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Some say that “the world” God loves is the world of the elect and
that the “all” for whom Christ died merely means all kinds of people.
But those conclusions are the result of “reading into” the
Scriptures. A plain reading of the Bible indicates that God loves
everyone, that Christ died for everyone, and that all who personally
accept what God has done for them will be saved.
THE PATH TO GOD’S PREDETERMINED GOAL
One thing about the good news of the
sovereignty of God that all can affirm is this: God predetermined
that His Son would become a member of the human family so that He
could provide salvation.
After Christ’s resurrection, Peter told a
Jewish audience, “This man was handed over to you by God’s set
purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put
Him to death” (Acts 2:23). Knowing what the leaders of Israel would
do when confronted by someone who exposed their failures, God used
their freely chosen acts to fulfill His eternal purpose that Jesus
would die as “the atoning sacrifice . . . for the sins of the whole
world” (1 Jn. 2:2). God declared Jesus to be His chosen one when He
said at the Mount of Transfiguration, “This is My Son, whom I have
chosen; listen to Him” (Lk. 9:35).
This is the eternally predetermined path by
which God in His holy love made possible our salvation. By His own
loving initiatives, God sovereignly moved into our world to offer us
rescue from the darkness of our own choices.
THE ELEMENTS OF GOD’S PREDETERMINED GOAL
God has predetermined an outcome for us and
for the entire universe that we can barely begin to comprehend. He
has already decided to powerfully and lovingly assure us that in the
future there will be:
A Family Of Blameless People. God did more
than give us an invitation. He immersed Himself in His plan for our
rescue. While reminding us that we are going to be held accountable
for our own choices, God showed His own willingness to pay the legal
penalty for our violations of His law.
This is the wonder-filled story of God’s
suffering in and through the death of His Son in our place. All of
His purposes in election and predestination must be understood in
terms of His willingness to do for us what we could not do for
ourselves.
To assure the outcome of those who rely on
Christ for rescue, the Scriptures inform us that we have become
members of a community chosen by God before the creation of the world
(Eph. 1:4-8).
A Family Of Transformed People. Another
element of God’s predetermined plan is found in Romans 8:29, “Those
God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of
His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers.” God is
bringing to Himself a group of foreknown and pre-loved people
destined to become like Jesus. This “likeness” begins to take shape
in our present lives (2 Cor. 3:18) and will be completed when we
receive our new bodies and will “be like Him, for we shall see Him as
He is” (1 Jn. 3:2). Jesus will be the elder brother in God’s family
(Heb. 2:10-13).
A Reconciled Cosmos Under Christ. The Bible
shows that God’s predetermined plan for the future includes the whole
universe. It is a plan that encompasses not only the salvation of
individual men and women but of all creation as well.
Ephesians 1:9-10 says that God “made known to
us the mystery of His will . . . , which He purposed in Christ, to be
put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to
bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even
Christ.”
God predetermined “to reconcile to Himself all
things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace
through His [Christ’s] blood, shed on the cross” (Col. 1:20).
After Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection,
“God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is
above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in
heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:9-11).
The term predestination is used only in the
positive sense of those who are saved. The Bible does not say that
anyone is predestined to condemnation. Furthermore, predestination
cannot be separated from God’s foreknowledge—and it is beyond our
ability to comprehend how God foreknows while still protecting the
“mystery” of human freedom.
We can find comfort in the fact that the Bible
never speaks of anyone being foreordained for damnation. We can
rejoice in the realization that everyone will someday bow before
Jesus—either willingly or reluctantly—in a cosmos united under Him.
Curtis
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