God's Predestination of Believers

Then He said to them, "These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me." And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures. Then He said to them, "Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.

(Luke 24:44-47)

This brings us to the predestination of believers. The question is often asked: How does God predestine believers for salvation if men choose of their own free will to either accept or reject the message of the gospel? The answer is that God ensures all believers respond to the gospel message of their own free will. But how does God accomplish this? He applies the converse principle to their minds than He does to the minds of unbelievers. Rather than blinding their minds, God opens the understanding of believers so that they can see the truth of the gospel message and respond to it accordingly.

To establish this truth from Scripture—that God gives understanding to the minds of believers so that they may be saved—I present three witnesses that confirm this same truth: the Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and the apostle Paul.

The first witness, quoted above, is the Lord Jesus. The context of this passage is the first day of our Lord's resurrection from the dead. He had already appeared during the day to Mary, Peter, and the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. However, the rest of the disciples were sceptical about these testimonies, so when Jesus appeared to all of them together that evening, He rebuked them for their unbelief because they did not believe those who had seen Him after He had risen (Mark 16:14).

The point I want to highlight from this passage is that Jesus opened their understanding to the Scriptures regarding the message of the gospel—that it was necessary for Jesus to suffer, die, and be raised the third day so that mankind could repent and receive remission for their sins. Even though Jesus had shared this truth with them many times before when He was still alive on earth, they could not understand it, for at that time God had hidden it from them (Mark 9:31-32). It was at this point that all the disciples present were born again, because for the first time they understood the message of the gospel and thus believed.

We see that the method God uses to predestine the lives of believers is that He opens their understanding to the truth of the gospel so that they can believe it and thus be saved.

On the next Sabbath almost the whole city came together to hear the word of God. But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy; and contradicting and blaspheming, they opposed the things spoken by Paul. Then Paul and Barnabas grew bold and said, "It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken to you first; but since you reject it, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles. For so the Lord has commanded us: 'I have set you as a light to the gentiles, that you should be for salvation to the ends of the earth.' “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.

(Acts 13:44-48)

The second witness is the Holy Spirit, for it is He who inspired Luke to write the above passage of Scripture. We examined this passage earlier to show that men reject the gospel message as an act of their own free will. But this same passage also reveals the truth that men believe the gospel message because God opens their understanding to it.

In the last part of this passage, the Holy Spirit tells us that "as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed." In other words, only those whom God had appointed to eternal life were able to believe the message of the gospel that Paul and Barnabas preached. Why could these men believe the message while the others could not? The reason they could believe was that God opened their understanding to the gospel, whereas the others contradicted and blasphemed it because that same gospel message was hidden from their understanding.

Again we see that the method God uses to predestine the lives of believers is that He opens their understanding to the truth of the gospel so that they can believe it and thus be saved.

And on the Sabbath day we went out of the city to the riverside, where prayer was customarily made; and we sat down and spoke to the women who met there. Now a certain woman named Lydia heard us. She was a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira, who worshiped God. The Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul. And when she and her household were baptized, she begged us, saying, "If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay." So she persuaded us.

(Acts 16:13-15)

This second passage of Scripture is still the witness of the Holy Spirit, for as we have already stated, it is He who inspired Luke to write this passage. We looked at this passage earlier to show that God blinds the minds of unbelievers so that they cannot see the truth of the gospel message. But this same passage also reveals the truth that men believe the gospel message because God opens their understanding to it.

In this passage, we see the apostle Paul and his team preaching the gospel to a number of Jewish women. Even though all the women heard the same message preached at the same time, only one believed: Lydia. What was different about Lydia that she believed, but the others did not? The Holy Spirit tells us that the Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul. In other words, because Lydia was chosen for salvation, the Lord allowed her to understand the message of the gospel, while He did not allow the others to understand because they had not been chosen for salvation.

Again we very clearly see that the method God uses to predestine the lives of believers is that He opens their understanding to the truth of the gospel so that they can believe it and thus be saved.

For you have heard of my former conduct in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it. And I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in my own nation, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers. But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb and called me through His grace, to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; but I went to Arabia, and returned again to Damascus.

(Galatians 1:13-17)

The final witness is the apostle Paul. In the passage quoted above, Paul reveals how he came to believe the message of the gospel, telling us that God revealed it to him. In other words, before God opened Paul's understanding to the truth of the gospel, he couldn't see it.

Some would argue that it was impossible for Paul not to understand the gospel message, since the Lord Jesus Himself appeared to him on the road to Damascus. That is true, but to understand Paul's comment in the above passage, we need to understand Paul's journey up to that point. Paul had been exposed to the gospel message many times before the Lord Jesus appeared to him, beginning with the witness of the Lord's martyr Stephen—Paul was present on the day that Stephen preached the gospel before the Jewish council. Then Paul had been exposed to the same witness of the gospel message time and again whenever he arrested the Lord's saints, charged them, and condemned them.

Yet every time Paul heard the same witness, his heart remained hardened to the truth of the gospel until this day when God finally allowed him to see the truth of the gospel, which he had tried so hard to destroy.

Again we very clearly see that the method God uses to predestine the lives of believers is that He opens their understanding to the truth of the gospel so that they can believe it and thus be saved.

Michael E.B. Maher

Predestined to His Purpose

Buy Now

Donate

Payoneer