A common misunderstanding about Predestination
Whenever the subject of predestination is mentioned it immediately revives a memory in this writer’s mind of an occasion nearly 30 years ago. It was a wet and windy day in the Lake District, and in a “christian” guest house a lively discussion arose on the subject of salvation. Without exception, each of the participants spoke of “predestination” as though it were synonymous with “election” and for that reason, as well as others, the conversation was generally fruitless. The subject of “election” will be dealt with in a later article, God willing, so it will suffice for now to stress that “election” is a truth that concerns sinners before they are saved, and “predestination” applies only to believers in the Lord Jesus Christ once they have been saved. Predestination has nothing whatever to do with unregenerate souls.
The meaning of Predestination
The Greek word horizo means to mark out in a definite way, or, to determine the scope of something by setting distinct boundaries. It is the word from which our English word “horizon” is derived, by which we may immediately think of that distinct line between the sky and the sea that we observe from the beach on a fine day. What that distinct line is doing, however, is marking the limit of our vision, and it is that thought of setting a boundary that is the usual meaning of the word in Scripture. The word is further refined when we consider its contextual use, such as in Acts 17.24-26: “God that made the world and all things therein…hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined (horizo) the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation”. The scope of the ages has been marked out, and the geographical boundaries within which men are to dwell have been divinely appointed.
In Acts 2.22-23 Peter preaches, “ Jesus of Nazareth…being delivered by the determinate (horizo) counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain”. His preaching accords with the Lord’s own words in Luke 22.21-22: “But, behold, the hand of him that betrayeth me is with me on the table. And truly the Son of man goeth, as it was determined (horizo): but woe unto that man by whom he is betrayed!”. These verses show us that the defining hand of God is active in relation to both creation and redemption, and the bounds and limitations that He appoints are not accidental, arbitrary or capricious but deliberate, co-ordinated limits that are part of an over-arching eternal purpose.
The Greek word translated “predestinate(d)” in the Authorised Version is the word we have just examined, horizo, with the prefix pro (meaning “before”), thus forming the word proorizo. The meaning of predestination, therefore, may be rendered, the prior determination, in accordance with an over-arching design and purpose, of the scope of a particular work. In four of the six occasions where the word is used in the NT it is translated “predestinate(d)”, the other two mentions being rendered “determined before” (Acts 4.28) and “ordained” (1 Cor 2.7).
Predestination in Romans 8
In the first eight chapters of the epistle to the Romans the apostle Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, lays out the doctrine of “the gospel of God…concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom 1.1-3). He systematically teaches how sins and sin have been dealt with by the death and resurrection of Christ and, at the end of ch.8 he calls upon any contradictory force in the universe to bring a legal challenge against the righteous standing of the child of God. No being in the material or spiritual creation, however great their malignity to God and His glory, can lay anything to the charge of God’s elect because the deliverance of guilty souls from the kingdom of darkness has been effected not only by superior power but also by legal redemption. There can be “no separation” at the end of the chapter because there is “no condemnation” at the beginning of it. But immediately before Paul issues the challenge in vv. 31-39 he speaks of the groanings of creation and, likewise, the groanings of individual believers as we await “the redemption of our body” (v.23). In contrast to what we do not know in v.26, he says in vv. 28-30, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. 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. 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”.
Those who groan and know not what to pray for are like Job who said, “Behold, I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him: On the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him: he hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him” (Job 23.8-9). Over these verses we could write, “I know not”, but in the very next verse Job says, “But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold”. Is not this where the child of God finds rest? “I know not…He knows”. Every detail and circumstance of life is either ordained or permitted by God according to His purpose, and the believer clings to this knowledge that all things work together for good to them that love God.
But why should God so care for us? Though saved by His grace, what are we to Him? The answer is in the chapter – we have been placed as sons (the literal meaning of “adoption”) before Him. To save us He sent His Son (Rom 8.3), the Holy Spirit now witnesses that we are sons (vv.15-16), and the ultimate goal of salvation is conformity to the image of his Son (v.29). This is what God predestinated us to. The word horizo could have been used, telling us that God has determined that we should be conformed to the image of His Son, but the Spirit rather used the word proorizo to emphasise that all our glorious future by grace was already settled in the most distant possible past. God’s purpose is not only to save sinners from condemnation, wonderful though that is, but also to bring them into the moral likeness of His own beloved Son! This is God’s objective in the gospel – to populate heaven with billions of redeemed souls who are just like Christ.
Predestination in Ephesians 1
The realisation of the believer’s predestination in Romans 8 is still future, but the predestination spoken of in Ephesians 1.3-5 is present. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us…Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself”. “The adoption of children” is literally “the placing of sons”, so that we are not only the children of God by new birth but we have also been placed as sons in the family before Him. “The placing of sons” can otherwise be thought of as “sonship”, and that status applies to all believers. Sisters in Christ are sons, not daughters, because sonship is not an expression of gender but of relationship to the Father. A true son bears the character of the father (like father, like son), and the present placing as sons will find its completion when full conformity to Christ is realised, as we have seen in Romans 8.
Linked with “sonship” is “heirship”, as taught in Galatians 4.7; “Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ”. Thus Ephesians 1.11 states; “In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will”.
Predestination is the divine decision to bring redeemed souls into the relationship of sons to a Father, each one conformed to the image of His peerless, pre-eminent Son, and to bestow upon them “an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you” (1 Pet 1.4). “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ…”.