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6 Ways Predestination Is an Outworking of God’s Love
God’s Spiritual Family
Predestination is that act in eternity past in which God ordained or decreed that those he had set his steadfast love on would inherit eternal life. So predestination refers to an action taken by God before the world existed. It points to his eternal, pre-temporal decree of what he would bring to pass in time, in history (see also John 10:14–16, 24–30; Acts 13:44–48; 2 Thess. 2:13).1
The ultimate purpose of predestination was the establishment of God’s spiritual family, his adopted sons and daughters in union with the Son of God, Jesus Christ. God foreknew us and predestined us to become like Jesus—spiritually, morally, and physically. This is what it means “to be conformed” to his “image” (Rom. 8:29).
Predestined in Love
Other than Romans 8–9, Paul’s comments on predestination in Ephesians 1 are generally regarded as among the more important explanations we have of this doctrine in the New Testament. Let’s look at six truths concerning election that Paul emphasizes. As we make our way through each point, don’t lose sight of how each step is simply the outworking or unfolding of God’s steadfast love for his people.
The Steadfast Love of the Lord
Sam Storms
The Steadfast Love of the Lord explores Scripture to find a clear picture of what God’s steadfast, unfailing love looks like and how, through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, believers experience his affection.
1. Election Is Pretemporal
First, election is pretemporal. As I briefly noted above, it was “before the foundation of the world” that God the Father chose us in Christ (see 2 Tim. 1:9–10; 2 Thess. 2:13; see also 1 Thess. 1:4). This shows that the divine decision concerning human destiny is wholly unaffected by human deeds. To say that God chose us before the existence of all created things is to say that he chose us without regard to any created thing. Election is not something that awaits some event in human history, either the work of Jesus on the cross or the faith of people. It antedates all human history. God’s choice is not dependent on human merit or temporal circumstances. God sovereignly elects us unto eternal life before we exist and without our consent. That isn’t to say that our voluntary consent isn’t important—we must still believe in Jesus. But our belief is itself the historical and experiential fruit or effect of God’s pre-temporal elective decree and steadfast love (see Eph. 2:8).
2. The Objects of Divine Election Are People
Second, the objects of divine election are people. Contrary to what some have suggested, the object of God’s elective choice in Ephesians 1:4 is not Christ but “us” (hēmas). In 2 Thessalonians 2:13, Paul declares that “God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation” (see also Acts 13:48). Paul uses the plural in Ephesians for two reasons. First, it would be impossible to use the singular. Second, what is a multitude if not a composite of the many individuals who comprise it? Remember that Paul is writing to every person in the church at Ephesus, each of whom is the object of this particular “spiritual blessing” that extends to the entire church. In other words, what is the corporate church if not a collection of individuals to each of whom the blessing comes? The plural here simply indicates that all believers in Ephesus are chosen by God. It is a blessing common to everyone. That includes us as well.
3. The Immediate Purpose of Election
The third truth Paul emphasizes in this passage is the immediate purpose or goal of election. God chose us so that we might be “holy and blameless” in his glorious presence. Some argue that Paul is using these terms to refer to the daily experience of each believer, what we call progressive sanctification (see Titus 2:14; 1 Thess. 4:7; 1 Pet. 1:1–2). No one doubts that the word “holy” is frequently used to describe the character of Christian living, but what about the word “blameless”? It is a word that sounds as if it means “sinless perfection,” but in Philippians 2:15, Paul urges believers “to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world” (see Rev. 14:5). Therefore, it is surely possible that in Ephesians 1:4 Paul is referring to the holiness and blamelessness of the Christian in the here and now of daily life.
If our personal holiness and blamelessness are the effect or end for which we were chosen, they cannot be the ground or cause of our election. It cannot be the case that God foreknew any degree of holiness or blamelessness in us and on that basis chose us in his Son because we were not holy before he decided to make us holy. It would be absurd for Paul to say, “God chose you to become holy and blameless because he foresaw that you are holy and blameless.”
Note also that in Ephesians 1:5, our election, predestination, and adoption are ascribed to the “good pleasure” of God’s “will.” But if God must elect people because he foresees their faith, what would be the point of saying that they are elect according to his “good pleasure”? On any other theological scheme of divine election, God’s “good pleasure” is irrelevant. What God “wills” or does “not will” and what “pleases” or “displeases” God would have nothing to do with election. If election is conditional on foreseen faith, it becomes a matter of obligation, duty, and requirement, not good pleasure and sovereign choice (see also Matt. 11:26 and Luke 10:21).
This also means that election pleases God. He likes it. God didn’t predestine us unwillingly, grudgingly, or reluctantly. He wanted to do it. He delighted to do it. God has an emotional life. There is immense and unfathomable complexity in his feelings: He delights in some things, and despises others. He loves and hates. He rejoices and judges. Choosing hell-deserving sinners to spend an eternity with him as his beloved children is uniquely joyful, pleasing, exciting, and satisfying to the heart of God! Should it not also then be a joyful, pleasing, exciting and satisfying truth to our hearts? Should we not, then, talk of it often, sing of it often, and often tell of it to others? God’s pleasures must become our pleasures. We must learn to rejoice in what he rejoices in.
4. The Relationship Between Election and Adoption
The fourth important point to be made concerns the relationship between election and being predestined to adoption. What is the connection, if any, of Ephesians 1:4 with Ephesians 1:5? I believe Paul is saying that God elected us by predestinating us to adoption. Therefore, election, at least in part, consists in being predestined to become a child of God.
This giving of God’s love has thus made us his children.
One of the more enlightening and encouraging biblical passages on adoption as an expression of God’s steadfast love is found in 1 John 3. The concluding verse of 1 John 2 speaks of men and women, like you and me, as having “been born of him” (1 John 2:29), that is, born again or regenerated by the love of the Father through the power of the Spirit. As we move into 1 John 3, we see that the apostle is overwhelmed at the idea that the infinitely righteous God would see fit to beget children who reflect, as a consequence, his character as righteous. As you read this passage, take note of the obvious surprise and joy in John’s words:
See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. (1 John 3:1–3)
John is flabbergasted at such love, and so should we be.
However, this love is not merely shown to us but is “given” to us. The love of God has actually been imparted to or infused in us. It is an aspect of the divine nature that takes up residence in the believer through regeneration. Christians exhibit the love of God not simply because they are imitating an external model but because such love is now an actual component of their inner nature.
This giving of God’s love has thus made us his children.
5. We Were Chosen “in Christ”
We return now to Ephesians 1 and the fifth, and perhaps most important, truth that Paul emphasizes—he says that we were chosen “in Christ.”
It must be admitted that the clause “in Christ” is ambiguous. By itself, it says neither that we are elect because we are in Christ nor that we are elect so that we shall be in Christ. Maybe Paul means that it is “in union with Christ” that we are chosen. I have no problem with that, but the question remains, how did we come to be “in union” with Christ: by free will or by free grace or by some other avenue? Did our union with Christ precede or follow our election? In other words, simply saying that God chose us “in union with Christ” does not tell us how or when that “union” came about or whether it has anything to do with the basis for our being chosen. In all likelihood, “in Christ” simply means “through Christ,” or, to say it negatively, “not apart from Christ.”
In summary, when God in sovereign, steadfast love elected a people from the fallen mass of humanity, he never intended to save them apart from his Son but only by what his Son, the Lord Jesus, would accomplish in his redemptive work. Jesus is therefore the means by which God’s electing purpose is put into effect as well as the goal of that election, inasmuch as it is God’s purpose through election to sum up all things in Christ (Eph. 1:10).
Paul says much the same thing in 2 Timothy 1:9. There we are told that God saved us and “called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity.” If we are given anything in grace it is by virtue of who Jesus is and what he has done and will do, not by virtue of who we are or what we have done or will do. Therefore, we are elect “in Christ,” not “in ourselves.” It is because of God’s love for his Son and his desire that his Son have a people through whom he might be glorified that God chose us. Therefore, we are chosen “in Christ” in the sense that this Son to whom the Father has given us is he through whom this election to life is made ours in experience. His sinless life, atoning death, and glorious resurrection were the means through which God’s electing purpose was put into effect.
6. God’s Motive Is Love
Finally, the sixth truth Paul emphasizes in Ephesians 1:4–5 is that God’s motive in this pre-temporal decision was love. Many have argued that “in love” should be taken with what precedes in verse 4, thus rendering the passage “holy and blameless before him in love.” If so, then “love” is one aspect of the purpose we are chosen for. But if “in love” is taken with what follows in verse 5, it refers to the divine motive for our election. I believe the latter is correct. According to Ephesians 2:4–5 it was “because of his great love with which he loved us” that we were saved. Those who argue for taking “in love” with what precedes insist that it refers to our loving other believers in this life. But if, as noted above, “holy and blameless” refer not to our present experience but final and perfected standing at the coming of Christ, “love” would more likely refer to God’s motive in predestining us. Finally, the emphasis throughout the paragraph is on God’s motive, intent, and initiative, not human response.
The ultimate goal of divine election, that is to say, the preeminent reason why God did not leave all humanity in the just reward of their sin, was so that the glory of his steadfast love and grace might be praised. Election was undertaken to establish a platform on which the glory of God’s saving grace might be seen and magnified and adored and praised. Thus we see again here a consistent theme in Scripture: all that God does, he ultimately does to glorify himself and to exalt the beauty of his steadfast love.
Notes:
- This paragraph was first published in Sam Storms, “Foreknowledge—Romans 8:29–30 & 1 Peter 1:1–2,” Monergism, https://www.monergism.com/.
This article is adapted from The Steadfast Love of the Lord: Experiencing the Life-Changing Power of God’s Unchanging Affection by Sam Storms.
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