Posted by Bible Probe on August 03, 2005 at 09:28:07:
PREDESTINATION AND SALVATION
Proverbs 30:4 (700 B.C.): "Who hath ascended up into heaven or descended? Who
hath gathered the wind in His fists? Who hath bound the waters in a garment? Who
hath established all the ends of the Earth? What is His name, and what is His
son's name, if thou canst tell?"
By Predestination we are talking about the concept that God infallibly foresees
and immutably preordains from eternity all future events.
To begin to understand this we first have to understand that by giving man "Free
Will", although God is Omniscient and He knows the end from the beginning, it is
not God that causes all that is bad in the world. Man in fact has the power to
start, stop, or not even begin a war. Free will takes the "meddling" aspect away
from God.
What then do we make of this?:
"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 predestinated us
unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good
pleasure of his will," Ephesians 1:4-5
Doesn't the above imply that the believers are those predestinated or chosen
before the foundation of the world in Christ, and the unbelievers are those left
'after that choosing'?
So, along this line of reasoning. Is it all about simply testing and refining
the predestined believers? How does one get to belong to this club? Is this in
any way fair? Those who are predestined to damnation wouldn't think so.
The old Jewish Law demonstrated this free will concept with their animal
sacrifices, which since the coming of the perfect sacrifice (His sinless Son) is
no longer acceptable to God. In fact animal sacrifice, like the passover blood
on the Hebrew door posts served as anticipatory reminder and symbol of that
divine Atonement to come. Before Jesus came, God decreed that the animal offered
must be perfect. "Your lamb shall be without spot or blemish" (Exodus 12:5) . "A
freewill offering of the herd or of the flock must be perfect to be accepted;
there shall be no defect in it" (Lev 22:21).
False doctrines can get one in trouble when they try to understand
predestination and salvation.
Calvin's doctrine falsely teaches God's sovereignty determines the will,
whereas: God's sovereignty includes free will. Calvin says that God desires only
the salvation of the elect. Whereas God desires the salvation of all. Calvin
wrongly says God provides grace only to the elect. Whereas: God provides grace
to all, though not all accept it. Calvin says: Christ died only for the elect;
when actually Christ died for all men. And lastly, a false Calvin doctrine is
God predetermines some for hell. When actually, men merit hell by their own
wickedness.
God's foreknowledge cannot force upon man unavoidable coercion, for the simple
reason that it is at bottom nothing else than the eternal vision of the future
historical actuality. God foresees the free activity of a man precisely as that
individual is willing to shape it, predestination is not predetermination of the
human will.
The term 'double predestination' is used by many writers to refer to a doctrine
that God has predestinated some to justification, and others to condemnation.
God predestinating men to condemnation would put the causative action directly
upon God and not upon man. It also implies that God has created the wicked to
suffer in Hell and be condemned. It's like saying God created two plants, and
then made the decision not to water one plant, knowing it will wither and die.
This is not what an all-loving God would do.
We all agree that God has to even the score for the 6 million Jews slaughtered
in Germany, and for the father in Kenya watching his wife and children
slaughtered, and for the Bosnian mother watching her husband slowly
disemboweled, and for the grandfather in Alabama watching his daughter raped and
his son hanging on a tree just for being a black man --and the millions of other
such atrocities. But if God is Omniscient, knowing in advance the end from the
beginning --what's the meaning of making these wicked people who do these cruel
acts to begin with?
God desires that all men obtain eternal happiness. But this is worthless to God
and the good of His Kingdom if it is imposed on an individual. Satan's rebellion
already proved this. The angels possessed grace and perfectly intact intellect,
and yet many of them freely sinned and rejected God. Mankind is condemned for
their own disobedience, and for their own sins which they have committed
themselves, by their own free will.
So from the foundation of the world, God's plan included a choice an individual
would need to make. Christ has died for all men, though not all avail themselves
of the benefits of redemption. Satan's purpose has always been to obscure, and
falsify the simplicity of the cross in its application to our sin problem.
In this we see that although God knows in advance who the very Elect are, God
predestined no one positively to hell, much less sin. By definition, the ELECT
are those whom God infallibly foresees will be saved (Romans 8:28-30). By this
definition, it is impossible for the elect to be lost, precisely because God
foreknows who will not be lost.
Consequently, just as no one is saved against His will, so the wicked reprobate
perish solely on account of their wickedness.
Look at Jesus's sacrificial death on the cross as temporarily frustrating God's
purpose. It required God to revise and postpone his plans. According to this
view, God purposed that Jesus be crowned, not crucified.
The Bible tells us that the slain Lamb was foreordained before the foundation of
the world. Even before the human race existed, God knew of humanity's future
plight, and made his decision to save the world.
The crucifixion was forseen. In fact, the lamb blood splat on Jewish doors as
the angel of death passed over foreshadowed the future redemption by a "lamb".
To assume human nature, the sinless Savior and perfect sacrifice had to choose
between the only two things available. He could of either chosen the Holy,
unfallen nature of Adam, or the fallen nature of Adam and all of Adam's
descendants. If He had taken any other kind, it would not have been human nature
at all.
His sacrificial death, allowed by the Father and willingly submitted to by Jesus
(John 10:17-18), paid the penalty for all sins of all human beings who will have
ever lived, on the condition that they truly repent of those sins. God, in His
sovereign justice, mercy and love, thus made it possible for all humans to have
their sins forgiven (upon repentance and faith) and to be reconciled to Him by
the blood of Christ as the Lamb of God (Matthew 26:28; Revelation 12:11).
But the death of Jesus Christ was not the end of the matter. We are reconciled
to God by Jesus' death, but we are saved by His life (Romans 5:10).
But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our
iniquities; the chastening for our well-being [literally "peace"] fell upon Him,
and by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each
of us has turned to his own way; but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all
to fall on Him (Isaiah 53:5-6)
As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; by
His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, as He will
bear their iniquities (Isaiah 53:11)
That is precisely what occurred on the cross. Jesus bore our sins--our guilt was
transferred to Him, and He became liable for our penalty. He took upon Himself
our sin, and thus was identified with "the transgressors." We are all the
transgressors. And Jesus "always lives to make intercession" for us as the
author of Hebrews wrote (Hebrews 7:25).
Only through Christ's resurrection to immortality could we have a living Savior
who, as High Priest, intercedes for us with the Father (1 Timothy 2:5; Hebrews
4:15-16; Romans 8:26-27). Only because Jesus Christ was raised from the dead do
human beings have any reason to believe in the gospel of the Kingdom of God or
to believe that they can be saved from eternal death (1 Corinthians 15:14-19).
His resurrection provides for humans a basis for living hope that they, too, may
inherit eternal life (1 Peter 1:3).
Are the Elect predestined? Anyone who comes to Jesus and asks for forgiveness
and means it, then their old life is washed away by the blood of Jesus. But we
have to keep this faith and hold steady until the end!
Hebrews 3:14. "For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of
our confidence stedfast unto the end."
Are you of God, or of the devil if you continue to sin? All of us sin. We need
to continually ask Jesus to forgive us and to give us the grace needed to change
our lives so that we sin no more.
1 John 3:8 says. "He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth
from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he
might destroy the works of the devil."
Jesus offered both the fact and the details of His resurrection as the only
divine sign to His generation that he was "greater than Jonah" and "greater than
Solomon" and that His message should lead its hearers to repentance (Matthew
12:39-42). He said that He would be three days and three nights—a period of 72
hours (John 11:9-10; Genesis 1:5)—in the heart of the earth (the grave), just as
Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the fish (Jonah 1:17).
Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will
raise it up. (John 2:19) Elsewhere, He said that He would "be killed, and after
three days rise again" (Mark 8:31).
To believe the above literally, one needs to eliminate the 'Good Friday
tradition' and to accept that Jesus died on Wednesday afternoon, was hurriedly
placed in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, a rich man, shortly before sunset
that same afternoon (the eve of an annual Sabbath, the first day of Unleavened
Bread; John 19:30-31, 42; Mark 15:42-46) and was resurrected by the Father
shortly before sunset on Saturday, three days and three nights after being
placed in the tomb, exactly as He had said.
These accounts are reconciled by understanding that there were two periods of
holy time during the week in question. Jesus was crucified on the Passover
(Matthew 26:18-20; 1 Corinthians 5:7), which was the preparation day (Mark
15:42) for the first annual Holy Day on the Jewish calendar, the first day of
Unleavened Bread. The women waited until this day was over, then bought and
prepared the spices, then rested again on God's weekly Sabbath day, and then
proceeded to the tomb to apply the spices to Jesus' body early on Sunday
morning.
John the Baptist foresaw the crucifixion of Jesus when he pointed to Christ and
said, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world."
Centuries earlier, Isaiah foresaw the same thing (Isaiah 53:12). Much earlier
than that, even before the foundation of the world, God foresaw it. Peter did
not think that God's plan went awry when Jesus was delivered up to be crucified.
He said it was "by the predetermined counsel and foreknowledge of God" (Acts
2:23).
The term "Lamb" is a metaphor, referring to Christ as a sacrificial offering for
sins. We understand that Jesus is not only the "Lamb", but also Shepherd and
High Priest. Matthew 1:21. "And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call
his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins."
Peter reminds us that we have been redeemed "with the precious blood of Christ,
as of a lamb without blemish and without spot... foreordained before the
foundation of the world" (1 Peter 1:18-20)
John 8:36. "If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed."
Where you spend eternity all rests on how you receive these words into your
heart, and what you, with your free will decide to do with them:
John 3:16. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
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