We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
What is the significance of Deuteronomy 30:19?
After establishing the terms of the covenant he was entering into with Israel, the Lord says, “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live.”
This passage represents the most fundamental motif of the whole Bible: namely, the Lord seeks to enter into a covenantal relationship with people. He lays before them the terms of the covenant, spells out the consequences of keeping and breaking the covenant, and then lets them choose whether to enter into a covenantal relationship with him. He desires Israel, and ultimately all people (1 Tim. 2:4; 2 Pet. 3:9), to “choose life.” But precisely because a covenant of love must be chosen rather than coerced, he also gives people the power to choose to reject his love.
World history functions as a probationary period to determine who will and will not enter into an eternal covenantal relationship of love with the Lord. In the end, there will only be those who say “yes” to God’s invitation and therefore participate in his eternal triune love (heaven), and those who say “no” and thereby choose to eternally separate themselves from the Lord (hell).
In passages such as this one, the point of giving people the choice to either accept or reject the terms of the covenant is to determine whether or not they will participate in the covenant (e.g. Deut. 8:2; Judg. 3:4; 2 Chron. 32:31). But if the outcome of the probation is already foreknown an eternity before he ever creates or calls anyone, there is really no point to the probation. Moreover, since the Lord explicitly tells us he wants all people to “choose life,” there is no explanation as to why he would create people whom he was certain would “choose death.”
If we allow that the future is partly open and known by God as such, and if we concede that to some extent it lies in the power of free agents to decide which possibilities will and will not be actualized, then the purpose for every probation the Lord puts us through becomes clear. Love must be chosen; the outcome of free choices does not exist until the free choice is made; hence the Lord is finding out who will and will not choose love.
Category: Q&A
Tags: Open Theism, Q&A
Topics: Open Theism
Verse: Deuteronomy 30
Related Reading
What is the right way to interpret Revelation?
Few biblical topics have captured the imagination of contemporary evangelicals like the book of Revelation. The recent unprecedented success of the Left Behind series is evidence of this popular fascination. Many evangelicals don’t realize that the futuristic interpretation of Revelation advocated in this popular series is only one of several interpretations evangelicals espouse. Here’s the…
Warfare Worldview: A Basic Definition
The warfare worldview is based on the conviction that our world is engaged in a cosmic war between a myriad of agents, both human and angelic, that have aligned themselves with either God or Satan. We believe this worldview best reflects the response to evil depicted throughout the Bible. For example, Jesus unequivocally opposed evils…
Summer Q&A!
Greg Boyd and Paul Eddy recently hosted a Summer Q&A for all three services at Woodland Hills Church. If you’ve ever wanted to sit and listen to these guys talk about a wide range of topics off the top of their heads, this is your chance! Good stuff folks! Our friend Jesse Ward was kind…
What is the significance of Ezekiel 12:1–3?
The Lord has Ezekiel symbolically enact Israel’s exile as a warning and remarks, “Perhaps they will understand, though they are a rebellious house” (vs. 3). Though Israel repeatedly surprised God by their persistent rebellion, he nevertheless continued to hold out hope and thus to strive with them to participate in a covenant relationship with him.…
God’s Moral Immutability
Classical theologians from the fourth and fifth centuries on were very concerned with protecting their understanding of the metaphysical attributes of God—like timelessness, immutability, impassibility—by assessing biblical portraits that conflicted with these attributes to be accommodations. However, once we resolve that all our thinking about God must be anchored in the cross, our primary concern…
How do you respond to John 6:44?
“No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me…” Calvinists sometimes argue that this passage teaches that the Father chooses and then “draws” certain people to Christ. Those who are “drawn” certainly come to Christ (John 6:37) while all who are not drawn remain in their sin. In short, this…