Video Transcript: Chosen and Predestined

Chosen and Predestined

Anybody who takes the Bible seriously, must believe in the doctrines of election and predestination. Those may be hard to understand. There may be different ideas of what they mean. But it is very clear from the Bible, that election and predestination are realities people are chosen and predestined by God already in the Old Testament, Abraham and then Isaac and Jacob and the people came from them were God's chosen people. 

And the New Testament to talks about those who are chosen, or who are the elect. Now, when the Bible speaks of the elect, depending on what your translation is, it means the chosen and we need to understand the election is not about people choosing a leader nowadays, of course, in a political sense, when we talk about any election, we're talking about the people of a nation choosing who their leader is going to be. 

Now, whatever the biblical doctrine of election might mean, it does not mean that God is running for political office, God is God and nobody gets to vote on whether God gets to stay God. So in political elections, people choose a leader but in biblical election, the leader chooses people he chooses who his people are going to be. And we read in the Bible of the elect are the chosen again and again and again. Jesus says that He will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather His elect his chosen. Scripture asks Who shall bring any charge against God's elect, they elect obtain salvation, but the rest were hardened. The Apostle Paul said, I endure everything he did all of his missionary work for the sake of the elect. And I could multiply many, many more instances where the Bible speaks of the elect, or the chosen. 

Sometimes it uses somewhat different language than that, but with much the same meaning, as many as were appointed to eternal life, believe this was in the city of Antioch in Presidio during Paul's missionary journeys. It does not say that, as many as believed, were then appointed to eternal life, it says those who had been appointed to eternal life, believed they were appointed ahead of time. And then when the gospel came to them, they believed, God chose you from the beginning to be saved through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth.

So even before they believed and were sanctified, they were first chosen by God from the very beginning. Negatively the dwellers on Earth, whose names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world will marvel to see the beast, their names aren't in the book of life that was written before the foundation of the world. Those who are the elect will not marvel at the beasts but even for their sake, God will shorten the days of the Antichrist, so that the elect would not be taken in or fooled, but the non elect those whose names are not in the book of life, will follow after the Antichrist rather than following after Christ. So you have these different words, whether they're appointed, or chosen, or names recorded in the book of life, it amounts to much the same thing.

Now, sometimes theologians speak of the covenant of redemption, that phrase doesn't appear in the Bible, but the reality of it does appear in the Bible, in eternity, before creation. Each person of the Trinity committed to do his part, to save and bless certain humans, God the Father, God, the Son, and God, the Holy Spirit, in the Council of redemption, made from eternity before the world was ever formed, each agreed to do a part to save and bless particular human beings, the father, his part was to choose who those persons would be. It was his part to plan it to devise what would be done to think it out. And then he would give those chosen persons for whom he planned salvation to His Son, and God, the fathers would also send the Son as their representative in order that they could be saved by his actions. And the father also would give the son all authority over those persons. So that was the father's role, to which he agreed and in which he initiated in the counselor redemption, the son agreed to become a man to obey the father perfectly, to suffer and die to gather the people whom the Father had chosen. That was The sons are all in this covenant of redemption. And the Spirit's role was to empower Jesus ministry, and then to apply Christ's benefits to the chosen people.So in this covenant of redemption, the father made a plan, the son was going to implement the plan, and the spirit was going to apply that plan to those whom God had chosen. And keep in mind, this is all done before the world is even created. 

Let's look at some of the biblical indications of the covenant of redemption. Let's look at the words of Jesus, Jesus said, All that the Father gives Me will come to me, and whoever comes to me, I will never cast out, For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. And this is the will of Him who sent me that I should lose nothing of all that He has given me, but raise it up on the last day. No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him. It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh is no help at all. So you see Jesus speaking of the Father, sending of him of the Father, giving people to him, of the spirit, being the one who had give those people life and their own flesh would be unable to generate any life whatsoever. Jesus told some who rejected Him, you do not believe because you are not part of my flat. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them and they follow Me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand, my father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand, I am the Father are one. 

Notice, people won't believe because they are not part of God's chosen flock, the sheep who are drawn by the father, they recognize Jesus voice, and follow them and then the life they receive is eternal, it cannot be taken away, they cannot perish. Their salvation is eternally secure, because nobody can snatch them out of the hand of Jesus, or out of the hand of the Father, once again, in the background of this is that great eternal covenant of redemption, where the Father gives to Jesus, a people a flock, and the son inevitably saves that flock and makes them secure. Jesus said, all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you, you did not choose me, but I chose you. I chose you out of the world, therefore, the world hates you. So the initiative in choosing was the initiative of Jesus towards people, not of his disciples, towards him, he did the choosing. 

There's a song that says, it is not that I did choose the for Lord, that could not be this heart would still refuse the hardstyle not chosen me. And that song is just based on these words of Jesus. He says, You didn't choose me, I chose you. Father, glorify Your Son said Jesus in the prayer the night before he died, Father glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all those you have given him. I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world, yours they were and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. I am praying for them. I'm not praying to the world. But for those who have given me for they are yours, all mine are yours, and yours are mine. And I am glorified in them. So the Father gives these people to Jesus, and Jesus is going to the cross for these people. And he is going to keep them and he prays for them, because the Father has given them to him, and all who are the fathers belong to Jesus Christ. So again, in this covenant of redemption, in eternity before creation, each person in the Trinity committed to do his part to save and bless certain humans. That's the backdrop for the ideas of election and predestination, this covenant of redemption among Father, Son and Holy Spirit, if you think of it in terms of maybe a manufacturing concern, maybe not a perfect analogy, but think of it that way.

The father is the planner, the director, the designer, the one who comes up with the Master Plan. The Son Jesus is the actual producer, the worker, the purchaser, the one who is doing the work that the Father the strategist has planned for him to do. And then once the Son has produced and has worked on and has bought for his people, the things that they need even bought it at the price of his own blood, then the Spirit's work is to be the distributor to make sure it gets out there to those whom the Father and the Son plan this work to be applied to. He carries it. He transports it, he persuades. The Spirit is the one who gets the gospel spread out to the nations. And he is the one who calls individual hearts and the chosen to accept what Christ has done, what he has purchased on their behalf. So Father, Son, and Spirit have this plan from all eternity, and then are carrying out this plan during the process of time

Now that is background, let's look at one of the great passages of the Bible about God choosing and predestiny his people. Ephesians 1:3-14 is actually one sentence in the original Greek, it's a sentence of 202 words, it just goes on and on and on, of what God has done in accordance with His eternal plan. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ, with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love, He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace with which He has blessed us in the Beloved. In Him, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will, according to His purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him things in heaven, and things on earth. In Him we have obtained and inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who are the first hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. 

In Him, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory. That's quite a sentence, isn't it? 202 words in the original Greek of 12 verses in our English translations. And it speaks not just of election and predestination, but in connection with all the work of Jesus Christ and the wisdom of the Father, and the blessings of forgiveness and the richness of God's grace. And that's really how we do need to think of the doctrines of election predestination to keep them connected with Jesus with his work with the love of God, with the riches of the Holy Spirit sealed upon us. Let's look at this a little more closely. He chose us in him, let's think about that phrase, He is God the Father, God, the Father chose us. He's the source of salvation, his election, his decision, is the starting point of salvation. It all depends on the decision and the initiative of God the Father, Praise His name, bless it, be He, he chose, that means he picked, he selected based on his good pleasure, not on our choices. God didn't just look ahead in time, and see what we might choose or not choose if he did that, nobody would be saved. Because we all choose wrongly, we all choose our own way. We all on our own would choose to reject Jesus Christ. I think, again of who wrote this phrase, the human author, the Apostle Paul, the Apostle Paul, when he came to know the gospel of Jesus and the movement of the Christians, what was his choice, to try to kill them? And yet God chose Paul anyway, and saved him anyway. 

Because God does not just look ahead and see how we're going to respond. God chooses based on his good pleasure and entirely on his grace and not our choices. Oh, that word us. If you're a Christian, if you've put your faith in Jesus Christ, the knowledge that he chose, you should be very humbling, as well as causing you great joy. He chose us who are unimportant, who are unholy, who are undeserving, who apart from his grace are dead in sin and give him no reason whatsoever to choose us. And yet he did choose us and on what basis did he choose us? Why, he chose us in him in Christ. God chose to see us in light of Jesus merit, and to pour out on us the love that he has for his son. At one point in Jesus and earthly ministry. God the Father said this is my son, my chosen one with him. I am well pleased. And we the rest of us who are chosen ones are chosen in him in Christ. And so we should never just take the doctrine of election as some abstract, distant decision. It is a decision made in Christ. 

Muslims have a doctrine of election and predestination, which God makes choices, and it's just kind of arbitrary. But the Christian doctrine is that God's election occurs in Christ, and He sees us in light of Christ's merit and pours out the love that He has for Jesus, on many, many, many other people who he has chosen in Christ. This choice was made before the foundation of the world. 2 Timothy 1 says God saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works, but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began. So he gave it already, even before the ages started, and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. So the decision, the plan, the gift, in a sense, was already made before Jesus ever came into the world. But then it was actually shown and displayed and brought to us in the appearing of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Ephesians chapter one says, in love, He predestined us, and later speaks of having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things, according to the counsel of his will, in love. It all depends on God's love and God's grace, not on our qualities or our actions.

In the Old Testament, when God was speaking of why he chose the people of Israel, he said, it was not because you were more numerous are more impressive than other nations. That's not why I chose you, because you were weak, and you were one of the least. And it wasn't because you were the best of the nations, because you were stiff-necked and hardhearted. So why did I choose you if you weren't very impressive in terms of your size and importance? And if you weren't very impressive in terms of your goodness, why did I choose you? Because I loved you. And that's all God can say, to explain it in love. It all depends on God's love, and not on anything about our own lovable nests. He predestined what's that word mean? It means that he decided and planned in advance, our destination, our destiny, the Greek word is prohoridzo. So we get our word horizon from that word, horizon, prohoridzo, and he set our horizon in advance, he directed where we were headed. And in this case, He predestined us to be sons of God, quite a destiny for him to decide on so predestination, he decides what he is going to make of us in the end. And because he works all things according to the counsel of his will, he plans every step that's going to get us to that final destination. 

So and on that basis, we can say that all things work together for good, to those who love God, and are called according to His purpose, because God works all things according to his purpose according to the counsel of his will. Predestination is an outflow of God's wisdom. It's an expression of God's love, of God's power and sovereignty over all things. And so being love, and then powerful, God is going to use every detail to bring about the salvation, the adoption, the glorification of his sons and daughters in Jesus Christ. Now, God chose out of love that was the basis just God's own love, and His good pleasure and not are deserving. But what was why did he choose to glorify people and make them like His Son? Well, we can look at at least three purposes, from Ephesians 1 for choosing one is a very high purpose to make us holy and blameless as a result of redemption through Jesus blood, forgiveness, wisdom and insight, all these things that God is going to forgive us that he's going to make us wise, that he's going to make us holy, and transform who we are. What a tremendous reason for choosing us, but there's a higher thing still. He chose us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, with the inheritance of every spiritual blessing in heavenly places. He didn't just save us to get us off the hook for our sins. He didn't just save us to make us better people or even perfect people. He chose us to be His sons. He chose us to inherit every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. So it would be high if he had simply chosen us not to go to hell and chosen us to be made good. But he chose to make us members of the royal family and the highest purpose, to the praise of His grace, to the praise of his glory, to the praise of his glory. 

Everything that God does ultimately fulfills the purpose of displaying God's glory, and shining God's glory, and helping us to enjoy God's splendor and glory, and to delight in Him and to worship Him for it. We are blessed in the beloved because of this election and predestination. Ephesians says, His glorious grace in which He has blessed us in the Beloved, remember, he chose us in Christ, he blessed us in Christ, it's always in the beloved in Christ, the Son of His love, that God is extending all of his blessings to everyone else. This was part of the eternal covenant of redemption, God was not going to save anybody apart from Christ, he was going to save everybody whom he saved through Christ, so that Christ would be the one to receive the glory. And because there is no way to the Father except through the Son. Jesus says to the Father of the glory that you have given me, I have given to them that they may be one, even as we are one I in them, and you and me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that You sent Me and loved them, even as you loved me. Later, Jesus says that the love with which You have loved Me may be in them, and I in them. That is a staggering thought, when we speak of God's grace and all of his blessings. This is the ultimate, He sent Jesus, and He loves his chosen with the very same love with which He loves his own beloved son, and he sends his son to live in them.

That is the staggering love of God, for those whom he has elected and predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his son. And he does this according to the riches of his grace. 

God gives not just out of his riches, although it's all coming out of his account, his storehouse of riches, but he doesn't just give out of it, he gives according to his riches. In other words, the size of the gift matches the size of God's riches. If you have a billionaire, and he gives a what $100 gift to someone, that gift is coming out of his riches, but it's not exactly according to his riches is it? It's coming out of his riches, because he's using his wealth to pay for it. But if it were, according to his riches, it would be a much greater gift. And in God's case, he gives according to his riches, he gives us the very love that He has for His own Son, He predestined us for the very authority that he gives his own son so that we reign with Christ and are exalted even above the angels. He gets according to the riches of His grace, He blessed us in Christ with every spiritual and they're the word spiritual means Holy Spirit, He gave us every holy spirit blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. In Him, we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined, what is that inheritance? Well, the Bible says that, in Christ, you have all things, All things are yours, because of Christ Jesus, that's our inheritance. Will he not also along with Jesus, graciously give us all things if God would give up his own beloved Son, in his plan of redemption for us, you can't imagine what else he would give, because nothing else compares to the gift of Jesus. If God gave Christ to the crucified in that great plan, that great predestination for our salvation, if he would give his own beloved son, and we loved from all eternity, there's nothing else that he would hold back. 

And so that's the logic of him giving according to the riches of His grace, and not just out of his riches, but the size of the gift matches the size of the wealth of the giver. This is an eternal secret that has now come to light. That's one of the things the New Testament delights in saying that God is making known to us the mystery of his will, according to His purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him things in heaven and things on earth. God has always had this plan. And then the plan really came to light when Jesus came to earth. And when the Holy Spirit was poured out, and when people began flocking to Jesus, he made known to us the mystery of what he'd been planning to do all along. It's exciting to know that there's been this mystery that God had planned all along, and now he's showing, and we're part of it to secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory, and these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit in understanding the doctrines of election and predestination, part of the thrill of it, is that God made this decrease so long ago, and that what we experienced in time is not just the result of something that happened in the last five minutes, if you've been a new convert to Jesus, it's a thrill to say, Okay, I know that here's how I came to the Lord. 

But I just discovered, the Lord always had his eye on me. Before I ever had any plan that included God, God had a plan that included me and that's the only reason I ever came to know him in the first place was because he had the secret and hidden wisdom, he had this decree, and he revealed it to me through His Spirit, were sealed with the spirit in him, you also when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory. Now, what's it talking about? Here, when it speaks of being sealed with the Spirit, when you're sealed, a seal does at least three things. One is, it proves you're the real deal, for example, on a birth certificate, or a passport, or some official government document, a seal on it is stamped there to show its authenticity, that it is real and not a forgery or faked. 

Another way that a seal can be used, has been in the past and still is, is to show ownership, a stamp is put on something. For example, some people have a stamp that they use for their book collection. And every time they buy a new book, they stamp it, and their seal is on that book to show that they own it. And likewise, when God seals us with His Holy Spirit, he's saying, your mind, you belong to me, you belong to me forever. A third thing that a seal would do is to show protection. When the seal of a great emperor was given to somebody and they could show that sealed others, it meant that you better not mess with me, or you're messing with my emperor. And when we are sealed with the Holy Spirit of God, God is saying to Satan, and all hostile powers, you mess with that person, you're messing with me, I am their protection, as he wants put it to Abraham, I am your shield, and you're very great reward. So a seal means that the Holy Spirit stamps us as authentic and real in Christ, that we are owned by the Lord, that God promises His protection, and then a guarantee. 

Another way that sometimes translated as as an earnest payment, now, if you ever had to deal with real estate or bought a house, you're sometimes asked to make an earnest payment, even when you make an offer on the house, just to show that you're serious, have a few $1,000. And once you move towards buying it, you have to make a down payment, which is a very substantial payment toward the full cost of the house. And when God gives us His Holy Spirit, he's giving us a big downpayment, on what's coming, we begin to experience the presence of Christ and the love of God poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, we begin to get at least some of the riches of the inheritance that God has given us. Not all of it. Much more awaits us when Christ returns when heaven comes to earth. But we have the first fruits of the Spirit as a guarantee of all that is still to come and as the first big installment on what's to come. Now, election is sometimes treated as just a mysterious choice that nobody has any idea what God is up to. And of course, there is a lot of mystery about it. And we can't always say who might still be elected because many of their lack have not yet come to Christ, but they will. But one thing you can be sure of that the father's electing choice of someone is made clear and is made evident when they respond in faith to the gospel of Jesus Christ, as moved by the Holy Spirit to respond. So election is not just some decree that remains hidden in eternity, it comes to light. When the Holy Spirit awakens your heart and you hear the Gospel of Jesus, and you believe it.

The Apostle Paul said, We know brothers loved by God, that He has chosen you. How would Paul know that God had chosen them? Well, because our gospel came to you not only in Word, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit, and with full conviction. You might share the gospel with quite a number of people. But when somebody suddenly is seized by that gospel, and it just hits the right between the eyes, and pierces them right through the heart, and the Holy Spirit gets a hold of them, and they believe it. And they are convicted of their sins and convinced of the reality of Jesus Christ as their Savior. Then you know, they've been chosen by God, because the gospel didn't come just As a word that bounced off their ears, but it was received by them. And their receiving of it is evidence that they are among God's elect. Again, that verse from Acts 13, as many as were appointed to eternal life believe. If you're appointed to eternal life, you don't go on and unbelief forever and indefinitely. At some point, God brings you to faith, to live in faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And that is the evidence in time of having been elected from eternity. 

And so for all of that, we praise God because all these blessings flow from him. That's the ultimate meaning of the doctrine of the election and predestination is that God started at all it all comes from God, it all pours forth from him. It doesn't start with us but with him Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ, with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us and predestined us to the praise of His glorious grace, to the praise of his glory, to the praise of his glory. There's a song that says how vast the benefits divine which we in Christ possess, we are redeemed from sin and shame and called the holiness does not for works that we have done, these all to him we owe. But he of his electing love salvation death bestow, to the Lord alone is do all glory and renowned to ourselves. We dare not take no rob the night crown, thou was thy self, our surety and God's redemption plan. In thee, in Jesus, His grace was given us long air the world began. safe in the arms of sovereign love we ever shall remain, nor shall the rage of earth or hell make thy sure counsel vain. Each one of all the chosen race shall surely haven't attained. Here they will share abounding grace and there with Jesus' reign.