Abstract
Salvation and its benefits are not the product of man-centered efforts to attain eternal life and the power for godly living. Rather, these benefits are the predetermined work of God in the life of the person who claims Christ as his own. Essential to this work is not only the work and process itself, but the motivation of God behind his imparting of these benefits. Godโs work in predestination is first motivated by his love for the sinner who will come to faith in Christ. That love permeates every level of work that God does in the life of the believer. So high is Godโs love and intentions toward us that he exchanged his own Son on our behalf on the cross.
This thesis will focus on the nature of Godโs role in predestination and the benefits it brings the believer.
Introduction
How does sinful man acquire eternal life with God? Many people of various countries and cultures tend to believe in a variety of works-based religious systems for acquiring eternal life. Even many who identify as Christians feel they bring something of themselves to the table, to earn a place in Heaven. The Bible, however, offers a different answer to this problem.
This thesis focuses on a narrow, but not negative, perspective on acquiring eternal life. Important to this examination is the role that God plays in our eternal destiny.
The preeminent idea of this thesis is that God controls the process of our salvation and maturity through the foreplanned redeeming work of the cross, which is Godโs ultimate expression of love.
This thesis will examine the meaning of critically important terms that shape the theology of predestination, how Godโs foreknowledge works in the process of salvation, the role of the believer in โfindingโ God, how the scripture approaches the theme of adoption as sons of God, and what should be the end result of that finding.
A Defense of Loving Predestination
“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 to himself 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.”
(Ephesians 1:3-7)
Many people see God as angry, judgmental, and wrathful. What right, it is argued, does God have to judge us or condemn us? Why are some people condemned in God’s sight while others are forgiven? While we may attempt to give answers about God’s authority and sovereignty, we sometimes forget to articulate God’s love. But, right in this passage we are told something remarkable: our salvation was the Father’s big idea. And with it come a great many benefits, which God planned beforehand to grant us.
Three times in Ephesians 1:3-7 Paul uses the word, “Blessed,” or “Blessing” to describe God’s intentions toward us. To make it even more clear he tells us three times that this blessing was his “Purpose,” and once his, “Plan,” and calling this plan the “Counsel of his will.” This is remarkable language considering that Paul may have been writing from prison at this time.[1] Blessing hardly describes what most people would feel during a stay in prison. Yet, Paul not only proclaims blessing, but he also turns the Ephesian’s eyes toward the Lord by referring to “Heavenly places” as he continues his letter.
Paul tells us that our blessings are in the “Heavenly places.” While there are immediate benefits to knowing Christ in the present on the earth, Paul reminds the Ephesians that their blessings are also in the age to come. His blessings are not only on earth, but in Heaven as well. This is the now and not yet of scripture. “Christโs ascension is the means of introducing us into the heavenly places, which by our sin were barred against us.”[2] Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension secured our blessings, the most important being the blessing of salvation from sin. And while we receive these blessings through the decision we make to follow Christ, Paul tells us that these blessings were guaranteed to us before any such decision was made on our part. Our blessings are secure because God has planned it from eternity past. Nothing in God’s economy is left to chance. “God is not a distant being who waits to see what humans will do. God is the beginning, the one who works through Christ and the Spirit for humans and with humans, and the goal.”[3]
In verse five Paul uses the word ฮ ฯฮฟฮฟฯฮฏฮถฯ (proorizo), which means predestined or decreed. It means to “Decide beforehand.”[4] It denotes a sequential order in that God “decided beforehand” about our salvation before any other event had happened. It indicates that God chose us for salvation before we had any event in our life to make the choosing. This is the doctrine of election. “Election means that God chooses people, and this teaching cannot be turned around to the thought that people choose God. Election means that the existence of the people of God can be explained only on the basis of Godโs character, plan, and action, not on some quality in the people who are chosen.”[5]
Commentator Markus Barth contends the opposite is true. “Mechanical predetermination calls forth the reaction of marionettes to the wire-pulling artist: there may be blind submission and compliance; there may also be fruitless rebellion or mechanical failure.”[6] He goes on. “All notions of a fixed will, testament, plan, and program of God are not only inadequate but contrary to the sense of Eph 1.”[7] This is the doctrine of free will, which gives man a cooperative role in his salvation. Because man has a free will, he chooses God or doesn’t choose God, depending upon his will. The doctrine of free will teaches that God, in eternity past, looked forward into the future to see who would freely choose him, then he chooses those people who choose him. The problem with this teaching is that nowhere in the Bible does it say that God looks into the future to learn who will choose him. This looking ahead in time is deduced from passages that appear to give an emphasis on human freedom to choose. But almost anything can be deduced from scripture by placing certain emphasizes on certain expressed ideas.
In contrast, there are many passages in Paul’s writings that would seem to deny the free will perspective. For instance, when we study how Paul uses the word, predestine, we see that not only was our salvation pre-planned from eternity past, but so were the many benefits that go along with it. We cannot separate these things, one from another. They are, in a sense, a package deal. Some might argue that what is predestined is not salvation, rather, the rewards that come with that salvation. But if God chose the rewards, then why can he not also choose the one he intends to reward? Isn’t this what grace is? God gives the salvation, then bestows the rewards that come with it, providing that we live for him.
What does God promise in predestination? We are predestined to become like Jesus (Romans 8:29). Our calling, justification, and glorification is also predestined (Romans 8:30). Our adoption, that is, becoming a child of God, or son,is predestined (Ephesians 1:5). Finally, Paul says our inheritance was predestined “according to the counsel of his will” (Ephesians 1:11). All these things came about as a result of a decision to save us that was made countless eons ago.
Though the word is not used in this passage, Paul’s discussion of those predetermined to become his is also referred to elsewhere as the elect. But what does this mean? In modern vernacular we use the word elect relative to politics. We elect a president or senator, or some other political officer. Christians who hold to an Armenian view tend not to use the word elect in reference to salvation and those that do tend to use it as a generic description of the saved. But election is an important biblical term. Being elect refers to “The electing activity of God in a specifically theological sense.”[8] As already pointed out with predeterminism, to elect is to choose. And in the biblical sense, God’s choice is a sovereign one. We do not elect God as our Lord. He is already Lord. It is he that does the electing. We are elected by him for his pre-planned salvation.
Notice the language that Paul uses to advance the idea of predestination. In verse four he, “Chose us.” But then notice the order of events. He chose us, “Before the foundation of the world.” Timing is everything. God’s plan for our salvation was conceived before anything existed. Therefore, the person making the choice in our salvation is the Father. By using the phrase, “Before the foundation of the world,” Paul is saying that the first choice is God’s. There is no looking ahead for the first choice to be man’s. This would be man making the first choice in the future and God making a second choice in the past. This is nonsensical.
ฮ ฯฮฟฮฟฯฮฏฮถฯ (proorizo) is also used in Romans 8:30 when Paul says, “Those whom he predestined he also called.” The order of events is God’s choosing, followed by God’s calling. The fact that God conceived of this plan in eternity past, long before our existence, gives us assurance that his intentions toward us would be fulfilled. And the means of that fulfillment, no less planned than our salvation, was Jesus’ sacrifice. God’s plan for Jesus was the “Redemption through his blood” that made our salvation possible. It is in Jesus that we have the evidence of what Paul says in that this act of God was taken, “In love.” If Jesus life, death, crucifixion, and resurrection were all foreordained by God, then how much more is this true of humanity?
One great struggle some people have with the doctrine of election is that if God chose us for salvation by his own free choice, then we cannot make free choices ourselves or have a free will. If it is all determined, then I have no real choice. Grudem argues against this, making note that God’s choice of us is sovereign, but our choices are also real ones. “God can work sovereignly and indirectly through our desires so that he guarantees that our choices come about as he has ordained, but choices made in such a system can still be understood as real choices because God has created us and has decided that such choices are real. In short, we can say that, when we come to trust in Christ, God ordains that we will choose Christ voluntarily. The mistaken assumption underlying this objection is that a choice must be absolutely free (that is, ‘free’ in a libertarian sense, and therefore not in any way ordained by God) in order for it to be a genuine human choice.”[9]
So, we see that our choices do matter. We might say that to some degree, human choice and God’s sovereignty co-exist in the act of salvation. Man makes a choice, and his choices have real consequences. But his choice would not be possible without the empowering work of the Holy Spirit to regenerate the person who is making the choice. This means that God, in his fulness, enables us to make a salvation choice. The Father planned our salvation in Christ. Christ performed the work of salvation on the cross. And the Holy Spirit empowered us to choose Christ. Without that empowerment, there would be no salvation choice.
Finding God
One of the things that we find in scripture is the idea that we can find God. We are told, “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13). This passage is frequently used to demonstrate that man can find God on his own. He, therefore, comes to Christ on his own. But this argument fails to take into consideration the surrounding text. In Jeremiah, the context is one in which God is acting according to a previous promise to bring his exiled children back to the promised land. He promised to give Israel a heart to seek him. This implies that without his working, Israel would not have sought him.
Just so, we see this similar promise revealed in Ezekiel. Speaking of a future day, God promised to give Israel a, “Heart of flesh” rather than stone (Ezekiel 11:19). It, therefore, was not Israel that sought out God. Rather, God took the initiative according to his previous promise. It is God who gives man the heart of flesh, he does not acquire it on his own or soften his own heart toward spiritual things. The heart of flesh is a gift that God uses to enable people to choose him when they otherwise would not. Thus, the “seeking” that is going on was initiated by God. He made the seeking possible. But the seeking was not initiated by Israel. It was in response to what God was already doing.
We see this concept also played out in Ephesians 1:3-7. In verse four Paul says God, “Chose us in him.” Chose, in this passage is from แผฮบฮปฮญฮณฮฟฮผฮฑฮน (exelexato),[10] which means to choose for oneself. I.E., God wanted us for himself. This is why he chose us. This should give us great pause. It’s one thing for us, the inferior, to want eternal life given to us by God, the superior. To some degree, everyone, saved or not, wants eternal life. Everyone wants to go to Heaven in some form. But the unregenerate person wants to go on living on his own terms. He doesnโt want God; he wants eternal life in Heaven to live as he sees fit. But the regenerate person comes to a place at some point of his life where the person of Christ is more desired than the eternal life in Heaven that God gives. Eternal life becomes the avenue on which he travels to get to the Father, not just to live forever. Jesus noted this when he said, “No one gets to the Father except my me” (John 14:6). The emphasis is the relationship, not the place.
Speaking of God in verse five Paul says, “He predestined us to adoption for himself.” ฯ แผฑฮฟฮธฮตฯฮฏฮฑ (huiothesian)[11] is used for adoption. The one choosing adoption is God. He, the passage says, does this, “For himself.” I.E., it is God who has chosen us for adoption, not us. Thus, “Our obedience is not the forced obedience of servants, but the loving obedience of sons. Adoption implies more than sentimentโa real legal relation to God as his sons (Rom. 8:17).”[12]
In human adoption, the adopting couple often does not yet know the child they will select. In some cases, it is a baby, in others, an older child where they may know something about him or her. In the case of God, God fully knows us long before we even know ourselvesโeven with all our sinโGod knows us and chooses us to become children of himself. “In adoption a son is brought into a family and is given the same rights as a child who is born into that family.”[13] Here again this should give us pause. Adoption clearly indicates that we share in the same rights as the Son. This should revolutionize our thinking about our relationship with God. In II Corinthians 5:12-20 Paul says we have been “reconciled” to God. This is a financial term which means an exchange of equal value. Here we see that God’s love for us is no greater or lesser than his love for Christ. This is why Christ exchanged himself for us on the cross. Because the Father loves us as much as he loves his own sinless, perfect Son. This is radical and never occurs to most Christians, that God loves us as much as he loves Jesus.
But there is more going on here than simply an adoption into a family. Paul notes that our adoption is adoption, “As sons.” The implication is that we are reborn into royalty. The Father rules over all, and the adoption brings us the benefit of that royal status. Paul alludes to this later in chapter one when he says of Christ that he is, “Far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church” (Ephesians 1:21-22). One wonders what an Ephesian government official might have thought had he read Paul’s letter to the church there. Treason! Paul writes of a greater authority than that of this Roman-ruled city which held such a high status in the empire.
These things are also called, “The purpose of his will” in verse five, which was brought about in verse ten in the “Fullness of time.” This indicates an order in God’s intentions relative to salvation. Christ’s sacrifice was brought about in the fullness of time, in other words, at just the right time, to make salvation possible.
Note in verse 5, “The purpose of his will.” What is not said in English is revealed in Greek. ฮตแฝฮดฮฟฮบฮฏฮฑ (eudokian)[14] from which we translate as, purpose, literally means, good pleasure, pleasing. Here again we see God’s intentions toward us. His purpose in our salvation is first pleasing to him. He loves to exercise his will in saving us, that we might know him. It pleased God greatly to save us.
The Effect of Finding God
The result of finding salvation in Christ is a changed life, which Paul alludes to in verse four when he states that, “We should be holy and blameless before him.” These two words have specific meaning. To be holy is to have our lives set apart to God’s love and service. This should be the natural response to the salvation given to us so freely. But he also requires that we be blameless. This means that we do not make sin a practice in our lives. We are to be set apart for his service, walking in righteousness, resisting temptation and sin.
Describing God’s Gift
Paul uses specific language that is flowing and pregnant with tenderness and meaning when he describes what Christ has done on our behalf. Notice: glorious grace in verse six, then he describes it as the riches of his grace in verse seven, which he follows up by saving he lavished it upon us in verse eight.
This is like winning the lottery without buying a ticket. You are given the winning numbers for a vast sum of money. That amount is then, “lavished” upon you, setting you up for life. When we go back in the passage to verse three, we read that the Father has blessed us with “Every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.” Our salvation is not only about what we receive now in terms of forgiveness of sin and the promised Holy Spirit, but it includes these and more in the life to come.
In verse seven we come to the “Redemption through his blood.” The word here for redemption carries the meaning of a ransom paid for another, such as when Boaz paid the redemption price for the property of Naomi’s deceased husband and thus acquired the rights to wed Ruth (Ruth 4:1-12). Jesus has paid the redemption price with his blood that he might acquire us, the church, as his bride forever. This redemption saves us, just as the kinship redemption of Boaz saved Ruth, along with Naomi. They were saved from their shame just as we are saved from our sin as well as our shame, being lost without Christ. Boaz, in this sense, prefigures the work of Christ.
The Result
Finally, we come to the end of verse 7. What are the “Riches of his grace?” Paul gives us several things in Ephesians that describe the riches of his grace. He gives enlightenment and hope in Ephesians 1:18. He gives mercy in 2:4, kindness in 2:7, strength, and power, in 3:16. Colossians 1:27 reveals the mystery is Christ in you. And he gives wisdom and insight in Colossians 1:19.
Without Christ we have none of these things in a spiritual sense. Apart from Christ there is no enlightenment, there is only the depraved mind. Without Christ there is no hope for eternal life, only an expectation of judgment. Without Christ judgment prevails over mercy. Without Christ we cannot experience God’s kindness apart from the Common Grace that all men experience, but nothing more. And what human strength or power can compare with God’s? Even what wisdom and insight we have are limited and without eternal benefit apart from Christ.
All of the benefits of Christ are brought about by God from his plan from eternity past. Salvation is granted along with all of its benefits as we learn to walk with Christ by faith. And those benefits continue for eternity.
Conclusion
This thesis has sought to address the issue of predestination and the role of Godโs love in his motivation to save us for himself.
If the interpretation of predestination in this thesis is a correct one, then all believers receive their salvation through a sovereign work of God in their lives, planned from before the beginning of time, as a unique act of God, and not through any human effort or will. Even the reaction we have to Godโs offer of salvation is a work of God, given by Godโs grace, into our hearts.
Further study of the use of the Greek terms ฮ ฯฮฟฮฟฯฮฏฮถฯ (proorizo), and แผฮบฮปฮญฮณฮฟฮผฮฑฮน (exelexato) and their use in other Greek literature, along with a study of the concepts of election and predestination in ancient Israelite literature may yield further insight into the theological uses of these terms in the New Testament.
In conclusion we learn the following lessons:
- The scripture uses specific terms with specific meaning to describe how people acquire salvation.
- The doctrines of predestination and election are foundational to understanding how the Lord conducts his relationships with saved humans.
- Love is Godโs primary motivation for his salvific work and thus should guide all our responses to him.
—–
Bibliography
Barth, Markus, Ephesians: Introduction, Translation, and Commentary on Chapters 1โ3, vol. 34, Anchor Yale Bible (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2008).
Brown, Colin, Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Volume 1, (Zondervan Publishing House, 1975).
Grudem, Wayne, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine, Second Edition. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2020).
Guthrie, Donald, New Testament Introduction, “Ephesians,” Inter-varsity Press, 1970.
Hoehner, Harold W., โEphesians,โin The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985).
Jamieson, Robert, A. R. Fausset, and David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, vol. 2 (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997).
Mangum, Douglas, ed., Lexham Context Commentary: New Testament, Lexham Context Commentary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2020), Eph 1:3โ14.
Richardson, Marvin Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament, vol. 3 (New York: Charles Scribnerโs Sons, 1887).
Snodgrass, Klyne; NIVAC Bundle 7: Pauline Epistles [The NIV Application Commentary] Zondervan Academic. Kindle Edition.
Spence-Jones, H. D. M., ed., Ephesians, The Pulpit Commentary (London; New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1909).
Strong, James, Enhanced Strongโs Lexicon, (Woodside Bible Fellowship, 1995). Copyright ยฉ 1995 Logos Bible Software.
Turner, Max, โEphesians,โ in New Bible Commentary: 21st Century Edition, ed. D. A. Carson et al., 4th ed. (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 1994).
Vines Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words.
Wood, A. Skevington, โEphesians,โ in The Expositorโs Bible Commentary: Ephesians through Philemon, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein, vol. 11 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1981).
[1] Guthrie, Donald, New Testament Introduction, “Ephesians,” Inter-varsity Press, 1970, 472.
[2] Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, and David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, vol. 2 (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997), 341.
[3] Snodgrass, Klyne; NIVAC Bundle 7: Pauline Epistles [The NIV Application Commentary] (p. 2284). Zondervan Academic. Kindle Edition.)
[4] Strong, James, Enhanced Strongโs Lexicon, (Woodside Bible Fellowship, 1995). Copyright ยฉ 1995 Logos Bible Software, 4309.
[5] Snodgrass, Klyne; NIVAC Bundle 7: Pauline Epistles [The NIV Application Commentary] (p. 2287). Zondervan Academic. Kindle Edition.)
[6] Markus Barth, Ephesians: Introduction, Translation, and Commentary on Chapters 1โ3, vol. 34, Anchor Yale Bible (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2008), 105.
[7] Markus Barth, Ephesians: Introduction, Translation, and Commentary on Chapters 1โ3, vol. 34, Anchor Yale Bible (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2008), 108.
[8] Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Volume 1, Colin Brown, (Zondervan Publishing House, 1975) “Elect,” 533.
[9] Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine, Second Edition. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2020), 829.
[10] Strong, James, Enhanced Strongโs Lexicon, (Woodside Bible Fellowship, 1995). Copyright ยฉ 1995 Logos Bible Software, 1586.
[11] Strong, James, Enhanced Strongโs Lexicon, (Woodside Bible Fellowship, 1995). Copyright ยฉ 1995 Logos Bible Software, 5206.
[12] H. D. M. Spence-Jones, ed., Ephesians, The Pulpit Commentary (London; New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1909), 3.
[13] Harold W. Hoehner, โEphesians,โin The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 617.
[14] Vines Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words, 2107.
