Supralapsarianism, Reprobation, Double Predestination

1. The doctrine referred to as Supralapsarianism, Reprobation, or Double Predestination is the teaching that before the foundation of the world, viewing men as unfallen, God chose to save some of mankind and damn the rest.

            Supralapsarian  n. –  A name applied to those Calvinists who held the view that, in the divine decrees, the predestination of some to eternal life and of others to eternal death was antecedent to the creation and the fall: opposed to Infralapsarian.

            Infralapsarian n. – A. n. A term applied in the 17th c. to Calvinists holding the view that God’s election of some to everlasting life was consequent to his prescience of the Fall of man, or that it contemplated man as already fallen, and was thus a remedial measure: opposed to Supralapsarian. The Supralapsarian view makes Predestination anterior or logically superior to the Fall, and views the creation, fall, and saving of some, as parts of God’s eternal purpose. Infralapsarian is generally used as synonymous with Sublapsarian, the earlier and, in English writers, the more usual term. But some distinguish the two, associating Sublapsarian with the view that the Fall was foreseen, and Infralapsarian with the view that it was permitted, by God.

1. Supralapsarianism, Reprobation, or Double Predestination are unscriptural.

            The only thing that the Bible says God predestinated is His elect to be His children and for them to have eternal life.

            Eph 1:4 – According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:

            Eph 1:5 – Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,

            Eph 1:11 – In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:

            Rom 8:29 – For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

            Rom 8:30 – Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

            These are the only four places where the world predestination or its cognates is used in the Bible.

            God’s predestination of His elect happened before the world began which means that it happened before the fall (Eph 1:4).

            God chose His elect that they should be holy, which means that He chose them viewing them as fallen (Eph 1:4).

            When God decided to make some vessels of honour for Himself, He did so from the lump of mankind.

            Rom 9:21 – Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?

            Lump n. – 1. a. A compact mass of no particular shape; a shapeless piece or mass; often with implication of excessive size, protuberant outline, or clumsiness.

            The lump was fallen mankind, a shapeless, clumsy, worthless pile of clay.

            There was never a time in their existence when mankind was not fallen (except for Adam and Eve before the fall).

            Therefore, the lump of mankind, of which vessels and honour and vessels of dishonour were made, was fallen mankind.

            God didn’t predestinate or choose for sinners to go to hell before the fall of man — Adam did.

            The vessels of wrath were fitted to destruction by Adam, not God.

            Rom 9:22 – What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:

            Rom 5:12 – Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

            Notice that Rom 9:22 doesn’t say that God fitted them to destruction.

            All God had to do to make vessels of dishonour was to leave them in their fallen condition in the lump.

            God would have been unjust to decide to send someone to hell, viewing them as unfallen, having no sin for which to die (Rom 6:23).

            God afore prepared His elect unto glory.

            Rom 9:23 – And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,

            Whereas it doesn’t say that God fitted the reprobate for destruction, it specifically says that God afore prepared His elect unto glory.