Understanding God - 20

Beloved of God,

We thank God for another opportunity to communicate with you, as we send you another instalment of our series on “Understanding God.” Thus far, we have explored the Person and attributes of God, the make-up of the Godhead and the resultant distribution of roles. This led us to a focus on “The Sovereignty of God.”

UNDERSTANDING GOD 20

In continuation of our focus on “Understanding God,” we have been considering “The Sovereignty of God.” So far, we have explored the basis and extent of God’s sovereignty, which led us to a consideration of “The Place of Satan,” “Understanding Tribulation” and “The Place of Creation.”

In recent times, we began to consider the pillars upon which God’s sovereignty is hinged, namely foreknowledge, election and
predestination. Not only have we explored foreknowledge and election, we have introduced predestination. In this mail, we are exploring four of the areas covered by predestination.

Areas of Predestination
1. Our salvation. This is one area in which election and predestination overlap: “According as He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world…having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will” (Eph.1:4-5, Ac.13:48). Our salvation in Christ is not accidentally attained. It is brought about by a combination of God’s predestination (in the first instance) and man’s choice (which is a response to what God has determined).
2. Conformity to the image of Christ. If indeed we are committed to the establishment of God’s eternal purposes, we should not be content with receiving the gift of salvation. We need to go for the complete package: “For whom He foreknew, He also predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren” (Rom.8:29). The implication is that a believer’s conformity to the image of Christ is as much a product of predestination as his salvation (see Jn.8:31-32, Gal.4:19, 1 Tim.2:4) 3. Areas of service and role definition. This is another area in which election and predestination overlap. The Lord said to 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” (Jer.1:5). The implication is that Jeremiah was predestined to be a prophet and, so long as he wanted to please God, he had no choice but to live with that reality (see Gal.1:15-16, Rom.11:29). 4. The specific works that each individual should manifest. The Bible teaches that “We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath BEFORE ordained that we should walk in
them” (Eph.2:10). This is confirmed by the words (and life) of Jesus: “Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do: for what things soever He doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise” (Jn.5:19). The reason is clear: “the works were finished from the foundation of the world” (see Heb.4:3, 9-11). God has chosen us to be vessels for the manifestation of His finished work, and we need to cooperate with Him every step of the way.