The Parishioner - Edition 24

P R E D E S T I N A T I O N
Christine Mace
Romans 8:29-30 RVS
For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be
conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be
the first-born among many brethren. And those whom He
predestined He also called, and those whom He called He also
justified; and those whom He justified He also glorified.
For those whom He foreknew.
God is all seeing and all knowing; beyond all the boundaries of time and space.
He abides everywhere and pervades everything and is in the ever present now.
How can God abide in everything? Because He is everything. It is confirmed in
scripture. Why even the hairs of your head are all numbered. (Luke: 12-
7). In our human reckoning this is completely outside of all rational thinking.
There are approximately seven and a half billion human beings on this Earth
and all the hairs of their head are numbered and known to our Lord? One stares
into our nothingness at the mere mathematics of this fact. Scripture does not
lie, however, therefore we are left with the realisation that our Lord’s
mathematics surpasses any of our comprehension.
We are all foreknown to our Creator. When St. Paul says, for those whom
He foreknew, he does not mean a selective foreknowledge, a foreknowledge
of just the predestined, he means an absolute foreknowledge of every one of
the Lord’s children. When God creates a soul, the complete life of that soul
from conception to death and beyond is known. Again in our human reckoning
it is beyond our understanding but remember the hairs of your head are all
numbered! Keep this fact within your sights, it’s a sort of base to keep God in
proportion, so to speak!
...He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son.
To be in conformity with Christ is solely the work of the Holy Spirit. When
one has decided with our free will to strive to be Christ like, the Holy Spirit
grasps us and moulds us into the image of our Saviour. For man this is
impossible, but with God all things are possible (Matthew 19:26). As
long as we co-operate with the Spirit and do not rebel against Him He will be
like a baker moulding and shaping and cutting and crafting until He has, not a
perfect ginger bread man, but a perfect man in the image of his Creator. Holy
and perfect! You therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly
Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:48).
The Holy Spirit delights in this work and would wish to draw all souls into
His divine transforming hands. Sadly because of man’s slavery to sin many
are called but few are chosen (Matthew 22:14).
The Lord God does not predestine, we do that with our free will. The Lord
simply foresees everything, knows everything, and the few are cherished
because of their unbridled love.
For if any one comes to me and does not hate his own
father and mother and wife and children and brothers and
sisters, yes and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. (Luke
14: 26.) Does this seem in our reckoning quite harsh? Is it, or does it just
encompass the First Commandment? For to love creatures before the Creator
is not Thou shalt have no other Gods before Me. (Deuteronomy
5:7.) Christ’s commitment to saving us was total even to His atrocious death
on the Cross. Our commitment to Him must be total if we are to be considered
residents of Heaven. Love one another as I have loved you (John
13:34) but love God before anything or anybody, as Jesus loved and obeyed
our Father before anything else.
...in order that He might be the first-born among many brethren.
Christ is the first born from the dead, according to both the human and
divine orders.The first born according to human order because on Mary’s side
He is a son of Adam. He is the first to be born as all the children created by the
Father should have been born. Christ is the first born according to the divine
order because He is the Father’s Son, begotten, not created by Him. To
beget means to produce a life. To create means to form. Only a father and a
mother can beget a life. He is therefore the First Born because, born of God,
He is at the head of all those born (according to grace) of God.
Lastly He is the First Born from the dead because His Flesh was the
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first to enter Heaven (From ‘The End Times’ August 16th 1943).
And those whom He predestined He also called.
Oh, to be called! Only the repentant sinner can understand the
transformation of full conversion. To be given the greatest gift while on this
earth, the gift of intimacy with our Creator, our Abba. Intimacy to be able to
converse freely with the most loving of Fathers and know, to feel, to experience
that He hears every whisper and responds.
Theologians can scan the old texts. They can spend endless hours searching for
the knowledge of God. They can even think they have discovered Him along
with their published works on the ‘history’ of Him. All is futile. For in reality,
unless one is called by Grace to an intimate relationship with the living God,
we are in the dark.
The Lord can open hidden doors far beyond any understanding of man and if
we try to access by our own efforts alone, we only find winding ways leading
to illusion. The illusion will not be noticed of course. It is the intimacy, the love
that illuminates by Grace.
...and those whom He called He also justified.
I am the Good Shepherd, I know my own and my own know
me (John 10:14). Everything is by the Grace of the Lord and faith in its
fullness is the treasure of treasures.
Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom
of God like a child shall not enter it (Mark 10:15).
We can rationalise anything in life if we choose, and we do! It is the
modern way to question the validity of almost anything. The problem however
is this. Modernism leads to rationalism that leads to atheism. This is why the
world has apostatised. The definition of apostasy is the baptised deserting their
God, which we have by the millions! Faith is not a thing we can define. This is
because it is a Grace from our Lord and He can give it in its fullness if we will
only ask!
A child does not question when a parent teaches, he just believes, this is
childlike faith. This is what Jesus desires from us. Does the clay ask the potter
what are you making? No. We are just the clay you know!
Jesus has justified all who believe by the blood of His Passion.... and all
are justified freely by His Grace through the redemption that
came by Christ Jesus... (Romans 3:24). By diminishing our God by our
incredulity we deny His omnipotence, we attempt to reduce Him to a size that
our feebleness can cope with. What foolishness this is, especially for mere dust!
Our Saviour is the good shepherd who suffered an atrocious death to justify
us all. The very least we can do is to have faith that Scripture is all justified by
the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. Scripture does not lie and every
word must and will be fulfilled in the fullness of time.
...and those whom He justified He also glorified.
This final section, as in all the sections, can be taken in the present or past
context. I have always believed that scripture is the living Word of God, there
is no past, present or future to our Lord. The eye of God sees all moments as
now. Therefore future times are no mystery to Him.
The glorified departed abide with Him in our real home, Heaven. The
glorified also abide here at present on Earth. They are glorified in the fact that
they are called, predestined and conformed to the image of His son Jesus the
Christ. The glorified are glorified by their free will. They chose to follow their
Father, Master, Brother, Friend, and Beloved and by doing so they made and
make their own destiny.
Consider that miracles occurred from the mere brush of the garment of
Christ (Mark 5:28) when He was on Earth, and yet He could not save Judas of
Kerioth (The Iscariot). The Lord does not do violence to our free will. Oh! the
wisdom of our God, Oh! the respect of our Lord for His creatures!
Oh! that we could only begin to understand the greatness of the love of
our Father for us.)
(Christine is a member of the Maidstone Ordinariate Group)