Verse 20 says that Christ was "chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake." This tells us what we have suggested above, that redemption was not an afterthought or even a reaction to sin, but it had been God's decree for Christ to redeem the elect by his blood even before creation.

We can say something here about the order of the eternal decrees, and in connection with this, supralapsarianism and infralapsarianism. Now, because God is eternal and omniscient, there is not a point in his thinking when he does not know everything or when he has not decided everything; therefore, when we speak of order in the mind of God, we are referring to logical order and not chronological order.

Infralapsarianism confuses the order of design or purpose with the order of execution. It complains that in supralapsarianism, God decrees the identities of the reprobates without a view to their sinfulness. But I have established elsewhere that reprobation is unconditional, so this complaint poses no problem.

Moreover, as we have mentioned above, when we consider the plan of God from the ultimate perspective of his glory, then even reprobation is to serve the purpose of redemption – that is, to define those whom Christ would not redeem – and not the other way around. In the order of the eternal decrees, once God has decided that there would be the elect and the reprobates, then he decrees that mankind would fall into sin to make this possible.

On the other hand, in infralapsarianism, at the point when God decrees the fall of man, he does so without knowing why or what he would do about it! But if he has redemption in mind, and thus the distinction between the elect and the reprobates, so that he knows why he is decreeing the fall of man, then he has already decided on redemption, and thus this becomes supralapsarianism.

Of course the execution of redemption comes after man's fall into sin. But in the order of design or purpose, a person first envisions the end that he wishes to achieve, and then he decides on the means by which he would achieve it. Infralapsarianism would necessarily mean that God decrees the fall of man without knowing why he does it or what would come after it. This is just another way of saying that infralapsarianism is logically impossible.

So the glory of God comes first in the order of the eternal decrees, and to achieve this, the decree is made that Christ would subdue all things under the Father. On the way to achieve this is the decree that Christ would redeem from fallen humanity chosen individuals to become his fellow heirs – thus fallen humanity would be divided into the elect and the reprobates. In order to achieve this, the decree is made that all of humanity would fall into sin. Then, in order to achieve this, the decree is made that God would create humanity. This is the order of design or purpose. The order is reversed in execution, so that creation comes first, and the plan of God culminates in his glory.

The major objection against the supralapsarian scheme essentially amounts to an opposition to the idea that God could designate the identities of the reprobates before he decrees their fall into sin. In supralapsarianism, God first decrees that there would be reprobates, and then he decrees the fall so that these reprobates could materialize. Again, the objection is against unconditional reprobation. To put it another way, the objection is against God's absolute sovereignty, or the fact that God is God.

Then, in turn, the objection against unconditional reprobation is that it is unjust – that is, not according to any standard stated in Scripture, but according to man's sinful intuition. He is uncomfortable with the idea! In any case, by the time God executes punishment upon the reprobates, they have already fallen into sin, so that God does not in fact punish anyone who is sinless and innocent, that is, except when he caused the suffering of Christ. Even then, the punishment inflicted was just in God's mind since Christ was bearing the guilt of the chosen ones (Isaiah 53:10). Thus the principle has been consistently applied.

So the objection against supralapsarianism really amounts to a reluctance to admit that God is God, and not a man or a mere creature. This is a major culprit behind all false theological systems, whether we are thinking of Liberalism, Arminianism, or inconsistent Calvinism. But there is in fact no biblical or rational objection against supralapsarianism, or consistent Calvinism in general.

Once we abandon our false and man-centered assumptions, the offense of absolute divine sovereignty vanishes. Whether we will to let go of them is another question. The work of the Spirit in sanctification is needed for us to relinquish all sense of human autonomy and man-centered thinking, including the relative and illusory type of "freedom" that appears in inconsistent Calvinism.

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