Predestination Reconsidered: Why “Heaven-or-Hell Assignment” Is Bad Theology
Introduction
Few doctrines have stirred as much debate as predestination. In many Protestant traditions, particularly those shaped by Augustine and Calvin, predestination is taken to mean that before creation God chose certain individuals for salvation and others for damnation. This “double predestination” view paints salvation as a fixed lottery determined by God’s eternal decree. For its defenders, this doctrine magnifies God’s sovereignty. But for careful readers of Scripture, it raises troubling questions about God’s character, justice, and covenantal faithfulness.
The apostles, Paul included, shared the Jewish apocalyptic worldview of their time: history was divided into ‘this age’ and ‘the age to come,’ with resurrection, judgment, and the renewal of creation marking the climactic transition between the two. This vision was rooted in Israel’s covenant, God’s election of His people, and the promise of a messianic kingdom centered in Jerusalem. For Paul and his contemporaries, predestination was not an abstract decree about individual souls but the assurance of God’s covenant plan moving toward its promised fulfillment.
Over the centuries, however, this framework was obscured. As the church became increasingly shaped by Gentile voices, the Jewish apocalyptic narrative was reinterpreted through Greek and Roman categories. Greek philosophy, with its dualistic cosmology, emphasized escape from the material world into an immaterial heaven. Roman imperial ideology reframed God’s kingdom in terms of political order and sovereignty expressed through empire. The result was a gradual shift: resurrection hope was replaced by heavenly destiny, covenant mercy by ecclesiastical authority, and linear time by timeless metaphysics.
From Augustine to Calvin, these non-Jewish frameworks profoundly influenced Christian theology. Predestination, once a word of assurance about God’s determination to bring His people to resurrection glory, was reframed as an eternal decree dividing humanity into the elect and the damned. This essay seeks to recover Paul’s original intent by reading predestination within its proper Jewish apocalyptic context, in continuity with Israel’s covenant and in anticipation of the resurrection of the dead.
The biblical picture, especially when read within the Jewish apocalyptic framework that shaped Paul and the apostles, points in a very different direction. Predestination in Scripture is not about an eternal decree dividing humanity into the elect and the damned. It is about God’s covenant plan, His determination to bring His people to resurrection glory, and the assurance that the Spirit guarantees this future.
In the Bible, predestination means that God already set His plan in place: He wants His people to share in the resurrection life of Jesus. Predestination is about God’s promise to bring His people into glory, and the Holy Spirit is given now as a guarantee that this future will really happen.
God chose Israel from among the nations (Deut 7:6–8; Amos 3:2). This “choosing” was not random favoritism but His decision to work through them for the blessing of the whole world (Gen 12:3). In other words, Israel was predestined as the vessel of God’s plan.
The plan centered on Israel bringing forth the Messiah, the Son of David, who fulfills the promises. So when Paul talks about predestination, he is connecting it to God’s ancient promises to Israel now being confirmed through Jesus (Rom 9:4–5; Rom 15:8–9).
The mystery Paul celebrates in Ephesians 1–3 is that Gentiles are now included in this plan “in Christ.” They are grafted into Israel’s story, not given a new one. So predestination is not about individuals picked in advance, but about joining the covenant people whose destiny has been set from the start: resurrection glory in the kingdom.
So, to put it simply:
The plan is predestined.
That plan runs through Israel, God’s chosen people.
And now, in Messiah, Gentiles get to share in Israel’s predestined hope.
This essay will demonstrate why the heaven-or-hell interpretation of predestination is both exegetically flawed and theologically dangerous.
1. Romans 8: Predestination as Covenant Goal, not Eternal Lottery
Romans 8:28–30 contains what later interpreters have called Paul’s “golden chain”: foreknowledge, predestination, calling, justification, glorification:
28 And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. 29 For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters; 30 and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified. (Romans 8:28-30, NASB Bible)
In Calvinist systems, this chain is often treated as proof of an eternal decree by which God unchangeably determines who will be saved and who will be damned. Yet when placed back into Paul’s apocalyptic context, the chain is not abstract theology or speculative metaphysics. It is a covenantal storyline—rooted in Israel’s Scriptures—meant to assure suffering believers that God’s plan for resurrection and glory will not fail.
Foreknowledge – Covenant Relationship, Not Arbitrary Foresight
Paul’s first link, “foreknowledge,” should not be confused with mere foresight of human decisions or an arbitrary act of predetermination. In the Tanakh, “to know” often means to enter into covenant relationship. God tells Israel: “You only have I known of all the families of the earth” (Amos 3:2). He says to Jeremiah: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you” (Jer 1:5). Similarly, Deuteronomy 7:6–8 emphasizes that Israel was chosen, not because of merit, but because of God’s love and His oath to the fathers.
It is essential to recognize that every covenant in the Scriptures is made with Israel—not with Gentiles or the nations directly. The Abrahamic covenant, the Sinai covenant, the Davidic covenant, and the promise of the new covenant (Jer 31:31) are all addressed to Israel. Gentiles are not separate covenant partners; rather, as Paul explains, Gentiles are grafted into Israel’s covenantal promises (Rom 11:17–24). Thus, when Paul says God “foreknew” His people (Rom 8:29; cf. Rom 11:2), he is invoking this covenantal language. It is not about an eternal lottery in which some are picked and others passed over. Instead, foreknowledge refers to God’s covenant commitment to bring His promises to Israel to fulfillment—and now, in Messiah, to extend that covenant mercy to the nations who believe by uniting them to Israel’s hope.
This covenantal framework never cancels out human responsibility. From the beginning, God placed humanity in the position of moral choice. To Adam and Eve He gave the command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen 2:16–17), and when they disobeyed, they bore the consequence. To Cain He warned: “Sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it” (Gen 4:7), affirming that Cain had the responsibility to choose rightly. Later, Israel was told: “I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live” (Deut 30:19). Joshua likewise charged the nation: “Choose this day whom you will serve” (Josh 24:15). Even in the Prophets, God pleads with His people: “Why will you die, O house of Israel? … Repent and live!”(Ezek 18:31–32).
All of these passages assume that God’s covenant foreknowledge works in partnership with real human response. God commits Himself to Israel in covenant love, and yet He continually calls them to choose life, faithfulness, and obedience. Paul inherits this framework: God “foreknew” His people, not as puppets on a string, but as covenant partners summoned into His plan of redemption.
Predestination – Resurrection Glory, Not Heaven vs. Hell
The second link, “predestination,” must likewise be re-situated in Paul’s apocalyptic horizon. For Paul, predestination is not about dividing humanity into two eternal categories, the elect and the damned. Instead, it is about God’s predetermined goal for His covenant people: to be conformed to the image of His Son (Rom 8:29). In context, that “image” is the resurrected body of Messiah, the glory to be revealed at His coming.
Paul unpacks this elsewhere: “Christ will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body” (Phil 3:20–21). “Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven” (1 Cor 15:49). Predestination, therefore, is not mystical inner change but bodily resurrection. God’s plan was set from the beginning: His people will be raised like His Son and share in His glory. This is the destiny He “predestined” from the start.
Calling – The Historical Invitation of the Gospel
The third link, “calling,” takes place in history. Just as Israel was called out of Egypt into covenant fellowship, so now God calls both Jew and Gentile through the proclamation of the gospel. Paul exhorts believers: “Walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory” (1 Thess 2:12). He likewise celebrates that God has “called not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles” (Rom 9:24). The call is always forward-looking: it is an invitation into the future kingdom and resurrection glory.
Justification – Present Declaration, Future Vindication
Those who respond in faith are “justified”—declared righteous because of Messiah’s atoning death. This is courtroom language: a declaration now that anticipates vindication at the final judgment. Paul says: “Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God” (Rom 5:9). Likewise, Galatians 2:16 stresses that justification is grounded in faith in Messiah, not works of law, preparing believers for the coming day of judgment. Justification in the present is the assurance of acquittal when God judges the world in righteousness.
Glorification – Future Resurrection, Not Present Realization
The final link, “glorification,” is not an invisible present reality but the consummation of hope: the resurrection of the dead at Christ’s return. Paul insists: “If we suffer with him, we may also be glorified with him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed” (Rom 8:17–18). Elsewhere he explains: “It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory” (1 Cor 15:43). “When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory” (Col 3:4). Glory is consistently future, bodily, and eschatological.
Paul is not speculating on God’s eternal decrees. Paul is assuring suffering believers that their hope in resurrection is secure. Paul’s golden chain is not a metaphysical proof of double predestination but a covenantal timeline that begins with God’s foreknowledge of His people, moves through predestination to resurrection glory, and unfolds historically through the call of the gospel, justification by faith, and the hope of final glorification. Its purpose is pastoral, not speculative: to assure suffering believers that their destiny is secure because God’s covenant plan is unshakable.
2. Ephesians 1 and Corporate Election
Ephesians 1 is another cornerstone text for predestination theology. But notice Paul’s careful use of pronouns: “He chose us in Him … He predestined us for adoption … In Him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit” (vv. 4–13).
The shift from “we/us” to “you also” is significant. In the broader context of Ephesians, Paul later explicitly identifies the “you” as Gentiles: “Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh… were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise” (Eph 2:11–12). By contrast, the “we/us” refers most naturally to Paul and his fellow Jewish believers—the ones who were already part of God’s covenant people and were the first to hope in Messiah (Eph 1:12). This distinction echoes Romans 1:16, where Paul describes the gospel as “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”
When read this way, predestination in Ephesians 1 takes on a rich covenantal texture:
Corporate – “Us in Him” refers first to Israel, God’s covenant people, whom He foreknew and destined for adoption and glory. Gentiles are not the original covenant partners but are grafted in (“you also”) to share in the same promises (cf. Rom 11:17–24).
Missional – The whole point is God’s plan to unite Jews and Gentiles into one body in Messiah (Eph 2:14–16). Predestination is not about excluding others but about fulfilling God’s covenant promises to Israel in such a way that the nations are invited into that blessing.
Eschatological – Both Jews (“we who were the first to hope in Christ,” Eph 1:12) and Gentiles (“you also,” Eph 1:13) are sealed with the Spirit as a guarantee until the inheritance is fully realized in the resurrection and kingdom (Eph 1:14).
Thus, Paul’s argument in Ephesians 1 is not about God deciding in eternity who goes to heaven or hell. It is about God’s covenantal plan—set from the beginning—to bring Israel to adoption and glory, and through Israel’s Messiah, to extend that same destiny to the Gentiles. The emphasis is not on exclusion but on the certainty of inclusion for all who are “in Christ.”
3. Romans 9 Misread: Jacob, Esau, and the Nations
Perhaps the strongest text used for double predestination is Romans 9: “Jacob I loved, Esau I hated” (Rom 9:13). At first glance, Calvinists take this as proof of individual election to salvation or damnation. But Paul’s point is national-historical, not metaphysical. He is recalling Malachi 1:2–3, where “Jacob” refers to Israel and “Esau” to Edom. God chose Jacob’s descendants to be the covenant bearers of His promises, not Esau’s. This is about covenant vocation—who carries the line of promise—not about eternal destiny.
Paul piles up examples to make this point: Isaac over Ishmael, Jacob over Esau. In each case the issue is not individual salvation but God’s sovereign choice of which family line will carry forward the Abrahamic covenant. To read this as if Paul were teaching that God created Esau for damnation is to wrench the text from its biblical and covenantal framework.
Even within Romans 9 itself, Paul anticipates the objection: “Why does He still find fault? For who can resist His will?”(Rom 9:19). His answer is not that God arbitrarily consigns some to heaven and some to hell, but that God as potter has the right to shape Israel’s destiny in order to bring mercy to the nations.
This “hardening” is nothing other than the covenantal consequences laid out in Deuteronomy. Moses warned that if Israel broke the Sinai covenant, they would experience blindness and judgment: “The LORD will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of mind” (Deut 28:28), and “To this day the LORD has not given you a heart to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear” (Deut 29:4). Yet this covenantal hardening was never meant to be final—it was disciplinary, designed to turn Israel back.
Paul even cites Deuteronomy directly to explain the Gentile mission: “I will make you jealous of those who are not a nation; with a foolish nation I will make you angry” (Deut 32:21, quoted in Rom 10:19). In other words, God foretold that He would use Gentiles—“not a people”—to provoke Israel to jealousy, stirring them eventually to return to covenant faithfulness. This is why Paul interprets Israel’s current unbelief as both real and purposeful: their stumbling has meant riches for the world, but it will also lead to their ultimate restoration (Rom 11:11–12).
Thus, the “hardening” Paul speaks of is Deuteronomy in action—Israel temporarily under covenant curse, while the nations are brought near. But the end goal is mercy: “A hardening has come upon part of Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved” (Rom 11:25–26).
Thus, Israel’s present hardness is not evidence of God’s rejection but of His covenant faithfulness. The same covenant that warned of curses also promised restoration: “And when all these things come upon you… and you call them to mind among the nations where the LORD your God has driven you… then the LORD your God will restore your fortunes and have mercy on you” (Deut 30:1–3). Paul sees this hope coming to fruition through Messiah—Israel temporarily under curse, yet destined for mercy and restoration, with the Gentiles grafted in along the way.
The climax of the argument in Romans 9–11 rules out any doctrine of double predestination: “For God has consigned all to disobedience, that He may have mercy on all” (Rom 11:32). Gentiles are warned not to presume upon their standing, for they stand only by faith, not by decree (Rom 11:20–21). The whole section culminates not in terror over a hidden decree but in doxology over God’s unfathomable wisdom (Rom 11:33–36).
Thus, Romans 9 is not about eternal damnation of Esau or a cosmic lottery of souls. It is about God’s sovereign freedom to carry forward His covenant purposes through Israel, even in ways that seem scandalous or unexpected, so that both Israel and the nations may ultimately receive mercy.
4. The Spirit as Guarantee, not Fulfillment
Romans 8 and Ephesians 1 are explicit: the Spirit is a deposit, not the final payment. Paul uses the language of “firstfruits” and “guarantee” to underscore that what we have now is only a down payment of the glory to come. “We ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies”(Rom 8:23). Similarly, in Ephesians 1:13–14 he writes that those who believe in Messiah are “sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it.” The Spirit is therefore a pledge — a real foretaste of what is promised — but not the fullness itself.
This means predestination in Paul’s theology is not about a secret decree deciding who gets in and who is shut out. Predestination is about God’s covenant plan to bring His people to resurrection glory. The emphasis is eschatological, pointing forward to the day when our mortal bodies will be transformed, creation itself will be liberated, and God’s kingdom will be fully revealed. Predestination, then, functions as assurance: God has set His plan, and nothing — not tribulation, persecution, or even death — can separate those in Messiah from the love of God (Rom 8:31–39).
Far from fostering fatalism or fear, Paul intends this teaching to instill confidence and endurance. Believers are not yet “adopted” in the full sense — adoption awaits the resurrection, when sons and daughters of God will be revealed in glory (Rom 8:19, 23). But the presence of the Spirit guarantees that this promised future is secure. Predestination is thus best understood as God’s determination that His people will, without fail, arrive at the goal: resurrection, inheritance, and new creation.
5. The Wider Biblical Witness
Predestination as heaven-or-hell assignment also clashes with the broader testimony of Scripture. God’s will is not narrow or arbitrary: He “desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2:4). Peter echoes the same when he insists that God is “not willing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Pet 3:9). These statements of God’s intent are clear, universal, and inclusive.
Likewise, the atonement accomplished by Messiah is not limited to a secret elect. Paul proclaims, “One has died for all … that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised” (2 Cor 5:14–15). Christ’s death is sufficient for all humanity, opening the door of reconciliation and new creation. This is why the gospel invitation resounds with universality: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Joel 2:32; Acts 2:21; Rom 10:13).
To reduce predestination to a divine decree consigning some to salvation and others to damnation is to make Paul contradict himself and to place Scripture in conflict with Scripture. Instead, predestination should be read through the lens of God’s covenant plan. God has determined that His people — Jews and Gentiles united in Messiah — will reach resurrection glory. His predestination secures the goal, not by nullifying human response, but by assuring that the covenant promises will not fail.
This perspective guards against a distorted picture of God’s character. If predestination is seen as a mechanism of exclusion, it portrays God as partial, arbitrary, or even unjust — the very objection Paul anticipates and rejects in Romans 9–11. But if predestination is seen as God’s unwavering determination to fulfill His promises, it harmonizes with the universal scope of His mercy: the God who wills all to be saved, who sent His Son to die for all, and who opens salvation to “everyone” who calls on His name.
6. The Historical Problem: Augustine and Calvin
The heaven-or-hell reading of predestination owes more to Augustine and Calvin than to Paul. Augustine, writing in the heat of controversy with Pelagius, rightly sought to defend God’s grace but did so in a way that exaggerated divine sovereignty at the expense of human responsibility and covenantal partnership. His framing shifted the conversation away from Paul’s corporate, covenantal categories and toward a more abstract, philosophical question of how human will and divine will interact. Calvin, working centuries later, extended Augustine’s line of thought into a tightly ordered system of double predestination: God unconditionally elects some to eternal life and others to eternal damnation. This was consistent with his desire for logical coherence but further removed Paul’s words from their Jewish apocalyptic framework.
Both Augustine and Calvin read Paul through the lens of Greco-Roman metaphysics — timeless decrees, fixed destinies, and the prioritization of abstract sovereignty — rather than through the story of Israel, covenant promises, and eschatological hope. In this shift, Paul’s predestination language was detached from its anchor in God’s covenant with Israel and His plan to bring Jew and Gentile alike into resurrection life.
The result was a distortion: instead of resurrection hope, predestination became eternal fate. Instead of covenant mercy, it became arbitrary division. And instead of assuring believers of God’s unbreakable plan to bring them into glory, it introduced anxiety about whether one was secretly elect or reprobate. This theological system, while influential, is foreign to Paul’s intent and damaging to the gospel’s message. It portrays God as capricious rather than faithful, exclusionary rather than merciful, and reduces the good news of the kingdom to an abstract lottery of souls.
Recovering Paul’s Jewish-apocalyptic context restores predestination to its proper place: the assurance that God’s covenant plan will reach its fulfillment, that His people will share in the resurrection, and that nothing can derail His promises.
7. Theological Consequences of Double Predestination
The heaven-or-hell predestination model produces serious theological problems:
God’s character distorted. When predestination is framed as an eternal decree consigning some to salvation and others to damnation, God is portrayed as arbitrary or even cruel. Before a single human act, before faith or unbelief, God is imagined as fixing destinies. This depiction undermines the biblical witness of God’s covenantal faithfulness, steadfast love, and universal desire for all to be saved. Instead of the God who “shows no partiality” (Rom 2:11), we are left with a deity who divides humanity without regard to covenant promises or moral responsibility.
Human responsibility gutted. If every destiny is predetermined, then the gospel invitation loses its urgency. Calls to repentance and faith become hollow—mere theater masking a hidden decree. Paul’s passionate appeals, his tears for Israel (Rom 9:1–3), and his warnings to the churches would make little sense if the outcomes were already sealed. In Paul’s apocalyptic framework, human response is real, consequential, and bound up with God’s covenant plan, not a pre-scripted inevitability.
The covenantal storyline lost. The heaven-or-hell model shifts attention away from the actual narrative of Scripture—Israel’s election, Messiah’s death and resurrection, the outpouring of the Spirit, and the hope of the coming age. Instead, it reframes salvation in abstract categories of eternal fate. What was once about God’s faithfulness to His promises and the assurance of resurrection glory becomes a philosophical puzzle about determinism. The drama of redemptive history is eclipsed by speculation about who is “in” and who is “out.”
Together, these distortions undermine both God’s justice and His universal mercy. Justice is compromised, because judgment no longer corresponds to deeds done in the body (Rom 2:6). Mercy is compromised, because God’s desire that “all should come to repentance” (2 Pet 3:9) is redefined as only applying to a pre-selected few. The end result is a gospel stripped of its covenantal hope, its missionary urgency, and its eschatological joy.
8. Predestination Reframed: Assurance of Resurrection
The biblical alternative is clear: predestination is about God’s unwavering determination that His covenant people will share in Messiah’s glory. It is not a doctrine of fear but a doctrine of assurance. Paul presents it as a word of comfort to those in Christ, reminding them that the God who raised Jesus from the dead will also raise them. What God has purposed in His covenant, He will surely bring to completion.
Predestination, then, is not about exclusion but about confidence. It anchors believers in the certainty that their present sufferings are not in vain and that their future inheritance is secure. The Spirit Himself is given as the down payment, the guarantee, the seal of that coming glory (Eph 1:13–14; Rom 8:23). This is why Paul can speak so boldly: “those whom He justified He also glorified” (Rom 8:30). The trajectory is fixed—not because individual destinies were decreed from eternity past, but because God’s covenant promises cannot fail.
Predestination is not about dividing humanity into the elect and the reprobate. That dichotomy is foreign to Paul’s letters. Instead, predestination affirms that those who belong to Messiah—Jew and Gentile alike—will indeed inherit the age to come. It is covenantal, rooted in God’s faithfulness to Israel and extended to the nations through the gospel. It is corporate, assuring the entire people of God that their destiny is resurrection life and participation in the new creation. And it is eschatological, oriented not toward a disembodied heaven but toward the day of resurrection when Messiah’s people will reign with Him in glory.
In this sense, predestination functions as a pastoral doctrine. It assures weary believers that nothing—neither tribulation, persecution, famine, sword, nor even death itself—can separate them from the love of God in Messiah Jesus (Rom 8:35–39). It lifts their eyes to the horizon of the age to come and anchors their hope in the God who keeps covenant and fulfills His promises.
Conclusion
Predestination, rightly understood, is good news. It assures believers that God’s covenant plan will not fail, that the Spirit guarantees resurrection, and that His mercy is wide enough to embrace all who call on His name.
To interpret predestination as an eternal decree assigning some to heaven and others to hell is to misread Paul, distort God’s character, and fracture the gospel itself. The biblical picture is simpler, more consistent, and more hopeful: God has determined that His covenant people—Jew and Gentile together in Messiah—will share in the glory of the resurrection and the renewal of all things. That is predestination in Paul’s apocalyptic worldview, and that is a hope worth proclaiming.