Evangelists, Let the Doctrine of Predestination Batter Your Heart

“What do we call the test?” Leslie Groves asked Robert Oppenheimer.

“Batter my heart, three-person’d God,” he replied.

“What?”

“Trinity,” Oppenheimer explained. In Christopher Nolan’s newest film, the chief physicist behind the atom bomb associates the Manhattan Project with the God who destroys to remake and restore, who destroys to give humanity hope in the wake of sin’s rabid consequences.

Oppenheimer is quoting John Donne’s Holy Sonnet 14, which reads in part,

Batter my heart, three-person’d God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.

The Renaissance sonnet is a picture of God’s inescapable sovereignty over man’s fate and the sinner’s inability to turn to God unless the Lord rescues him from the enemy (and death) to which he’s yoked. Oppenheimer and Donne acknowledge what believers have affirmed for millenia: God’s sovereignty is inescapable.

But is this assertion biblical? And does what it says about the fated destinies of individuals lead us to a weaker view of missions and evangelism? Let’s explore what God reveals to us in the Scriptures.

Politics and Protons

God is the Creator, Sustainer, and Ruler over all things that happen in the universe, from big-scale events like nations at war to the smallest and most seemingly insignificant combination of atoms. He controls politics and protons. He rules over every collapsed star that cannot be seen by humans and every molecule of bacteria living so deep under the ocean that we can only speculate about its existence. He’s sovereign over all things.

We lean heavily on the complete sovereignty of God to understand biblical passages that speak about the eternal state of individuals. God isn’t merely sovereign over nature here on earth. He sovereignly reigns over people and their eternal destinies as well. Predestination is the biblical doctrine that states God has ordained all that will happen, especially regarding the salvation of the elect. It teaches that God is the ultimate arbiter of the recipients of his grace.

While God freely offers salvation to all people, “not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9), this doctrine explains that no one desires him apart from his intervening work to give them that desire. As Donne observes, our reason and resolve are both crippled in sin, leaving us married to God’s Enemy unless God acts to unite us to himself. The poet’s appeal to God for rescue underscores that salvation and damnation are equally under the Lord’s jurisdiction.

The corollary of predestination is double predestination, which takes the clear biblical teaching to its logical end by affirming the reprobate are as much under God’s sovereign rule as the regenerate. The Bible approaches the topic with causality grounded in God’s character.

Double predestination takes the clear biblical teaching to its logical end by affirming the reprobate are as much under God’s sovereign rule as the regenerate.

The Lord isn’t careless with his designs, and all he does is good and wise. All things made by God have a purpose in his creation, even when the purpose is to display his righteousness in judgment. “The LORD has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble” (Prov. 16:4).

Peter echoes this idea that God creates some people to whom he will not extend his saving hand of grace. He describes Jesus as the “cornerstone” of his people and a rock of offense to others. “They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do” (1 Pet. 2:8).

Far Be That from You

Romans 9 contains the fullest explanation of God’s sovereignty in both election and reprobation. Paul doesn’t merely tell us in this passage that God is ultimately sovereign over the final destiny of each man; he tells us why.

Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable 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. (Rom. 9:21–23)

This passage lists stark dichotomies. The potter and the clay, the honorable and the dishonorable, God patiently waiting for wrath and his revelation of the riches of his glory. It highlights how all things have been prepared beforehand—with purpose from a good and wise potter—for God’s glory. Some people were created to be a display of God’s glory as recipients of his grace, and some were created to display his glory and holiness through judgment.

A common response from people who hear about the doctrine of double predestination for the first time is to cry, “That’s unfair!” Others say, “God is love, so he would never damn people to hell before they were ever given a chance to choose him.”

Even Abraham wrestled with how God shows mercy to some and justice to others.

Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just? (Gen. 18:25)

But Abraham came to see that God never shows injustice to anyone. Each person does exactly what he wants. No one who goes to hell genuinely wants to come to salvation. But while all have chosen to reject God, he shows unmerited favor and grace to some sinners while permitting others to continue pursuing their sin without his intervention. God passes over some who have chosen to reject him, eventually allowing them the eternal punishment all deserve.

Miners Needed

Critics of double predestination argue that if God has already chosen the eternal destiny of all people then there’s no point in evangelism. Is that true? If God has already chosen who will go to heaven and who to hell, have we wasted billions of dollars and countless lives on worldwide evangelism? If we can’t change God’s sovereign plan for each person, why do we bother sharing the gospel at all?

This is a fair question, but if predestination is biblical, it deserves our attention rather than our dismissal. To the untrained eye, a rock full of diamonds found in the rubble may look like just another rock. But the miner who examines the rock closely discovers its hidden beauty and implicit value. Similarly, one who carefully examines predestination finds in it the encouragement and zeal to persevere that evangelists often need.

Instead of discouraging believers from sharing their faith, the doctrine of double predestination spurs the Christian to greater faithfulness in evangelism. While the potter and clay analogy may be uncomfortable for some missiologists, it wasn’t for Paul. His understanding of double predestination in Romans 9 doesn’t lead him to coldness and passivity. It leads him to a deeper love for his people and a stronger call for missions.

Knowing the lack of repentance among his own people, Paul had “great sorrow and unceasing anguish in his heart,” wishing he instead were “accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of [his] brothers” (Rom. 9:2–3). Fueled by this passion for his lost kinsmen, he calls on all to believe and find salvation. “For ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved!’” (10:13). 

The apostle asks, “How are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!’” (v. 15). Paul is convinced that proclaiming the good news is necessary for salvation, and thus the work of the evangelist is as well.

With Paul, we can identify at least three ways the doctrine of double predestination makes for better evangelists.

1. It reorders the goal of evangelism.

The doctrine of double predestination corrects the faulty assumption that the goal of evangelism is always conversion or that the highest good to come from sharing the gospel is the salvation of sinners. Something better and more important is at stake—God’s glory. If God is glorified both in showing mercy to sinners and in the just judgment of their sin, then every time the gospel is faithfully shared, it’s a success.

A “fruitful” ministry can’t be determined merely by the number of conversions or baptisms but rather by the faithfulness with which the gospel was made known. Double predestination gives categories for belief and unbelief, and it causes the evangelist to trust each outcome to the One who always acts justly. The evangelists’ efforts are never wasted because a faithful presentation of the gospel to a sinner will be either the sweet words of salvation or the just words of judgment God intends.

As a result of this reorientation, God’s holiness is primary in our presentation of God, our sin is the greatest problem humanity faces, and salvation is the most beautiful gift offered to the world. When God is made known to sinners accurately, this redounds to his glory.

2. It keeps the evangelist humble and dependent on the Lord’s work.

Double predestination motivates the Christian to share the gospel. It gives her certainty that the dead hearts of the elect will come alive when they hear the good news. Churches spend boldly on missions and outreach efforts to gather in the promised harvest (John 4:35). They aren’t merely wishing their clever strategies and winsome presentations might convince the lost. Rather, there’s bedrock certainty that the Lord has promised his elect from every nation, tribe, people, and language will come (Rev. 7:9). Going to the nations to find the elect has a safe return on investment.

Awareness of God’s complete sovereignty in salvation removes any creeping temptation toward pride on the part of the evangelist and causes her to cast herself fully in dependence on the Lord. She rejoices in her insufficiency for the task of conversion and instead relies on the Lord’s strength. The believer is free to take great risks in sharing her faith with her unregenerate coworker, or with unreached people across the world, because it’s the Lord’s work in salvation, not ours.

3. It fuels perseverance.

This doctrine fuels perseverance in the face of opposition and discouragement. The faithful missionary stays when the lost don’t believe. Gospel seeds still fall even when the ground seems impenetrable. The missionary faces opposition head-on, prepared that those “betrothed” to God’s Enemy will attempt to thwart his work.

When a people group doesn’t show interest in the missionary’s message, he faithfully plows on, trusting the Lord of the harvest. When persecution arises, the faithful evangelist entrusts himself to the Lord, knowing God will punish the wicked and vindicate the righteous. The missionary who fears his faithful labors have been in vain remembers that God’s Word will never return void.

The evangelists’ efforts are never wasted because a faithful presentation of the gospel to a sinner will be either the sweet words of salvation or the just words of judgment God intends.

The prophet Jeremiah knew discouragement. He was called out by God to proclaim salvation and judgment to God’s people. By many modern missions standards, he was a failure. Though he had the very Word of God, his message was rejected and maligned. He was kidnapped, persecuted, and left to die in a pit. Instead of seeing his people turn in repentance to God, he saw them enslaved and carried off to a foreign land.

Yet he was faithful to proclaim God’s judgment. This “unfruitful” evangelist whose message was rejected fulfilled his mission by making God’s glory known. God’s purposes couldn’t be thwarted by the Babylonians or even by the sin of his own people. Like Jeremiah, our perseverance in evangelism mustn’t be fueled by people’s responses but by faithfulness to God.

The best, most faithful evangelist prizes faithfulness over perceived fruitfulness because she has her eyes set on God’s glory, whether it’s displayed in salvation or judgment.

Batter Our Hearts

My struggle to reconcile God’s goodness with the doctrine of double predestination lasted for years. Perhaps that’s why Donne’s prayer to “batter [his] heart” with the understanding of God’s sovereignty resonates so deeply.

I suspect it would have resonated with the apostle Paul as well. He struggled in anguish over the lack of repentance he saw in his kinsmen, knowing the rich promises God had made to and through the Jewish people. The doctrine of God’s complete sovereignty battered his heart until he got to a place of submission to it, even joy in it.

After considering God’s sovereignty in salvation, he writes this glorious doxology in Romans 11:

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

“For who has known the mind of the Lord,
or who has been his counselor?”
“Or who has given a gift to him
that he might be repaid?”

For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. (vv. 33–36)

Paul carefully examined the rock of God’s sovereignty in election and reprobation and found treasured jewels. In better understanding this doctrine, perhaps we’ll also find the unexpected—more joy in evangelism and a deeper understanding of the beautiful feet of those bringing the good news. A battering of truth should be the posture of prayer for all of us: “For I, except you enthrall me, never shall be free.”

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