Calvinism Everywhere, Part 7

So we're pressing on with beholding theocentrism everywhere, because we're pressing on with reading the Bible and pressing on in a God-centered universe.

First look at 1 Sam. 14:23. YHWH is said to have saved Israel. Now go ahead and read what preceded v. 23 in 1 Samuel 14:1ff. Consider all the human plotting and acting. Now look again 1 Sam. 14:23. That all of the human plannings and actings that worked toward victory for Israel were means of the Lord's working may be seen by the first word of 1 Sam. 14:23: "So" (taking the waw of the Hebrew preterite form for "to save" inferentially, which is how the ESV, NIV, NASB, HCSB, KJV, and NAB take it). This points up that what came about was YHWH's work. But men, free agents, were planning and doing, you say. Yes. And men are clay. But God is the potter. And he fashions, shapes, and deploys his pots according to his good pleasure (see Jer. 18:4ff; Rom. 9:20ff). 


To add to the tension, see also 1 Sam. 14:45: Jonathan worked the salvation. But I thought YHWH did (v. 23). Well, who worked it? Jonathan, or YHWH? The answer, of course, is "Yes." Both did (1 Sam. 14:46). But Jonathan is the means of the salvation. God is the orderer and ordainer of it. Jonathan is an actor who is animated. God is the actor who animates. Remember, God is the potter, we are the clay. Always. Never the other way around.