Predestined in Christ

Ephesians 1:3-14

Ignorance on Fire

Brielle and Cash out to visit. At first they are all just so glad to see each other, everything is magical, they are playing together, if they fight it is my kids competing for their attention. But the days go on.

Five strong-willed, strong-minded kids, arguing with all authority in the world and all about the dumbest things.

Which Pokemon is the best Pokemon? You are all wrong, because they are all lame.

Who gets to sit in the front seat… when there are three adults. Not you! Not even a little bit you.

Whose Dad would win in a fight. The answer is so clear, why even bring it up?

And sometimes it escalates and I have to do the Dad move “Shutup! Why are you fighting about this? Do I have to turn this car around? What you are arguing about can’t possibly be worth the way you are treating each other!”

I imagine them arguing about me. Just my kids, they can sustain an argument all on their own. And arguing and picking at each other about which one is Dad’s favorite. “Mine, because I am the oldest!” “Mine, because I am the only girl!” “Mine, because I’m the youngest and still cute!”

“Shutup! You are all wrong. I love you in alphabetical order by the second vowel of your first name! I love you, I love you, I love you. Move on!”

Theological Bickering

We are children bickering in God’s backseat.

We approach a Divine Mystery, but if you have been a part of the church or thinking about God for any length of time, it is likely a Mystery about which you have an opinion.

If God wills everything, do I have free will?

If God knows everything, can anyone choose anything?

If only the elect are saved, am I elect?

We are children arguing in the backseat and our Heavenly Father is listening. He has given us clues, He is revealing Himself to us. We can debate, in love, the details of how and when we are saved, ponder free will and the determinism of an omniscient God…

And I am being careful because I know we have different ideas. And the ridiculous thing is churches have split over this, denominations have formed and split, nations have fought with this at least as the pretext.

But let us have those conversations a little lightly, realizing that we are comparing Pokemon. For our heavenly Father can turn around in the car and say:

It doesn’t matter what date you were saved. You are saved. You are loved. You are chosen. You have a destiny… and it’s awesome.

Predestined and Chosen

Ephesians 1:3-14

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, 8 which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight 9 making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

11 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, 12 so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. 13 In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

This song is about God and covers the whole Trinity. Blessed be God.

This song is epic in Scope, casting our present moment in the Great Purpose of Him who is working all things, all of the past towards this moment, and this moment and all future moments, towards a glorious future in Christ.

Now we come to three phrases that spill the most ink.

Chosen before the foundation of the world

“from the beginning” or even before the beginning. So we have this picture. Before time, or at the very beginning of time, perhaps, God made a choice. And it is from this word for “choice” that we get our word “election.” This is, of course, a major Old Testament theme, God choosing out Abram, electing him and choosing Him to be a father of nations.

And the choosing has a means, a method, we are chosen “in Christ.”

And the choosing has a purpose: we are chosen that “we should be holy and blameless before Him.”

Predestined for adoption

If that wasn’t enough, we are predestined in love. To be “predestined” means to have a destiny, or a specific future, but one decided and known ahead of time. One might say in retrospect, “he was destined to become a professional baseball player.” But parents who see their kid tossing a baseball at 4 years old and say “he’s going to be a professional baseball player someday.” They are predestining their child; except they are almost always wrong.

God is perfectly right, and he predestines us.

And the predestining has a means, we are predestined through Jesus Christ.

And the predestining has a specific direction, adopted as children of God.

Predestined according to His purpose

Predestining is mentioned again. In Him (Christ) we have also obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose.

Again, we see that predestining has a menas, we are predestined in Christ. And again it is to His purpose.

God is Sovereign

Pulling all three of those together, we get a great picture of God’s sovereignty. God rules. What God decides is what happens. This is where our imagination starts spinning and filling in all the details of what God’s sovereignty means.

If God is all knowing, did he know what I am going to have for lunch? And if He knew that when I was created, I am more like a pre-programmed genetic robot, carrying out a complex but wholly known program? And my subjective experience of free-will, of choosing what to have for lunch, is only an illusion that is part of the program?

And then this is the point at which you enter existential crisis!

Free Will

However, we have this persistent experience of choice, of reacting and responding to things.

We call this Human Agency.

And throughout Scripture, God gives us choices and holds us responsible for our decisions… to all appearances as if we actually got to choose something.

So before our imaginations and assumptions of what “God’s sovereignty” means, we must make sure we mark out the boundaries of what God says.

These passages are bracketed by two present implications of free agency. First, in the address, Paul writes to:

Ephesians 1:1b

To the saints who are at Ephesus and who are faithful in Christ Jesus

Simply the implication that one can or cannot be faithful implies a responsibility of agency. Faithfulness implies a responsibility that one carries out, either faithfully or not. But more explicitly, we have at the end of our passage:

Ephesians 1:13

In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise,

We have a sequence. Now it isn’t necessarily causal, but it is sequential in time, one thing following another.

You listened to the gospel of salvation… just as you maybe remember hearing the gospel for the first time.

You believed. You responded to that message, there was an internal decision, an internal movement, and certainly God was moving in you but you experienced it as your decision… you believed. And you were then sealed in Jesus with the Holy Spirit.

The tension

God chose you…

… and you listened and believed and were sealed with the Holy Spirit.

How can both these things be true? For some hear the same message… and they don’t believe. They don’t change. Were they less loved by God? Was God’s grace not extended to them?

God’s Self-Revelation vs. Systematic Theology

Systematic Theology is man’s attempt to systematize (make a coherent picture that fits together) their theology (knowledge and experience of God). I am going to make reference to a few “systematic” answers to this tension, ways that people have tried to understand “God’s Sovereignty” in relation to “Human Agency.”

Options

Calvinism (double predestination)

God’s grace is irresistible. Certain individuals are chosen to be saved “before the foundation of the world.” Because of sin, human beings were unable to freely choose God, so “free will” only exists after salvation: we are free to faithful in righteous.

The emphasis is heavily on “God’s Sovereignty.”

Arminianism (free will)

Arminianism is the push-back position on Calvinism. It particularly takes issue with the idea in some flavors of Calvinism that if God chose his elect before the foundation of the world, that while Jesus’ death was sufficient for all, it was only effective for some, the elect.

Instead, they say that God used His foreknowledge to see what each human being would choose without predetermining their choice, preserving the human agency that we think that we have.

God chose those whom He knew would, of their own free will, choose Christ. The emphasis is on “free will.”

The Continuum

People mix and match these two, finding themselves between the two poles, perhaps verse by verse shifting in emphasis.

One critique:

Both of these are consumed with the individual… because the individual is you.

Corporate Election (Christocentric)

I’ll set out another option, not because a third option is always right, but because this one is less likely to be on the continuum you have already considered.

The idea in Corporate Election continues the model of election in the Old Testament, focused on the Nation of Israel. That is, God is less about individual salvation, more about “His people” almost as a category. Of course He interacts with individuals, and works through individuals, but it is always for the salvation of His people.

In Ephesians 1, Paul says “we” and Paul says “y’all” and the category is “we who are faithful in Christ.” In Christ shows up a billion times in the text, especially each time it says we are chosen or predestined. We are chosen in Christ. We are predestined in Christ.

Corporate election says this:

No one is destined to become a “Christian” but as Christians we have a glorious future destiny.

Or rather, it is all about Christ and it is only about us if we are in Christ.

The Sign-Up Sheet

Let’s use a metaphor Scripture uses to picture these three options.

At the beginning of Creation, before Creation, God made a giant scroll. At the top of that scroll he wrote “The Book of Life... in Christ”

A version of Calvinism might say that He then continued to write down individual names, predetermining at that moment whether His grace would save them or not. The Universe plays out according to the Script.

A version of Arminianism might say that He effectively bounced back and forth in time, seeing each person’s future decision and writing their name down if they listened and believed in Christ. The Book of Life is like a History book that just happened to be written ahead of time.

Corporate Election says that He left just the heading: The Book of Life in Christ. He went on to write “holy and blameless before Christ.” And he described the destiny and the inheritance that those in Christ would get.

And then He went out choosing people and being chosen in return. Offering His grace and having grace received or rejected. And those who listened and believed, were sealed with the Holy Spirit, he signed their name on the Book of Life.

Map of Understanding

It is like sailors drawing maps. The world is as it is, we are discovering it. We ponder what we see, we write about it, we try to communicate it to others. And people may find our map useful.

For example, European maps of the West Coast used to have California as an island. Someone tried to sail up the “Mediterraniean Sea of Califonia”… and they couldn’t, because there isn’t one. Now they shouldn’t argue from the map that the world has to be the way they expected it to be. They changed the map. But did the people back home believe the updated map?

California was depicted on maps as an island for over 100 years until Ferdinand VII of Spain issued a royal edict declaring California as part of the mainland.

We change our system of theology as God is revealing Himself to us. It will always be consistent with what He says about Himself. It will rarely be consistent with our ideas. Our interpretation will be askew, our filling in the details will be flawed.

Now, I really like this metaphor, because maps are inherently troublesome.

Our world is a sphere, maps are flat. So we have to translate 3-dimensional reality down to a 2 dimensional projection. And there are different projections, each of which skews the map in different ways.

One expands the edges, the poles, to look huge. One is all split up and is hard to connect and use in daily life. They are all wrong, even without considering that they have other inaccuracies, and they certainly aren’t real-time.

We are taking an infinite God beyond space-time, He created space-time, and trying to map out the details and timing and determinism within our tiny slice of space-time. We are always, inherently, going to come out with some distorition.

Jesus Loves You

So we have our maps of who God is… but we must constantly be looking up from our map, up from our ideas about who God is and how he works… and see who He is and how He is working.

Our contemplation of God’s mystery must always lead us back to the Subject. Back to the Point. Back to the One.

Blessed be God.

If your map of God, your understanding of how He works, has led you to a place where you are afraid, where you are lonely, where you feel God can’t reach you, where you feel God cannot love you. And perhaps you give it a word. You are “unelect.”

You have confused yourself with a map. Look up and hear this.

“Jesus loves you, this I know. For the Bible tells me so.”

If your map of God has led you to a place where you think it is all about you. Your will and your power making your destiny happen. You are confused! You got turned around! It isn’t about you.

Blessed be God the Father, whose purpose is working now to sum all things in Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. It isn’t about you.

Look up and see God.

If your map of God has led you to a place where you are comfortable with just you and God. Where you kind of write off your neighbor because “God has either chosen or elected them… or not… and nothing I do or say matters…” You are lost in the distortion of the map. Your model of how God works has distorted how He says it works! And how He loves your neighbor, and wants to work through you to show your neighbor His love and grace.

For God so loved the world, that whosoever believes in Him will not die but has everlasting life!

All maps of God must agree on this:

You are chosen, elected… in Christ. You have a destiny, predestined… in Christ.

I am “the chosen One” only as and when and if I am “in” the chosen One. I have a destiny, as a part of our destiny, as a part of His destiny.

So, you are loved. You are saved in Christ (and only in Christ). By no other name can we be saved.

We Discuss in Love

We pursue God’s revealing mystery together. I think God is amused by our ideas. And one day, the car reaches its destination. God turns around and reveals more and more of Himself.

He gives us new bodies, new brains, maybe ones that can think in more dimensions, that can perceive more of Him, that can fully know His presence. But He is infinite, which means we can infinitely pursue His mysteries, perhaps infinitely grow in our understanding of Him, forever seeking and searching after more of Him, even as we fully live in His presence!

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.