Jesus Saves! But How? PART 5: Predestination Q&A

Andrew Grey addresses various questions arising from the adult Sunday School series on Salvation.

This recording is from Sunday 22nd February 2026

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:01

You'll remember that we're thinking about uh the great salvation that we are given in the Lord Jesus, and we've begun to think about what is given to those who are joined in union with Christ. So all of the treasures of salvation belong to Jesus, they've been accomplished by him, and then in union with him, a kind of marriage-like relationship, he then gives those uh blessings to Christian people. And we've begun to think about the different dimensions of that salvation in Christ. And two weeks ago we thought about like the beginnings of it, uh, the predestination, the application of redemption. It began in the purposes of God in eternity past. You'll see a definition down on the handout, which we looked at two weeks ago. Before the foundation of the world, God chose to save a fixed number of individuals, and he chose them purely for his own glory, because of his loving mercy, and not because of their foreknown faith, good works, or perseverance. And in the Bible, we see well we see the doctrine of predestination everywhere, and in Ephesians 1 it's presented as a source of praise. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ, for, and then he starts to list these blessings, and here is the first. He chose us in him, in Christ, before the creation of the world, to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love, he predestined us to be adopted as his sons. So today we're gonna stick with this topic and just pick up some uh questions. I've had some questions about specific Bible verses. How do we understand this verse as it relates to this idea? But also uh bigger questions about the character of God, God's love, and God's power. So that's where we're gonna be going this morning. Uh so let me pray for us. Father in heaven, uh, we thank you for your presence with us now. We thank you for your word, which is light and truth. Uh, we pray for godliness and uh reverence, we pray for your gift of understanding, and we pray for a holy response to all that you have for us in your word. And we ask that for Jesus' name's sake. Amen. Amen. So on the handout here, um, I've got uh five questions which we're going to try and tackle. We'll stop a couple of times just to see if there were sort of follow-up questions. Um, but this is this is the rough sort of direction we're gonna be going in. In your Bibles, would you open up please Romans chapter eight? So that's page 944 in the Black Church Bibles, page 944. Let me read uh Romans chapter eight, verses twenty-nine and thirty. I shall read twenty-eight to thirty. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose. 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, and those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. Now those are wonderful verses. They're sometimes called the golden chain of salvation, and you can see why. It's the work of God ranging from eternity past to eternity future, and once in that unbreakable chain, well, you you are joined to Christ in it. The question though is this what about foreknowledge? When we read in verse 29, those whom he foreknew, what does that mean? Sometimes folk have said it means God's passive foresight as to what individuals are going to do. So it's as if God in eternity past has a sort of a special telescope and looks into the future and he sees what people are going to do. So he sees those people who will choose him, and so he chooses them. Is that what that means when it talks about God's foreknowledge in Romans 8, 29? Now, hopefully, we know from our kind of wider uh Bible understanding that it can't mean that, given the nature of sin. So do you remember what we've been saying about the sinfulness of sin? We are all dead in sin until we are made alive by the Spirit, such that no one will come to faith in God without a work of God in them. But also, it is worth knowing what that word for know usually means in the pages of scripture. There's a really helpful adage to remember when we come to Bible words. Bible words have got Bible meanings. So we don't assume that we know what a word in scripture means. We don't go to the Oxford English Dictionary to define it. We actually need to let the Bible give its own definitions. And there are various ways in which the Bible itself will help us understand words and concepts. And usually in the Bible, this word here for knowledge has in mind personal relationships. So, right back in the early pages of the Bible, Genesis 4 1, we read that Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain. So it's not talking about intellectual knowledge, it's talking about personal relationship. Similar, Genesis 18 19 of Abraham, I have chosen him. Literally, that's that's what we read in our English Bibles, literally in the Hebrew, it is I have known him. So in other words, God's foreknowledge is simply him determining a personal relationship in advance. He is choosing to set his love upon someone. You see something of that in Jeremiah 1.5. You talk about the prophet uh Jeremiah. Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. I mean it's an extraordinary thought, isn't it? So this is giving a different dimension to the predestining purposes of God. It's a predestination that is full of love. So, in other words, when in Romans 8.29 it's talking about foreknown, it's talking about God knowing people, not knowing their decisions. It is a different way of really saying predestine, but with added sort of personal connotations to it. So I hope that's um helpful for knowledge. Just over the page, let's keep going. Another Bible verse is helpful just to reflect on that someone asked me about. What about the world in John 3.16? So let's have a look at that, please. So uh page 888 in the uh Black Church Bibles, page 888. So John 3.16, maybe the most famous verse in the Bible. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life? So, question What does it mean when we read that God loves the world? I don't know what when you read that phrase, and I'm sure we've had that verse pouring through our minds and hearts, uh, what do we think it means? Does it mean, for example, that God loves every single person and loves them in exactly the same way? But if that is the case, then has not salvation been secured for every single person? How does this then fit with the idea that God chooses son? So that's that I guess is the question that lies behind that question. Again, it's worth just reflecting that Bible words have got Bible meanings, and we need to let the Bible tell us what the word world means. So the world, the word world or cosmos, it comes 78 times uh in John's Gospel. And when we read through uh John's Gospel, we find that the word world has to do with quality, not quantity. And it's got a couple of different dimensions, and hopefully it will become clear what I mean by that. World means an evil and God-rejecting place. Now we can actually see that in this passage here if we just read on. Look on to chapter 3, verse 19. And this is the judgment. The light has come into the world, and people love the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light. So that is the nature of the world. It's a place that prefers darkness because its deeds are evil. It also means the non-Jewish and the Gentile world. So if you just turn over a few pages, just keep going to chapter twelve and verse uh nineteen. So let me let me read verses nineteen to twenty three, chapter twelve. So the Pharisees said to one another, You see that you are gaining nothing, look, the world has gone after him. Now, unhelpful editorial break. Verse 20 carries straight on. Now, among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks. So these came to Philip, who was from Beth Seda in Galilee, and asked him, Sir, we wish to see Jesus. Philip went and told Andrew. Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus, and Jesus answered them, The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. So the world is going after Jesus. What does that mean? Well, the next verses tell us. People who shouldn't belong to God in one sense. These are not the Old Testament people of God. They are Greeks, these are pagans, and they are coming after Jesus. The world is coming after him. And Jesus' response to that, well, now is the time for the Son of Man to be glorified, as these people they want to see him. So, in other words, where we read in John's Gospel world, it's talking about quality, not quantity. It's not suggesting that the world is so big that it will take a great deal of love to embrace it all. It's telling us that the world is so bad, this is Benjamin Warfield, so bad that it takes a great kind of love to love it at all. And much more to love it as God has loved it when he gave his son for it. Now, just a just a related observation about the love of God. It's just worth just stopping and thinking about the love of God or the goodness of God. God's love does discriminate, if I can put it like that. And he is free to love as he wants to love. He's not bound, he's not compelled by anything or anyone. So just think about it. He shows love to his non-human creatures, you know, rocks, dogs, etc. He creates them, he sustains them. He actually amazingly reveals some of his glory through them. And think of that the next time you look at your dog. He shows different kinds of love, though, to his human creatures, indeed to all of his human creatures, whoever they are, to every single human being, made in his image, given gifts of common grace, shown his patience. But he shows a different and greater kind of love again to his redeemed human creatures. To Christian people, he shows special grace. He actually adopts them into his family as children. And we receive grace and mercy, we receive his goodness and his love in its fullest and deepest sense. And it is obviously the prerogative of God to love as he wants to, and to show holy love however he wants to. And in a sense, that does lead on to that next question, question number three. Well, why does God choose to love in this way, person A, and not person B? And at this point, this is one of those moments where we have to sort of stop our mouths and say, Well, I'm not God. He is God, I am not God. We simply don't know because he doesn't tell us. So Deuteronomy 29, uh 29. The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of his law. So God in his word, it reveals to us everything we need to know, doesn't necessarily tell us everything we we want to know, it doesn't satisfy our curiosity about everything. He doesn't open up his eternal counsels, his eternal plan. He does tell us why he doesn't choose people. We said this two weeks ago. Do you remember? He doesn't choose people because they're great or mighty or rich or numerous or they might be thought to be good or holy or spiritual. No, that's not the kinds of people he seems to like to love. He loves freely, and he is not compelled in any way. Now, I'll just pause there for a moment. Does anyone have any uh follow-up questions, perhaps on those scriptures or related? Don't worry if you don't, but now might be a good moment to just see if we do. Right, let's let's press on then. Someone asked me, so question four, what about free will? Don't we have free will? Does not uh predestination make us robots? And you can see why you might ask that question. Well, I imagine if you've if you've been in the in the Bible a while, or let alone a long time, those sorts of thoughts would have gone through your mind. So God is in charge of everything, He He predestines people. We're talking here about the sovereignty, the in-chargedness of God. But what about us and our our agency, our choices, our decisions? Well, we're gonna listen to Jesus. He helps us answer this uh really good question wisely and well. So would you turn back to John chapter 8? John chapter 8. That's page 894 in the Black Church Bibles. Throughout John's Gospel, Jesus speaks extremely directly about what we are like, the spiritual state of all people until the Holy Spirit breaks in and makes them new, makes us new. And he shows in various different ways that we are totally depraved. We have no spiritual health in us, we cannot repent and believe on our own. He shows that in many different ways. And in John 8, well, one just look carefully at verse 34. In fact, I'm going to read from verse 31. So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. They answered him, We are offspring of Abraham, and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, You will become free? Jesus answered them, Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. So notice there what we are like until we are born again by a work of the Holy Spirit. We are a slave to sin. And you can put that a bit more forcefully. That means that human beings do not have free will, if by that we mean I am free to choose God or I am free not to choose God. Our wills by nature are actually not free. How can God hold us responsible for our sin? How is it fair for God to judge sinners who are slaves to sin? And the answer is this it's because we want to. We want to sin. And if we just fast forward on a few verses, we can see Jesus speaking these terms in verse 44. Speaking to these same people, you are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. It's actually a very shocking thing to say. He's speaking to people who, as they hear more and more truth from Jesus, become more and more hardened against them. He reveals truth from heaven about himself. He also tells them what they are like, and they get they become almost visibly hardened. They think they're sons of Abraham. He actually tells them, no, you're sons of the devil. Your father in hell is the one you serve. But here is the point. He says to them, verse 44, it is your will. That is, it is your choice to do what your father in hell desires. You sin voluntarily. Nobody forces a non-believer to sin against their will to reject Christ. So we could say of that non-believing person, and this would be all of us until such time as the Holy Spirit breaks in, that non-believing people reject Christ necessarily, slaves to sin, but voluntarily. We do and always do what we want. Now, let me try and illustrate that for us. Imagine a man, he's building a room. So he puts up the blocks, there's a roof, there is a door. Importantly, he is on the inside as he builds this. There's a door to his room, but there is only a handle on the outside. And he slams the door shut. Now, this man, uh, his name is Adam. He has loads and loads of kids. Neither he nor they can leave the room. They are bound there. In fact, they have bound themselves there by their sin. But he and his kids also like it there. They don't want to leave. He's not free to leave the room, he's not free to choose Christ, but he is free to do what he wants. And he always wants to reject Christ. And that is sufficient freedom to be held responsible. And on his own, he can't repent and believe, nor does he want to. Now, one real live example of this in the pages of the Bible is Judas, Judas' Isariot. We read in Matthew's gospel that he betrayed Jesus for money. Do you remember that? Money. So what was the motive of Judas's heart that caused him to betray Christ? It was greed. So he had a desire for money. Nobody coerced him. He had a lust for money and things. It was voluntary. And yet, John 17, 12 can say that Judas betrayed Jesus to fulfil the scriptures, and it calls him the son of destruction, or the one destined for destruction. So in this man's life experience, he sinned voluntarily and most grievously, but he also sinned necessarily. And I think this helps us to understand the kind of freedom that human beings do and don't possess. So there's a kind of free will that biblically we'd want to affirm, and there's a kind of free will that biblically we would want to deny. So, yes, we would affirm that we always do what we want. This is actually a really important thing just to think about your own motivations. We only ever do what we want. Wonderfully, and we'll talk about this in just a moment, briefly, the Lord transforms our wants fundamentally when you become a Christian, but then as you go on in the Christian life, it's a wonderful thing. But we only ever do what we want. Sometimes this is called liberty of Desire or liberty of spontaneity, we always do what we want, though we cannot act against a compelling disposition. There is a kind of free will that we deny. What is sometimes called libertarian free will, and it's the idea that nothing determines my choices. So there are two alternatives, and I am entirely indifferent to them. Also, sometimes called liberty of indifference. And it's worth reflecting that not even God has this kind of freedom. Yes, he always does what he pleases, that's liberty of desire. Mercifully, he is not indifferent to good and evil. So just imagine, here is the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Because of his nature, because of his disposition, he can only do what is good. And that's a glorious thing. He's praised for it in the scriptures. What about the born-again person? Well, wonderfully, through a work of the Holy Spirit, the born-again person, the Christian, is given a freed will. So we can say of ourselves, but by the mercy and grace of God, we have been given a freed will. So when God converts a sinner and translates him into the state of grace, he frees him from his natural bondage under sin and by his grace alone enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good. Yet so as that by reason of his remaining corruption, he does not perfectly or only will that which is good, but does also will that which is evil. So that's our experience. So born again, we're given a new ability to love Christ, to love holiness, to love the scriptures, but boy, we do not do it imperfect, we do not do it perfectly, do we? Because of remaining corruption. Or John 8.36, if the Son sets you free, you will be freed indeed. Now, just head over to the back page of the handout. Last question. I think lots of our puzzles around this probably come down to this kind of macro question. How do we hold together God's sovereignty and human responsibility? Well, just firstly, some Bible basics. We are responsible to God. The Bible is full of commands to choose. Repent and believe, to command. Choose you this day who you will serve. And we're told that man is destined to die once and after that to face judgment. So we are responsible beings before our God. And our God is utterly sovereign. He is in charge. So Ephesians 1.11, he works all things in according to the counsel of his will. All things, big things, small things, us, the motions of our hearts, the decisions we make. Now, how do we hold this together in our minds and also in our hearts? Let me share just a few helps from scripture, some scriptural principles, expressed mainly in the words of two greats of the Reformed faith, Herman Bavink and Louis Burkhoff, which I found very helpful. Some of this feels quite complex. It's actually hugely comforting. I think it makes sense of not just scripture, but also reality, and it leaves us in a good place. So let's try and wrap our heads around this. The simple starting point is this we are not independent of God. Scripture knows no independent creatures. This would be an oxymoron, a complete contradiction in terms. An independent creature. Acts 17, 28, the Apostle Paul says, In Him we live and move and have our being. Our dependence upon Him is total. So nothing exists. There is no substance, there is no power, there is no activity, there is no idea unless it exists to God and through God and from God. In him we live and move and have our being. We are totally dependent. Next, and I'll try and explain what this means, second causes are real and are sustained by God's power. God is sometimes described as the primary cause of all things. So that's that's really what Acts 17.28 implies. He is the primary cause of all things. And so any other powers that there are, like the powers of nature, natural powers, be it the movements of the planets, or human history, or my history, or your heart, my heart, our decisions, the powers of nature do not work by themselves, simply by their own inherent power. So things like human beings deciding stuff, making choices, doing things, second causes we would call those, they are real. And in fact, they are worked in us by God. He gives man the power in determining his actions and sustaining all our activities all along the line. So he is the activity, the energy, if you like, behind our decisions, our choices. He is the one who empowers those secondary causes from beginning to end. He gives to each of them a strength that is natural and appropriate. And that's what really is implied by Philippians 2 13. For it is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. It's a wonderful verse, that actually. Such a lot lies in that sentence. So if we're Christian people, we have godly desires and we have godly deeds. There are motions of our hearts in which we want to glorify God. And then actions. We try and put those things into practice. Where does that come from? Well, God works that in us. They are our desires and actions, but they are worked in us from beginning to end and all points in between by our sovereign God. So how do we respond to this? The Christian. So this is a really helpful, this is a really helpful way in if your head or heart struggles a bit with the sovereignty of God. We can't see into God's sovereign will, but there are some things which we do know and see and can experience that really help us. So here's a bit more bavink. The Christian has witnessed God's special providence at work in the cross of Christ and experienced it in the forgiving and regenerating work of God, which has come to one's own heart. And from the vantage point of this new and certain experience in one's own life, the Christian believer now surveys the whole of existence and the entire world and discovers in all things not chance or fate, but the leading of God's fatherly hand. So we can't see the Lamb's Book of Life. But we can see the cross of Christ. We have, if we are Christian people, experienced the work of God in our own lives. And with that lens, we then look at all things and we see not chance or fate. We see that there is a Father in heaven who is at work in and behind it all. And to see God's counsel and hand at work in all things, and simultaneously, indeed for that very reason, to develop all available energies and gifts to the highest level of activity, that is the glory of the Christian faith and the secret of the Christian life. So you might think wrongly that a sovereign God leads to passive Christians. It's actually exactly the other way around. When you see the hand of God in all things, or it encourages Christians to put all of our energies and gifts at work for Him. Ephesians 2.10. It's a really helpful verse to jot down with this in mind. We do good works which He prepared in advance for us to do, or to walk around in. So He has prepared a pilgrimage for us full of good works. Now, Christian, we walk in them. So what we're talking about here, the sovereignty of God or the providence of God, of which his predestination is a part, is actually not a philosophical system, it is a confession of faith, in which a Christian says, neither Satan nor a human being nor any other creature, but God and God alone, by his almighty and everywhere power, preserves and governs all things. Doesn't answer all of our questions, but on that we may securely rest. Now, does anyone have any questions that they would just like to ask? Connected to that perhaps initially, and then we'll go elsewhere if we'd like to.

SPEAKER_00 33:01

Going back to your illustration about the room and this idea that the unbeliever wants to do the things that they do wants to be in that room. I guess someone might say well, I can think of you know there are plenty of non-Christians who want to battle themselves or maybe have been on a particular tracking line and have said enough of that and I want to. Um if we if we ask for that, um, does it help with all of it? Well, Romans 1 is fundamentally explains the truth about God for a lie, and all the things that we do think inside are the things that God has given people over to God because of fundamentally talking for Roman. And so when we think about Romans, the want is essentially the want to not be in relationship with God or to walk away from God, not to accept Jesus. Um and I'm just wondering if that helps us then to better take hold of this idea. Yes, people can choose better paths in life or worse paths in life, but the the unbeliever wants to be apart from God, I don't think that's all.

SPEAKER_02 34:24

Did we all hear that? Batfurrow, did you hear that? That was super, super helpful, yes. Yes. So, in in other words, the root sin of all sin is actually rejecting Christ, isn't it? Not having uh saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and there are many ways that you can walk that path of not placing your trust in the Lord Jesus. Um Andy. Thank you. So given predestination, um why pray for a non-believer? I think you probably could enlarge the question actually, in the life of God's sovereignty generally, why pray full stop? And I think the the Bible's answer to that is various. God tells us to. Um he commands it, he invites it. Probably the very heart of being an adopted child of God is being like sons and daughters talking to our Father in heaven. Yeah, it's almost the it's almost the most natural thing. In God's sovereignty, the way that he has chosen to work things out is often uh by using our prayers. It's a stupendous thought, isn't it? That he has chosen to involve us in his plans and purposes, not in a kind of 50-50 way. Hopefully we've seen that. When a Christian or anyone does anything, it is you know, it is God working in us. When we pray, it is God working uh in us and through us to pray. Um, and it's like he's put buried treasure out there, and we uncover that treasure when we pray, and that's just how he has chosen to work things. And you know, so the apostle Paul can say things like in Colossians, you know, pray for an open door, which I think probably means both a general open door for a hearing of the gospel, but also an open door in people's hearts, and that's a wonderful uh way to pray and an encouragement to pray um for non-believing people. And I guess we don't we would only ever have hope, actually, in prayer, if we were praying to an all-powerful God. So um, yeah, you you you never want to take the sovereignty of God and do the wrong thing with it. I think that's why that uh that last quote of um Bavinks is so helpful. When you see God's hand at work in everything, actually, I want to put all of my energies, my energies and gifts to work for God, and that actually includes praying, because he chooses to use our prayers. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Lord's prayer is super helpful, isn't it? God is the king, he is the sovereign. Now pray, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Yeah, it's a lovely encouragement.

SPEAKER_01 37:21

Yeah, God. So there's a few places in scripture where God seems to be appealing to people, to sinners to turn to him. So I'm thinking of in the Old Testament, God says, you know, I take my pleasure in the death of the wicked, rather they return to me and live. And I hold out my hat arms to an obstinate difficult people, and also in 1 Timothy 2 he says, uh doesn't he say, if God desires all men to be saved come to a knowledge of the truth. Is it a paradox that both those things are true? God is holding out his hands to people and willing them to turn to him, but at the same time he's the one who calls people on a deeper level. How do you sort of reconcile those two things?

SPEAKER_02 38:04

It's a I mean it's a hard thing to understand. I mean, over the centuries, uh, Christian people, as they've reflected on the Bible and on the nature of our God, have concluded rightly that God wills in two ways. It's probably better to say that than to say God has two wills. So you know he has a he has a sovereign and he has a moral will. Um I guess we see this most sharply at the cross of Christ. He willed something very wicked, namely the crucifixion of his son, but it was also his sovereign plan and purpose. Um, in other words, he uses and he wills things like unbelief, even though he longs for saving belief, because his I guess his end, his end goal, the maximal glory of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Spirit, is achieved through this. So I think there are puzzles along the way, but I guess remembering that that God wills like that, um, he has a sovereign will, but he's also got a pure moral will, and somehow it holds together in his holy character and councils. But there are puzzles in it. Some things we won't ever satisfactorily answer. I think we should, it's gone called to pass, so I'm I'm gonna pray briefly. Um let's pray, Father. Um, we have been speaking of um high and holy things, we've been speaking of you, uh your uh being, your nature, your deeds. Please would you help us to think and feel truly about you and ourselves in relation to you. We pray for more light and understanding, and we pray for uh trust in your fatherly care. We remember with thanks that you are God and we are not, that through the gospel you have become our father and we, your adopted uh children. We thank you so much that we can be grateful when things go well, we can be patient when things are hard. We ask for grace to submit to you and to your guidance. We want to uh work for you energetically. And we pray that you would give us good confidence in you as our God and Father, that you'll provide whatever we need. Uh you will turn for our good, whatever adversity you choose to bring, because you are both Almighty God and our faithful Father. And we pray in your Son's name. Amen.