Sermons from the Moorpark Presbyterian Church

Predestination 101

by Dave Wilkinson

Romans 8:29-30

July 19, 1998

I'm warning you. You have to pay close attention to this true story. If you don’t pay attention, you’ll be lost. You’ll have no idea why everyone else is gasping in surprise and laughing with wonder. If, however, you are smart enough to follow this story, you are also smart enough to follow this whole sermon.

The story was told in 1994 by Don Harper Mills who was the president of the American Association for Forensic Science.

"On March 23, 1994, the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus and concluded that he died from a shotgun wound to the head. The dead man had jumped from the top of a ten-story building intending to commit suicide (he left a note indicating his despondency). As he fell past the ninth floor, his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast through a window, which killed him instantly. Neither Ronald Opus nor the shooter was aware that a safety net had been erected at the eighth floor level to protect some window washers and that Opus would not have completed his suicide jump because of this."

"Ordinarily," Dr. Mills continued, "a person who sets out to commit suicide ultimately succeeds, even though the mechanism might not be what he intended. That Opus was shot on the way to certain death nine stories below probably would not have changed his mode of death from suicide to homicide.

But the fact that his suicidal intent would not have been successful caused the medical examiner to feel that he had homicide on his hands."

"Now the room on the ninth floor whence the shotgun blast emanated was occupied by an elderly man and his wife. They were arguing and he was threatening her with the shotgun. He was so upset that, when he pulled the trigger, he completely missed his wife and the pellets went through the window, striking Opus.

"When a person intends to kill subject A but kills subject B in the attempt, that person is guilty of the murder of subject B. When confronted with this charge, the old man and his wife both insisted that neither knew that the shotgun was loaded. The old man said it was his long-standing habit to threaten his wife with the unloaded shotgun. He had no intention to murder her. Therefore the killing of Opus in the midst of his attempted suicide appeared to be an accident. That is, the gun had been accidentally loaded.

"The continuing investigation turned up a witness who saw the old couple's son loading the shotgun approximately six weeks before the fatal incident. It turned out that the old lady had cut off her son's financial support and the son, knowing his father's habit of using the shotgun threateningly, loaded the gun with the expectation that his father would shoot his mother. The case now became one of murder on the part of the son for the death of Ronald Opus.

But there was one more exquisite twist. Further investigation revealed that the son had become increasingly despondent over the failure of his attempt to engineer his mother's murder. And this led the son, Ronald Opus, to jump off the ten-story building on March 23, only to be killed by a shotgun blast through a ninth story window.

The medical examiner ruled that Ronald Opus had killed himself. He closed the case as a suicide."

Some times you get the feeling that's what's gonna happen is gonna happen. As you read this amazing account, you get the feeling that Ronald Opus was fated to die as a suicide on March 23, 1994 and that nothing was going to prevent that. Some people would even say that the whole thing was predestined.

Many people confuse the biblical doctrine of predestination with a very unbiblical concept of fatalism - that what's gonna happen is gonna happen and there's nothing you can do about it. For example, my own mother claims to believe in predestination but is actually a fatalist. About eighteen years ago I walked into my mom's hospital room immediately after she was seriously injured in a head-on collusion. The first thing she said to me was, "I'm glad that's over" -- as if from the day of her birth she had been scheduled to be in that accident and there's no way it could have been avoided.

But that is not what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches what is called predestination. Now some people think that predestination is a strange Presbyterian doctrine -- that it's something we made up. But it's not just Presbyterian and it's certainly not made up. It’s in the word of God. Listen to God's word in Romans 8:29-30.

Read Romans 8:29-30

An older pastor once told me that every preacher ought to preach a sermon he congregation doesn't understand-at least once a year. This is to let the congregation know that their pastor knows more than they know about the Bible - that he or she knows enough to be totally unintelligible.

I hope this isn't that sermon. It's not meant to be. But we are dealing here with some hard ideas. Paul paints in large strokes on what is, for most of us, an unfamiliar canvas. If you don't understand it all, don't worry. I don't either. All I can do is faithfully say what God's word is saying. And if we will faithfully open ourselves to that Word, the Holy Spirit will help us grasp what this portion of scripture has for us.

The first teaching is the hardest for us to grasp. Paul pushes us into the deep end. He plunks us down right in the middle of the mystery of election or predestination. Paul says, "Those whom God foreknew he also predestined."

Let's explore what God's word says here by asking and answering some common questions.

First, doesn't predestination simply mean that God, who knows the future, just knows in advance who will believe? Paul writes, "Those whom God foreknew he also predestined --"

Now. since the common meaning of 'to foreknow"' is to know something in advance of its happening, some ancient and modern commentators have concluded that God foresees who will believe, and that this foreknowledge is the basis of His predestination. But this can't be right for two reasons.

First, it’s illogical. If God bases salvation on His advance knowledge of those who would believe, where did their saving faith come from an if, as God’s Word declares, they were truly "dead in their trespasses and sins?" If they were dead, how did they develop faith?

Also,, if God predestines people because he knows that are going to believe, then the basis for salvation is in what people do -- believe -- instead of in God's grace and mercy. If that's what predestination comes down to, then salvation would depend on people -- not on God's freedom. God's initiative would eliminated. His grace would be meaningless. That contradicts every thing the Bible says.

It’s like me and my dog, Katy. If I tell Katy: "Chase the Stueck’s cat!", I’m not really in charge. She is. I am just rubber stamping her choice. I am only telling her to do something that she has every intention of doing anyway.

Now God is all-knowing. God is certainly able to look to the end of history and beyond and to know in advance the most minute detail of the most insignificant occurrences. But it is both unbiblical and illogical to say that predestination simply means that God looked ahead and saw who would believe and then chose those particular individuals for salvation.

For, in fact, the word foreknew is not a reference to God knowing everything before it happens. He does but that isn't what the word means here. The Hebrew verb "to know" expresses a whole lot more than just intellectual awareness. It points to a personal relationship of care and affection. It’s even a sexual term -- as in "Adam knew his wife Eve and she had a son." When God 'knows' people, He watches over them. When it says He"'knew"' the children of Israel in the desert, it means that He cared for them. The Old Testament says that Israel was the only people out of all the families of the earth whom God had 'known', that is, loved.

Peter had this same reality in mind when he wrote of Christians as those who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father" (1 Pet. 1:1-2). Peter uses the same word when he wrote that Christ "was foreknown before the foundation of the world" (1 Pet. 1:20). The word means the same thing in both places. Believers were foreknown in the same way Christ was foreknown. They are foreloved in an intimacy of relationship.."

Romans 8:29 doesn't say that God just foreknew what certain of His creatures would do. It is not talking about human actions at all. The verse is entirely about what God does. God foreknew, God predestined, God called, God justified, God glorified.

Paul then tells us that those whom God foreknew or foreloved, be also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His beloved Son that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters." The verb predestined translates the Greek proortzo, which means to 'decide upon in advance.

Everyone finds the doctrine of election difficult. Didn't I choose God?" someone will ask indignantly. We must answer 'Yes, you did, and freely, but only because in eternity God had first chosen you.' Jesus said, 'No one can come to me unless my Heavenly Father calls him."

Clearly a human decision is involved in the process of becoming a Christian. But it is God's decision before it can be ours. We decided for Christ', and freely. But we decided for Him only because he had first 'decided for us'.

A man gave a testimony in one of Dwight L. Moody's meetings, about God's sovereign call in his life, and how God had done all the work. God had pursued him, God had called him, God had brought him into the family. He gave a glowing testimony of God's salvation in his life and how it was all God's work.

After he stepped down, one doctrinally oriented person came to him rather concerned that he had never said anything about man's responsibility in responding to the call of Christ. He said, "Brother, you have shared a wonderful testimony, but you forgot to tell about man's responsibility, your action, and how you were involved in this process." He said, 'Oh, I'm sorry, brother. My part was running away and God's part was running after me."

That is really the truth. I find in my own life. After I accepted God’s call, I found that He had made it possible for me to accept. And when you find that all is said and done, you will see that God has found you.

Human faith is imperative for salvation. But God's gracious initiation of salvation is even more imperative. God's choice not only precedes human choice but makes human choice possible.

But isn't this unfair? Isn't it unfair for God to decide before people even have a shot? Does predestination simply mean that some people are created just so they can be damned?

Some groups have certainly thought so. This belief is called "double predestination." In the mid part of the last century there was a denomination called the" Two Seed in the Spirit Predestinarian Baptist Church." They advertised what they believed in their name -- that people were naturally either of God or of Satan. None of those who were of God would fail to be saved. None of those who were of Satan could possibly be saved -- not matter how much they might want it. And this was okay with the "Two Seed in the Spirit" Baptists because they were sure which camp they were in.

But the Bible doesn't say anywhere that God predestines anyone to go to hell. In 1 Corinthians Paul defends God's right to create "vessels of wrath" if He chooses to -- because being God means that you get to do as you like, But Paul doesn't say that God actually does this. On the contrary, we are told that God wills all to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth."

Remember who God is. God is characterized by love, grace, wisdom, and mercy. So whatever predestination means, it has to be consistent with God's character. For Paul it is the God of love and mercy acting graciously and wisely, who is the electing God.

Predestination is sometimes said to create arrogance, since (it is claimed) God's elect boast of their favored status. There's a mocking little poem that goes:

"We are the sweet selected few, the chosen of the land.

There's room enough in hell for you, we can't have heaven crammed."

But nothing could be further from the truth. The true Christian attitude is that of the great Victorian preacher Charles Spurgeon who prayed: "Lord, save all those whom you elect -- and then go out an elect some more. ‘

The purpose of God, Paul tells us in this passage, is that Christ might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters -- not a few but many. In the Book of Revelation, John looks at those who are being saved and sees a multitude which no one could number from every language, nation and tongue on earth. God is not looking for the sweet selected few. He’s looking for the many and Revelation tells us that that’s what he’s going to get.

Hans Kung, a German Catholic theologian said "doctrines are attempts to explain mysteries.' Our election by God is a mystery that we attempt to explain by a doctrine. How election and free will interact is something beyond our finite mind's ability to understand. But one way to visualize our choseness is to imagine a door that says on the outside, "whosoever will, may come.' And once we walk through the door we find that it reads on the inside, "chosen before the foundation of the world.'

Both statements are true. Because the essential message of predestination is not that God chooses some for salvation and rejects others. Predestination is not determinism. It is not God deciding what we are going to do. It is God declaring what he is going to do. Predestination is simply God’s sovereign decree that all those who put their faith in Jesus Christ will be saved. The "those who God forloves" in verse 29 are those who come to Him through faith in His Son. Anyone who wants to come in faith may do so. But those who do come are also those who are called from the foundation of the world.

John Calvin, the so-called father of predestination, also says that this is what it means. In a sermon on Ephesians 1:1-6 Calvin writes: "Many fanciful people say, ‘As for me I shall never know whether God has elected me and therefore I must still remain in my perdition.’ Yes, but that is for want of coming to Christ. How do we know that God has elected us before the creation of the world? By believing in Jesus Christ."

Predestination is good news. It is God’s promise to us that he won’t change the rules. God won’t one day say to me, "I know that you put your faith in Jesus but, Dave, I just don’t like your face. " It is the guarantee that God will make my face eternally likeable -- that, in fact, I will be conformed to the image of His beloved Son.

Now the realization that we have been chosen to be "conformed to Jesus Christ" might be a terrible burden. Some might say: "I knew there was a hitch somewhere. Here is where I flunk out of election class."

But that is not the image presented here. Everything that Paul writes in this great chapter points to God's pleasure at what he is doing in bringing us into the family. Being conformed to Jesus Christ is not God's test, It is God's gift

We need to read these verses about predestination in the context in which they are written. They follow on what Paul writes about the certain hope of our salvation. They are the lead in to Paul’s great hymn of Christian certainty in verses 31-39 where he assures us that absolutely nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.

Some time ago I came across an amusing but apparently true story. In !966 a Hindu holy man and mystic named Rao announced that he would walk on water. This attracted a great deal of attention. On the day set for the feat a great crowd gathered around a large pool in Bombay, India, where it was to occur. The holy man prayerfully prepared himself for the miracle and then stepped forward to the pool's edge. A solemn hush fell over the assembled observers. Rao glanced upward to heaven, stepped forward onto the water, and then immediately plummeted into the pool's depths.

Sputtering, dripping wet, and furious, he emerged from the pool and turned angrily on the embarrassed crowd. One of you, he said, "is an unbeliever."

Fortunately, our salvation is not like that, because if it were, it would never happen. In spiritual matters we are all weak in faith. Our confidence is that all who begin will finish. How many of those who are foreloved are predestined? Paul says, "One hundred percent." How many of those who are predestined are justified? One hundred percent. How many of those who are justified are glorified?. One hundred percent. The same number he called will be justified. The same number he justified will be glorified.' That’s good news. So Paul writes:

"In the face of all of this, what can we say? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, can we not trust such a God to give us with Him everything else that we could possibly need. Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies, Who is in a position to condemn? Only Christ. And Christ died for us, Christ rose for us, Christ reigns in power for us, Christ prays for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress, pr persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril or the sword? In all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who has proved His love for us, For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels, nor principalities, neither what happens today not what may happen tomorrow, neither a power from on high nor a power from below, nothing in God’s whole world has any power to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.