What Is Predestination?
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A big Christian word Paul shares in his letter to the Romans that has never set well with me is Predestination. So, what is predestination? I have heard this word tossed around in sermons, but have always struggled with what I understood it to mean. I would like to share with you something I recently discovered.
Waiting For Answers
Sitting on the side of the old white porcelain bathtub, the seconds crept by as I waited to see if the tiny blue line would appear. As the line faintly emerged, my heart lept with joy. I could hardly contain myself. I ran out of the bathroom, through the bedroom, down the hall, through the kitchen and out the back screen door, where I saw my husband taking the garbage down the alley. Running towards him, I screamed, “I’m pregnant!”
Unparalleled to most events in my life, my excitement carried on as I began buying every book I could find about pregnancy. I read every book, watched the T.V. shows, painted the nursery, bought baby gear, and imagined our lives with this new precious bundle of joy.
Hope For Her Future
Not knowing if I was having a boy or girl, I imagined what I was having. I imagined what he or she would look like. Images of who they would become drifted by frequently. Then the contractions began.
Twelve hours later, I sat in the hospital bed holding my tiny baby girl for the first time. I could not grasp how God intricately put her together in the way he did. I again thought of all my hopes and dreams I had for her. As the days went by, I would wonder would she love Jesus as much as I do. Would I do a good enough job to share Jesus with her?
Every mother has hopes and dreams for their child. Some mommas take this a little too far and become ‘helicopter moms’ and drive their children in the direction they have planned. Some dads take their kids out to play sports in hopes of their child becoming the next best professional athlete. All parents have hopes and dreams for their kids, but unless the child wants that too, they will go their own way. Our dreams for them are only as good as the desire the child has to put into them.
Predestination Explained
This is how I recently heard predestination explained. That God, from the moment He created you, knit you together in your mother’s womb, has had a hope for your life. A hope that you will accept His Son as your Lord and Savior and spend eternity with Him. However, free will steps in and it’s our choice if we accept this perfect gift or not.
Paul shares in the 8th chapter of Romans about the concept of predestination.
“For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.”
Romans 9:29-30 NIV
Growing up as a Presbyterian, I believed predestination meant God decided who would go to Heaven and who would go to Hell. It felt as if we were in a factory line being created, God would say this one will be with me, or nope not this one.
I struggled with this idea for many years. I could not grasp how a God that would go to such extremes to save humanity and bring us into a right relationship with Him, through His Son, would then choose that some could not come. If all are equal, how can this thought fit?
Then I heard this teaching by Dr. Bill Creasy who explained predestination to be like the destiny we choose for our children, but it’s up to them if they decide to take it. I felt such peace about this way of explaining predestination that I had to share it with all of you.
Scales On Our Eyes
But then I read a scripture in Romans prior to the one above and it says, “The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God” (Romans 8:7-8 NIV). Then I think to Paul’s conversion experience where the Bible says, “Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptized” (Acts 9:18 NIV).
This makes me wonder if all non believers have scales or blinders on their eyes. Who put them there? Did God place the blinders or the enemy? Do we create our own blinders? Do we all begin with blinders and then they fall away through life? My mind can get carried away with these thoughts.
Free Will Or Election
The first thought I mentioned from Dr. Bill Creasy lends more to the theological idea of free will. But many church fathers would argue and say that God chose who would spend eternity with Him and that is election/predestination. There have even been pastors who have refused alter calls just in case the wrong person got saved.
There are many thoughts on this idea, and they range in a large spectrum. I, along with many others, have still not come to a conclusion. This is one of those topics we may just have to be ok with not knowing this side of eternity. I would love to know where you land. Have you heard of other ideas? Please share with me in the comments and/or take the poll and share your thoughts with me.
Before I conclude, I do want to leave you with a quote from Spurgeon that I got from jesusplusnothing.org.
“Charles Spurgeon said that free will and election are like two parallel lines that don’t ever seem to touch. But he said that if you follow them far enough, all the way up to Heaven, then they do meet each other. When asked how he reconciles free will and election, Spurgeon replied ‘You don’t have to reconcile friends!” In other words, we look at the issue down here and think there is no way that both can be true but the great Bible teachers knew that both were true and they held both. And in eternity we shall see that the two thoughts were not against each other but were friends!”
I love Creasy’s explanation.
Jesus told us He is the way to salvation and called us to come to Him. We have that choice. Thank you for this interesting and thought provoking message.