This article was written hoping that doing so would give me a better understanding of the role of predestination in people’s lives. I also wanted to try to fathom how our free will is affected; how does free will and predestination interact? What about those not selected (predestined), do they have a chance of being saved?
This is a difficult topic and should only be discussed with mature Christians, those with a large measure of understanding of the Bible. Predestination means “mapped out beforehand.” From all eternity God chose some to have eternal life. These He freed from sin and misery by a covenant of grace. By mapping it beforehand God eliminates any notion we might have that we can save ourselves or that our salvation is by anything other than God. Those He has chosen are called His elect. How and who God has chosen remains in His hidden will. He does however allow the elect who accept a new life in Christ to come to know that they are saved. This happens when they recognize God’s act of regeneration within them.
He offers salvation through a bona fide general calling of the gospel to all people. Those who accept will be brought into the Kingdom. Those who do not accept will be left in their sins to condemnation.
The decrees of God are His eternal plan by which, for His own glory, He has foreordained everything that happens. God is truly sovereign over all things including our free will. All things that happen are either caused by or allowed by God. In doing so God does not sin nor cause us to sin. Nothing escapes the knowledge of God.
This is a hard doctrine for many to accept, that God’s sovereignity far outweighs our free will. The free actions of men are both free and predestined. That is, those who commit these acts do so because they want to. And yet those acts which they do are predetermined by God so that Scripture says they must happen. God is totally in charge of His creation.
Those predestined will have regeneration, (be born again, selected to be saved) where sin no longer dominates. “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son,...” Romans 8:29. Even so, they still must be told about Jesus by a Christian. This is because they have free will to make a choice to be saved.
Some people think they are Christian by creating a God of their liking in their mind. These folks do not want to hear the truth. They never really accepted Christ.
We will know that we have been chosen when we recognize that our life has changed. God has sovereignity over our life; He prescribes limits. You may wander around within those limits (golf instead of church) but if you think of going outside these limits such as committing real sin (adultery, murder, blasphemy) He will not allow you to do that. You may not recognize at the time that He is pulling you back, but it is happening.
We should thank God for our predestination.
Once you accept Christ, you will have a thirst to know more. You must be steadfast in your search and in trying to live as you believe the Lord desires. You must persevere. If you ask, people around you will help, and God will help mightily.
So what do we say about those who were not chosen before time began? Can they find Christ with our help through God’s grace? Jesus Christ died for the sins of all people and wants all to come to repentance. But Jesus' death provides salvation only for those who do not resist God's call. Anyone who accepts the gift of salvation becomes the “elect” of God.
God has made salvation possible for anyone who wants it. “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men,” Titus 2:11. He already knows who will accept His plan of salvation. This does not negate man's choice; rather it is confirmation of God's grace that some will choose salvation. Predestination may raise some intellectual problems, but that is because man tries to wrap his finite mind around an infinite God.
Does God predestine anyone for hell? By electing some to salvation, is God choosing who will continue on their way to Hell? There is much written of this and much controversy harking back to Calvinism. My belief after finding applicable Bible passages and reading ideas of some who have studied the subject is this: No one is predestined for hell. Exceptions might be the usual suspects, Hitler, Egypt’s Pharaoh who persecuted the Israelites, and some of the terrorists. Of course we don’t know if God pardoned some (the Pharaoh for instance) because they had been selected for His purposes.
“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only begotten Son.” John 3:17-18.
One author says: God would not have placed eternal death upon men and separation from Him before He created them, and at the same time say He created them for His pleasure. God would not pronounce His creation good if before its existence if He had plagued His creation with the death of certain men. God’s predestination is that those who receive the Lord shall be like the Lord Jesus. That is predestination and nothing else is. Is it logical for a potter to make vessels so he could turn around and destroy them?
We are all condemned, until the Spirit reveals the truth of God to us at which point, we cannot help but accept the gift of Grace. Salvation is not man's work, but God's.
Bible Passages: ”Furthermore, because of Christ, we have received an inheritance from God, for he chose us from the beginning, and all things happen just as he decided long ago” (Ephesians 1:11).
For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love. Ephesians 1:4
In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will. Eph 1:11
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose
And if by grace, then it is no longer by works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace. Ro 11:6
Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Ro 8:33
However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven. Luke 10:20
My thanks to Dick Murphy for inspiration and some of this information.