Tried With Fire

If we know anything at all about the character of God, then we know that he is not a tyrant and that he is never unjust. His structure of the terms of mankind's probation satisfied God's righteousness. That should be enough to satisfy us. Yet we still quarrel. We will contend with the Almighty. We still assume that somehow God did us wrong and that we suffer as innocent victims of God's judgement. Such sentiments only confirm the radical degree of our fallenness. When we think like this, we are thinking like Adam's children. Such blasphemous thoughts only underline in red how accurately we were represented by Adam. R.C. Sproul ~ Chosen By God, page 95.

Starting next week, the new Sunday school class will be a theological survey using Chosen by God by R.C. Sproul. In the beginning of the 2nd chapter, Predestination and the Sovereignty of God , he gives a modern dictionary definition of predestination. Out of curiosity I looked up the word in the 1828 Dictionary of the English Language by Noah Webster. 1828 definition: predestination (n) - The act of decreeing or foreordaining events; the decree of God by which he hath, from eternity, unchangeably appointed or determined whatever comes to pass. It is particularly used in theology to denote the preordination of men to everlasting happiness or misery. Predestination is part of the unchangeable plan of divine government; or in other words, the unchangeable purpose of an unchangeable God. Contrast the above definition with the one from the 1979 Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary. The second definition is the same as the one in the book. predestination (n) - 1. the act of predestinat...