What to say when a "Christian" chooses Hell over God's Sovereignty?

[Sonoftheday]

If God arbitrarily chose, predestined, me for hell or heaven, if before I was born He had decided my place of eternity then I would rather go to HELL then be in heaven with this God.

This is something that I have heard many times in one form or another coming from supposed Christians whenever discussing God's Sovereignty. How do you respond whenever someone who claims to be a Christian says they would rather go to hell than to heaven with a sovereign God?

 

[Mathetes]

Well the first point is that God's choice isn't arbitrary. The second thing is that if God really chose someone, they would not rather go to hell. They really don't understand how regeneration works.

 

[Blue Tick]

If God arbitrarily chose, predestined, me for hell or heaven, if before I was born He had decided my place of eternity then I would rather go to HELL then be in heaven with this God.

This is a symptom of a greater need. Unfortunately, this attitude is a result of not being taught properly or believing a different gospel. What these people are generally experiencing is worship of a false god. They've created and believed in a god that's not the God of scripture. Therefore, their worshipping an idol, a graven image of the mind, a god who doesn’t require anything. What they need is the gospel preached to them. They need their hearts converted.


Bring them to Ephesians Chapter 2, show them Romans 3, and have them read Romans 9.


Pray and ask God to soften the heart of stone.

 

[Poimen]

Does this person believe in God's providence? If they believe this then they are one step away from predestination. Either God is sovereign over everything or there are some things that are not under His dominion (Ephesians 1:11). For you could then assert that God chose where they would be born, giving them opportunities and advantages above others to hear the gospel.

However, if they reject God's providence, you may be dealing with an outright heresy such as Open Theism - a rejection of God's foreknowledge and divine counsel.

 

[danmpem]

If God arbitrarily chose, predestined, me for hell or heaven, if before I was born He had decided my place of eternity then I would rather go to HELL then be in heaven with this God.

This is something that I have heard many times in one form or another coming from supposed Christians whenever discussing God's Sovereignty. How do you respond whenever someone who claims to be a Christian says they would rather go to hell than to heaven with a sovereign God?

One of my closest friends who is a Christian once said this to me.

 

[Herald]

This answer has already been given. A child of God would not answer is such a manner. I would tell your friend that it is not imperative that they understand completely the doctrines of grace at this time, but it is imperative that they understand justification and adoption. If your friend balks at these essential doctrines then you may not be dealing with a believer.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

What would be most alarming about this is whether or not such a person actually believes the Gospel.

Deep down, what it points to is the idea that faith was generated from within and was not the gift of God's grace. The Gospel, to this person, began in the flesh and, unless it began in the flesh, the person wants nothing to do with a God that demands worship.

The truly baffling thing for a person that wants God to be an idol of love is that freedom from slavery to sin is slavery to Christ. That's a mind bender to the person that desires autonomous response to God. But we were created for Him and not the other way around.

 

[hollandmin]

Does this person believe in God's providence? If they believe this then they are one step away from predestination. Either God is sovereign over everything or there are some things that are not under His dominion (Ephesians 1:11). For you could then assert that God chose where they would be born, giving them opportunities and advantages above others to hear the gospel.

However, if they reject God's providence, you may be dealing with an outright heresy such as Open Theism - a rejection of God's foreknowledge and divine counsel.

DIDDO!!

God's Soverignty and our inablility. . .


Blessings,

 

[k.seymore]

If God arbitrarily chose, predestined, me for hell or heaven, if before I was born He had decided my place of eternity then I would rather go to HELL then be in heaven with this God.

This is something that I have heard many times in one form or another coming from supposed Christians whenever discussing God's Sovereignty. How do you respond whenever someone who claims to be a Christian says they would rather go to hell than to heaven with a sovereign God?

I assume they didn't actually say, "they would rather go to hell than to heaven with a sovereign God," but that this is your interpretation of what they mean by the quote... I understand the meanings we, being Reformed, place on their words, but don't you think that, at least in many cases, when people say this they actually mean, "I would rather go to hell than be in heaven with a God who forces people to do whatever he wants?" At least sometimes when I've heard people speak like this, that is what they are getting at. If this is the case, then our reformed confessions jump right in and agree that the true God is not like this:

There is no "violence offered to the will of the creature" (3.1) and "God hath endued the will of man with that natural liberty and power of acting upon choice, that it is neither forced, nor by any necessity of nature determined to do good or evil" (9.1).

Thus any tyrant false god should not be served in any way that gets you into that false god's heaven. So if this is the intent of these Christians you have spoken with, their objection is removed since the Reformed will join right in with other Christians who would rather suffer the worst hell any false god can deliver even to the point of maryrdom, than to give up the true God in order to enjoy the greatest heaven any false god of this world could offer. That's what the early church did, and many suffered the worst hell the false god Caesar could deliver.

 

[Reformed Covenanter]

If God arbitrarily chose, predestined, me for hell or heaven, if before I was born He had decided my place of eternity then I would rather go to HELL then be in heaven with this God.

This is something that I have heard many times in one form or another coming from supposed Christians whenever discussing God's Sovereignty. How do you respond whenever someone who claims to be a Christian says they would rather go to hell than to heaven with a sovereign God?

In such a case, we have no reason to believe that a person who says something like that is a Christian.

 

[puritan lad]

Ditto. Any person who would choose to go to hell instead of being with God, simply because God doesn't measure up to his own humanistic moral standard, cannot have been taught of God, doesn't know God, doesn't love God, and is ignorant of the sufferings of Hell.

 

[A5pointer]

This has been said to me too. I usually duck because I think the lightining is coming down soon. It is actually a very sobering and frightful statement.

 

[Kim G]

Ditto. Any person who would choose to go to hell instead of being with God, simply because God doesn't measure up to his own humanistic moral standard, cannot have been taught of God, doesn't know God, doesn't love God, and is ignorant of the sufferings of Hell.

I don't know that I'd go that far. For those of us (I'm speaking of myself here) who did not grow up knowing and believing the doctrines of grace, the completely sovereignty of God over everything is a very scary concept. I first confessed faith in Christ when I was eight years old, and I have no doubt that God saved me then. But I balked against the doctrines of grace until I was twenty. I didn't know that I was holding God to my humanistic moral standard, even though I said, "God couldn't be that way." "So God is just a programmer and we are His robots?" "God wouldn't do that." "I have to choose to put faith in God!" etc. In my mind, I had the correct view of who God is. And I probably would have said, "Why would I want to go to heaven to be with someone who forced me to be there?" In my mind, GOD was not that way.

It was only by reading the Word of God that He opened my eyes to understand what grace really is and what comfort there is in believing that God is Sovereign. Maybe I was ignorant before; maybe I was taught that election wasn't scriptural . . . but I was still a believer in God and in Christ. And after kicking against the idea of sovereignty for over a year, God's Spirit used the Scriptures to patiently teach me the truth.

Just my .

 

[toddpedlar]

Ditto. Any person who would choose to go to hell instead of being with God, simply because God doesn't measure up to his own humanistic moral standard, cannot have been taught of God, doesn't know God, doesn't love God, and is ignorant of the sufferings of Hell.

I don't know that I'd go that far. For those of us (I'm speaking of myself here) who did not grow up knowing and believing the doctrines of grace, the completely sovereignty of God over everything is a very scary concept. I first confessed faith in Christ when I was eight years old, and I have no doubt that God saved me then. But I balked against the doctrines of grace until I was twenty. I didn't know that I was holding God to my humanistic moral standard, even though I said, "God couldn't be that way." "So God is just a programmer and we are His robots?" "God wouldn't do that." "I have to choose to put faith in God!" etc. In my mind, I had the correct view of who God is. And I probably would have said, "Why would I want to go to heaven to be with someone who forced me to be there?" In my mind, GOD was not that way.

It was only by reading the Word of God that He opened my eyes to understand what grace really is and what comfort there is in believing that God is Sovereign. Maybe I was ignorant before; maybe I was taught that election wasn't scriptural . . . but I was still a believer in God and in Christ. And after kicking against the idea of sovereignty for over a year, God's Spirit used the Scriptures to patiently teach me the truth.

Just my .

I want to treat this as gently as possible, but ask very directly... you said above "in your mind God wasn't that way".

Is it possible that you didn't at that point know God? God's sovereignty over all things IS a scary concept - and he is a terrible and awesome God, rightly to be feared because of His sovereignty.

What if one does not have that fear concept? What if one takes the position that she cannot serve a God who is like that? Does she truly know Him?

A similar question - suppose someone think that he did 1% and Christ did 99% in order to save him. If that were his position, would he truly be trusting in Christ for all? Would it be fair to question his salvation?

I'm not calling you into question - but I am saying that I am quite sure I was utterly ignorant of who God is until He graciously convinced me of His full and complete sovereignty. What does the Bible say about those who do not know God?

 

[TimV]

I guy can say something dumb and still be a Christian. Denying the Doctrines of Grace isn't the sin against the Holy Spirit. Someone can say something dumb and believe something dumb and that's generally not enough to condemn them to Hell. To say Christ was just a good man and I'm trusting in the Golden Rule for my salvation is one thing, but to (as Rich pointed out) reach a probably temporary wrong conclusion about the nature of God based in really flawed reasoning isn't enough evidence to write him or her off as a non-Christian.

Now as to what you would say to them? I'm going through something similar with a family member, and I was given some good advice. That was "If someone has reached a decision without using logic, you can't change their decision using logic". I'm still digesting that, but perhaps it will give you food for thought.

 

[toddpedlar]

Denying the Doctrines of Grace isn't the sin against the Holy Spirit.

Perhaps so - but the sin against the Holy Spirit is not the only thing for which one stands condemned of God. My question is as Rich asked... does one who actively denies God's sovereignty (not who frivolously makes a statement about it once) actually believe the Gospel? Does such a person know God and Christ?

 

[Kim G]

I want to treat this as gently as possible, but ask very directly... you said above "in your mind God wasn't that way".

Is it possible that you didn't at that point know God? God's sovereignty over all things IS a scary concept - and he is a terrible and awesome God, rightly to be feared because of His sovereignty.

What if one does not have that fear concept? What if one takes the position that she cannot serve a God who is like that? Does she truly know Him?

A similar question - suppose someone think that he did 1% and Christ did 99% in order to save him. If that were his position, would he truly be trusting in Christ for all? Would it be fair to question his salvation?

I'm not calling you into question - but I am saying that I am quite sure I was utterly ignorant of who God is until He graciously convinced me of His full and complete sovereignty. What does the Bible say about those who do not know God?

I'm not offended, and if that were the time of my true convertion, then so be it. I guess the question would be, HOW MUCH of God do you have to know to be a Christian?

That said, most people in my circles, my family included, were not Arminians. Now that I embrace the doctrines of grace, I wonder what kind of camp we would have put ourselves in. I truly feared God and reverenced Him. I "knew" that He had power over everything and none could thwart His hand in anything He desired to accomplish. But I also believed that God extended a general grace to all men, and those who put faith in the saving grace of God would be saved. In dealing with election, I was brought up learning that God "foreknew" those who would desire to be saved, and He elected those people. Now I know that my theology was skewed. But I still believe that I knew enough of who the true God was to be a Christian.

If I believed God extended grace to all for salvation if they would choose Him (faulty theology), then I couldn't believe that God would elect some people definitely to heaven while sending the rest to hell. Once my faulty theology was fixed (God doesn't extend saving grace to everyone), the second part of the equation was fixed, too.

Am I making any sense?

 

[TimV]

Perhaps so - but the sin against the Holy Spirit is not the only thing for which one stands condemned of God. My question is as Rich asked... does one who actively denies God's sovereignty (not who frivolously makes a statement about it once) actually believe the Gospel? Does such a person know God and Christ?

It's literally none of your business, or mine as to whether he's saved or not. And I'm not saying that in a way to insult you in any way, or to belittle any position that you may have on the subject. His own maker will make him rise or fall.

Many even here on this board denied the Doctrines of Grace for years, including myself. I thank God for a further insight into His character by opening my eyes to that particular truth, but was I unsaved during those years? Of course not. I don't have anything to bring to the table. I'm saved by God's grace alone.

That word "condemned" gets thrown around a lot, even by people who don't like the Bible translation the other guy is using. But you can be really wrong about a subject and not be condemned, the primary meaning of which is pronounced to be wrong, guilty, worthless, or forfeited; adjudged or sentenced to punishment, destruction, or confiscation.

There is something almost magical about having your eyes opened up to Biblical truth, and the Doctrines of Grace are high on the list of things that open your eyes. But to claim that denying them makes you condemned is too strong.

 

[toddpedlar]

I'm not planning to make a big issue out of this, but merely wanted to point out that I think we say "of course they're saved" far too quickly at times. I still believe that. I was hoping to encourage a little deeper thought on the matter, not to end up trying to quantify how much one has to know.

One question, though, Tim. You say you have nothing to bring to the table, and that you're saved by God's grace alone, which is very true of all of us who are in Christ.

Suppose one steadfastly denies that he brings nothing to the table.

Is this mere "forgivable" ignorance, or is it a denial of the very person and work of Christ?

 

[puritan lad]

Ditto. Any person who would choose to go to hell instead of being with God, simply because God doesn't measure up to his own humanistic moral standard, cannot have been taught of God, doesn't know God, doesn't love God, and is ignorant of the sufferings of Hell.

I don't know that I'd go that far. For those of us (I'm speaking of myself here) who did not grow up knowing and believing the doctrines of grace, the completely sovereignty of God over everything is a very scary concept. I first confessed faith in Christ when I was eight years old, and I have no doubt that God saved me then. But I balked against the doctrines of grace until I was twenty. I didn't know that I was holding God to my humanistic moral standard, even though I said, "God couldn't be that way." "So God is just a programmer and we are His robots?" "God wouldn't do that." "I have to choose to put faith in God!" etc. In my mind, I had the correct view of who God is. And I probably would have said, "Why would I want to go to heaven to be with someone who forced me to be there?" In my mind, GOD was not that way.

It was only by reading the Word of God that He opened my eyes to understand what grace really is and what comfort there is in believing that God is Sovereign. Maybe I was ignorant before; maybe I was taught that election wasn't scriptural . . . but I was still a believer in God and in Christ. And after kicking against the idea of sovereignty for over a year, God's Spirit used the Scriptures to patiently teach me the truth.

Just my .

Kim,

Just to clarify, I'm not at all suggesting that all Christians must be Calvinists, as I used to be a saved Arminian. But to make a statement like this person did exposes a big problem among many professing Christians. They simply do not love the God of the Bible. In fact, they would rather spend time in Hell than with Him. Among even the staunchest Pelagians, I have never met one who would say this.

I fear that they just might get their wish.

 

[Ravens]

The issues surrounding foreordination are complex by anyone's standards. Since that is the case, I wouldn't be too quick to condemn this person or write them off, since it is very possible they are only laboring under a misconception of the issue at hand. Namely, some folk so delight in attributing full sovereignty to God that they come nigh to making Him the author of sin.

And no, I am not denying the full foreordination of all things, including the evil acts of angels and men. However, Scripture teaches that "God is Light, and in Him is no darkness whatsoever." And sovereignty can be framed in such a way that rape, molestation, Holocausts, etc., seem to find their mirror in the heart of God Himself. And if the person is merely recoiling against the idea that there is darkness in the heart of God, then I would say it's probably a proper recoil, and an inaccurate understanding of theology.

Again, she might be chafing against the misconception that God capriciously damns undeserving people willy-nilly, or some other such notion. Clearly the person probably has room for theological growth, but when there are such differences over providence, concursus, decrees, etc., even among the Reformed, I wouldn't be too quick to write her off as unregenerate.

 

[TimV]

Suppose one steadfastly denies that he brings nothing to the table.

To say (which is what you are saying if you really look at it) that "I am saved because I know I don't bring anything to the table" is bringing something to the table.

 

[Blueridge Believer]

If God arbitrarily chose, predestined, me for hell or heaven, if before I was born He had decided my place of eternity then I would rather go to HELL then be in heaven with this God.

This is something that I have heard many times in one form or another coming from supposed Christians whenever discussing God's Sovereignty. How do you respond whenever someone who claims to be a Christian says they would rather go to hell than to heaven with a sovereign God?

The God Of Imagination

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How different is the God of the Bible from the God of modern Christendom! The conception of Deity which prevails most widely today, even among those who profess to give heed to the Scriptures, is a miserable caricature, a blasphemous travesty of the Truth. The God of the twentieth century is a helpless, effeminate being who commands the respect of no really thoughtful man. The God of the popular mind is the creation of a maudlin sentimentality. The God of many a present-day pulpit is an object of pity rather than of awe-inspiring reverence.[1] To say that God the Father has purposed the salvation of all mankind, that God the Son died with the express intention of saving the whole human race, and that God the Holy Spirit is now seeking to win the world to Christ; when, as a matter of common observation, it is apparent that the great majority of our fellow-men are dying in sin, and passing into a hopeless eternity: is to say that God the Father is disappointed, that God the Son is dissatisfied, and that God the Holy Spirit is defeated. We have stated the issue baldly, but there is no escaping the conclusion. To argue that God is "trying His best" to save all mankind, but that the majority of men will not let Him save them, is to insist that the will of the Creator is impotent, and that the will of the creature is omnipotent. To throw the blame, as many do, upon the Devil, does not remove the difficulty, for if Satan is defeating the purpose of God, then, Satan is Almighty and God is no longer the Supreme Being.

A.W. PINK

 

[BJClark]

Sonoftheday;

If God arbitrarily chose, predestined, me for hell or heaven, if before I was born He had decided my place of eternity then I would rather go to HELL then be in heaven with this God.

I asked my daughter this and her response was "why would ANYONE want to go to hell?? I don't get it!"

I've actually heard people say this and their 'reasoning' is that this God is mean because He isn't picking everyone to go to heaven..why would they want to worship a God who doesn't 'choose' everyone and sends some to hell, when they don't even have a choice. (it's not fair)

I just leave them with the question...God being God why would HE have to be fair?

People are His creation, not the other way around, to believe in anything else is to believe in a false god, a god of YOUR own creation and not the God of the Bible.

I've also turned it on them and said.."well, God doesn't want people in Heaven who don't want to be there, so why should He take them to live with Him for all eternity?" they don't know how to take that..but it gets them thinking about what they really believe...

They just look at me, and ponder the question..many have come back later asking for more information about this God...but their are just as many that get angry at me (but not really me, because it's not MY Gospel, it's God's Word, so it's really they become even more hard hearted enemies of God).

but those type of questions open the door for sharing the truth with them about WHO God is..

 

[Reformed Covenanter]

Ditto. Any person who would choose to go to hell instead of being with God, simply because God doesn't measure up to his own humanistic moral standard, cannot have been taught of God, doesn't know God, doesn't love God, and is ignorant of the sufferings of Hell.

I don't know that I'd go that far. For those of us (I'm speaking of myself here) who did not grow up knowing and believing the doctrines of grace, the completely sovereignty of God over everything is a very scary concept. I first confessed faith in Christ when I was eight years old, and I have no doubt that God saved me then. But I balked against the doctrines of grace until I was twenty. I didn't know that I was holding God to my humanistic moral standard, even though I said, "God couldn't be that way." "So God is just a programmer and we are His robots?" "God wouldn't do that." "I have to choose to put faith in God!" etc. In my mind, I had the correct view of who God is. And I probably would have said, "Why would I want to go to heaven to be with someone who forced me to be there?" In my mind, GOD was not that way.

It was only by reading the Word of God that He opened my eyes to understand what grace really is and what comfort there is in believing that God is Sovereign. Maybe I was ignorant before; maybe I was taught that election wasn't scriptural . . . but I was still a believer in God and in Christ. And after kicking against the idea of sovereignty for over a year, God's Spirit used the Scriptures to patiently teach me the truth.

Just my .

There is a difference between a person who does not understand the doctrines of grace, and a person who absolutely hates them in the manner that was expressed above.