SUCH GLORY

One of the questions often posed to Calvinists is this: If God is the one electing certain individuals to salvation, why not elect everyone?

The typical answer I have heard is something like "God is glorified in exercising his wrath and judgment on some and glorified by offering his grace to others."

This is a major theme of John Piper's teaching. God is all about his own glory - and rightly so because he is God.

So I googled "how does damning people bring God glory", because I was curious to see if Calvinists have any Scriptural basis for this idea that God gains glory by damning people.

The top article that popped up on Google was from Piper - no surprise there. 

And Piper is slyly honest. Regarding Scriptural evidence, he writes, "The closest thing that I know to an answer in the Bible is found in Romans 9:22–23."

Read these two verses carefully and tell me if - even with no other context - they actually say what Piper wants them to say:

22 What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23 in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory—

Do you notice that Paul is talking about God enduring with great patience certain people deserving His wrath in order to make known the riches of his glory for those upon whom he is having mercy?

I guess maybe that's why Piper says this is "the closest thing" he knows as to how the damnation of anybody brings glory to God. 

That's not close enough, in my estimation.

That doesn't stop Piper for concluding that God "gets glory because his grace and mercy shine more brightly against the darker backdrop of sin and judgment and wrath, and our worship and our experience of that grace [as the elect] intensifies and deepens because we see we don’t deserve to be where we are."

So, just to make sure we're straight on this: this god brings billions of humans into existence for the express purpose of pouring out his wrath on them and damning them ... to make the others whom he has chosen feel even luckier than they already do?

It doesn't get any more glorious than that!