God's Choices (part 2)
Introduction. While the Bible begins with “in the beginning,” it is only our beginning. “Before the mountains were brought forth, Or ever You had formed the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God” (Ps. 90:1-2). Though our knowledge of God begins with the creation, God has lived for all eternity in His own home. While these are “the secret things” that “belong to God,” a few things have been revealed. When Jesus prayed: “And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was,” we thus learn that before this world, Jesus (as the Word) was with God and was God in glory. (Jn. 1:1-3; 17:5).
God wanted us to know that in eternity, He was making plans and creating an eternal purpose for us. God perfectly planned the material creation and created man in His image and after His likeness. With perfect foresight, God could anticipate all the problems that would arise and make the necessary plans to deal with them. God foresaw all terrible consequences that would occur after Adam sinned. Thus He warned Adam, “in the day you eat of it, you will surely die.” After Adam and Eve did eat, all the terrible consequences God had foreseen came into existence. But God was fully prepared. His plans for physical death, cursing the material creation, the woman’s pain, Adam’s sweat, and a seed to crush the serpent were all revealed at that time (Gen 3).
But God’s plans were far more extensive than what He revealed then. The entire gospel plan of salvation was actually the “revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began.” The gospel reveals all the plans, purposes and choices God had made in eternity. He had foreseen and planned for the Word to become flesh, dwell among us and die for our sins. He had designed all the plans for the church and everything revealed about the church in the New Testament Scriptures was foreordained in eternity. He had already made the promise of eternal life to those He redeemed long ages before “in the beginning” occurred (Rom. 16:25-26; Eph. 3:9-11; Titus 1:2).
God has now revealed that our “salvation” and “calling” were “according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began, but has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ.” (2Tim. 1:9-10). As we explore this passage, we see that before time began God’s purpose was in place. A part of that purpose was that grace would be given to all who chose to enter in Christ Jesus. Remember, this is what God planned before time. All these plans were revealed after Jesus appeared. Thus as God considered “the end from the beginning,” (Isa. 46:9-10), He summed up what He had done: “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world,” “having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself,” “having been foreordained according to the purpose of Him.” “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son.” (Eph. 1:3-11; Rom 8:28-30).
Thus, it was when God lived in eternity and before the foundation of the world that He “chose,” “foreknew,” “predestined,” and “foreordained.” These four terms form the foundation of our understanding. Yet we must be very cautious because our understanding is extremely narrow and limited. We can understand His choosing, since we share that ability with Him. But even after God told us how He predestined, foreknew, and foreordained, we still have no point of reference or method of comparison. We can only fall back on God’s own warning: “as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts,” (Isa. 55:9), and keep clearly in our minds “the secret things belong to God.”
What further complicates this is the freewill God gave us. Finding the balance between God’s sovereign will and the free will He gave to those “created in His image and likeness,” is the key to our understanding. When Job proclaimed: “I know that You can do all things, And that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted,” (Job 42:2), He was speaking the truth. No purpose of God’s can be thwarted! Yet God has allowed each man or women created in His image to choose whether to submit to His will or rebel against it. There is no indication anywhere in the Scripture that God ever forced any man or woman to do His will by breaking their will.
God could crush our will and force us to do His, but He has refused to do so. All of God’s plans including His ability to choose, predestine, foreknow and foreordain all operate in the midst of our freewill. Even though God “desires all men be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth,” and with His absolute and sovereign power, He could have forced this outcome, He did not do it. Thus while God was making choices and purposes, foreordaining and predestining, He knew that man’s free will was going to oppose His will and He was going to allow them to do so.
In spite of God’s will that all men be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, Jesus said:, “wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many go in by it.” and “narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.” (1Tim. 2:4; Mt. 7:13-14). This was not God’s will. So the only logical and scriptural conclusion we can draw is that God would work out His purpose and make His choices while allowing man to choose his own eternal destiny. All of God’s omnipotence and omniscience were held in check so that man could freely choose.
Thus the only hindrance to God’s will being done on earth as in heaven is our freewill. While God was “not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance,” (2Pet. 3:9), it did not happen because of man’s stubborn and rebellious will. From the fall until the flood, from the call of Abraham to the exodus and from the birth of Jesus until His crucifixion, the majority chose to be wicked, rebel against God’s will and refuse to repent. Thus it is again made clear that God desires men and women to serve and love Him based on their own freewill. Any force or compulsion would destroy the plans God made in eternity. While God wanted all men to be saved, He placed the right of all men to be free to choose even higher. All that we know about choosing, foreknowing, foreordination, and predestination must fit into this truth.
As God foresaw, the majority of men would choose rebellion. He did not force this, nor did He desire it. He simply knew this is how it would be. God would be working out His purposes and plans in the midst of man’s near universal rebellion. At this point, some might be thinking, why did God proceed with His plans when He saw how meager the returns would be. We can only fall back on what God has said, “from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ; to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Eph. 3:9-12). This eternal purpose included not just those on this earth, but also “the principalities and powers in the heavenly places.” Even those in heaven were taken into consideration in this eternal purpose (1 Pet. 1:12).
In the midst of all this rebellion and ungodliness God also foresaw there would be humble, penitent believers. God knew some would use their free will to regret and agonize over their sins, would desire to repent and confess them, and trust in God with all their heart. His mercy and compassion led Him to devise the means to forgive and pay for the sins of all whose emotions of regret, remorse and godly sorrow were strong enough to lead them to repentance.
All of this is confirmed in the New Testament. When God saw that “the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.” God carefully planned the gospel to weed out and exclude all the rebellious who were too proud and wise to fully submit to Him. As a result, it was clearly evident that in the church, “not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called.” But once again, God did not do this by force. His choices in eternity foreordained and predestined that the gospel would repel the wicked and draw the poor in spirit and mourning ones, all based on their own free will choices.
Conclusion. In eternity before the beginning, God “chose the foolish, the weak and the base things of the world along with things that are despised and are not,” and in this way “chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.” It was in this way that God foresaw, foreordained and predestined that exactly what He desired would become reality: “The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1Cor 1:18-30). Thus man’s free will was respected and God’s sovereign will has come to pass.
God wanted us to know that in eternity, He was making plans and creating an eternal purpose for us. God perfectly planned the material creation and created man in His image and after His likeness. With perfect foresight, God could anticipate all the problems that would arise and make the necessary plans to deal with them. God foresaw all terrible consequences that would occur after Adam sinned. Thus He warned Adam, “in the day you eat of it, you will surely die.” After Adam and Eve did eat, all the terrible consequences God had foreseen came into existence. But God was fully prepared. His plans for physical death, cursing the material creation, the woman’s pain, Adam’s sweat, and a seed to crush the serpent were all revealed at that time (Gen 3).
But God’s plans were far more extensive than what He revealed then. The entire gospel plan of salvation was actually the “revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began.” The gospel reveals all the plans, purposes and choices God had made in eternity. He had foreseen and planned for the Word to become flesh, dwell among us and die for our sins. He had designed all the plans for the church and everything revealed about the church in the New Testament Scriptures was foreordained in eternity. He had already made the promise of eternal life to those He redeemed long ages before “in the beginning” occurred (Rom. 16:25-26; Eph. 3:9-11; Titus 1:2).
God has now revealed that our “salvation” and “calling” were “according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began, but has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ.” (2Tim. 1:9-10). As we explore this passage, we see that before time began God’s purpose was in place. A part of that purpose was that grace would be given to all who chose to enter in Christ Jesus. Remember, this is what God planned before time. All these plans were revealed after Jesus appeared. Thus as God considered “the end from the beginning,” (Isa. 46:9-10), He summed up what He had done: “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world,” “having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself,” “having been foreordained according to the purpose of Him.” “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son.” (Eph. 1:3-11; Rom 8:28-30).
Thus, it was when God lived in eternity and before the foundation of the world that He “chose,” “foreknew,” “predestined,” and “foreordained.” These four terms form the foundation of our understanding. Yet we must be very cautious because our understanding is extremely narrow and limited. We can understand His choosing, since we share that ability with Him. But even after God told us how He predestined, foreknew, and foreordained, we still have no point of reference or method of comparison. We can only fall back on God’s own warning: “as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts,” (Isa. 55:9), and keep clearly in our minds “the secret things belong to God.”
What further complicates this is the freewill God gave us. Finding the balance between God’s sovereign will and the free will He gave to those “created in His image and likeness,” is the key to our understanding. When Job proclaimed: “I know that You can do all things, And that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted,” (Job 42:2), He was speaking the truth. No purpose of God’s can be thwarted! Yet God has allowed each man or women created in His image to choose whether to submit to His will or rebel against it. There is no indication anywhere in the Scripture that God ever forced any man or woman to do His will by breaking their will.
God could crush our will and force us to do His, but He has refused to do so. All of God’s plans including His ability to choose, predestine, foreknow and foreordain all operate in the midst of our freewill. Even though God “desires all men be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth,” and with His absolute and sovereign power, He could have forced this outcome, He did not do it. Thus while God was making choices and purposes, foreordaining and predestining, He knew that man’s free will was going to oppose His will and He was going to allow them to do so.
In spite of God’s will that all men be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, Jesus said:, “wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many go in by it.” and “narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.” (1Tim. 2:4; Mt. 7:13-14). This was not God’s will. So the only logical and scriptural conclusion we can draw is that God would work out His purpose and make His choices while allowing man to choose his own eternal destiny. All of God’s omnipotence and omniscience were held in check so that man could freely choose.
Thus the only hindrance to God’s will being done on earth as in heaven is our freewill. While God was “not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance,” (2Pet. 3:9), it did not happen because of man’s stubborn and rebellious will. From the fall until the flood, from the call of Abraham to the exodus and from the birth of Jesus until His crucifixion, the majority chose to be wicked, rebel against God’s will and refuse to repent. Thus it is again made clear that God desires men and women to serve and love Him based on their own freewill. Any force or compulsion would destroy the plans God made in eternity. While God wanted all men to be saved, He placed the right of all men to be free to choose even higher. All that we know about choosing, foreknowing, foreordination, and predestination must fit into this truth.
As God foresaw, the majority of men would choose rebellion. He did not force this, nor did He desire it. He simply knew this is how it would be. God would be working out His purposes and plans in the midst of man’s near universal rebellion. At this point, some might be thinking, why did God proceed with His plans when He saw how meager the returns would be. We can only fall back on what God has said, “from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ; to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Eph. 3:9-12). This eternal purpose included not just those on this earth, but also “the principalities and powers in the heavenly places.” Even those in heaven were taken into consideration in this eternal purpose (1 Pet. 1:12).
In the midst of all this rebellion and ungodliness God also foresaw there would be humble, penitent believers. God knew some would use their free will to regret and agonize over their sins, would desire to repent and confess them, and trust in God with all their heart. His mercy and compassion led Him to devise the means to forgive and pay for the sins of all whose emotions of regret, remorse and godly sorrow were strong enough to lead them to repentance.
All of this is confirmed in the New Testament. When God saw that “the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.” God carefully planned the gospel to weed out and exclude all the rebellious who were too proud and wise to fully submit to Him. As a result, it was clearly evident that in the church, “not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called.” But once again, God did not do this by force. His choices in eternity foreordained and predestined that the gospel would repel the wicked and draw the poor in spirit and mourning ones, all based on their own free will choices.
Conclusion. In eternity before the beginning, God “chose the foolish, the weak and the base things of the world along with things that are despised and are not,” and in this way “chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.” It was in this way that God foresaw, foreordained and predestined that exactly what He desired would become reality: “The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1Cor 1:18-30). Thus man’s free will was respected and God’s sovereign will has come to pass.