And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. (1Jo 4:14-16)

Did Jesus come in the incarnation on behalf of all humanity or for a chosen people? This question has seen intense dialogue from earliest Christian history. When you examine some passages in isolation, you might lean toward one answer. Then you examine other passages and you could lean toward the opposite answer. Perhaps God intentionally provided this tension to prevent us from falling into arrogance; "I'm saved; too bad you aren't." Regardless of the view we adopt on this question, all of us will undoubtedly be surprised in heaven. We will see some people we knew during our lifetime who convinced us beyond reasonable doubt that they had no interest in God and no hope for heaven. And we may look around and miss others whom we almost knew would be there.

This chapter will examine some foundational issues in the salvation/predestination/election debate. The next chapter will examine the details of the passage. You will discover two words you may have read from theologians, but didn't understand. We'll attempt to find at least a basic working definition of them and explore the distinction in their theological impact.

Without apology, but with a significant measure of humility, I hold to the view that God chose a people in Christ before He created the universe. I do not hold to the supralapsarian view that He also chose or reprobated those who will suffer for their sins in eternal hell. This view borders on teaching that God literally allows certain people to be born for the sole purpose of populating hell. That said, I do not accuse all who hold to supralapsarianism of this error. My point is that the view leans in this direction. It seems more harmonious with God's character as revealed in Scripture to hold the infralapsarian view that God chose His people in Christ, fully aware of the fall and its consequences, but in a mysterious and amazing way so as not in any way actively to contribute to the sin or the punishment earned by the wicked. He passed them by, leaving them in the sinful state accrued by their identity with Adam's family and fully manifested by personal acts of freely committed sins in the course of their own lives. On the God side of the question this view seems far more consistent with Scripture than its opposite.

To adopt the view that Jesus came in the incarnation on behalf of all humanity leaves us with a major philosophical question. Why do all humans not eventually become saved in heaven? If God is sovereign and if He sent Christ on behalf of all humanity, what happened to foil God's purpose? And if God's purpose is foiled, can we philosophically and rationally maintain that God is actually sovereign? Further if we hold that God loved all humanity, the supposed motive for sending Christ on their behalf, does He continue to love the wicked and lost, even after they die and arrive in hell? And if He eventually hates them, does this turning of love to hate for them not question God's attribute of immutability? He appears to have changed. Love at one point in time and hate at a subsequent time involves change, regardless of the contributing factors.

Given these tensions and difficulties with both God's sovereignty and His attribute of immutability, unchangeableness, it appears that the infralapsarian view more fully harmonizes with His revealed nature and attributes. Rather than disagreeing with those who do not hold this view, that it compromises God's benevolence toward all of His creatures, I would rather agree with them, if the supralapsarian view were upheld. This is a major fault in that view, and one of several reasons I do not hold to it. Unfortunately, as many who hold to God's sovereign choice misrepresent the views of those who hold to God's universal love, so also those who hold to God's universal love misrepresent the infralapsarian view. It appears that they do not understand that there is more than one view of sovereign election, so they impute the inconsistencies and flaws they see in one view upon all views. I would agree with their critique against the supralapsarian view, but I don't hold that view. Therefore I have no reason to defend its weaknesses. Those who hold both views of God's love should exercise great caution in describing and critiquing other views. Setting up paper tigers and burning them down by either camp does not promote good understanding or goodwill. You naturally polarize when you hear someone misstate or misrepresent your viewpoint. If they will not take the time to investigate your viewpoint sufficiently to state it correctly, why should you give their preferred view any consideration?

Christian grace among all believers toward those who hold differing views would significantly increase quality of communication and the potential for at least understanding other viewpoints fairly and graciously, agree with them or not. We owe this ethical posture to our God and to our personal honor as Christians. Considering the length of time this question has been debated among sincere Christian people, we will not soon settle it. But we should adopt a gracious spirit when we interact with those of the opposite viewpoint. And we should go to great lengths to avoid misrepresenting the viewpoint of those with whom we differ. Thinking and reasoning light will always work better than emotional heat and smoke. And whether we hold to one or the other view, the deciding criteria should be Scripture alone, not emotion.

Given the two strange words used above, we will briefly investigate the two historic views of predestination and election. Both views hold that God knew and allowed the fall to occur. Neither view imposes an absolute order upon God, but rather assumes a particular logical sequence of God's order of salvation.

Supralapsarian. The word simply means "over the fall." It holds that God actually ordained the fall and then actively chose one portion of humanity to redemption and chose the other portion to perdition, to eternal punishment. Aside from the objections raised above, this view also seems to make God fatalistic, the active cause of all things good and evil. Scripture clearly teaches that God is not the active cause of sin and wickedness. (Jer 7:31; 19:5; 32:35; 1Co 14:33; 1Jo 2:16) It appears that this view leaves God in a causative mode to sin's entrance into the world. He ordained its entrance in order to justify His active election of the saved and to justify His active reprobation of the lost.

Infralapsarian. This word means "under the fall." It holds that God knew and determined to permit, not cause, the fall. Knowing about and permitting the fall, He determined to leave a certain number of fallen humanity in their sins, in no way doing anything to make them worse than they were by the fall. Left in this state, they come into the world in sin and manifest this nature by acts of personal sin and hatred against God. But God also determined to choose out from this number a people to be the recipients of His mercy and grace through Christ and the incarnation.

Both views leave many unanswered questions. We should not avoid that obvious point. But it seems that the infralapsarian view more harmonizes with what the Bible teaches regarding God's essential nature, attributes that Christians representing most major theological views of salvation hold as indisputable, such as His sovereignty and His immutability.

I hold to the infralapsarian view because it avoids putting God in the role of actively causing or contributing to the sin and subsequent punishment of the lost. How could He punish them when He actively caused their sinful state?

Sometimes in our eagerness to defend God's sovereignty we over-emphasize the question of man's will. Does man in his sinful state possess a free will? Of course the answer is more complicated than first appears likely. A major question faces all views of salvation. If God knew about the fall in advance, why did He permit it to occur? It appears that He did so because He deemed it more correct to permit man to choose sin, and to choose freely of his own purpose, than to force him against his will to maintain righteousness. But once man made this choice God also, in keeping with His holiness, determined to deal with sin's consequences righteously. Even the saved escape sin's consequences only through full satisfaction of Divine justice by Christ's imputed righteousness, not by God inconsistently looking the other way and pretending they did not sin. Sin will face its just punishment before a holy God, either through Christ's substitutionary suffering and death on behalf of others or personally by those who sin. Critics of this view will object that election by God's sovereign choice eliminates man's choice, some even implying that it casts God as forcing salvation upon man against his will. This view is incorrect, for the view of God's sovereign election holds that God's first work in the active salvation of an individual is to change his nature and thus his will. Once the will is changed by God's intervention into man's sinful and helpless condition, it is drawn like a magnet to God and to His will. Prior to this act of salvation, man's sinful will is helpless to make a righteous choice. (He cannot respond to Jesus; Joh 8:43. He will not respond to Jesus; Joh 5:40. Further he does not seek after God; Ro 3:11.)

Jonathan Edwards the early American theologian makes a pertinent point in his classic work Freedom of the Will that man's nature, saved or unsaved, is free within the nature he possesses and bound not to violate his essential nature. An unsaved man by virtue of his animosity against God neither can, nor is willing to, cooperate with God in spiritual matters. A saved person whose will God has changed at the moment of salvation freely chooses to serve and obey God. Edward's definition is classic. In one sense we could say that even God's will is bound in that God cannot and will not violate His essential holy nature. And His will is free to do whatever He chooses within the confines of His holy nature. Then we can apply similar reasoning to man's will. Unsaved, man's will is free to do whatever corresponds to his unsaved nature, but Scripture, such as the passages mentioned above, clearly sets forth that the unsaved man's will despises God, and neither can nor will seek after Him. But his will is free to do whatever corresponds to his sinful nature. Once God saves a person, one of the first logical changes relates to the will. God doesn't merely change the heavenly record and leave the saved man exactly as he was before salvation. The work of salvation transforms the person throughout, including his will. The will of the saved person seeks after God and desires to honor God, and it takes this course freely.

From an experiential perspective how does a person know if he is saved or not? One of the first questions to ask relates to this person's present attitude toward God. If they hate God, or seem wholly indifferent to Him, they give no evidence of salvation. If they confess to a revolutionary transformation of attitude toward God, likely something of a mystery to them, they give direct evidence of God's saving work within. The gospel helps them understand the mystery of the amazing change they have experienced.

Another direct evidence of salvation relates to a person's attitude toward Christ. The person who confesses the truth about Jesus witnesses by the confession that God dwells in him, precisely the point John makes in this passage.

And the third evidence to note relates to conduct. Throughout this series on 1John we have repeatedly noted that to John and other New Testament writers love relates far more directly to a person's conduct than to emotions or "feelings." So when John tells us that he who dwells in love dwells in God, and God dwells in him/her, he is really saying that the person whose lifestyle continuously witnesses to godly righteousness gives evidence by that conduct of his/her salvation.

All of these evidences John uses to draw our minds to the contrast between the gnostic absence of specific knowledge about their god or assurances of their relationship with him and the Christian's open access to God through Christ. We have specific assurances from God in Christ of our salvation and of God's will for our life. We need not play the mystical game of trying to please an unknowable and inaccessible god. God cares enough to interact in our lives and to make Himself known to us. Thank God for Christ and, in Christ, His incredible self-revelation!

1Jo 4:17-18 - Perfect Love - No Fear

1Jo 1:1-3 - Implications of the Incarnation

1Jo 4:11-13 - How Do You Know You Know God?