The following is a small study on predestination, foreordination, God in (or as the case may be out of) time. I've put together a few excerpts from various sources to read, to study right there along with the WORD of GOD. Does the following have all the answers we'll ever need? No. We have to ultimately trust God, put our faith in God even when we have no evidence. We have to trust that some things are secret with God, and that's okay, we trust Him and He knows our limitations.
Deu_29:29 The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever…
Job 11:7 Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?
Act 1:7 And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.
Rom 11:33 O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!
Rom 11:34 For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor?
Rom 11:35 Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again?
Rom 11:36 For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.
I hope this study helps a little bit and doesn't add to the confusion of things. Our God is an awesome God who only ever desires our good!
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'9. But if God foreknows that I will be lost, must I not be lost despite all contingencies? -
In this case you are to be lost, of course, but not because God foreknows it, nor by any personal decree of his. It would be the same if God did not foreknow it.
To illustrate: A young man moves into the society of evil companions and the atmosphere of the saloon. He is perfectly free to resist if he will; but he yields to temptation, goes down, and is lost. You felt morally certain it would be so in the beginning. Suppose you had foreknown it absolutely; would your foreknowledge have compelled him to that course? - Not at all. Neither does God’s foreknowledge, in any case.
Events transpire, not because God foreknows them; but he foreknows them because they are to transpire.
In this we speak only of events connected with free moral agency. Such agents he leaves free to decide their own destiny.'
Synopsis of the Present Truth - Uriah Smith
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'God is the High and Holy One "that inhabiteth eternity." Isa_57:15
Isa 57:15 For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.
He dwells in eternity. What is eternity? It is something that has neither beginning nor ending. It may be represented by a circle, at every point of which God dwells at the same time. He is self-existent. That is, the millions of ages that have been in the past and the millions that are to be in the future are all "just now" with God. Past, present, and future are all present with God. He lives in an eternal now. We cannot understand how that can be but that does not matter; He says it is so, and we believe Him. '
1891 GC Sermon #13 E.J. Waggoner
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'3. Time And Beyond Time…
In the last chapter I had to touch on the subject of prayer, and while that is
still fresh in your mind and my own, I should like to deal with a difficulty that some people find about the whole idea of prayer. A man put it to me by saying "I can believe in God all right, but what I cannot swallow is the idea of Him attending to several hundred million human beings who are all addressing Him at the same moment." And I have found that quite a lot of people feel this.
Now, the first thing to notice is that the whole sting of it comes in the words
at the same moment. Most of us can imagine God attending to any number of applicants if only they came one by one and He had an endless time to do it in. So what is really at the back of this difficulty is the idea of God having to fit too many things into one moment of time.
Well that is of course what happens to us. Our life comes to us moment by
moment One moment disappears before the next comes along: and there is
room for very little in each. That is what Time is like. And of course you and
I tend to take it for granted that this Time series — this arrangement of past,
present and future — is not simply the way life comes to us but the way all
things really exist We tend to assume that the whole universe and God Himself are always moving on from past to future just as we do. But many learned men do not agree with that. It was the Theologians who first started the idea that some things are not in Time at all: later the Philosophers took it over: and now some of the scientists are doing the same.
Almost certainly God is not in Time.
His life does not consist of moments following one another. If a million people are praying to Him at ten-thirty tonight, He need not listen to them all in that one little snippet which we call ten-thirty. Ten-thirty-and every other moment from the beginning of the world — is always the Present for Him. If you like to put it that way, He has all eternity in which to listen to the split second of prayer put up by a pilot as his plane crashes in flames.
That is difficult, I know. Let me try to give something, not the same, but a bit like it. Suppose I am writing a novel. I write "Mary laid down her work; next moment came a knock at the door!" For Mary who has to live in the imaginary time of my story there is no interval between putting down the work and hearing the knock. But I, who am Mary's maker, do not live in that imaginary time at all. Between writing the first half of that sentence and the second, I might sit down for three hours and think steadily about Mary. I could think about Mary as if she were the only character in the book and for as long as I pleased, and the hours I spent in doing so would not appear in Mary's time (the time inside the story) at all.
This is not a perfect illustration, of course. But it may give just a glimpse of
what I believe to be the truth. God is not hurried along in the Time — stream
of this universe any more than an author is hurried along in the imaginary
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time of his own novel He has infinite attention to spare for each one of us. He does not have to deal with us in the mass. You are as much alone with Him as if you were the only being He had ever created. When Christ died, He died for you individually just as much as if you had been the only man in the world. The way in which my illustration breaks down is this. In it the author gets out of one Time-series (that of the novel) only by going into another Timeseries (the real one). But God, I believe, does not live in a Time-series at all.
His life is not dribbled out moment by moment like ours: with Him it is, so to speak, still 1920 and already 1960. For His life is Himself.
If you picture Time as a straight line along which we have to travel, then you
must picture God as the whole page on which the line is drawn. We come to
the parts of the line one by one: we have to leave A behind before we get to B, and cannot reach C until we leave B behind. God, from above or outside or all round, contains the whole line, and sees it all.
The idea is worth trying to grasp because it removes some apparent difficulties in Christianity. Before I became a Christian one of my objections was as follows. The Christians said that the eternal God who is everywhere and keeps the whole universe going, once became a human being. Well then, said I, how did the whole universe keep going while He was a baby, or while He was asleep? How could He at the same time be God who knows everything and also a man asking his disciples "Who touched me?" You will notice that the sting lay in the time words: "While He was a baby" — "How could He at the same time?" In other words I was assuming that Christ's life as God was in time, and that His life as the man Jesus in Palestine was a shorter period taken out of that time — just as my service in the army was a shorter period taken out of my total life. And that is how most of us perhaps tend to think about it.
We picture God living through a period when His human life was still in the
future: then coming to a period when it was present: then going on to a period when He could look back on it as something in the past. But probably these ideas correspond to nothing in the actual facts. You cannot fit Christ's earthly life in Palestine into any time-relations with His life as God beyond all space and time. It is really, I suggest, a timeless truth about God that human nature, and the human experience of weakness and sleep and ignorance, are somehow included in His whole divine life. This human life in God is from our point of view a particular period in the history of our world (from the year A.D. one till the Crucifixion). We therefore imagine it is also a period in the history of God's own existence. But God has no history. He is too completely and utterly real to have one. For, of course, to have a history means losing part of your reality (because it had already slipped away into the past) and not yet having another part (because it is still in the future): in fact having nothing but the tiny little present, which has gone before you can speak about it. God forbid we should think God was like that. Even we may hope not to be always rationed in that way.
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Another difficulty we get if we believe God to be in time is this. Everyone
who believes in God at all believes that He knows what you and I are going to do tomorrow. But if He knows I am going to do so-and-so, how can I be free to do otherwise?
Well, here once again, the difficulty comes from thinking that God is progressing along the Time-line like us: the only difference being that He can see ahead and we cannot.
Well, if that were true, if God foresaw our acts, it would be very hard to understand how we could be free not to do them. But suppose God is outside and above the Time-line. In that case, what we call "tomorrow" is visible to Him in just the same way as what we call "today." All the days are "Now" for Him. He does not remember you doing things yesterday; He simply sees you doing them, because, though you have lost yesterday. He has not. He does not "foresee" you doing things tomorrow; He simply sees you doing them: because, though tomorrow is not yet there for you, it is for Him. You never supposed that your actions at this moment were any less free because God knows what you are doing.
Well, He knows your tomorrow's actions in just the same way — because He is already in tomorrow and can simply watch you. In a sense, He does not know your action till you have done it: but then the moment at which you have done it is already "Now" for Him.
This idea has helped me a good deal. If it does not help you, leave it alone.
It is a "Christian idea" in the sense that great and wise Christians have held it
and there is nothing in it contrary to Christianity. But it is not in the Bible or
any of the creeds. You can be a perfectly good Christian without accepting it, or indeed without thinking of the matter at all '
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'Deu 30:15 See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil;
Deu 30:16 In that I command thee this day to love the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments, that thou mayest live and multiply: and the LORD thy God shall bless thee in the land whither thou goest to possess it.
Deu 30:17 But if thine heart turn away, so that thou wilt not hear, but shalt be drawn away, and worship other gods, and serve them;
Deu 30:18 I denounce unto you this day, that ye shall surely perish, and that ye shall not prolong your days upon the land, whither thou passest over Jordan to go to possess it.
Deu 30:19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live
Joh 1:12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name
1Ti 2:3 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour;
1Ti 2:4 Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. '
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'Once Saved, Always Saved?
A battle has raged in theological circles in the last few decades about the eternal security of the believer, sometimes called "once saved, always saved." Let's examine this issue, as usual, only on the basis of what Scripture says and nothing else. To find and know the truth, we must cast aside whatever preconceptions we have, whatever teachings we have heard from men, and be prepared to accept God's word for what it says.
Why should we bother to consider this subject? Isn't it sufficient to simply have a close relationship with Christ, as a servant of the Lord Jesus, and seek to obey him in all things? For those who have that, of course that is sufficient. But there are teachings, such as the "once saved, always saved" doctrine that cause people to claim to be Christians, pointing with conviction to the day on which they confessed their faith, but thereafter living as the world, indistinguishable from the world. In many communities there is a high level of hypocrisy with "Christians" attending church but throughout the week living lives which rival in wickedness the worst of unbelievers.
Two teachings come immediately to mind which stress the spiritual danger of such beliefs and actions. Jesus limited entrance into the kingdom when he said, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven but only he who does the will of my Father in heaven" (Matthew 7:21). Paul narrowed the passage into the kingdom even further when he said, "For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers" (Romans 8:29). This is not a scripture which states that certain people are predestined to be saved. It is a scripture which states that God predestined the qualification for those who will be saved. There is no salvation for those who do not do the will of God they will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Salvation is limited to those who are conformed to the likeness of Jesus Christ, God's Son. The likeness to which all believers can be conformed is the commitment to do the will of God.
It does not matter if someone made a sincere confession of faith at some earlier time if he later does not do the will of God and is not conformed to the likeness of his Son. God predestined this qualification for all who would be saved. Only those who satisfy this qualification will be the brothers (and sisters) of the Lord Jesus. Jesus said, "Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?" Pointing to his disciples, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother" (Matthew 12:48 50). . .'
From <http://www.adventistlaymen.com/END_TIME_PROPHETIC_EVENTS/A_TIME_OF_BOUNDLESS_DELUSIONS.html>
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'Foreknowledge and Foreordination
E. J. Waggoner
"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." The word
"predestinate" is the same as "foreordain," which is found in the Revised Version.
Volumes of speculation have been written about these terms, but a few words
are sufficient to set forth the facts. With respect to these, as well as the other
attributes of God, it is sufficient for us to know the fact. With the explanation we
have nothing to do.
That God knows all things is plainly set forth in the Scripture. Not only does
he know the things that are past, but he sees the future as well.
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"Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world." Acts 15:18.
"O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting
and mine uprising; thou understandest my thought afar off." Ps. 139:1, 2. Thus
God can tell what people even yet unborn will do and say.
This does not make God responsible for the evil that they do. Some have
foolishly thought it necessary to apologize for the Lord and to relieve him of the
charge that if he is omniscient He is responsible for the evil if he does not prevent
it, by saying that He could know if he wished, but that he chooses not to know
many things. Such a "defense" of God is both foolish and wicked. It assumes that
God would be responsible for the evil if he knew it beforehand and did not
prevent it, and that in order not to be in a position to prevent it, he deliberately
shuts his eyes from it. Thus their "defense" really puts the responsibility for all evil
upon God. Not only so, but it limits Him. It makes him like a man.
God knows all things, not by study and research as man learns the little he
knows, but because he is God. He inhabits eternity. Isa. 57:15. We can not
understand how this can be any more than we can understand eternity. We must
accept the fact and be not only content, but glad, that God is greater than we. All
time, past, present, and future, is the same to Him. It is always "now" with God.
The fact that God knew the evil that men would do, even before the
foundation of the world, does not make him responsible for it, any more than
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the fact that a man can see by means of a telescope what a man is doing ten
miles distant makes him responsible for that other one's actions. God has from
the beginning set before people warnings against sin, and has provided them
with all the necessary means for avoiding it; but he can not interfere with man's
right and freedom of choice without depriving him of his manhood and making
him the same as a stick.
Freedom to do right implies freedom to do wrong. If a man were made so that
he could not do wrong, he would have no freedom at all, not even to do right. He
would be less than the brutes. There is no virtue in forced obedience, nor would
there be any virtue in doing that which is right if it were impossible to do wrong.
Moreover, there could be no pleasure or satisfaction in the professed friendship
of two persons if one associated with the other just because he could not avoid it.
The joy of the Lord in the companionship of his people is that they of their own
free-will choose him above all others. And that which is the joy of the Lord is the
joy of His people.
The very ones who rail against God for not preventing the ills that he foresees
since he is all-powerful, would be the very first to charge him with cruelty if he did
arbitrarily interfere with their freedom and make them do that which they do not
choose. Such a course would make everybody unhappy and discontented. The
wisest thing for us to do is to stop trying to fathom the ways of the Almighty, and
accept the fact that whatever he does is right. "As for God, His way is perfect."
Ps. 18:30.
Predestination
The text shows that "whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be
conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first-born among many
brethren." God's thoughts toward men are thoughts of peace, and not of evil. Jer.
29:11. He ordains peace for us. Isa. 26:12. We read nothing about men being
foreordained to destruction; the only thing that God has predestinated is that men
should be conformed to the image of His Son.
But it is only in Christ that we become conformed to His image. It is in him
that we come "unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." Eph.
4:13. Therefore it is that men are foreordained or predestinated only in Christ.
The whole story is told in the following passage of Scripture:-
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ; 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."
Everything is in Christ. We receive all spiritual blessings in Him; we are
chosen in Him unto holiness; in Him we are predestinated unto the adoption of
children; in Him we are accepted; and in Him we have redemption through His
blood. "God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord
Jesus Christ." 1 Thess. 5:9.
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That is God's purpose and foreordination concerning man. Still further, "whom
He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His
Son." Whom did He foreknow? There can be no limit; He must have foreknown
all. If there were any exception, then God would not be infinite in knowledge. If
He foreknows one person, then He foreknows every person. There has not been
a person born into the world whose birth God did not foreknow. "Neither is there
any creature that is not manifest in His sight; but all things are naked and opened
unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do." Therefore, since every person
has been known to God even before the foundation of the world, and those
whom he foreknew He predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son, it
follows that God has purposed salvation for every soul that has ever come into
the world. His love embraces all, without respect of persons.
"Then everybody will be saved, no matter what He does," some one will say.
Not by any means. Remember that the purpose of God is in Christ. It is only in
Him that we are predestinated. And we are free to choose for ourselves whether
we will accept Him or not. Man's will has been forever set free, and God Himself
will not presume to interfere with it. He holds sacred the choice and will of each
individual. He will not carry out His own purpose contrary to man's will. His will is
to give man whatever man decides will best please Him. So he sets before man
life and death, good and evil, and tells Him to choose which He will have. God
knows what is best, and has chosen and prepared
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that for man. He has gone so far as to fix it beyond all possibility of failure, that
man shall have that good thing if he chooses it. But the wonderful kindness and
courteousness of the great God is seen in this, that He defers in everything to
man's wishes. If man, in his turn, will but defer to God's wishes, there will be the
most delightful and loving companionship between them.
Called, Justified, Glorified
"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."
This is completed action. We need not stumble over it, if we will but remember
that everything is in Christ. In Christ we have already been blessed with all
spiritual blessings. All men are called to that which God has prepared for them,
but none are "the called according to His purpose" unless they have made their
calling and election sure by submitting to his will. Such ones are predestinated to
be saved. Nothing in the universe can hinder the salvation of any soul that
accepts and trusts the Lord Jesus Christ.
And all such are justified. The death of Christ reconciles us to God. "He is the
propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole
world." 1 John 2:2. His death has secured pardon and life for all. Nothing can
keep them from salvation except their own perverse will. Men must take
themselves out of the hand of God, in order to be lost. Much more, then, those
who accept the sacrifice, are justified. "God commendeth His love toward us, in
that,
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while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now
justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if, when we
were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son; much more
being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life."
"And whom He justified, them He also glorified." Have we not read in the
prayer of Christ for His disciples, not only for those who were with Him in the
garden, but also for all them that should believe on Him through their word and
therefore for us, "The glory which Thou gavest Me, I have given them"? Peter
said that he was a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed. God has left
nothing undone. Everything that Christ has we have if we accept him. All that
remains is that it should be revealed. "The earnest expectation of the creature
waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God." When God asks concerning His
people, "What could have been done more to My vineyard, that I have not done
in it?" who shall presume to say that there is something that he has overlooked?
All Things Ours
But we have anticipated the apostle. Hear him: "He that spared not His own
Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us
all things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not His own
Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall he not with Him also freely give us
all things?"
How shall He not? That is, How can He avoid giving us all things? In giving
Christ for and to us, God could not do otherwise than give us
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all things, "for in Him were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth,
things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities
or powers; all things have been created through Him, and unto Him; and He is
before all things, and in Him all things consist." Col. 1:16, 17, R.V.
"Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours; whether Paul, or
Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to
come; all are yours; and ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's." 1 Cor. 3:21-23.
This, then, answers the question, "Who can be against us?" Everything is for us.
"All things are for your sakes." 2 Cor. 4:15.
A general once telegraphed to the seat of government, "We have met the
enemy, and they are ours." This is what every child of God is privileged to say.
"Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." 1
Cor. 15:57. "This is the victory that hath overcome the world, even our faith." 1
John 5:4, R.V. This is what makes us know that all things work together for good
to them that love God. No matter how dark and forbidding the things may seem,
if we are in Christ, they are for us, and not against us.'
