What Is Predestination? Is Predestination Biblical?

What does the Bible teach about predestination? Is it biblical? What does it mean to the saved and the lost?

What is Predestination?

Predestination is the act of predestinating or predestining someone or something to happen before it ever occurs. For example, I’ve predestined to do something tomorrow and it’s similar to how God predestines certain things to happen in prophecy and it has come to pass, so too has God foreordained or predestined some to be saved. Who is and who isn’t can only be known by God before a person comes to saving faith in Christ. Biblically, predestination is the action that God takes in foreordaining from eternity whatever comes to pass and that includes those who were predestined or elected by God to be saved. It’s like God had an election and only He got to vote. The prefix “pre” means that somethings been done before or is preparing ahead of time to do whatever follows or in this case, God has predetermined who will be saved. It’s like God is ensuring that someone will be saved (pre) before they arrive at saving faith in Christ (destination). Some would call it a decree of God by which certain souls are foreordained to salvation.

Ephesians 1:4-5 “Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will.”

The Bible says that God has chosen us before the foundation or creation of the world for the purpose of being held blameless before God. Our destination in Christ was determined before the earth even existed and this was only motivated by love and this love is an effectual love where we are adopted as sons and daughters of God but only through Jesus Christ (Acts 4:12). It is not according to our purpose or will but “according to the purpose of [God’s] will.”

What does this mean to the freewill of mankind?

Can someone resist this call?

What was God’s motivation to save us beforehand?

Not of Man’s Will

John 1:12-13 “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”

God speaks through the Apostle John and he writes that whoever was and is yet to believe in Christ was not by “the will of the flesh nor of the will of man” but actually “of God.” Whoever believes in Christ will be saved (John 3:16) or “all who did receive him” and were born of God or as John 3:3-7 says, they are “born from above” (in the Greek) indicating that God was the initiator of their new birth in Christ and not themselves. God was the One Who gave those born again “the right to become children of God” and not mankind. It was God’s will. We couldn’t do this without God’s calling us through Christ (John 6:44).

How do we know we’ve been called by God?

Whose will determines our salvation; God or mankind?

What does it mean that it wasn’t of “the will of the flesh or of the will of man?”

Obtaining an Inheritance

Ephesians 1:11-12 “In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.”

When a person is saved they obtain an inheritance and that is more than inheriting eternal life but inheriting a kingdom someday (Rev 22). This wasn’t our idea, as much as we like to think it was. Those who say “They have found God” don’t understand that God wasn’t lost; they were. They didn’t find Him, He found them. It’s just as Jesus told the disciples “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you” (John 15:16).

What is the inheritance that the children of God receive?

Can a believer resist this call or has it already been determined?

What does our being saved have to do with the glory or praise of Christ?

Who Choses Whom?

John 6:70 “Did I not choose you, the Twelve? And yet one of you is a devil.”

Apparently Jesus was speaking about Judas who was of the Devil but the other disciples understood that Jesus chose them and not the other way around. In the gospels, you often read Jesus saying to the disciples He chose them or follow me and not the other way around. One time, “While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him” (Matt 18-20).

Is Jesus’ command to “follow me” part of His divine call?

What was Judas chosen too if he was going to betray Jesus?

What does “follow me” mean to the Christian today?

The Elect

1st Peter 1:1-2 “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ. To those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you.”

Peter uses the word “elect” much like Paul used “predestined” but either way, it is not about our will being done but about God’s will being done, as Paul said it was “in love” (Eph 1:5) that God willed to save us so the calling was motivated by God’s love for us (John 3:16) not our love for Him because “he first loved us” (1st John 4:19). The truth is, we were hostile enemies of God (Rom 5:10). The elect that were scattered throughout the Roman Empire were the Jews who were dispersed (the Dispersion) by persecution and took the gospel with them as God uses persecution to spread the good news about Jesus Christ coming to die for and to save sinners.

Why does Peter call them “those who are elect?”

Was Peter agreeing with Paul about predestination?

Did Peter feel that He was called?

Who loved first? Was it God or us?

Conclusion

The doctrine of predestination is a hard one to grasp because the Bible also teaches that whosoever will may come to Christ and that means “that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16b) but can these “whoever may believe” people take responsibility for saving themselves? No, because the Bible teaches that it was of the will of God and not the will of man because “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:44). The truth is “you (and I) were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (Eph 2:1-3). This would be like asking Lazarus to raise himself from the dead, being four days dead, and Jesus asking him, “Okay Lazarus, if you’ll only lift a finger, I’ll do the rest.” No, the Father draws us, the Son saves us, and the Spirit convicts us. None of this is about us. All we bring is our sins and the necessity to repent and believe (Mark 1:15) and in this way, God receives all the glory for our salvation (Eph 2:8-9).

Article by Jack Wellman

Jack Wellman is Pastor of the Mulvane Brethren Church in Mulvane Kansas. Jack is also the Senior Writer at What Christians Want To Know whose mission is to equip, encourage, and energize Christians and to address questions about the believer’s daily walk with God and the Bible. You can follow Jack on Google Plus or check out his book Teaching Children the Gospel available on Amazon.