F. H. Kerfoot On The Doctrine of Predestination

 
     F. H. Kerfoot, professor of systematic theology 1887-1899, was born at Llewellyn, Kentucky on August 29, 1847. He was the major theologian at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary after James P. Boyce passed away. 

As the following excerpt from his favorite sermon demonstrates, however, Professor Kerfoot was not the flaming apologist for what's come to be known as aggressive, Five-Point Calvinism.

This particular message by Dr. Kerfoot is one of sixty-three sermons published in The American Baptist Pulpit at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century edited by Henry Thompson Louthan (1903).  In an editorial comment, Louthan writes: 

"This was one of Dr. Kerfoot's favorite sermons. The last time perhaps that it was preached was at the Baptist State Convention of Texas at Waco in 1900. A Texas correspondent of the Biblical Recorder of North Carolina says of that occasion: "After a great speech by Dr. B. H. Carroll on "The Century,' Dr. Kerfoot preached a morning sermon on 'All Things Work Together for Good,' and no tongue can describe the scene that followed. The congregation rose and sang "How Firm a Foundation,' while men shouted, wept, embraced, and struggled to express the inexpressible joy within them. Think of an audience of twenty-five hundred people rushing and surging to shake hands and embrace, climbing over chairs, waving hands and handkerchiefs. It was wonderful—wonderful!"

Ever attended a state convention meeting which ended like that?  Neither have I.  Of all sermonic themes to pursue, Dr. Kerfoot tackled predestination.  Yet, the way he frames it, who could resist its beauty...its comfort...its truthfulness?  Enjoy...

...IF I were asked to name the three greatest chapters in God's Word, I should, without hesitation, name the twenty-third Psalm, the fourteenth chapter of John and the eighth chapter of Romans. And of these three the eighth of Romans is the greatest.

It seems to me that this chapter is like a great Alpine range among the mountains of Scripture. It is a series of sunlit summits, illumined by the smile of God. See how these peaks rise one above the other, higher and higher, and ever higher. The very first verse of the chapter declares : "There is, therefore, now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesns." What a lofty peak is this, upon which a soul may stand! It is the peak of justification...

Let me say, at the outset, that I do not propose to proceed by any path of my own making...My desire to-day is only to put my feet in the very tracks which Paul made, to lead you by the very way that the Spirit of God led Paul, until we can say with him, if God will: "We know that all things work together for good to them that love God"...

The whole argument may be summed up in this statement: We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, because God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, are all absolutely and irrevocably committed to the welfare of God's people...

We run here upon that difficult doctrine of predestination. If I had been going to pick a text for this audience to-day, I should not have picked the doctrine of predestination on which to speak. But here is the doctrine, connected with the text, and laid down as one of the reasons why Paul says that "all things work together for good to them that love God," and I do not propose to dodge it.

Let us look at it. It is one of those doctrines of the Word of God to which I suppose the Apostle Peter referred when he said: "Our brother Paul has written some things hard to be understood, which the ignorant and unlearned wrest to their destruction." That is exactly what some people do with this doctrine.

I have heard men say: "If I was born to be hanged, I will never be shot." I have seen soldiers just before the charge in battle almost blasphemous before God in defying a bullet in the gun of some of the enemy to hit them. This was simply foolhardiness. It was recklessness. It was an absolute abuse of the doctrine of predestination. The Apostle Paul made no such use of the doctrine.

There are other people who use the doctrine of predestination as a doctrine for metaphysical hair-splitting. They undertake to do with it what no sane, no mortal man, can do. They undertake to harmonize in all its details this strange doctrine with human freedom and human free agency. Friends, the Word of God does not mention the doctrine of predestination for any such purpose as that. It was not put there for philosophical speculation.

And yet again, I have found unconverted people who have hung on the doctrine of predestination, and would not unite with a church of the Lord Jesus Christ because they could not feel sure that they were predestined from eternity to be saved.

Why, my dear friends, an unconverted man has no more to do with the doctrine of predestination than if it had never been put into the Bible. There are some things in the Bible for Christians, and there are some things for sinners. The Word of God to an unconverted man is: "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.'* "Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

If you are laboring or heavy laden, God's Word says, "Come." If you desire to come, God's invitation stands, and you have nothing to do with the doctrine of predestination. Brethren, never allow an inquirer to drag you from the main point: "Will you receive Jesus?" by any talk on predestination.

And yet again, I have found young Christians, who, somehow, want to jump right into the doctrine of predestination almost as soon as they are converted. But this doctrine was not put into God's Word for tyros. As Dr. Shedd says: "This is one of the higher ranges of doctrine."

It is one of the great doctrines of Scripture. And you can be a Christian for some years yet before you can climb it...No, friends, the doctrine of predestination was not put into the Word of God to make difficulties out of it.

And let me say that putting it there has not made the matter one whit more difficult either. We should have had all the difficulties of predestination anyway—or what seems to be fatalism—if it had never been mentioned in the Bible. But the doctrine being a truth, is mentioned in the Bible, and strange enough, the apostle mentions it in this most practical chapter as an argument for saying: "We know that all things work together for good to them that love God."

It was all practical with Paul. It was not metaphysical; it was practical. To him it meant only, as Bickerstith puts it, that "These little lives of ours are interwoven with God's eternal purposes."  This is all that Paul meant by this doctrine. "God has had his mind on us before we had our minds on him. And he has purposed that we shall be conformed to the image of his son.  And earth and hell cannot keep us from it."

The doctrine of predestination was to the apostle what a great harbor often is to a storm-tossed mariner. Sometimes the ships used to come across the Atlantic against adverse winds. They became all coated over and weighted down with ice.

And, before the Gulf Stream was found, they had to put into the West Indies, into some great harbor, and there, upon the smooth waters, surrounded by the splendid hills, and bathed in the warm sunshine of heaven, the ice melted off, and the ship rose again for her voyage, and could put forth from her harbor with new buoyancy and strength.

So to the great apostle this doctrine of predestination meant simply that somehow "these little lives of ours are interwoven with God's eternal purposes." This doctrine was the harbor into which, when his soul had been tossed by the tempest, when it had been driven almost, as it seemed, to destruction, his vessel could ride at anchor, in faith, surrounded by the eternal hills, sheltered from every stormy wind that blows, bathed in the sunshine of God's eternal love, and feel everlastingly safe from everything that could harm.

This is what the doctrine is here for. It is practical. Why, sometimes I have had Methodists come up to me and say: "Well I believe in that kind of predestination just as much as you do." And I think they ought to. For this is what God's Word teaches, and a glorious doctrine it is...

And, brethren, is there a man or a woman here who does not realize in his or her experience that this expresses exactly the truth?  You thought you came to Christ. You thought you sought the Saviour. You thought you walked.

And you did exercise as absolute freedom of the human will as ever you did in any act in all your life. But as the years go by, you have come to feel; "I am what I am by the grace of God." "I sought the Lord, but afterwards I knew He moved my soul to him who sought for me."

This is predestination. This is God's agency. This is God's providence over us.

But, oh! do not go to splitting hairs over the doctrine. Just fall back on it sometimes in the midst of life's struggles and conflicts as you would fall upon the bosom and into the arms of the infinite Jehovah, and realize that "these little lives of ours" — Oh, blessed be God! — "these little lives of ours are interwoven with God's eternal purposes."

If our Calvinist brothers took the perspective of Kerfoot, my own guess is, there would rarely be a controversy about Calvinism in the Southern Baptist Convention.

With that, I am...

Peter

Comments

[d]

Dr. Russell Moore preached a great sermon recently in chapel at Southern on the practical implications of the doctrine of election. it is worth checking out. can be accessed on Southern's website.

[Colin]

d beat me to it. They are correct, Dr. Moore's sermon in chapel was excellent, and much the same as Kerfoot's thoughts here. However, I would say Dr. Moore's sermon far exceeds the beauty of the one you have posted here.

In Brown's "The English Baptists of the Eighteenth Century," he cites as one of the reasons of the fall into Rationalistic thought and hypercalvinism by the likes of Gill as the unbalanced attention paid to the doctrine of election. Those unbalanced in their theology, as it were, were those who were majoring on the doctrine, determined to teach the doctrine, and determined to let everyone know the historicity of the doctrine in the midst of Baptists. This, to me, sounds an awful lot like one of the Baptist organizations that blog today.

Moore's can be found here.

[Debbie Kaufman]

Peter: Gill was not hyper-Calvinist. Neither was A.W. Pink, who is also charged by some with being such. I think both were great theologians whom I have read a lot of over the years.

I agree with this sermon that the doctrine of Predestination was not intended to be used this way, and I don't know of a Calvinist who would disagree.

[peter]

d & Colin,

Thanks brothers, for the link.

Debbie,

If Gill was not a Hyper-Calvinist, there is no such thing as a Hyper-Calvinist. Best, then, we just drop the historical reference completely out of our vocabulary.

As for not "know[ing] of a Calvinist who would disagree", be my guest, Debbie.

With that, I am...

Peter

[Debbie Kaufman]

If Gill is your standard of what a hyper-Calvinist is, then there is no such thing as a hyper-Calvinist. This charge is usually to discredit Gill, and it shouldn't be. His writings are very valuable as is his commentary which I used all the time. I agree that he is best left out of this conversation, but I won't leave him out of mine. Good solid writers are constantly being charged with this, and it's time it stopped. There is no proof to such a charge, it is never an honest argument. If it seems this always gets my dander up, yep. It does. Anytime an untrue charge is leveled at good Christian authors, it gets my dander up. Even those who are falsely charge and are non-Calvinists.

[peter]

Dear Debbie,

You write: "I agree that he is best left out of this conversation, but I won't leave him out of mine." For my part, you should have stuck with your "I agree" rather than go on and spoil it with your "I won't". This post definitively did not mention Gill in any way. Period. You magically pulled him out of your bag of tricks.

Nor am I the least interested in a conversation about him with you. Thanks anyway, though.

With that, I am...

Peter

[Debbie Kaufman]

Not since you obviously took it out after my last comment. I'm scratching my head with you Peter. Scratching my head.

[peter]

Debbie,

I haven't one lonely clue to what you are referring--"obviously took it out". Took what out?

With that, I am...

Peter

[selahV]

Peter, never heard of Kerfoot before (that I know of). But this sermon is a fine example of what flows from my heart and mind. Wow. Clarity and somber sweet revelation. thanks. Now I must go to the Russell Moore link. selahV

[volfan007]

Peter,

Wow! Great stuff. Kerfoot and I think a lot alike on this subject. Thanks for bringing this to light.

David