Ordained And Predestined

 Ordained And Predestined

Acts 13:48 And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.

Webster's 1828 Dictionary for Ordain:

2. To appoint; to decree.

As many as were ordained to eternal life, believed. Acts 13.

Webster's 1828 Dictionary definition for Decree: 

6. In theology, predetermined purpose of God; the purpose or determination of an immutable Being, whose plan of operations is, like himself, unchangeable.

Way of Life Encyclopedia for Predestination:

God planned man's salvation before the creation (Ephesians 1:5,11). This does not mean God arbitrarily chooses who will be saved and who will not be. He has revealed that He wants all men to be saved (1 Timothy 2:3-4; John 3:16; 2 Peter 3:9). God knows the future and knows who will receive His offer of salvation; predestination is based on God's foreknowledge and has more to do with what the Christian is predestinated TO than WHO is predestinated (1 Peter 1:2; Romans 8:29). Predestination assures eternal salvation.

Way of Life Encyclopedia for Foreknow:

The truth that God knows events before they occur and the character and choices of men before they are born (Acts 2:23; Romans 8:29; 11:2; 1 Peter 1:2).

Taken from Mastering The English Bible - Acts (page 89) from David Cloud:

The context of Acts 13:48 refutes the Jerome/Augustine interpretation. (1) In verse 43, we see that men can be persuaded to receive the gospel (“Paul and Barnabas: who, speaking to them, persuaded them to continue in the grace of God). This is a human action. It implies that the choice isn’t entirely up to God’s “sovereign election.” The supernatural work of salvation is 100% of God, but man can receive it or reject it. (2) In verse 46, we see that men can reject the gospel (“seeing ye put it from you”). God has given light to all men, and those who respond to the light they have, such as Cornelius and the Ethiopian eunuch, receive more light. (3) In verse 47, we see that God has commanded that the gospel be preached to all men. “For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth.” Paul is referring here to the commandment of Christ to preach the gospel to all nations and to every soul (Mt 28:19; Mr 16:15)

In light of these definitions and the following passages, we can see that the Lord God did not predestine people to Heaven or Hell, but that He foreknew whether someone would receive or reject the truth, receive or reject the Saviour and His way of salvation. In each passage below we can see what God did predestine all true believers to, and what He predestined those who reject Christ to.

1. 1 Peter 1:2 Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied.

We are elect/chosen according to God’s foreknowledge of how we would respond to the Gospel. In time, the Holy Spirit convicted us of our sin and need of the Saviour, and when we received the Gospel, He set us apart and sealed us by His Holy Spirit, and washed our sins away by His blood.

2. Acts 2:22-24 Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know: Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.

God predestined the plan of salvation and foreknew how it would be fulfilled according to His plan.

3. Romans 11:1-5 I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew. Wot ye not what the scripture saith of Elias? how he maketh intercession to God against Israel, saying, Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life. But what saith the answer of God unto him? I have reserved to myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal. Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace.

The Lord foreknew all who would be part of the physical nation of Israel, and planned to always have a remnant of true believers throughout history.

4. Acts 13:48 And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.

This verse states that those who would one day trust in Jesus would be predestined to have eternal life (ie. that relationship and fellowship with God that starts the moment we come to Christ and continues throughout eternity. See John 17:3)

5. John 15:16 Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.

Believers are ordained chosen to bear fruit in their spiritual lives.

6. Romans 8:29-30 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.

True believers are predestined by God to be made like Jesus and one day be called (when you heard and received the Gospel), justified (at the moment you placed your faith in Christ and His finished work of salvation), and glorified (when our sin nature is removed and we receive our new bodies at the rapture).

7. Ephesians 1:5, 11-12 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,… 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: That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ.

True believers are predestined to be adopted into the family of God and given an inheritance in Christ. We are also predestined to bring glory to the Lord.

8. Ephesians 2:10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

True believers are ordained to walk in the good works that the Lord has planned for our lives.

9. Jude 1:3-4 Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.

Those who the Lord foreknew would reject Him and twist the truth of God in their efforts to turn others away from the truth were predestined to judgement.

God’s plan of salvation and His writing true believers' names down in the Lamb’s Book of Life was done according to His foreknowledge and working out of everything needed to save us and bring us the Gospel.

Revelation 13:8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

Jesus was considered slain from the foundation of the world, because in the plan of God it was determined to happen and was as good as done, because the Lord always fulfills all His promises. The same thing goes for all true believers being one day glorified according to Romans 8:30. It has not happened yet, but it will! He said it, that settles it, it will come to pass in His time.

Revelation 17:8 The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.

This is referring to the lost who would reject the truth. The opposite also being true: He foreknew who would be saved before the foundation of the world so wrote our names in His Book of Life at that time. See also Luke 10:20.

Please go back and read all of the passages above and notice what is bolded. Not one of those passages teach individuals are predestined for Heaven or Hell, as Calvinism teaches - but all those who would one day receive the Gospel and trust the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation (believing in His death on the cross of Calvary for their sins, in His shed blood, in His literal, physical death and resurrection) would one day receive the gift of eternal life, have an inheritance in Christ, be conformed to Christ’s image, be glorified, etc. Those who would reject the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation would one day face judgement at the Great White Throne judgement (this applies to everyone who dies in their sins, whether they are a false teacher or not, as Jude was specifically referring to).

September 23, 2024

Jerry Bouey