“As for you, my son Solomon, know the God of your father, and serve Him with a whole heart and a willing mind; for the LORD searches all hearts, and understands every intent of the thoughts. If you seek Him, He will let you find Him; but if you forsake Him, He will reject you forever.”
This also establishes the fact that God makes Himself accessible to those who seek Him, reminiscent of the apostle Paul’s evangelical sermon to the Athenians: “‘And He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us.’” (Acts 17:26-27)
Jeremiah 17:10 similarly states: “‘I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give to each man according to his ways, according to the results of his deeds.’” God “weighs the motives” (Proverbs 16:2) and “weighs the hearts” (Proverbs 21:2), “searching all the innermost parts of his being.” (Proverbs 20:27) Why would God weigh and search what Calvinism says that He already meticulously decreed? So, this verse begs for an interpretation that God is searching the hearts of those whose thoughts that He has not decreed.
Dave Hunt: “Yes, God judges ‘the intentions of the heart,’ but Calvinism falsely says that He causes the intentions He judges.”686
Dave Hunt: “…‘the LORD pondereth the hearts’–a meaningless statement if God decrees every thought, word, and deed. What would He ponder?”687
If God had pre-determined everything, then this statement is deeply superfluous and even false. Calvinists might play their metaphor card at this point, but that’s nonsense. A cry for “metaphor” would undermine the clarity (perspicuity) of Scripture here. Second, there is a powerful statement from God Himself concerning Solomon’s conditional covenantal fellowship with God: “…but if you forsake Him, He will reject you forever.” There’s room for healthy debate over whether this rejection is about salvation and/or Solomon’s royal vocation. Either way, though, this is an explicit endorsement of Conditional Election. Calvinists would have to claim that God foreordained Solomon’s fellowship with God and also Solomon’s idolatrous turn from God—all for the sake of His glory! Imagine that! God ordains idolatry for the sake of His own glory, even though He commands the opposite in the Scriptures. Isn’t it wonderful “God-centered” theology to sacrifice God’s character and testimonies on an altar to His sovereignty?688
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686 Debating Calvinism (Sisters, Oregon: Multnomah Publishers, Inc., 2004), 327.
687 Ibid., 129.
688 Helpful explanation from “The Society of Evangelical Arminians.”
[This post has been excerpted with permission from Richard Coords, Calvinism Answered Verse by Verse and Subject by Subject, © 2024.]
