Some Final Thoughts on Reprobation
Part 4
Until the time in which God’s eternal decree to elect a certain specific sinner takes effect, that particular chosen sinner is no different than the sinner who will never experience the saving grace of God.
Both are under the wrath of God (John 3:36), guilty in Adam (Romans 5:12), enemies of God (Romans 5:10) and impotent to do anything about it (Romans 5:6).
Despite these seemingly insurmountable obstacles, Christ died for His people, ungodly sinners though we were.
Furthermore, this unparalleled act of love resulted in
the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost who is given to us (Romans 5:5).
Without asking our permission or counsel, the Lord decided to save a multitude of sinners, out of every nation, tribe, people and language.
He would be their God and they would be His people, to the praise of His glorious grace.
At the same time, the Lord decided not to save multitudes of other sinners.
Instead, He preferred to punish them for their sins, to the praise of His glorious justice.
Keep in mind, there is no difference between sinners guilty in Adam who were not yet born.
Yet, before mankind came into being, God had already determined who would be His people, and who would not be His people.
His reasoning for choosing some sinners over others is hidden from us.
Thus, we are given the command to preach the Gospel to every creature, trusting God to give the increase to whom He will.
For God knows who are His own, those for whom Christ died (2 Timothy 2:19; Matthew 1:21)).
To summarize:
God gives the necessary means by which the Elect are infallibly saved.
This is a positive decree.
God denies the necessary means by which the Reprobate may be saved.
This is a negative decree.
Romans 9:18
Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.
In this verse Paul compares election to reprobation.
They both originate in the sovereign eternal will of God’s good pleasure, contingent on nothing outside of Himself.
But there is yet another reason for Paul’s comparison.
Both are positive actions of God stemming from positive decrees.
Not only has God decreed to
not grant saving grace to certain sinners, He has also positively decreed to judicially
harden those same sinners, fitting them for certain destruction.
From our vantage point it is not obvious as to when that hardening process begins in the reprobate.
Consider the case of Paul.
The early Christians could not readily believe Paul was actually converted, having experienced his unbridled hostility, as well as the harm to which he had exposed them.
Yet there are cases of hardening which we can and should discern.
Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;
2 Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;
3 Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth (1 Timothy 4:1-3).
A seared conscience is a hardened conscience, unwilling to desire that which is good, preferring evil instead.
Even common sense is lost.
The German extermination of the Jews is a recent example of such a conscience.
The ongoing torture, rape and sodomizing of Catholic children by the Catholic priesthood is another example.
The perpetual cover-up of the sexual assaults by the Catholic Church hierarchy is yet another.
The overt homosexuality of the Priesthood has been publicly exposed for centuries revealing an evil conscience.
The sacrifice of the Mass in which a wafer is offered to God as a propitiation for sins is the result of a seared conscience.
The doctrine of Transubstantiation whereby the wafer is believed to be the God-man Christ is yet another proof of a hardened conscience.
And can there be any doubt that the Roman Pontiff, who communes with Voodoo dolls and their spirits, is numbered among the damned?
I would have the reader to note the doctrine of forbidding marriage is considered a doctrine of devils.
Here the Holy Spirit points to the Roman Catholic Church as demonic, for it is this Church which forbids its clergy and nuns the ‘sacrament of marriage.’
And have they not commanded their followers to abstain from meat on Fridays?
I now ask the reader to consider the fact that there have been numerous ‘Evangelical’ leaders who have called the Roman Catholic Church a Christian Church, its Pope a Christian man to be honored as a role model.
Is it possible that by such affirmations these so-called ‘leaders’ are revealing a judicial hardening and blinding which God has been set in motion and from which they can never recover?
