Romans - Part 4: SPIRITSample

Predestination

Have you ever heard or said the phrase “Everything happens for a reason” or “It was meant to be?” Believers and unbelievers alike use these phrases. Why? Because when we observe the world around us, it appears there is some sort of plan in place.

As Bible-believing Christians, when we are reading scripture, we will come across the word “predestined.” The question is not IF God predestines. The Bible is clear He does. The question is HOW He predestined. There are brothers and sisters in Christ with different views on this doctrine. Some say that because God knows the future and sees how people will behave in particular circumstances he has predestined His plan. Others believe that God predestined or foreordained all events, regardless of our choices, by the counsel of His divine wisdom within the Godhead. A powerful passage in Acts 4 in regard to Jesus’s own death on the cross reads,

“For truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.”

The most horrific event in history was foreordained. Now, friends, this does not mean that God causes individuals to sin in order to accomplish His plan, but according to the passage, God uses the choices and actions of sinful people to accomplish it.

The story of Joseph with his brothers, in the book of Genesis, is beautifully summarized when Joseph tells his brothers, “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.”

Now, in Romans 8, this predestining relates to us. “For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers.”

God predestined us to be like Jesus by His Spirit. We are not only saved by God but we are ultimately transformed by Him to be like our Savior. It was meant to be, and everything does happen for a reason. God‘s reason.

-Eddie Hoekstra