God’s love is the foundation of the Plan of Salvation, without which we would not be living with God throughout eternity. This devotional reading looks at election, predestination, adoption, and regeneration.
Nuggets
- Election is all about God choosing mankind.
- Disciples are preordained to become the image of Jesus.
- Disciples are preordained to become members of God’s family.
- God’s Will is that we be regenerated.
This is going to be the first rabbit that we chase this year. We can’t go any further talking about God’s judgment of the world until we understand the love that He has for it.
We can’t talk about Jesus’ love for us without talking about God’s love for us. They worked in tandem on the Plan of Salvation. Where One designed the Plan, the Other implemented it.
Our jumping off place is Revelation 1: 5. “… To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood” (Rev. 1: 5 ESV).
We’re using Witherspoon’s sermon The Love of Christ in Redemption as the foundation for this series of the same name. Usually, when I am looking at someone else’s sermon, I start at the beginning and then plow through it until the end.
That wasn’t working this time.
What I am going to do is cover all of Witherspoon’s points — just not in the order he presented them. Hopefully, that will make more sense to me — and you.
Let's Put It into Context
To read devotions in the On the Day of the Lord theme, click the button below.
Devotions in the Getting Started in Revelation study
The foundation of this series is Witherspoon’s sermon The Love of Christ in Redemption.
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We the People
Election
“even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will” (Eph. 1: 4-5 ESV)
Election is all about God choosing mankind.
It is mind boggling to think that Sovereign God has elected us. That means He has chosen us.
No one forced God into it. He exercised His free will and totally chose us.
Election is God’s plan to bring salvation to His creation, a gift of His grace because of His mercy.
God chose mankind to whom to offer salvation. He didn’t offer it to Satan and the rest of the angels that rebelled against Him.
This choosing has nothing to do with our character or our actions. Alves agreed. He wrote, “This fact cannot be accounted for by any reference to individual or personal distinctions of character or worthiness.”
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In fact, it is just the opposite.
God chose us before the world was created. “He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you” (I Pet. 1: 20 ESV)
Before anything was even made, God knew we would disobey Him. That is why He designed the Plan of Salvation before He created anything else.
Everything was put in place for salvation before it was needed.
Notice the words that aren’t mentioned in these verses. Repentance isn’t there. We don’t have to clean ourselves up before we can approach God.
But then, neither is faith mentioned. It isn’t about what we do or don’t do. It isn’t about having a mustard seed faith or a redwood faith.
This is where grace comes in.
Glossary
God chose mankind to be the Church. When we choose Him back, we become God’s elect.
Unfortunately, not everyone chooses Him. Those that don’t are not the Church or the elect.
God wants us to be holy like Him. “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy’” (I Pet. 1: 14-16 ESV).
It should be our prayer and our aim that we not only are sorry for our sinful ways, but that we also turn from them. We want to stop doing them and succeed in not doing them.
We know the blameless part is a goal that we won’t fully realize until we get to Heaven. While we are on this earth, we will remain sinful.
We will be God’s for eternity when we choose to become His children
Predestination
“he predestined us …” (Eph. 1: 5 ESV)
Disciples are preordained to become the image of Jesus.
Given Salvation without Choosing It
Many think that predestination means that we are given salvation without choosing it and without repenting. I don’t think so. “They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart” (Eph. 4: 18 ESV).
We know God is not a dictator. We know that He has given us free will to make our own decisions. “Behold, I [Jesus] stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me” (Rev. 3: 20 ESV).
God is not going to shove salvation down our throats.
Choosing Some and not Others
“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” (Rom. 8: 29 ESV).
Some – and they would be wrong – could read Romans 8: 29 to mean there are some God foreknew and predestined and some He did not choose.
God foreknew everyone. He is the One Who created them. Besides, He is omniscient. “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations” (Jer. 1: 5 ESV).
God’s knowing what will happen doesn’t mean He makes it happen. Remember, free will.
Mankind refused God’s offer. Still, God will keep offering until He is done.
That blows predestination out of the water.
What It Really Means
But God’s Word does talk about predestination. So, what is it talking about?
When God told Jeremiah in Jeremiah 1: 5 that He had chosen him before he was even conceived, it was as a prophet. Jesus said something similar to the Apostles. “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you” (Jn. 15: 16 ESV).
They were chosen to be ministers, not God’s children.
I think we are focusing way too much on the who and not enough on the what.
We have been condemned. As soon as the original sin was committed, mankind became condemned.
Mankind is chosen by grace to receive the offer of salvation.
We are predestined to reap the benefits of a decision for salvation. Faith, according to Boston, is a consequence of election. That is what Acts 13: 48 was talking about.
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We can’t negate the fact that those who do not choose salvation have already judged themselves. God isn’t sending anyone to hell. We send ourselves.
Salvation is based on a change of heart. We have to change from our sinful selves to imitating God. That change can only come from God Himself. “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezek. 36: 26 ESV).
I think the predestination part is to what we are changed. “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son …” (Rom. 8: 29 ESV).
It is predestined that we are to become like Jesus is. Think about it.
That will happen. “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 (I Jn. 3: 2 ESV).
When we say we become as God is, we are saying that we inherit His divine nature. God has predestined us to be sanctified.
We only become this when we accept salvation through Jesus.
Adoption
“… In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ ...” (Eph. 1: 4-5 ESV)
Disciples are preordained to become members of God’s family.
Ooo, baby. God chose us to become family to Him.
We are preordained to become as Jesus is because we become part of God’s family upon salvation.
How can we find fault with being adopted by God into His family? Adoption leads to inheritance.
Spurgeon had it right. He wrote, “The saints of God all confess that they are the last persons they should ever have dreamed He would have chosen.”
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Oh, yes. We can say that God scraped the bottom of the barrel when He found us.
God adopted us anyway. This is another place where the all – as in He wants all to be saved – comes into play.
God will adopt us regardless of our character when we ABCD. He will adopt us regardless of our actions and behavior. God allows us salvation even when we are riddled with sin.
When we are adopted as God’s children, we become His treasure. “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth” (Deut. 7: 6 ESV).
Good things happen when we are adopted into the family of God. Satan loses his hold on us. We are stamped and sealed as God’s own.
Our character is changed along with our name. God provides the Holy Spirit to instruct and guide us.
We are chosen to be holy. Lathrop explained what holiness is. He wrote, “Holiness consists in the conformity of the soul to the Divine nature and will, and is opposed to all moral evil.”
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We become holy when we replicate God’s nature.
God has adopted us unto Himself. We can’t make ourselves His children. “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (Jn. 1: 12 ESV emphasis added).
This is a permanent adoption. That is where the inheritance part comes into play.
Regeneration
“… according to the purpose of his will” (Eph. 1: 5 ESV)
God’s Will is that we be regenerated and sanctified until we are perfected.
The purpose of God’s Will is to gain our salvation. It pleased God that Jesus completed the Plan of Salvation. The whole purpose of the Plan was to restore our relationship with Him.
The same Sovereign God that raised Jesus from the dead can raise us from our spiritual death. That is called regeneration.
Glossary
Once we give our lives to God, we begin navigating the Sanctification Road. The purpose of sanctification is to change us to become more like God. Our relationships are restored because of God’s transforming power.
We are taking off our sinful nature and putting on holiness. You know, out with the old creation, in with the new (II Cor. 5: 17). We obtain this new creation by “… hunger[ing] and thrust[ing] after righteousness …” (Mt. 5: 6 ESV).
Yeah, we usually hear it termed renewing our minds. Renewing our minds – in fact, all our inner selves – means changing ourselves to be more like God.
Sanctification is all about renovating our minds. We are changing our will, attitudes, mindset, soul, and spirit to be like Christ. We still need God’s transforming power.
It is logical that it is described as changing our minds. Our minds – along with our hearts – are the core of us.
We are dedicating our intellect to God. We are changing the aim of our lives to whatever is in His plan for us. We are softening our spirits to submit to Him.
So much of our walk with Christ happens in our minds. Faith is in our minds. Discernment is in our minds. Meditation is in our minds.
When we think about it, attitude is just our state of mind.
There is no way we are going to be able to renew our own minds on our own. God accomplishes this through the work of the Holy Spirit.
Why does God want us back after we have been disobedient to Him? “to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved” (Eph. 1: 6 ESV).
Everything God does is for His glory. It is because of His goodness that He passes His blessings onto us. It is only when we find happiness in Him that we obtain those blessings.
Look what Bayne had to say about God’s glory. He wrote, “The attributes of God are His essential glory. This should make us [endeavor] to know the properties of God, and view as far as we may the reflection which we have in His word and works of such infinite glory.”
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God’s attributes – His love, mercy, grace, faithfulness, purity and all the rest – should not only make us want to know Him better but to also become more like Him.
To read a devotion in the Finding Our Center series, click on the button below.
Why does God do all this? He does it because of His grace.
God gives us more than we deserve. Because of His love and through His grace, God gives us salvation to cover our sins so that we can have eternal life starting today.
This is a free gift. God is waiting for us to accept it.
Making the Connections #1
We put up the barriers. God doesn’t.
God has specifically said salvation is available to all. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (Jn. 3: 16 ESV).
We choose to not believe God. It is that unbelief that causes us to perish.
Burder put it this way. He wrote,
“Throughout the Bible, the perdition of the soul is ascribed, not to God’s decree, but to man’s transgression. No human being will be condemned at the last day, on the ground of not being included in the election of grace.
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We perish because we refuse to admit we sin, believe Jesus died to pay the penalty for those sins, and confess God as Sovereign Lord.
Making the Connections #2
Just because we have been adopted into God’s family doesn’t mean we won’t be held accountable.
Nor does that mean we get to grow up and move out into a home of our own.
How Do We Apply This?
- Praise God for the gift of salvation.
- Show others God in us.
- Live out our testimony.
- Place our hope in God for all eternity.
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Father God. Thank You for loving us so much that You have designed a way in which we can be a part of Your family. We see that shining through the ages to put Your judgment into perspective. Amen.
What do you think?
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