Predestination

Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure. –– Isaiah 46:9,10

Entrepreneurs often seek venture capital to begin a new enterprise. To obtain funding from potential investors, they must submit a detailed business plan. This plan demonstrates how they have thought through their proposals. It details their potential product or service, includes a market survey to show the demand for what they have to sell, names their management team, and outlines their initial start-up costs plus the ongoing costs of operation. An important part of this plan itemizes how many people they need in each department—manufacturing, shipping, sales, accounting, etc.

God also has such a plan. It is contained in the Bible and shows the forethought he has given to “Project Earth.” He predicts the end product: a perfect human race, with billions of diverse individuals endowed with their own free will, choosing to voluntarily live in compliance with his laws and in harmony with each other.

He has predetermined a location for this race and shows the progressive stages necessary to prepare this locale for human habitation (Genesis 1). He foretells the costs of achieving his ends, both in terms of the suffering consequential to sin and the ultimate cost to himself of the life of his only son. He determines the time necessary to reach his objective: 7,000 years. He developed contingency plans allowing for the conquest of challenges to reaching his objectives. All in all, the Bible is a marvelous example of a thoroughly well-thought-out plan for not just the creation of the human race with provisions for its sustenance, but for the recovery of man from the introduction of sin and evil. God’s plan even uses this experience with sin and its consequences for the ultimate good of his creation.

Jesus Christ is the Center of this Plan

The cross of Calvary stands at the crossroads of history. The entire plan of God for the salvation and development of the human race centers around this one moment. The death of Jesus and its effect on man is well stated by the Apostle Paul: “For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:21,22). The equation of salvation is clear: as one man, Adam, earned the penalty of death because of his disobedience, the obedience of one man, Jesus, reverses that penalty so all might live. Adam’s disobedience necessitated the death of Jesus to offset the penalty. That is what the Greek word translated as “ransom” in the Bible means: a price to correspond; an exact equivalent.

God, however, had already covered the eventuality of human sin even before the first sinful act was committed. God had already appointed a redeemer even before sin and death struck down the human race. The Apostle Peter speaks of the effectiveness of Jesus’ blood, stating that the giving of this blood “was foreordained before the foundation of the world” (1 Peter 1:20).

The Apostle Paul, moreover, asserts that it was not only Jesus but a spiritual class called “the church” who were selected “before the foundation of the world.” Note his words: “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” (Ephesians 1:4). It is this pre-selection process that the Bible calls …

Predestination

“For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren” (Romans 8:29). The subject of predestination has been debated among sincere Christians of all faiths. The debate centers around three areas:

1) to what extent God chooses to exercise his powers of foreknowledge of the future;
2) whether he exercised predestination in the cases of individuals or only of classes of people; and
3) how predestination interacts with man’s free moral agency or free

There are two Greek words in the Bible concerning this subject: proginosko and proorizo. The former means to have knowledge beforehand, and the latter deals with an action based on that knowledge.

W. E. Vine in his Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words writes of proorizo, translated predestinated: “This verb is to be distinguished from proginosko, ‘to foreknow’; the latter has special reference to the persons foreknown by God; proorizo has special reference to that to which the subjects of his foreknowledge are ‘predestinated.’”

Professor Vincent in his Word Studies in the New Testament, speaking of proginosko, says: “It does not mean ‘foreordain.’ It signifies ‘prescience,’ not ‘pre- election.’” Vincent then appends this footnote: “This is the simple, common-sense meaning. The attempt to attach to it the sense of pre-election, to make it include the divine decree, has grown out of dogmatic considerations in the interest of a rigid predestinarianism. The scope of this work does not admit a discussion of the infinitesimal hair-splitting which has been applied to the passage, and which is as profitless as it is unsatisfactory.”

Thus, it would appear that “foreknowledge” (proginosko) relates to the knowledge that certain individuals or classes would be needed to perform certain services, and predestination (proorizo) refers to the qualifications of those selected to fill these positions.

As entrepreneurs predict the necessity for the work to be accomplished in carrying out a proposed enterprise, God’s foreknowledge of his overall plans and purposes foresaw the need for certain functions to be carried out to achieve the desired result. As an entrepreneur draws up the job descriptions for the needed workers, so God predestined that those serving him in various ways must undergo certain specific training to fit them for their responsibilities.

Classes Foreknown by God

Jesus and his Church are not the only ones spoken of in the Bible as “foreknown.” Speaking of the natural Israel of his day the Apostle Paul writes, “God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew [proginosko]” (Romans 11:2).

God’s foreknowledge and pre-planning for his human creation is so complete that Paul said on Mars Hill, “Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world” (Acts 15:18). Foreseeing the need for angels, God made angels. Foreseeing a work for the natural seed of Abraham, God arranged for their necessary training experiences. Foreseeing the need for leadership of his ancient people he “raised up” judges and deliverers for them (Judges 2:16; 3:9). Later he arranged for prophets to deliver his message to his people. Even the selection of their enemies was pre-arranged to give them the necessary chastisements. When Jesus was crucified, it was at the hands of those whom God foreknew: “Both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before [proorizo] to be done” (Acts 4:27,28).

Foreknowledge of Individuals

Not only groups of people, but divine foreknowledge is indicated in the case of certain individuals in the Bible who were prepared for their role while yet in their mother’s womb:

Jeremiah: “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee, and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations” (Jeremiah 1:5).

Apostle Paul: “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace” (Galatians 1:15).

A similar reference is found in Isaiah 49:1, though the primary reference appears to be prophetically applied to Jesus as Israel’s Messiah. It is unclear whether these verses refer to Isaiah also, as a prototype of the nation’s Messiah.

Another example of God’s intentions to deal with a special servant in the womb is Samson. When the angel announced his birth to Samson’s mother, he gave special instructions, saying: “For, lo, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and no razor shall come on his head: for the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb: and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines” (Judges 13:5).

It was also, while twins were in the womb of Rebekah, that the manner of their birth and their destinies were prophesied. Even the heathen king Cyrus was called by name and spoken of as the Lord’s “shepherd” years before his birth.

In this broad array of individuals who have been both foreknown of God and prepared by him for special functions, there is ample evidence that God not only has the ability but also uses that ability, to prepare certain people for specific functions even before their birth. However, this does not imply that he interferes with that person’s free moral agency.

Free Moral Agency

The term “free moral agency” describes the freedom each individual has to make and carry out his own decisions — whether they be for good or for evil. Some honestly question whether such freedom can exist given specific prophecies of how certain individuals would act before they were even born.

God works with contingency plans. The principle of this concept is found in Jeremiah 18:7-10, “At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it; if that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it; if it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them.”

It was in harmony with this principle that Jonah could make the unconditional prediction that Nineveh would be destroyed in forty days and yet, since they repented, God chose not to carry out that punishment at that time (Jonah 3:4,9,10).

While Jeremiah speaks only of nations, the same principle works with individuals as well. Even though Saul of Tarsus was called from his mother’s womb and commissioned to play a special role in the Christian church, he was not compelled to accept that commission or even to remain faithful to it, once embarked upon. Paul remarks on the continuous necessity to keep his body in subjection “lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway” (1 Corinthians 9:27).

Another expression of this principle is in the words of Mordecai to Queen Esther when he calls upon her to intercede with King Ahasuerus to save the Jewish people from the plot of Haman. “Then Mordecai commanded to answer Esther, Think not with thyself that thou shalt escape in the king’s house, more than all the Jews. For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but thou and thy father’s house shall be destroyed: and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:13,14). If Esther had not accepted the challenge, it would not have changed God’s predetermined will that the challenge be faced; he would have raised up another deliverer.

An example that perhaps shows this harmony between predestination and free moral agency is found in the Lord’s great prophecy. There a prediction is made that when the Lord returns there will be a “wise and faithful servant” to give the appropriate spiritual food to the “household.” The promise is given to that servant that he would be made ruler “over all his goods.” However, the next verse shows God’s contingency plan: “But and if that evil servant [the same servant, if he should take a wrong course of action] shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; and shall begin to smite his fellow-servants and to eat and drink with the drunken; the lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, and shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 24:48-51).

This is how predestination is balanced with free moral agency:

1) Foreknowledge determines the personnel needed to bring about the maximum results in the plan of God.
2) Predestination sets the qualifications for those positions and makes arrangements for the training of individuals to fit those positions.
3) Free moral agency is the factor that determines if any given individual shall eventually accomplish the roles which are set

Predestination in the Christian Life

The Apostle Paul relates these concepts of foreknowledge and predestination to the Christian in Ephesians 1:4-6: “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, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.”

In this text we note that the choosing is not of the individual, but of any who would be “in him,” desiring to be “holy and without blame before him in love.” Then he proceeds on to the position for which such attributes of character qualify: “unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself.”

This is in line with the same apostle’s words in Romans 8:29,30: “For whom he did foreknow, he also did 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.”

In this passage, he focuses even more finely on what characteristics this foreknown class must achieve. They must be “conformed to the image of his Son.” Jesus becomes the model for the entire “Christ class.” As the top stone of a pyramid contains all the angles of the whole structure and is a miniature pyramid itself, so Christ forms the ideal prototype for all who would be “in him.”

Having foreknown the need for such a class to work with Christ and having set forth the qualifications for all who would fill that office, it is the responsibility of applicants to live up to those standards to the best of their ability. While such sterling attributes are not attainable to imperfect mortals, they are reckoned so through justification: “For if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not” (2 Corinthians 8:12).

God has done his part. He has mapped out the course for us even “before the foundation of the world.” Whether we attain the end of that course depends upon the degree to which we, through his sustaining grace, acquire those predestinated conditions. “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life” (Revelation 2:10).

–– The Herald of Christ’s Kingdom 2000/5