For example, a main passage Predestinationists use is John 6:44. Jesus stated, "No one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day." By itself it sounds like Jesus is saying God the Father chooses those who will be saved and those who will be lost. This is not what Jesus is saying in context. In the next verse Jesus tells them, "Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father, comes to Me." Jesus’ point to the unbelieving Jews was that if they knew the Father they would know Him because He came from the Father. He was telling them that the reason they did not recognize Him as their Messiah and as God’s Son was because they did not know the Father. It was not an issue of Predestination but that they were tearing Jesus down because they did not know the Father; therefore, they did not recognize Jesus as their Messiah and Savior.

Only the true God will lead us to Jesus (John 17:3, 1 John 4:1-3). Any other god or demon will do all they can to lead us away from Jesus. At the same time Jesus made it very plain that He would not cast away anyone who came to Him whether led to him by the Father or not. (John 6:37).

Romans Chapters 9-11 is one of the most popular passages of Scripture used to justify the concept of predestination and that God chooses those who will be saved and those who will be damned. Again, it is based on taking certain verses out of context by themselves like 9:15-16.

Paul starts off this passage talking about his love for his fellow Israelites, how if possible he would even himself be damned that they might be saved (9:1-5). Israel was not rejected because they were predestined to be rejected, they were rejected because God’s kingdom is received by faith through God’s promises (9:6-8, 31-32), the righteousness of God (10:1-4); not through the works of the Law, our righteousness. They were trying to come to God on their terms, not God’s terms. We become sons of God through believing God’s promises, not through works.

"That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants." (Rom 9:8)

Sarah was beyond the age of having children, 80 years of age, so Sarah gave Abraham Hagar, her maid, to bear children for her as a surrogate mother. In doing this, Abraham was trying to fulfill God’s promise through his own efforts rather than believing God’s promise of a son through his own flesh, his wife Sarah. God promised that it would come through his own flesh, from his own body, that is through his wife Sarah. It was because Abraham believed this promise of God, this work and miracle of God, not Abraham’s, that God declared Abraham righteous, saved (Genesis 15:6).

Paul tells us in Romans 9:8 that it is not the children of the flesh, meaning by the initiative, works or strife of the soul through obedience to the Law that are God’s children, but the children of the promise. It is those who believe on God’s promises that are declared God’s children.

What is God’s promise? It is stated in Romans 10:9,

"That if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved."

What does it mean to believe God raised Jesus from the dead? It means that we believe that God accepts Jesus’ death for our sins in our place through his death on the cross and not through any works of our own. God’s proof and witness to us that He does is His bringing Jesus back from the dead. Paul wrote in Romans 4:25, "He who was delivered up because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification." The resurrection is God’s witness, promise and proof to us that he does accept Jesus’ death as payment for our sins in our place. When we believe this work of God, we are saved (Rom 4:25, 10:9-10).

In Romans 9:15-16 Paul wrote,

"For He says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.’ So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy."

This is an example of a passage that predestinationists use to try and prove that God chooses who He will save and chooses who He will condemn, but is this what Paul means by quoting this passage here? Not at all. In Romans 9:4 Paul tells us that it was through the Israelites that we received the law, the temple service and even Jesus through the flesh. Paul then goes on to explain to us in context that salvation does not come through obedience to the law but through believing God’s promises about his accepting Jesus’ death in our place just as Abraham was saved by believing God’s promises. Abraham was not saved by living perfectly according to the law of which he had no knowledge; this was because the Law came through Moses 400 years later, not through Abraham.

Paul is telling us that the antagonist is saying that God is unjust because he rejects his own people trying to come to him through obedience to the Law, which He gave to them in the first place, rather than accepting God’s free gift of Salvation through simply believing His promises about His Son. It is in this context that Paul is quoting this passage and saying that if God chooses only to accept those who come to him by faith in his promises rather than through the works of the Law, who are we to question God? He states in Romans 9:30-32,

"What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, attained righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith; but Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as though it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone."

If God chooses only to have mercy on those who come to Him through Faith in His promise and not by Works, who are we to question God? That is the meaning of this passage and the totality of Paul’s argument in Romans Chapters 9-11. Yes, if a man chooses to come to God on the bases of his works he is predestined to be lost, but if a man comes to God on the bases of His work through Christ, that man is predestined to be saved.

The science of archaeology has discovered and provided us an explanation for why God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. In the theology of the ancient Egyptian death cult, as described in the Egyptian Book of the Dead,^49/127 after death the deceased had to go through a trial in the Hall of Judgment to determine his guilt or innocence. If judged guilty his fate was destruction; if innocent, then eternal life with its rewards. In order to pass through this judgment, the dead had to deny a long list of sins that were read against him and successfully declare that he was pure. This act was called the "Negative Confession," and while it was being conducted the deceased’s heart, shown in a canopic jar, was being weighed in the scales of judgment against the standard of truth represented by the hieroglyphic symbol of a feather. This judgment is seen clearly in a mural painting known as The weighing of the heart. Against the testimony of the deceased, his heart would confess the truth, showing his Negative Confession to be a lie. The heart, therefore, would tip the scales in favor of judgment and result in his destruction. Since all men sin and the natural inclination of the heart is to confess such sin, the ingenious Egyptians devised a means to keep the heart from contradicting the Negative Confession. They did this by writing magical incantations on a stone image of their sacred dung beetle, called a scarab, that was carved in the shape of a heart. This stone heart scarab was then placed in or on the chest cavity during mummification, a fact revealed by x-rays of Egyptian mummies. Various incantations ordered the heart to not rebel or witness against the individual in question. This resulted in the transfer of the stony character of the scarab to the fleshly heart in the afterlife which made it hard and unable to speak. This act of ritual "hardening of the heart" reversed the natural function of the unhardened heart and resulted in salvation since the deceased was now decreed sinless through silence.

However, when God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, who as a god himself represented the salvation of Egypt, He reversed the theological hope of all Egyptians. This hardening resulted in Pharaoh’s inability to naturally respond to the destructive plagues, and therefore stop them by surrendering to Moses’ request. Therefore, instead of the "hardening the heart" bringing salvation, instead it brought destruction. Thus, archaeology has provided new insight into a difficult theological concept by giving us the proper background and setting of the Egyptian beliefs God through Moses wished to counter. This discovery also confirms the historical accuracy of the Exodus account.

The word used for predestination in the Greek is proorizw. It means to set restrictions beforehand. It is a compound word broken down to προ meaning before and οριζω meaning to set bounds, restrict.⁸³ The true meaning of the use of the word predestination in the New Testament in the context of Romans Chapters 9-11 is that God before the foundation of the world set restrictions of how we could come to him. Those restrictions are that we can only come to Him on the basis of His promises and works through Jesus Christ, not by any works of our own. That is the totality of Paul’s argument in these chapters of the Book of Romans.