By Professor Robert D. Decker

We begin by calling the readers’ attention to two passages of Scripture. The first is Deuteronomy 30:19, “I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.” The second is Romans 9:16 and 18: “So then it is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy…. Therefore hath he mercy on whom he (God) will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.” Are these two passages contradictory? After all, Deuteronomy says, “choose life,” but Romans 9 plainly states, “it is not of him that willeth, but of God who shows mercy on whom he wills.” To choose is an act of the will. Again, does Romans contradict Deuteronomy?

By Prof. Herman C. Hanko

I Peter 2:7-8: “Unto you therefore which believe he is precious: but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed.”

Beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ,

I chose to make a sermon this past week on this passage because of the conference that you are holding here in Holland the last two weeks and that will be concluded this week, the Lord willing. I chose this passage because it is a passage that stresses so strongly the truth of the absolute sovereignty of God, the truth that must be maintained in order to understand properly the place of the will of man in sovereign election and reprobation.

By Prof. Herman C. Hanko

The Protestant Reformed Churches have not changed in their position concerning the sovereignty of God and the decree of predestination as they relate to the will of man. But the doctrine has fallen on hard times in our day.