Predestined…?

by Pete Rose

“For whom he did foreknow, he did also predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He did predestinate, them he also called; and whom he called, them He also justified, and whom He justified them he also glorified.” (Romans 8:29-30)

This has been a highly controversial teaching among the churches of Jesus Christ. I am not talking about a specific denomination, I’m talking about every church that accepts Jesus Christ as the Son of God. Some take this to the extreme of fatalism, that God has already chosen everyone who is to be saved, and there’s no use repenting or trying to get anyone saved because it’s already been decided who will be saved and who won’t be. Those who are predestined to be saved will be saved no matter what, and those who haven’t been are doomed to hell and there’s nothing anyone can do about it, according to this school of thought. Others reject this teaching, saying it removes the element of human choice. The truth is, whether God predestines people to be saved or whether they choose to themselves, depends on whose point of view you are looking at it from.

From God’s point of view, He already knows the end from the beginning. He already knows everyone who will receive Christ as Lord and Savior, and these are the ones He predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ. “For whom he did foreknow, them He did also predestinate…”

From the human point of view, we don’t know who will receive Christ and who won’t. Therefore it is the responsibility of those of us who are saved to present the message of Jesus Christ to those who aren’t, that they may have opportunity to respond to it. Those who respond and trust Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior are the ones God has predestined to be conformed to the image Jesus, and those who don’t send themselves to hell because they reject the only way God has set up for men to be saved. “For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. … He that believeth is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed on the name of the only begotten Son of God.” (John 3:16-18) So from this we see it is the individual’s responsibility to respond to the message that Christ’s death on the cross has paid for his sins, and to receive Jesus as Lord and Savior. And all who refuse or neglect to do so have only themselves to blame when they end up in hell.

What does it mean to believe on Jesus? It means more than just giving intellectual assent to the fact that there was a man named Jesus who walked on the Earth for so many years and then was hanged on a cross. It means to believe in your heart—with all your being—to stake your life on it as it were—that Jesus is Who He said He is, the living Son of God, and that His death on the cross and His bodily resurrection are historical facts, and to put it on a personal level, that His death has paid for your sins. Do this, and God will predestine you to be conformed to the image of His Son.

“That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness [right standing with God], and with the mouth confession [agreement with God] is made unto salvation. … For whosoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord shall be saved.” (Romans 10:9-10, 13).

Why not do it today? There’ll never be a better time than right now.

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Shekinah’s Commentary:

Ok.  I grew up in a Calvinist tradition. But I don’t go along with how some “Calvinists” interpret Calvin’s 5 points (TULIP).  Forget Duane Edward Spencer and the Five Points of Calvin compared to the teachings of Arminius (otherwise known as Jacob Hermann 1560-1609).  Those are men.  Anyone wasting time as a Calvinism apologist, or an Arminianism apologist, is still just wasting time because men are not supposed to be the source of our conclusions.  The Bible has the first, only, and final word.

To us, with our limited minds, God’s “Predestination” and  our “free will”,  may seem mutually exclusive.  To God, they aren’t.  My Presbyterian friend once asked me “so which is it? Free Will or Predestination?”   I said, “it’s both”! (It’s just that predestination does not mean what a lot of people seem to think it means because God never contradicts Himself).  Jesus said “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me” (John 12:32)

The Bible says God is not willing that any should perish, and that all should come to repentance.  2 peter 3:9., and whosoever believeth on Him shall NOT perish (John 3:16).  But it also says in Ephesians 1:4-11 (This is Paul, talking to the saved saints at the church in Ephesus) According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:  Having predestined us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence; Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him:  In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.

But you cannot deny, as Mr. Rose pointed out, that in Romans 8: 29 and 30 Paul says:  For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His son, that he might be the first-born among many brethren.  Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

I see it like this:  Right now, you are breathing.  You can choose to hold your breath.  God “pre-destined” in His design of the human body, that many functions are self-sustaining, yet gave us some ability to “over-ride” them.  He also retains the power to over-ride your over-ride like this:   If I hold my breath long enough,  my central nervous system, sensing lack of oxygen, will cause me to lose consciousness in order to conserve all remaining oxygen and energy for the purposes of sustaining brain function, and I will pass out, at which point my autonomic nervous system will re-start my breathing.  Whose genius was it that came up with that back-up function?  Gods, of course!.  Now,  I could also put a bullet in my own head, thereby bypassing all autonomic mechanisms that would have re-started breathing.  God permits that to happen, clearly, as people commit suicide every day in this rotten world.  You see where you soon find yourself in a “Chicken and the Egg” argument?  It’s a little like the scientist who challenged God that he could create a man from the dust of the Earth just like God did,  and proceeds to shovel up some dirt, only to hear God’s “Ah, ah, ah, nope, make your own dirt”.  No matter where we “begin” , “I Am” already Was! 

Time is a creation-bound, man-centered concept, to which God is in no way subject.  Before creating man, God’s “destiny” for man, was perfect unity and fellowship with Himself.  He knew we would sin, (free will)  so He also planned a method of redemption, which is open to all, and is found only in Christ Jesus.  This salvation is in Jesus, just like a book-marker is in a book, and wherever that book goes, so goes the book-marker.  Pick up the book, you pick up the book-marker with it.  But what was chosen “in Christ since before the foundation of the world, spoken of in Ephesians 1, is the church.  The church is “in Christ” in this passage, in the same sense that “In the Beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”.  In the beginning, the church was not even in existance, yet it was, already in Christ.  History was yet to play out, and there would be a period of history, such as in Daniel’s day, when the church was a mystery eluded to, but not yet revealed.  Not until the dispensation of Grace, is the church, as Bride of Christ,  revealed.

Now.  Proof that sin (therefore death) is an act of free will and conversely we can also choose life ?

Deuteronomy 30:15 “See, I have set before you
today life and good, death and evil, 16 “in that I command you today to love the
Lord your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, His statutes,
and His judgments, that you may live and multiply; and the Lord your God will
bless you in the land which you go to possess. 17 “But if your heart turns away
so that you do not hear, and are drawn away, and worship other gods and serve
them, 18 “I announce to you today that you shall surely perish; you shall not
prolong [your] days in the land which you cross over the Jordan to go in and
possess. 19 “I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, [that] I
have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life,
that both you and your descendants may live.

Does our free will in any way over-ride God’s?  No because; Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. Romans 9:18  Everyone’s default destination is hell, and we all deserve it.  Is God to be “faulted” if He has mercy and saves some?  Of course not!

The same sun that softens the wax, hardens the clay, and the same gospel that softens the regenerate, hardens the reprobate.  By the grace of
God, I am what I am.  I Corinthians 15:10.

When Christ died, He died for all sin.  But all sinners do not become saved because not all sinners believe and receive the atonement God made provision for, in Christ.  If I go to the ticket booth, and buy a ticket for you to the ballet, and leave it at the will-call box, but you do not claim it, and don’t attend the show, the ticket was still paid for, though not by you.

All sin must be paid for, (without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins) but freedom from your own personal guilt of violating God’s law, (i.e. freedom from your culpability) comes only in your willingness to receive Christ’s righteousness in exchange for your sin, Christ’s taking of your penalty, in exchange for your bearing it yourself.

If we can’t understand that something that seems mutually exclusive in our limited view, in fact is not mutually exclusive on God’s part, then we can never appreciate these words of Paul:  I am crucified in Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.  And if we COULD understand everything about the mind of God and how He works, He wouldn’t be much of a God.

To be born again, something must first die.

Sinners who reject the “crucifixion in Christ” remain alive in and to their own sins and sin-nature, and remain subject to the judgment they have coming.  They exercise their will to embrace sin, and lose out on the destiny  God fore-ordained for all who”will” to saved.  Whosoever will follow me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. Mark 8:34.  How about this one?; And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.  This water is defined in John 4: 5-14, Isaiah 12:3, and Isaiah 44:3

Let’s say I write a story, and in the story, my main character has two different suitors who each have asked her to marry them.  She is my character, it is my story, the character will choose one or the other,  but who really chooses the outcome?

God is Sovereign but our free will can never over-ride His will because “in Him we live, and move, and have our being”.   Acts 17:28

Would anyone in their right mind, accuse me of cruelty for choosing for my character whom she marries?  No!  It’s my story, I am the aritist/author.  I created her, and I have the right to write the storyline as I see fit.

Well, though people don’t realize it, God has every right to do the same with us.  We are the clay, He is the potter. Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? (Isaiah 45:9) We are the creature, He the Creator.

God doesn’t owe it to us that we should understand.  It”s a matter of “Because I am the Father and I said so”.  To put it in words we all understand (and most of us don’t like to hear, but there it is!)

Here is a video I saw recently on Elizabeth Prata’s blog The-End-Time  that illustrates it clearly, though from seemingly more a “strict Calvinist” perspective:

 “I Don’t Understand Election” Paul Washer explains.  (brief video)