
People think they can be certain they will go to heaven when they die by obligating God with His promises. A man said, “God will forgive my sins; He has to, for He promised me in 1 John 1:9: ‘If we confess our sins, God is faithful to forgive our sins…’” You cannot leverage God with His general promises. He may say to you, “Correct, I did make this promise, but it does not apply to you!” God gave us promises so that He can get us to do His will; He never intended that we use His promises to get Him to do our will. This misuse of biblical promises almost always leads to frustrated expectations.
The objective of most worship is the control of God. People have the attitude, “God, I will worship you if You give me what I want.” A man told me, “I will come to God for His salvation when I am ready.” One man I ostensibly led to Christ said, “I tried following Christ, but it did not work.” That is, “God did not meet my expectations, so I stopped worshipping Him.”
Conclusion
It is not that people believe election is odious. Rather, they want to do the electing: not God, not anyone else. To do this, they must be in control and therefore spend a great deal of their time creating the illusion of being in control. It may be a magnificent illusion, but it is an illusion nonetheless.
Grateful that He elects,
Part Three
A cursory survey of life reveals that there are a number of ways people endeavor to control. By way of illustration, I will review five of them:
1 – War. This is an obvious attempt. With my gun pointed at your head, I can get you to do what I want. So you find a gun, and I get a cannon. You also obtain a cannon and get others to join you, and we now have a war. The objective of war is control.
2 – Feminism. A young lady said, “I want to have it all.” By this she meant, “I want to determine what happiness, fulfillment, and success looks like in my life. I want to shape my own destiny.” Authority restricts freedom. Women do not wish to be under the authority of their fathers and husbands any more than men want to be under the authority of others.
3 – Politics. One of the reasons the politician loves his job is he gets to decide what is best for society. Power and control are closely related. Even in a socialist society the leaders control. You may remember the famous line from Animal Farm: “All the animals are equal, but some of the animals are more equal than others.”
4 – Own your business, or be in business for yourself. This way you are in control of how you spend your time. You determine what you will do, how you will do it, etc. You are the boss; you elect what you will do and not do; you are in control.
5 – Intimidation/threats/inflicting of pain. This is how governments control the people, especially in totalitarian societies. I submit to your authority because I do not perceive that I can afford to resist.
Limits of Election
In life there is more that you cannot decide than what you can decide. You cannot elect and control the most important aspects of your life. You know what they are: You did not decide when you were born. You did not select your parents, your sex, race, or era of history in which you live. You have no control over the gifts and abilities you have or want to have. Nor do you decide the circumstances that flow through your life, such as disease, accidents, etc. For the most part, all you decide is how you will respond to what you cannot control.
Nevertheless, man never ceases to try to control. Cloning, generic engineering, birth control, all have in common a desire to control.
It is in the nature of the case that you want to elect. You do not mind other people electing for themselves, as long as it does not impinge on your electing. For example, you are bidding on a contract to do certain work, and you want to be selected rather than your competitor. You are running for political office, and you want the people to elect you not your opponent.
This is how God created you. He gave you a will and a desire for autonomy. If He did not, He could not have a relationship with you. Both your will and your desire for autonomy are essential for any relationship in life. With this, however, He placed limits on what you can do with them. He gave you a will so you can decide whether or not you want a relationship with Him. He gave you a desire for autonomy so that you can decide whether or not you will submit to Him. He gave you a desire to control so you can surrender the control of your life to Him.
Grateful for the way He designed life,
Part Four
This is the final issue in this series. The objective of the series is to look at the way God created life. In this last issue I will endeavor to answer the question of why God created the world the way He did.
When God gave man a will, He gave him the ability to believe anything he wants to believe. Belief is not a function of the mind, although the mind is involved. The Bible teaches that belief is a function of the will. “…and with all wicked deception for those who are to perish, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends upon them a strong delusion, to make them believe what is false.”[1] When God senses that a person does not love the truth, He sends a “strong delusion” encouraging him to believe a lie.
If you were God, you would want the same thing He wants. You would want to elect and control. In part, this is what it means that God created you in His image. The Savior did not want a relationship with an inanimate thing. He wanted what people want in marriage: He wanted people to want a relationship with Him, to love Him and become one with Him.
People naturally want to be God, and they are angry because God got there first. If the Bible is correct, there are two things you will never be able to do:
1 – You will never be able to elect and control the most important things in life. As Jesus said, “A man can only receive what God gives him.”[2] God has never given man the ability to elect and control the essentials.
2 – You cannot cease to exist. Many are counting on ceasing to exist when they die. They believe that they came from nothing and will return to nothing. Because no one knows the future, I cannot be certain that this premise is false. All I can prove is that the Bible says it is false. You are an eternal being, for good or for bad.
We know very little about what hell will be like. It may be that hell is eternally living with this realization that you cannot elect and control and you cannot cease to exist. Such people will live in perpetual anger and frustration.
What You Can Elect
You can elect to try the impossible and wrestle control over as many areas of life as you can. You can seek to manipulate, control, and use others to meet your own goals. You can live a narcissistic, self-centered life if you choose. Realizing that this is the choice of most, God brings perpetual pain and opposition to distract man from trying to accomplish this. My parents lived through World War I, followed by the Great Depression, followed by World War II. They lacked the time and energy to seek self-fulfillment, self-actualization, etc.
Or you can, as an act of your will, submit to Christ as His slave. The only kind of slaves He accepts are those who truly want to be His slaves. You do God no favor by being His slave; He does you the favor of allowing you to be His slave. For sure, you cannot serve God on your terms. He will not accept such service.
God gave you a will, and with this will you must decide what you want. This you can elect and control.
Grateful for His salvation,
Walt
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