Romans 8:29 (NET): “because those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.”
The doctrine of predestination is probably one of the most misunderstood. Some people think it means there are individuals who cannot be saved because they were not predestined to be so. But that is not true. God wants all people to be saved (1 Timothy 2:4, 2 Peter 3:9). Jesus did not die for the sins of only the predestined, but for the sins of the whole world.
Others say predestination means nothing, believing we are all products of our choices and are ultimately the masters of our destinies. This is also not entirely true.
Our limited minds may not be able to fully comprehend the dynamics of predestination right now, just like the concept of eternal life may be difficult to wrap our minds around. God’s realm of eternity is quite different from time. When things happen in time, it is because they have already happened in eternity, but if they fail to happen in time, they cease to exist in eternity. That’s why people’s names can be erased from the Book of Life (see Revelation 3:5, 22:19, Exodus 32:32-33), even though names were written there from the foundation of the world (see Revelation 13:8).
So important is this realm of time that God invested Himself in His fullness into it. In Christ Jesus (the resurrected Christ) dwells the fullness of the Godhead bodily (see Colossians 2:9). Things that exist in everlasting dimensions in eternity can be scaled into time. The three distinct persons of the Godhead came together and said, “Let us make man in our image.” One man in the image of three persons. That should give a picture of the relationship between eternity and time. Yet the things on the earth are only sketches and patterns of the things in the spirit realm (see Hebrews 9:23). Here lies the shadow, there the reality.
This should make us sober because decisions that may look trivial here in time have eternal ramifications of unimaginable magnitude. When Adam sinned by “simply” eating the forbidden fruit, he probably did not know how much damage this caused in the realms. It took God becoming a man to remedy the damage. The things in the heavens were also defiled and needed to be cleansed because of sin committed on the earth (see Hebrews 9:23).
If a person believes in Christ, it may look like a momentary decision, but it has eternal ramifications.
This space is not even sufficient for us to establish a brief foundation for the doctrine of predestination. But if there’s anything you should take from today’s study concerning predestination, it is that God does not do anything He never planned to do. He is never taken unawares by happenings. He is in control of everything. You can rest in this knowledge.
Go into today with this prayer: Lord God, thank you for the awesome privilege of being created in your image. Please help me walk worthy of my calling and please you in all things. Amen.
—Abraham Damilola Arigi
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Bible In 1 Year: Jeremiah 47-52 (in today’s audio)
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