Acts 13:48 “Now when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord. And as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.”
Although God knows everything He does not reveal all of His knowledge to men. And so while it is true that based on God’s foreknowledge of men He decides who is appointed to salvation and who is not, He does not reveal that knowledge to us. In the passage of scripture quoted above the Holy Spirit speaks of those whom God had appointed to eternal life. While the apostle Peter in his writings speaks of those whom God has appointed to disobedience. In other words these individuals have been appointed by God to destruction (1 Peter 2:7-8). And so we can clearly see from these passages of scripture and others in the previous section, that God decides who is appointed to salvation and who isn’t.
Mark 16:15-16 “And He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. (16) He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.”
Nevertheless, even though God knows exactly who will and will not be saved, in His wisdom, He does not reveal that knowledge to us. And so God instructs us to preach the gospel to all men, thus giving all men the opportunity to repent and believe in the gospel. We do that in obedience to Him and God then adds to His church those whom He has appointed unto salvation. The reason that I have mentioned this in this section is because there are those who take the doctrine of predestination to the extreme. They do so by stating that it is not necessary to give people opportunities to respond to the gospel message, because if God has predestined them for salvation then He will get them saved and we don’t have to do anything about it. As revealed in the passage of scripture quoted above however, that is completely contrary to the instruction that our Lord Jesus has given to His church, for we are to go into the entire world and preach the gospel to every creature. One of the reasons we do that is because we do not know who will and will not respond to the message of salvation, only God does.
Michael E.B. Maher
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