The Doctrine of the Divine Decrees. Part 9

The doctrine of the divine decrees. Part 9.

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Point 3. The principle of the pre-creation reality and lapsarianism. They are called in theology the five elective decrees. Lapsarianism provides the logical environment as well as the logical order for the five elective decrees.

It provides the place for the insertion of escrow blessings for every believer in the portfolio of invisible assets.

The term lapsarian refers to the doctrine of divine decrees from the standpoint that man is a fallen being or creature.

There are five schools of interpretation in the order and arrangement of these five elective decrees. Supralapsarianism
Sublapsarianism
Infralapsarianism
Arminian lapsarianism
Biblical Lapsarianism

1. Supralapsarianism -hyper-Calvinism or Beza’s theory.
A. The decree to elect some to be saved (a false position) and to reprobate all others. (This is double predestination and heresy.) Predestination is a print-out from the sovereign will of God and it applies to believers only!!

2PE 3:9 “The Lord is not willing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.” The fact that people do perish means immediately that the sovereignty of God is not involved.

B. Under Supralapsarianism, there is the second decree that they teach exists which is the decree to provide salvation for the elect, which is the basis for limited atonement.

JOH 3:18 “He that believes on Him is not judged [last judgment], but he that does not believe is judged already because he has not believed in the name of the uniquely born Son of God.”
JOH 3:36 “He that believes on the Son has everlasting life. He that believes not the Son shall not see life but the wrath of God remains on him.”

Predestination originates from the sovereignty of God; the condemnation of man originates from his own negative volition.

1PE 1:1-2 “To those who are elected according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit”

They must have already fallen; and to fall, they had to be created in the first place, and with the same volition as angels had.

Unlimited atonement is the demonstration that the sovereignty of God desires that no one should perish.

C. Then they teach that there was the decree to create man, both elect and non-elect.
D. The decree to permit the fall.
E. The decree to save the elect.

1. Supralapsarianism -hyper-Calvinism or Beza’s theory.

1. Predestination is a word that applies to believers only, ROM 8:29-30, 1CO 2:7, EPH 1:5, 11.
2. There has to be a decree to create before there can be a decree to choose from the created.
3. This heresy says God is unfair because He selected some people to be saved and the rest are lost, no matter what they do or think.
4. Supralapsarianism says, “the only reason you ever believed in Christ was because you were elected.”
5. It ignores the part played by human volition in human history.
6. It denies the doctrine of the unlimited atonement, which is taught in many passages of scripture and means that Jesus Christ paid the price for all of the sins ever committed past, present, and future by all members of the human race.

When God gave His Son Jesus Christ, He gave Him to the entire world.

1TI 4:10 For it is for this we labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers.

The blood of Christ, which refers to His substitutionary spiritual death on the cross, provided redemption, propitiation, and reconciliation for every human being in history.

1TI 2:5-6 For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all, the testimony given at the proper time.

1JO 2:2 and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.
2CO 5:19 namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them,

Biblical Lapsarianism.
A. God decreed the creation of all mankind with free will in the status of perfection for two reasons: To resolve the prehistoric angelic conflict, and to bring many sons into glory. “Being brought into glory,” HEB 2:10, means there is a Christian way of life, a way to glorify God after salvation.

B. God decreed to permit the fall of mankind through the function of his own determination, his own volition as the extension of the angelic conflict into human history.
C. God decreed to provide eternal salvation for all mankind under the doctrine of unlimited atonement.

By unlimited atonement is meant that all sins in human history were imputed to Jesus Christ on the cross and judged, so that Christ is the issue and not sins. 2CO 5:14-15, 19; 1TI 2:6; 1TI 4:10; TIT 2:11; HEB 2:9; 2PE 2:1; 1JO 2:2.

D. God decreed to leave the reprobate (those who reject Christ as Savior) to their just condemnation.
E. God decreed simultaneously in eternity past both election and predestination for believers only.

A. God decreed the creation of all mankind with free will in the status of perfection for two reasons: To resolve the prehistoric angelic conflict, and to bring many sons into glory.
B. God decreed to permit the fall of mankind through the function of his own determination, his own volition as the extension of the angelic conflict into human history.
C. God decreed to provide eternal salvation for all mankind under the doctrine of unlimited atonement.
D. God decreed to leave the reprobate (those who reject Christ as Savior) to their just condemnation.
E. God decreed simultaneously in eternity past both election and predestination for believers only.

1. The decree of election, which is the expression of the sovereignty of God who wills the highest and best for every believer in Jesus Christ.

Election is the expression of the sovereign will of God in eternity past; predestination is the provision of the sovereign will of God for you so that you might execute the PPOG.