In the early seventeenth century the first Arminians taught that God’s election is conditional. They said that God knew from eternity who would believe and chose them to be his people. His election was based on foreseen faith. This, along with other aspects of Arminian teaching, turns faith into a work and makes salvation dependent on man rather than the grace of God. The Canons of Dort, the Reformed churches’ answer to Arminianism, powerfully demonstrate from Scripture that God’s election is dependent solely on his sovereign good pleasure, not on anything in man.
But the same question can be asked about reprobation, God’s passing over (or rejection) of those whom he did not choose. Is reprobation conditional or unconditional? You will hear from some in the Reformed churches that reprobation is conditional. God eternally rejected men because of their unbelief and sin. This teaching defies logic and is unBiblical.
It defies logic because unconditional election implies, of necessity, unconditional reprobation. Imagine that you have before you two dozen brand new crayons all the same and of the same color, but all bad and useless. You want six and choose them from the twenty-four to remake those six into something useable. You did not choose those six because there was anything better about them, anything that made them more worthy of your choice than the others. They were exactly the same as all the rest. But neither did you pass over, or reject, the other eighteen because they were bad. They were no worse than the ones you chose. Your choosing was unconditional, merely according to your good pleasure, but that implies that your rejection was also unconditional. Thus also with God’s rejection of some from eternity. He chose his own out of those who were all equally worthy of damnation, indistinguishable from those he passed over. Therefore, his rejection of the rest was not because of what they were but because of his good pleasure.
This needs a little further explanation. Let’s return to our analogy of the crayons. You did not reject the eighteen because they were bad, but you probably threw them away. Thus also God’s rejection of sinners. He did not reject them because they were bad, but he will send them to eternal condemnation because they are bad. The choice was according to the good pleasure; the condemnation will be because they are evil.
More importantly, the teaching of a conditional reprobation is unBiblical. In Romans 9:11-13, the apostle Paul says of Jacob and Esau, (for the children not yet being born, nor having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of Him who calls), it was said to her, ‘The older shall serve the younger.’ As it is written, ‘Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.’ God chose Jacob before he had done any good or evil. The plain meaning of the text is that he did not choose Jacob for any good that he had done or would do. But he also rejected Esau before he had done any good or evil. Again, the plain meaning of the text is that he did not reject Esau for any evil that he had done or would do.
Paul develops this idea further in verses 15 to 18. He told Moses that he would have mercy on whoever he willed to have mercy. It is not of men who will and run, but of God who shows mercy. But the decision to have mercy on those on whom he wills to have mercy means that it was because of his will, not anything else, that he did not have mercy on others.
It becomes explicit in the example of Pharaoh. God raised him up and hardened his heart, not because Pharaoh was wicked, but to show his power in him and to make his name known in all the earth. Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.
That is the only understanding of the text that can explain the objection that Paul anticipates in the next verse: Why does He still find fault, For who has resisted His will? Pharaoh did not resist God’s will (in fact, he could not). Yet God condemned him. How is that just? Paul’s answer is that God, as creator, has the right to do with his creatures as he wills. Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?
God’s eternal reprobation is also unconditional, rooted only in his sovereign good pleasure.
That is a hard doctrine, one which many have found intolerable. But Paul’s conclusion, after much further discussion in the following chapters is, Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out! … For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. When we think anthropocentrically, with man as our chief concern, then we have trouble with God’s sovereign will. But when we think theocentrically, with the glory of God before our eyes, we recognize that he is God, that his thoughts are not our thoughts, and that we are dust. We, with Job, lay our hands on our mouths. I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, But now my eye sees You. Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes [Job 42:5-6].