The Calvinist position is that no one is capable of seeking God without God's direct intervention. (Romans 3:11 & Acts 13:48 for example.)
What will Acts 13:48 do for your view? Read these comments, and then tell me.
Acts 13:48 - As the Gentiles heard this they were glad (akouonta ta ethne¯ echairon). Present active participle of akouo¯ and imperfect active of chairo¯, linear action descriptive of the joy of the Gentiles.
Glorified the word of God (edoxazon ton logon tou theou). Imperfect active again. The joy of the Gentiles increased the fury of the Jews. "The synagogue became a scene of excitement which must have been something like the original speaking with tongues" (Rackham). The joy of the Gentiles was to see how they could receive the higher blessing of Judaism without circumcision and other repellent features of Jewish ceremonialism. It was the gospel of grace and liberty from legalism that Paul had proclaimed. Whether Gal_4:13 describes this incident or not (the South Galatian theory), it illustrates it when Gentiles received Paul as if he were Christ Jesus himself. It was triumph with the Gentiles, but defeat with the Jews.
As many as were ordained to eternal life (hosoi e¯san tetagmenoi eis zo¯e¯n aio¯nion). Periphrastic past perfect passive indicative of tasso¯, a military term to place in orderly arrangement. The word "ordain" is not the best translation here. "Appointed," as Hackett shows, is better. The Jews here had voluntarily rejected the word of God. On the other side were those Gentiles who gladly accepted what the Jews had rejected, not all the Gentiles. Why these Gentiles here ranged themselves on God's side as opposed to the Jews Luke does not tell us. This verse does not solve the vexed problem of divine sovereignty and human free agency. There is no evidence that Luke had in mind an absolutum decretum of personal salvation. Paul had shown that God's plan extended to and included Gentiles. Certainly the Spirit of God does move upon the human heart to which some respond, as here, while others push him away.
Believed (episteusan). Summary or constative first aorist active indicative of pisteuo¯. The subject of this verb is the relative clause. By no manner of legerdemain can it be made to mean "those who believe were appointed." It was saving faith that was exercised only by those who were appointed unto eternal life, who were ranged on the side of eternal life, who were thus revealed as the subjects of God's grace by the stand that they took on this day for the Lord. It was a great day for the kingdom of God. Robertson's Commentary
Act 13:48 - As many as were ordained to eternal life - St. Luke does not say fore - ordained. He is not speaking of what was done from eternity, but of what was then done, through the preaching of the Gospel. He is describing that ordination, and that only, which was at the very time of hearing it. During this sermon those believed, says the apostle, to whom God then gave power to believe. It is as if he had said, "They believed, whose hearts the Lord opened;" as he expresses it in a clearly parallel place, speaking of the same kind of ordination, Act_16:14, &c. It is observable, the original word is not once used in Scripture to express eternal predestination of any kind. The sum is, all those and those only, who were now ordained, now believed. Not that God rejected the rest: it was his will that they also should have been saved: but they thrust salvation from them. Nor were they who then believed constrained to believe. But grace was then first copiously offered them. And they did not thrust it away, so that a great multitude even of Gentiles were converted. In a word, the expression properly implies, a present operation of Divine grace working faith in the hearers. Wesley Commentary
As many as were ordained to eternal life. This passage has been used as a proof text for the extreme Calvinism that makes God arbitrarily select some for salvation and reject others. Wesley, on the other hand, says: "The original word rendered ordained is not once used in the Scriptures to express eternal predestination of any kind. The sense is that those, and those only, now ordained, now believed. Not that God rejected the rest; it was his will that they also should be saved, but they thrust salvation from them. Nor were those who then believed forced to believe. Grace was offered to them and they did not thrust it away." It is God's ordination that those of humble, teachable, honest hearts, seeking the truth and life, shall come to life when it is offered, and such accepted the gospel on this occasion. PNT Commentary
And Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly and said, "It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken to you first; since you repudiate it, and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are turning to the Gentiles.
"For thus the Lord has commanded us, I HAVE PLACED YOU AS A LIGHT FOR THE GENTILES, THAT YOU SHOULD BRING SALVATION TO THE END OF THE EARTH.'"
And when the Gentiles heard this, they {began} rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord; and as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed (NASB).
Verse 46: The rejection of the Jews (or rather the Jewish nation) as God's present evangelistic agent, was based on their volitional rejection of God. Jesus taught this at Matthew 21:33-46 and Matthew 23:37-38; "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and YOU WERE UNWILLING. Behold, your house is being left to you desolate!"
They had previously been appointed (as a group) to this function and privilege (Exodus 19:5-6), but through their continued failure to represent the Messianic promise to the world, which was ultimately demonstrated by their rejection of the personal presence of the Messiah, God temporarily (for He will again return to them; Romans 11:25-29) replaced them with a new body (a spiritual nation rather than physical) which is taken out from both Jew and Gentile, and is called the church (1 Peter 2:9-11).
Part of Paul's ministry was to communicate this message to them as he went from town to town, and to announce a formal rejection of the Jewish race as God's priestly house. Many of these occasions are recorded in Acts, and clarify, as does this one, that the Jews made a volitional choice of rejecting the gospel message and clinging to their man-made traditions of works and human heritage as the basis for acceptance before God. Paul says, "you have evaluated yourselves," which communicates the individual and collective rejection of Paul's message. Paul's message is the eternal life which is offered through the person and work of Jesus the Messiah. It is this that the Jews rejected and in so doing, essentially deemed themselves unworthy of that eternal life.
Paul's words that he is now "turning to the Gentiles," is the formal statement of rejecting Israel in preparation for their physical rejection through the destruction of the temple in about 25 years.
Although the quote in verse 47 has the Messiah in view (Isaiah 49:6), Paul applies it to those who are the brethren and the ambassadors of the Messiah, as ones who carry out His purpose.
The Gentiles who are present, have heard the gospel message (Verses 38-39) as Paul has been proclaiming it to the Jews on both sabbaths, as well as during the week (verse 43). This group of Gentiles included both proselytes and non-proselytes (verses 43-44), who are interested in the good news of Paul's teaching; not only that God is offering salvation (eternal life) to all peoples, but also that the Gentiles, as an independent group from the Jews, are being offered the function and privilege of being part of God's evangelistic agent to the world. The second factor would have significance only to the proselytes who understood the Old Testament teachings on this, but the first factor (forgiveness of sins) would be a welcome message to the entire group.
Thus, out from this group there are those who express their interest and joy in the message, and in response to it, believe in Jesus.
The progress of thought expressed here is common and necessary for embracing God's plan of salvation. There must first come an "interest" in the promise of forgiveness and eternal life, and then a response to the detailed "mechanics" of acquiring that forgiveness. This can be seen, for example, with the Philippian jailer, whose interest was stirred first by the Christian message represented in the songs and praises of the prisoners, and then by their act of trust, when they did not run away. After the impact was made, he asked, "what must I do to be saved?" Upon which, Paul gave him the simple mechanics (Acts 16:31) and then the more detailed mechanics after they had been taken to his home (Acts 16:32), after which, he trusted in Christ as the Messiah/Savior. Likewise with the Jews on the day of Pentecost, after Peter's message, they were convicted (pierced in the heart) and inquired, "what must we do?" Upon which, Peter told them that they needed to change their mind (repent), which in turn, resulted in believing the gospel (Mark 1:15). And then we see Nicodemus, who when Jesus told him that he must be born again, inquired, "how can these things come about," (John 3:9). And Jesus told him that it was by believing in the Son of Man (John 3:14-15).
At Acts 13:48, Luke's summary of the decision that was made is seen in two parts. First, the interest is expressed when they hear the gospel message, and then they believe.
The apparent difficulty and controversy in this passage, revolves around the phrase, "as many as had been appointed to eternal life."
The Calvinists, of course, want to make this a pre-determined assignment of God that then virtually "makes" these who have been pre-determined believe in Christ. However, this is neither the intent of Luke nor a grammatical or Biblical necessity. A. T. Robertson writes, "This verse does not solve the vexed problem of divine sovereignty and human free agency. There is no evidence that Luke had in mind an 'absolutum decretum' of personal salvation" (Word Pictures, Acts). R. J. Knowling, in the Expositor's Greek Testament, writes, "There is no countenance here for the 'absolutum decretum' of the Calvinists, since verse 46 had already shown that the Jews had acted through their own choice."
The morphology of the word can go either of two directions.
On the one hand, the more popular, it is seen as a perfect passive participle of the verb, tasso, which is rendered, "as many as WERE appointed (set) unto eternal life." On the other hand, as a perfect middle participle, it would be rendered, "as many as had set themselves unto eternal life." As Knowling observes, "Some take the word as if middle, not passive . . . and in support of this Rendall refers to 1 Corinthians 16:15." There we find the aorist active indicative with the reflexive pronoun, heautos, so that it translates, "and they have set (or appointed) themselves to the ministry of the saints." But it seems that the basic meaning of the verb is altered when one tries to fit this at Acts 13. For it is certain that these unbelievers have not "appointed" themselves unto eternal life, but perhaps have "dedicated themselves" to the pursuit of and acquisition of eternal life, so that upon hearing what was required for the possession of life, they would follow through and believe. But as observed, it seems that this changes the basic meaning of the word.
The verb itself occurs only 7 other times in the New Testament; two of which are in the active voice (Acts 15:2; 1 Corinthians 16:15), three are in the passive voice (Luke 7:8; Acts 22:10; Romans 13:1), and two are in the middle voice with an active function (Matthew 28:16; Acts 28:23
and all but one clearly indicate the idea of appointment, and even there (Acts 15:2), "they appointed" is easily conceded so that we have, "they appointed that Paul and Barnabas . . . should go up to Jerusalem."
The LXX does not differ significantly from this usage and does not lend support for the middle voice usage at Acts 13.
The better translation thus, seems to be "as many as were appointed unto eternal life." However, the idea of "appointment" to salvation by a sovereign act of God cannot be found in Scripture, while the teaching that God places someone into the state of salvation in response to His convicting, convincing, influencing, wooing, which is His chosen methods of drawing them. This then, is an acceptable understanding of this passage from the standpoint of Volitional Theology; that God foreknows the decision that each individual will make and assigns that person to a destiny of either heaven or hell based on whether he rejects or believes in Christ. What makes this an obstacle for Calvinists is that generally speaking, they fail to acknowledge the fact that faith precedes the impartation of spiritual life. For example, Steve Gregg says "Now there are many scriptures that tell us that regeneration comes after belief, not before. One of the most relevant to the above discussion is Colossians 2:13— Notice the chronology here: God "quickened" (that is, “made alive” or “regenerated”) us, having forgiven us our sins. Clearly Paul is saying that the forgiveness came before the regeneration.
Forgiveness is equivalent to justification (see Rom.4:1ff). Justification comes as a result of faith. "Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness" (Gen.15:6). That is, faith precedes justification, and since justification precedes regeneration, faith must precede regeneration.
Actually, all these things occur simultaneously. It is a logical, rather than chronological, order that is under consideration. It is a question of which thing precipitated the others. Faith obviously is the first domino in the chain—then justification—then regeneration.
The same passage says that we "are risen with him [i.e., “regenerated”] through the faith of the operation of God" (Col.2:11-12). To me this seems to be saying that our faith in the operation of God is the means through which, or the condition for, our regeneration.
John 6:40 says that everyone who believes may have eternal life. Since it is at the point of regeneration that one receives eternal life, this would seem synonymous with saying that whoever believes will be regenerated—naming faith as a prerequisite for regeneration.
This is even clearer in John 20:31— "These things are written that you may believe...and that believing you may have life..."
1 Timothy 1:16, likewise, tells us that people "believe on Him for everlasting life."
If Paul and John believed that one must be regenerated (brought to life) before believing, then it would have been more proper for them to write, "these things are written that you might have life, and having life you might believe" and "those who receive everlasting life, so that they might believe."
The strangest thing about the Calvinist assertions on this point is that the biblical writers did not say this kind of thing at all. They always made faith and repentance conditions for eternal life: "…that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." (John 3:16)
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In summary, the alternative for Acts 13:38, that these are ones "who have set themselves (or appointed themselves) to (the pursuit of) eternal life, while being grammatically feasible, seems not to be the best choice.
