Friday, July 12, 2013

Scriptural Support for Absolute Predestination

Predestination is described as God's purpose (Rm 8:28), prepared beforehand (Rm 9:23), foreordaination (Acts 2:23), God's foreknowing them (Rm 8:29), ordained of God (Acts 13:48), appointed to eternal life (Acts 22:10), determined (Lk 22:22), foreseeing justification because of God's sovereign choice (Gal 3:8; Rm 9:11) and before time began (2 Tm 1:9).

Predestination is determined by God's counsel (Acts 2:23), foreknowledge through predestination (Acts 2:23), good pleasure (Lk 12:32; 1 Cor 1:21), the plan of God and His good pleasure (Eph 1:5, 9, 11), the purpose of God (Eph 3:11) and the power of God (Is. 40:10-17; Rm 9:15-24).

Predestination is God's salvational choice (Is. 43:10) to cause "believing ones" (Jn 3:16) by His all-availing and all-prevailing choice alone not man's choice (Jn 1:13), because He chose them  without foreseeing their faith but upon His awesome mercy (Rm 9:11).  He elected us (Eph 1:4) to salvation (2 Thes 2:13-14) in justification by faith alone (Rm 8:30; Rm 4) to sanctification (2 Thes 2:12, 13), glorification as a knowing "child of God" and future perfection in glory (Rm 8:30).  Predestination is God's choice for our eternal and everlasting destiny before time began or the creation of the world (Mt 25:34).  He also foreordains all things down to the lest to the greatest detail (Eph 1:11).  That is, He holds all of mankind's wills in His Hand and He does what He pleases in heaven and earth (Ps 135:6).

It means spiritual salvation is completely free in God's mercy through His divine Son in His all-atoning sacrifice for the sin of God's people in their behalf.  We do not need to add to His mercy man's free will nor any kind of works of satisfaction.  Those who add things to God's free mercy do not properly understand the divine Scriptures nor the power of God in Christ Jesus.

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