LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL REVIEW - Brock University

BAUE: THE CURRENT DEBATE ON PREDESTINATION 33
Far from focusing on the negativa, Gerhard clearly sets forth a positive
doctrine of predestination, and explains many of the passages that advocates
of double predestination misinterpret. For example, in Malachi 1:2-3 it is
written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” Gerhard draws on Augustine, who
pointed out that the Lord told Rebecca that there were two nations in her
womb, and helpfully shows that we “cannot take that prophecy to refer to the
person of Jacob but to his descendents.” 65 The Edomites, all descendents of
Esau, were constantly in rebellion against the Lord.
Then there is the problem of the hardening of Pharaoh. The advocates of
double predestination look at this passage and imagine that the hardening of
Pharaoh was due to God’s antecedent will—some immutable decree from
before the foundation of the world. Gerhard shows that this is a false
interpretation, observing that it is “as a punishment, therefore, for that earlier
wickedness and arrogance, the Lord says, Ex. 7:3: ‘I shall harden the
Pharaoh’s heart.’ Consequently, hardening is related to the consequent will
of God or to His just judgment by which He punishes sins which have been
committed earlier.” 66 And what of the potter and the clay St Paul says,
Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one
vessel for honoured use and another for dishonourable use What if God,
desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with
much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make
known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared
beforehand for glory—even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only
but also from the Gentiles (Romans 9:22-24).
Calvinists use this passage to try to prove double predestination. But
Gerhard responds,
We should not make the following kind of application: as the potter creates
out of the same lump some vessels for beauty and some for menial use, so
God creates some people, predestined by an absolute decree, for salvation
and, on the other hand, creates some people, rejected by an absolute decree,
for damnation and destruction. Such an application is opposed, first, to the
context of the apostle, for the apostle does not say that God makes vessels of
wrath but that “he has endured with much patience the vessels of wrath made
for destruction.” But now, what someone tolerates with much patience he
does not himself create. Augustine says it neatly: “God does not make but
comes upon vessels of wrath; He does not come upon but creates vessels of
grace.” 67
We have traced the development of the Predestinarian Controversy in the
Missouri Synod and the Synodical Conference. Walther’s Theses on
65 Ibid., para. 87.
66 Ibid., para. 95.
67 Gerhard, para. 100.