Did We Know All This?

Yeah, actually there is a lot of information, a lot of things to learn in just these two verses that we'll cover today. And next week we'll cover two more. I'm finding that going through Romans 8, you really have to slow down because there's so much said in so few verses.

So in setting this up correctly, I think correctly, last week, We took a look that God takes all the events of life and blends them into something really beautiful. He works all things together for good. So if we get our arms around this and we understand it, it results in, we'll have a view of the events of life unique. His sovereign ability to do this becomes a source of stability and assurance no matter what may come our way.

Most of the time when you talk to folks that are having a tough time and aren't really settled, it's either because they're ignorant or they don't believe that God is really sovereign. But this doesn't mean that, as we talked about last week, that God cancels the consequences of our sin.

He's gonna use that as one of the all things also. A believer, who doesn't understand, I'm sorry, the believer, yeah, who does not understand and believe this truth will experience lots of unpleasant, irksome, and often unhappy events in his life and display human viewpoint, response, and reactions. And what does that do? It causes the impossibility of becoming Christ-like. On the other hand, the instructed believer sees the same unpleasant events, yet beholds the master's hand of God in all of them, and they are all viewed as part of a good and gracious plan of God designed to make the believer like himself.

So God has a plan, and he's gonna carry out this plan. His purpose, we talked a little bit about purpose, but now these verses that we get into today start to define exactly what the purpose. And it's not merely an expressed divine desire, but a fixed and vast will of God that subordinates itself, necessarily all things submerge, all opposition affects all objects to carry out God's purpose.

God's purpose regarding the called. The called are really interesting. We're going to spend quite a few minutes just talking about called and elect and that kind of thing. Regarding the called, his elect arises out of his desire, not yours, his. as well as being according to his infinite wisdom. His basic character, he's loved. That's who he is. And he acts according to that nature. Out of his infinite and holy desire arose his purpose. His purpose.

If you reverse the order here, you have a God of the fatalist. You have a God who's not of the Bible. So the lesson's pretty simple. In all of our lives we run into people, I talked to somebody this week, and I just said this to him, I said, thanks for the phone call, I happen to be working on something that says that people intended for evil and harm God brought together for good. The circumstances in your life right now look like evil. but God will bring them together for His good purpose.

And that's what Romans 8.28 really is all about. It's God in operation. Paul's stability is rooted in an understanding of that one truth, that it's God who works all things together for good, and it's based on the fact that He's love. In God, however, purpose is absolute. It isn't, well, we'll work on this as long as it's working out, and then we'll move to something else. It doesn't have any contingencies.

In the very next occurrence of Romans 8.28, we read that the purpose of God, according to election, might stand. Everything subordinated, and even the end predicted.

Ephesians 3.11 talks about purpose of the ages which God has ordained and will carry through just as our salvation is referred to as not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus when? Before the times of the ages. Before then. So the verses today, 29 and 30, for those whom he foreknew, that's all of us. He also predestined, that's all of us.

For what purpose? To become conformed or to be conformed to the image of his son. Why? So that he would be the firstborn among many brethren. And then it clarifies it even more. And those He predestined, He also called, and those He called, He justified, and those He justified, He glorified.

First we find that in many scriptures in which the consent of man's will is asked. We all know a lot of verses like that. And our blessing is contingent upon, especially in the Old Testament, are compliance with obedience. Some, and I put in there rocky ground people, will receive the word immediately with joy for a while, but in time of tribulation and persecution, they fall away.

But then, we find, plainly written in scripture, the purpose of God according to which he works effortlessly effortlessly, and all his elect are brought safely in. And there is no separating them from his love, no matter what, which was given them in Christ when they were chosen before the foundation of the world. Our minds have so much trouble realizing that Jim and I were talking this morning between services. Gee, I'm glad I'm a chosen one. Yeah, I am too. Without that choosing, guess what? I wouldn't be here. And here's the thing about God's sovereignty and my responsibility.

I think we try sometimes to mix them, and I don't think they're mixable. Emphatically, we shouldn't try to reconcile them either because we end up in useless controversy based on how I feel about the results. By the way, who told us to reconcile in our minds things that are seemingly contradictory in the Bible? Have we ceased to believe what we don't understand? Sometimes we do.

Every system of theology, including dispensational system, undertakes to subject God's word, the words of God, to a category or to a catalog of my human intellect. That's what they do in seminaries. They read God's word and then they try to put it in a schematic that they can understand rather than let God explain it to them.

Now if we undertake to reconcile God's sovereign election with his free offer of salvation, we're gonna sacrifice one truth for another. How does he do that? How does he offer salvation for everybody, but then there's this whole issue of sovereign election?

Newell says our poor minds may not reconcile them both, but our faith knows them both. It holds both to be true. The scripture is addressed to faith, not to reason. To faith. So, whom he foreknew, he also foreordained. Now notice. I didn't put to be conformed, because it isn't in the scripture. It really reads, for whom he foreknow, he also foreordain conformed to the image of his son. Not to be, but you already are.

Four looks back to the purpose in 828 and opens the word foreknow for us. Foreknow just means pro-know scope, just means I know something or God knows things beforehand or in advance. Doesn't God just know everything in advance? Isn't he omniscient? Doesn't he know what's gonna happen this afternoon? Did he know the nuggets we're gonna lose last night? Sure, he knows everything.

But the problem we have with omniscience is that it isn't what foreknowledge means. And it isn't what this verse says. The verse is saying that God foreknew believers, not all men. Now that's a hard concept. God foreknew each one of you individually, but he didn't know all men in the sense that we're talking about today. The foreknowledge is only limited to believers. In other words, God does not foreknow all men. He only foreknew believers, and we'll get to the reason why.

If you look at Amos 1 and 2 all the way to 2.8, you find out that here's Jehovah giving the details of his exact knowledge of the sins and the coming judgments of the Syrians, the Philistines, Tyre, Edom, Ammon, Moab. But then he says of Israel, that he doesn't say of the rest of these people, you only have I known of all the families of the earth. There's a difference. So what does it mean? It means that God had acquaintanceship with the whole family which he brought out of the land of Egypt. He knew them personally. especially the godly remnant. God did not cast off his people, which he foreknew, did he?

So of Christ that was written in 1 Peter 1.20, he was the Lord Jesus Christ as a man was foreknown indeed before the foundations of the world. Who knew him? The Father knew him as Christ.

So it doesn't mean simply to know in advance, even though that's the word, the word means that in just its elements is Greek translation. but like the word becoming flesh, the Lord Jesus Christ, that happened when he came into the world and was revealed, but he was foreknown like that from the Father, personally. It's not mere divine pre-knowledge that he would be manifested that way, but he was in a pre-acquaintanceship before he showed up, before he appeared. So from this foreknowledge or pre-acquaintanceship flowed the most intimate prophecies of the Lord Jesus. His lowly coming, his rejection, and the kind of death he would suffer.

All this is wrapped up in the word foreknowledge. What God foreknew is believers. Maybe you could say it, who God foreknew were believers. Not what believers would do, it's who they were personally. It's like another comment, Jim and I were talking, coming in, he said, You know, he said, I'd like to read the Word because I'm learning about the Lord.

And I said, yeah, you know, any person that you know that you really like, you like to spend time with them. And the more time you spend with them, the better you know them. Well, that's the same thing true with the Lord Jesus. The more time you spend with Him personally, the better you get to know Him.

Well, the Father knew us that way before He ever created us personally. The text says those whom he foreknew. Using a personal pronoun, masculine gender, it means he foreknew the people. He foreknew us personally. So under omniscience, God does know what a person's gonna do, but that's not foreknowledge. Foreknowledge is a personal knowing of the believer. Now, you know what's tough for that? Well, I don't remember any of that. Because I didn't know him back, but he knew me. None of you knew him back, but he knew you personally, knew exactly who you were, and created you in his mind that way.

It's common, though, to hear in theological circles discussions that God foreknew what what a believer would do, and based on that foreseen faith, he chose them. Have you ever heard that argument? Well, God knows everything. So he knows that David's gonna come, you know, I'm looking down through history, and David's gonna become a Christian, so I'm gonna pick him.

No, that's not what foreknowledge means. He knew David before David ever made a decision, before he was ever created. That's the, it's not the biblical idea that God just knows everything and so he picks those that choose him. That's not the point here. The point is is that he foreknew us. And it confuses time with eternity and bases God's knowledge on time. Well, he doesn't happen to live in time. He lives in eternity. God's knowledge is independent of time.

So we see that the kind of knowledge in the mind is rational knowledge, not intellectual knowledge. Does that make sense? Rational knowledge rather than intellectual knowledge. I can read a book and have all kinds of intellectual knowledge. I can read the Bible and not know who Christ is, never met him. Intellectually, God knows everything before time, that's omniscience, but rationally, God only knows believers in advance.

So, for those he foreknew, he predestined. Now, what's interesting is, A lot of people will say, well, predestination, God predestined that some would be saved or lost. No, the predestined comes after the knowledge. Do you see that? Because you were foreknown, God predestined an end for you. And that's where the to become leaves God. He also predestined conform to the image of his son so that he would be the firstborn of many brethren. The word for ordain and predestine is pros, let me try this.

It means before and to mark out or like looking over the horizon, it creates a boundary. God marks out a destiny befitting such foreknown ones. Here we come to words with plain meaning but limitless reach. You know, we spend so much time in our own world wondering what's next or wondering what's going on.

We have a loving God who foreknew each one of us individually in Christ and he's foreordained everything about our life, everything for good. no matter what it looks like. Christ, the son of whom and by whom all things were made. Christ, the son appointed heir of all things. Christ, the son, the center of all divine councils. And Christ, the son, God's son, the son of his love. You, David, have been predestined to be just like the Son of God.

You think you're gonna miss it? Nope, nobody's gonna miss it. Nobody that Christ foreknew. Most people think this word means that God chose who would be saved, and from this, they often logically realize that God also chose who would not be saved. That's simply answered by one phrase. How many human beings deserve salvation? The answer to that is zero. If he didn't pick one, nobody would get saved.

Because in sin my mother conceived me. I came from Adam, a condemned man. We were born lost. And so, well, that's not fair. Well, if God was only fair, if that was his only attribute, guess where all of you would go? and me, I'd be there with you. We would not be saved. We wouldn't be foreordained. We certainly wouldn't be destined to be conformed to the image of God's son.

And this is termed in theological circles as double predestination. I like that term. Conformed to the image of his son. Now, another long Greek word, and it just means to bring the same form with, some other person or thing to render like, the noun morphe refers to, an outward expression of an inward essence or nature.

The word image, we all know image, we're all computer geeks, icon, a derived likeness, nothing lacking, nothing short, like Christ. So that's, we're all gonna be exactly like Christ in terms of his nature. Conform to his image in glory. We're gonna share the glory of the Lord Jesus. Oh, in love. What's really gonna be cool about it is that we're gonna receive the love of God, but we're gonna love him back the same way, just like Christ does. In beauty, in grace, in humility, in tenderness, in patience, our very bodies at last alive unto God.

For we know that this also shall be when Christ our life shall be manifested, then shall you also with him be manifested in glory. There isn't anything about the Lord Jesus Christ that won't be said about you, other than you're not deity. But everything else about him, you're predestined to. The image of the Lord Jesus in the saint is not accidental, but it's a consequence.

It's a consequence, and it's the likeness of a child resulting from its parents. Who's your father? God the Father. So who's his son? The Lord Jesus Christ. Are you a son? Yeah. We're gonna be like them. Through the new birth, we become brethren of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I didn't really like the word brethren so well, but we will inherit through that birth his very image, what he is. This image is indistinct. In a new convert, you don't see it. And sad to say, you don't see it in a lot of old ones, too. it becomes progressively clearer and distinct and that believer grows in the Christian life. That's really what's happening.

You're not getting better, you're getting conformed to be like him. Therefore, to be with Christ, like him forever and ever, only God can show and only simple faith responds to grace such as this. We can only respond because of God's grace. I can't say to someone, you need to get busy and get conforming. You need to get busy and let him do it, is really what grace is all about. And why does he do this conforming? Why does he conform us to the image of Christ? just the one that God picked and said, well, we'll use him as the prototype.

No, it's the son of God, because Jesus Christ is to be the head of all, he is the head of the first creation, the head of the new creation. This confirmation of the saints to the image of the Lord Jesus was the purpose that he, the Lord Jesus, might be the firstborn. Now, firstborn doesn't mean he's the first one on the scene, It means he's the first one in stature. He's the first one in model. He's the prototype. He's the one that when God said, let me create man in my own image and likeness, it's the Lord Jesus he had in mind. He's the one.

He takes first place. in Christ, like Christ, brethren there with the firstborn. Realize this is the highest place that God could give a creature. There's nothing higher than this, than to be like Christ. God puts us there, and of Christ it is written, he's not ashamed to call them, to call us brethren, because we are all of one in Christ.

Colossians 1.15 says that the Lord Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

2 Corinthians 4.4 said, and those whose case the God of this world has blinded their minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God? First Corinthians 15, 49, just as we have borne the image of the earthly, if you wanna know what the image of the earthly is, go look in the mirror, we will also bear the image of the heavenly. We will.

And then one of my favorite verses is 2 Corinthians 3.18, but we all, every one of us, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror, the mirror is God's word, the glory of the Lord. What happens?

Are being transformed into the same image. from glory to glory, not from sinfulness to betterment to non-sinfulness. It's from one state of glory to the next, to the next, to the next, just as from the Lord the Spirit. The Holy Spirit's job is, in terms of this conformity, is to take the believer who's a called one, a foreordained one, and make him like Christ.

So those he also, verse 30, and those whom he predestined, he also called, and those whom he called, he also justified, and those he justified, he also glorified. So since we're considering God's unfolding of his purpose back from verse 28, We must regard called from God's side of the page who counts things not being as being. The calling here and as well spoken of by Paul, and we talked about this last week, is the working in men of the everlasting purpose of God whereby before the foundation of the world was laid, He has decreed by his counsel secret to us to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he has chosen in Christ out of mankind and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation. That's who the called are, everybody in this room. and these whom he called, he justified.

Now way back in Romans three, we talked about justification. Justification means to pronounce righteous. It does not mean to make you righteous. It means to pronounce you righteous. To be justified means that the believer is viewed in Christ as righteous. and therefore treated by God as being in Christ and being righteous.

He only treats us that way. Called and justified doesn't speak here of that entering upon justification as faith of which this Romans epistle is full. For all believing souls are accounted righteous, they're justified as well as we all know, yet in God's counsel, all of his elect already are before him, accounted righteous and justified. Do you realize that we could not even begin to understand God's word if this wasn't true of us? Because God's word, especially about his purpose, isn't revealed to other men, just the called ones. The word predestined, called, justified, and glorified are all verbs.

This is where, I'm not a very geeky guy, but I had to say this. Indicative mood means the mood of reality, this is it, this is true. It is in the aorist tense, which means it's done, it's a fact, and it's active voice, God did it all. Every one of these words, predestined, called, justified, glorified, all of them are in indicative mood, aorist tense, active voice. can't be changed. It shows that they are all completed, accomplished facts, and that God did them all. It is the necessary end. of this amazing series. What's the end?

Glorification. Glorification. I don't know if you spend any time thinking about it. I don't spend much time thinking about it because I'm so busy thinking about some other stuff. Glorified. Does God really mean that everybody that he's called will be glorified with his son? Yeah, he means that, and he's gonna do it. Conditionally, positionally, he's already determined because it's indicative mood that it's done. You know, if God thinks that it's over. Therefore, those foreknown ones must ever be before God since God foreknew them in Christ.

So none, though, of us have yet been glorified in manifestation because the Lord Jesus hasn't been. Christ himself has not been manifested, although he has entered into his glory. He left here, he went to the Father to be glorified as a man, and that's where he is today.

It is in this glorified Christ that God chose us long ago, before the foundation of the world. God who could connect us with Christ can also say of us, I've glorified you, I've glorified them. And so, we saints go on to glory. Already true of us by the word of God.

Trish Anderson's dad went home to glory today. Was he headed for any other place? Never, never. Past, present, and future. The Father accomplished all this in his mind concerning us and much, much more prior to creation. Then he accomplished all for us in the Son through his death, resurrection, and ascension. Now he's accompanying, he's accomplishing it in us by the Holy Spirit, for what purpose? For his son's purpose, that he might be the firstborn. All will be actually completed in us at the rapture, as Miles Stanford says, plus a few finishing touches at the Bema. I like that. So, and think of all that. The Holy Spirit has accomplished, think of all that the Holy Spirit has accomplished in order to place us in this position.

He has to seek each one of us out in our sin. He has to woo us and convict us. He has to present the Savior to us. and enable us to carry out our responsibility of accepting the Lord Jesus Christ as our own personal Savior. Then, having hidden us in Him, He begins the patient work of conditionally and slowly conforming us to the image of Christ.

It is the Spirit who works all things together for good to them who love God, to them who are called according to the Father's eternal purpose. The Holy Spirit never rests nor hesitates until he has every single called one raptured, possessed of his glorified body, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. That's from Miles Stanford. Closing, I found this quote from Witherby, which I thought was really good.

Intimacy with himself is the marvelous thought of our father concerning us, who in the first Adam hid himself from God's voice, his voice, and who until he gave us in his sovereign grace to believe on the last Adam, we dreaded the very thought of meeting him. Formerly, the thoughts of his holiness were terrible, and the contemplation of him as the light made us shrink from his presence. But the cross of his son, the body of the Lord Jesus in death, the end of all that we were as children of Adam in God's sight, has calmed every fear, and therefore we are perfectly happy in the presence of our Father.

So let's close. Father, we don't have words to describe how thankful we are for what you have done. I guess as we contemplate it and think about how gracious you are and the capacity and the love which you have for us that you would do all this to such undeserving creatures as we are, it causes us to be in awe of you. and to thank you and also to place in us a hope in our heart of where we're headed and how wonderful it's gonna be to be face-to-face with you for all eternity. We thank you, Father. We pray in the Lord Jesus' precious name, amen.