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Predestination as God’s Sovereign Decree and Future Events

Predestination. Can you tell us what it means?

Well, you know, normally that term has a major application and then a more focused application. We can speak of predestination in regards to God's sovereign decree, in regards to the events that take place in time.

Major events like earthquakes or the rise and fall of nations and things like that. And certainly the Old Testament gives us prophecies about what God is going to accomplish. And there is an application of the term predestination that would apply to any type of activity that is prophesied in the future or something like that.

But interestingly enough, the text that you yourself read is much more personal and direct in the sense of an application of God's sovereignty to the issue of man's salvation. And hence the idea of individuals being predestined unto certain ends.

Now, that particular text specifically refers to those who are predestined. The result is eventually their glorification. Hence, their obtaining God's grace and salvation. Many would make a distinction between that and the predestination of someone to the opposite end, and that is to the receiving of wrath.

Predestination is used in a positive sense in the New Testament. In Romans 8, Ephesians chapter 1, in regards to God's blessings in Jesus Christ. And so, obviously down through the history of the Church, there has been great contention regarding this issue.

Especially how it relates God's freedom to man's freedom. What is the relationship between those two? And in our day, we seem to keep reinventing the wheel in essence. Because these have been conversations that have taken place between greatly learned men down through the history of the Church.

But unfortunately, since much of the Church today doesn't know a lot about its history, we keep going back over the same things. And I'm not saying that we can just simply go to the past and go, well, they decided it back then, we're not going to worry about it.

But there has been a tremendous amount of discussion of the past. And each generation, I think, is called to struggle through these things. Not in a new sense, but in light of what has taken place in the past.

Learning from the wisdom of the past and always using the Scriptures as the final touchstone.

Destiny, Divine Foreknowledge, and Jeremiah’s Call

That's what we're trying to do tonight. Struggle through so we can come to understand it. Edward, a definition of predestination?

Yes, I look at it as a form of, well, it is what I call destiny. Which is what I believe was written about Jesus himself. He said something, he said, you know, the son of man goeth as it is written of him.

In other words, there is always something that is written of a person. Or there is always something that is written about an event or whatever that is supposed to take place. Yes, I know that there have been a lot of arguments.

Historically, there have been a lot of arguments concerning people. Jeremiah chapter 1 verse 5 says something. That before I formed thee, I knew thee and I anointed you to become the prophet of the nations.

In other words, Jeremiah had to fulfill what I call destiny. It was like he was predestined before he was born. And as a result of that, he had to toe a particular pathway to be able to fulfill that destiny.

The fact that whether people do fulfill that destiny or they don't fulfill that destiny is another thing.

God’s Perfect Will and Human Choice

So are you saying that Jeremiah didn't have a choice?

Well, I believe if he wanted to fall into what I call the perfect will of God, then I believe, I mean, God's will had to prevail. Let me put it that way. I will not say that it's a matter of him having a choice or him not having a choice.

But God created us, and so his will, I believe, is a perfect thing for it to prevail. And so when we talk about the permissive will, we talk about his perfect will. When you decide to go your permissive way, for example, myself, I'm a musician.

But I know I've been called by God into ministry. And so I know the perfect will of God, as far as my destiny is concerned, is to be a priest. And so the fact that I was able to get to the Royal Schools of Music at the age of 16, I was able to have an extension in everything I was doing in music, a good idea doesn't mean that it's a God idea.

But you should find... So at the moment, the opinions that are coming from both James and yourself, Edward, seem to be going on the same track. And I thought maybe you might be going a bit divergent on that.

Maybe at a point. Tony, do you feel that's the case?

Divine Choice and Human Response

So far, yes. I think basically it comes down to one question. Do we choose God or does he choose us? Now, of course, the answer is very simple. Both. Both are true. But that doesn't let us off the hook.

The question is, let's rephrase it. Do we choose God because he's chosen us? So is the ultimate choice God's? Or is it the other way around? When we read in the Bible about God choosing us, does it just mean that he knows in advance what we will choose?

He chooses us because we are going to choose him. So really I think that sort of crystallizes it. Right. Whose is the ultimate choice? Is it that we choose God because he's chosen us or the other way around?

So what do you think, James? Well, I think the scriptures are very clear in revealing to us the fact that when we talk about God's decree over all things, there is a perfect harmony that exists between the way God has made us and what God's decree is.

I'll give you an example. Remember what happens after Israel dies. You have Joseph and his brothers, remember? And they come to Joseph and they're very much afraid that he is now going to wreak havoc upon them for what they had done.

Remember the wisdom that he had. He said in regards to the very sinful action. I think we'd all agree it was very sinful to take him, throw him into a pit, deceive their parents, sell him into slavery, et cetera, et cetera.

He says to them, you intended this for evil, but God intended it for good to save many people alive today. There's a direct parallel in the Hebrew between those two phrases. In one act, which we recognize was sinful, God's perfect will was being accomplished.

That's how he put Joseph into Egypt to save many people alive. The same thing happens in Isaiah 10. In Acts chapter 4, 27 to 28, the early church prays. And they recognize that Herod and Pontius Pilate and the Jews and the Romans had all done in the crucifixion what God's hand had predestined beforehand to take place.

The greatest, most sinful thing mankind ever did in the crucifixion of the sinless Son of God, that was God's purpose and God's intention. There is a perfect harmony that exists between God's decree and the activities of man.

We do what our hearts desire, but that does not mean that we are autonomous creatures, that we exist outside of the will of God. When it comes to the issue of salvation itself, Jesus himself made it very clear in the Synagogue Capernaum in John chapter 6.

All that the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will never cast out.