Church Series-Predestination and Conformity to the Image of Christ
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Wednesday October 5, 2016
The Church Series: Predestination and Conformity to the Image of Christ
Lesson # 2
The apostle Paul in Romans 8:29 teaches the Christians in Rome that they were foreknown by the Father and were predestined by Him to be conformed to the image of His Son so that His Son would be the firstborn among many brethren.
Romans 8:29 For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren. (NASB95)
“He foreknew” is the third person singular aorist active indicative form of the verb proginosko, which is a compound word composed of the preposition pro, “before” and the verb ginosko, “to know,” thus the word literally means, “to know beforehand” or “to know in advance.”
In Romans 8:29, the verb is used with reference to the Father’s “foreknowledge” of the church, which is composed of both Jews and Gentiles.
God’s foreknowledge is related to His attribute of omniscience and the divine decree which is His eternal, holy, wise and sovereign purpose, comprehending at once all things that ever were or will be in their causes, courses, conditions, successions, and relations and determining their certain futurition (i.e., that they will certainly take place).
When I say comprehending I mean that the omniscience of God is the source of the divine decrees.
When I say determining I mean that the sovereignty of God chose before anything has existed which things would actually become historical events.
The decree of God is His eternal and immutable will, regarding the future existence of events, which will happen in time and regarding the precise order and manner of their occurrence and is the chosen and adopted plan of all God’s works.
The decree of God is His eternal purpose according to the counsels of His own will, whereby for His own glory He has foreordained whatever comes to pass.
It is the sovereign choice of the divine will (His attribute of sovereignty) and mentality (His omniscience) by which all things are brought into being and controlled, made subject to His pleasure, and producing His glorification (Isaiah 46:10; Ephesians 1:9).
The will of God in common usage refers to what God desires of an individual or group in a particular situation.
In relation to the divine decree the will of God refers to the decision God made in eternity past, from His attribute of sovereignty, which established that certain things would actually come into being while other things would not.
The will of God is His sovereign choice as to what will take place in time and refers here to His sovereign decision as to what would come into existence; in other words, the divine decrees.
This will and purpose of God originated within Himself long before any creature of any kind existed.
His will is always consistent with His perfect essence.
The will and purpose of God-that is, the divine decree-was objectively designed for His own glory, pleasure, and satisfaction.
God’s decree rendered all things as certain to occur and He decided that they would exist.
The divine decree took place in eternity past before anything was ever created and is God’s eternal and immutable will.
The “providence” of God is the divine outworking of the divine decree, the object being the final manifestation of God’s glory and expresses the fact that the world and our lives are not ruled by chance or fate but by God.
In the divine decree, the sovereignty of God and the free will of man co-exist in human history.
No one can stop God’s plans from being accomplished since His divine decree or eternal plan has taken into consideration both positive and negative decisions by His creatures and decreed that His sovereign will, will co-exist with the volition of men and angels.
God in eternity past decreed that angels and human beings would have volition and would be allowed to make decisions contrary to His sovereign will and without compromising His justice.
In giving angels and men volition, God decreed that their decisions, whatever they might be, would certainly take place-even those that are contrary to His desires.
Being omniscient, God had the good sense to know ahead of time what men and angels would decide.
He not only decreed that those decisions would exist but He also decreed the exact manner, consistent with His integrity, in which He would handle their decisions.
Foreknowledge acknowledges only what is in the decree of God and so chronologically speaking, foreknowledge follows the divine decree since nothing can be foreknown until it is first decreed.
There is a distinction between God’s foreknowledge and His omniscience.
With His omniscience, God knows perfectly and eternally all that is knowable whether it is the actual or the possible or in other words the reality and the alternatives to that reality.
However, God’s foreknowledge only deals with reality.
Foreknowledge acknowledges what is in the divine decree and merely acknowledges what is certain to take place in time.
Foreknowledge refers only to those things, which God did decree or adopt as the plan of God-those things related to the believer only.
Only the decree establishes certainty or reality; only reality can be foreknown; nothing can be foreknown until first decreed.
God’s decree never originated from His foreknowledge.
Although all three exist simultaneously in the mind of God, omniscience, the decree, and foreknowledge must be separated into a logical sequence for us to understand them.
First we have God’s omniscience, then the decree, which is based on His omniscience and then lastly, we have God’s foreknowledge, which is based on the decree.
Election is declared through God’s foreknowledge and is God’s complete agreement with His own foreknowledge.
God elected the believer before the foundation of the world since He knew beforehand that the believer would accept Jesus Christ as Savior in time and therefore elected the believer to privilege.
In Romans 8:29, the verb proginosko is used of the Father “knowing beforehand” or “knowing in advance” that the Christian would accept by faith Jesus Christ as Savior.
Therefore, it is the Christian’s faith in Christ as Savior that is the object of the Father’s foreknowledge and emphasizes that the salvation of sinners is based upon God’s initiative.
The Scriptures teach that the sinner does determine their own destiny in the sense that they must respond to God’s initiation and invitation through the presentation of the gospel to enter into a relationship with Him by making the non-meritorious decision to accept by faith Jesus Christ as Savior (John 3).
The Scriptures teach that God seeks out the sinner in order to save the sinner.
The sinner, who is spiritually dead, does not have the capacity or the desire to seek God out.
The fact that God has to seek out the sinner in order to present them the gospel so that the sinner can make a decision to accept by faith Christ as Savior or reject Him indicates that the salvation of sinners is based upon God’s initiative and sovereign choice.
Therefore, God is sovereign in predestinating the Christian and electing the Christian since the salvation of sinners is based upon God’s initiative and not the sinner’s faith in Christ since the sinner has no capacity or desire whatsoever to seek out or establish a relationship with God.
If God did not take the initiative and seek out the sinner, the sinner would have no opportunity whatsoever to make a decision to accept or reject Christ as Savior.
Therefore, the verb proginosko in Romans 8:29 emphasizes that God took the initiative in the Christian’s salvation and means, “to know beforehand” or “to know in advance.”
So we can see that since Paul teaches that God the Father first foreknew the Christian and then predestinated the Christian to be conformed to the image of His Son Jesus Christ that the predestination of the Christian is based upon God’s foreknowledge.
“He predestined” is the third person singular aorist active indicative form of the verb proorizo, which like proginosko is a compound word and is composed of the preposition pro, “before” and the verb horizo, “to set a boundary,” thus the word literally means, “to set a boundary in advance.”
In Ephesians 1:5, the verb refers to the fact that God the Father before the foundation of the world “determined beforehand” or “predestined” the Christian to adoption as a son through Jesus Christ in order to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.
Now, in Romans 8:29-30, the verb proorizo is used again with reference to the predestination of church age believers.
However, in these verses the word is used of God the Father “determining beforehand” or “predestinating” the Christian in eternity past to be conformed into the image of Christ.
Therefore, Romans 8:29 teaches that predestination is sharing the destiny of Jesus Christ.
The Bible does not teach double-predestination or that the unbeliever is predestined to the eternal lake of fire since the Bible teaches that God desires all men to be saved (John 3:16-18; 1 Timothy 2:4; 2 Peter 3:9).