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GOING WITH GOD
THE CHRISTIAN ABIDING: THE LORD PRESIDING
The Brighter Way for the Declining Day
Chapter Two
Going with God is Going with the Divine
Purpose, Will, Love and Grace: All Illimitable
"Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner,
but share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God,
who has saved us and called us with a holy calling,
not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace
which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began,
but has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel,
to which I was appointed a preacher, an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles."For this reason I also suffer these things;
nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed
and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him
until that Day."So speaks Paul in I Timothy 1:
God, according to the Bible and in particular Romans 8:29ff. has everything work together for good to those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose.
As God IS love (I John 4:7ff.), so that NOTHING ever, at any time, or even before time as we have it began, is contrary to it, so that He never seeks anything which does not embrace the opportunities for love, the expression of love, the realities of love, to which fact Colossians 1:19ff. agrees, since in all heaven and earth there is NONE whom He would not like to have reconciled to Himself: then in love He predestinated (Ephesians 1:5).
Although this is merely a further text to the point, it is worthwhile to consider Ephesians 1:5 in this connection. It is rendered in the Berkeley Version, as a new sentence (the Greek not indicating this or the contrary, so that it is a formal option). Thus it has Ephesians 1:4-5:
".. even as He has chosen us in Him before the world was founded,
to be holy and blameless in His presence."In love He predestined us in Jesus Christ for His sonship,
in agreement with the kind intent of His will,
for the praise of His glorious mercy
with which He has graced us in union with the Beloved."
This has the advantage of a beautiful unison of thought, and sequence of spirit. In v. 3 we find that Has blessed us in heavenly places with every spiritual blessing. In v. 4, we find that this is put in a context. Namely, He did this , "just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world".
Thus the sequence is this: Blessed be God, He has blessed us in heavenly places fully, just as He chose us before the world was founded.
NOW the thing is accomplished; THEN it was ordained, in this, that THEN He chose us. The time now and the action then, these are in parallel, in this most parallel of contexts.
He sought for us to be holy and blameless in His presence, having fellowship on the basis of kinship of spirit through the transformative power which His love has, in that it is the love of the God of all power and mercy and comfort.
Further, it was IN Christ that we were chosen, not in some abstract or arbitrary way. Indeed, it was IN LOVE that He predestined us (v. 5) for His sonship, this being what He willed. It was and is to the glory of His grace that this has been accomplished, and in so doing He has made us acceptable to Himself IN the Beloved.
Thus first comes the blessedness of God, then our blessedness in ample fulness in heavenly places. Next we learn that this accomplishment has actually wrought before time began, now apparent. Next, just as we have this amplitude of blessing, chosen for the living together with Him in holiness which is so near to Him, in His presence, so in love He predestined us in Christ, His only begotten Son, so that we should be His children, the very thing He willed, bringing praise to His mercy. With this mercy He surrounded us in effectual grace which has provided us with a union with the Beloved.
Let us essentialise the teaching of Paul here, even further.
Blessed be God; wonderful our blessedness in
heavenly places.
What has happened reflects the choice before time, one which has the outcome of
being holy and blameless in His presence; and this has the antecedent that in
love He predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ to Himself, a thing
which His blessed will decided.
This brings praise to His grace, giving freely, not keen on selfishness,
providing savour with favour, a grace which is not airy but practical, having
made us acceptable to Himself IN His own beloved.
Thus in love He predestined for this, in adoption He showed that love, His very will as in any adoption, a thing showing what His grace actually is; for by it He has surrounded us, engraced us in Christ, as one might render it, Himself the Beloved.
Let us put these parts together.
First: Blessed be God; wonderful our blessedness in heavenly places. What has happened reflects the choice before time, one which has the outcome of being holy and blameless in His presence.
The second phase follows.
Thus in love He predestined for this, in adoption He showed that love, His very will as in any adoption, a thing showing what His grace actually is, for by it He has surrounded us, engraced us in Christ.
The first thrust thus gives the result now, the choice then, and the purpose of that choice in holiness.
The second gives the mode then, a fixing in love, with adoption the new status, the thing He willed for us, an expression of grace showing its nature, for with grace He has founded and surrounded us in Christ.
In the glory of His grace, He made us objects of grace in the Beloved
Thus in love He predestined for adoption, a thing He willed, bringing glory to His grace through which He made us objects of grace in the Beloved.
In this way, the presentation, nay the declaration is this: IN LOVE, He predestined us to the condition of children of God by adoption. This glorified His grace in which we are made objects of it in the Beloved.
Love thus is the focus in predestination, no less than His will, and with it is a grace exposed in its wonder in which we are made objects of it in the One loved, His OWN Son.
In love He predestined, decisively, showing what grace is by which we are accepted in the One whom He has loved forever, His own Son.
Love moves through grace to adoption in the One Loved, His Son. It gives us adoption in His sight, presence and by His work.
This then is an impeccable, yes rather a compelling combination, moving from predestination in love to acceptance in the Beloved.
This is parallel indeed to I John 4:10-11.
"In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another."
God LOVES and sends to cover us. This love flowing to us, should move through us. Earlier John declares that God IS love. Nothing He does conflicts with this ultimate. In love He predestines, foreknows. In foreknowledge, He loves. There is no conflict, no horrible decree of Calvin, His invention, not that of God at all, but rather the contrary. The conflict is in man, not in God; it is not in the statements so often, so explicit, so implicit of God*1, but in those of man who inserts what is not there into the Bible.
Whatever then the translation of Ephesians 1:3ff., the case is the same. It is one's settled policy in translation that if there are two possible renderings, neither of which conflict with other scriptures, then each should be given weight, and from each one should learn. If one writes with wisdom, one would foresee open possibilities, and close any that were not desired. What is left open is therefore instructive. While one cannot by prefer the translation "In love, He predestined", because of its superior cohesion and amazing felicity, yet whether or not it is preferred, it is there in the text, and cannot be dismissed. Both renderings are open. The latter appears to have a far greater cohesion and balance, a glorious symmetry and emphasis.
What then ? This helps us to avoid being superficial. What then of divine electoin ? It is not our choice, and theology ought not to talk as if it were (John 1:12, 15:7, Romans 9:16). But our choice is relevant to Him who chooses (John 3:19); and in His foreknowledge, who (Colossians 1:19ff.) would have ALL to be reconciled to Himself, He has gathered to Himself in mind and heart for adoption, every last one who is to be adopted, will be adopted and in the end, IS seen together AS adopted. It is in HIS KNOWLEDGE and as to that more particularly, FOREKNOWLEDGE that all are chosen and gathered and assigned.
As love and so expressing Himself in I Timothy 2 and John 3:16-17, Colossians 1:19ff., Ezekiel 33:1 with II Peter 3:9, both in negation and affirmation to emphasise the point, He seeks all. In foreknowledge (not based on works - Romans 9), He KNOWS His own. These are apparent to Him, and in so finding He has liaison with the fact that for some, as He knows them (for they are immobilised from seeing Him and so choosing Him by sin), darkness is the preference. These are not His.
Now this knowledge is allied with His PURPOSE. Negated is the concept that it is from our works that we are chosen, selected out; but affirmed is the concept that it is according to His own PURPOSE that we are chosen. Thus it is indeed our wills which relate, though only by His own knowledge which is the paramount concept; but it is this in accord with His purpose. It is not just 'do you love Me', but do you love God as HE IS! Do you love Him as the One who will SAVE THROUGH CHRIST'S CROSS! THIS is His purpose. Do you love the God who has such a purpose ? such a method ? such a blight on sin and such a knowledge of it and its heinousness ? Do you love the God who has such holiness in view that this is the price of purchase ?
So it is His choice according to knowledge, foreknowledge indeed, not based on works, but on His own purpose in love, the love with which He SO loved this world. This love is in the context of GOD, the WORLD, SINNERS, SELECTION in this world, this being the concept of the context, as in Colossians 1:19ff.. It is a purposeful foreknowledge then, and a characterisable love, one which is fixed on holiness, and not about to embark into the sallow, unhallowed seas of change, pollution or lazy slackness of spirit or sleaziness of heart.
Moreover, this foreknowledge is no mere thought, but it is enshrined in purpose, surrounded with grace and imbued with love.
As He chooses, so He chooses the soul, not the sin, and knowing and foreknowing the soul, He knows where love, HIS love allied with HIS holiness and HIS OWN purpose, resides, may reside, has place to be. Where He goes and knows. past the human will enslaved in operational dysfunction by sin, but by no means removed in itself from relevance to one made in His own image in the first place, sin is not the determinant. HE IS. Where sin is not the determinant, neither are the superiorities and inferiorities which it confers on the one created in the image of God. There is therefore no achievement in willing in this context; indeed Paul makes it plain how useless that is by itself in Romans 7.
So God saves whom He will, for His own purpose, enshrining with grace those to be found who in love are selected, in grace surrounded with goodness in the Lord in the One Loved, the Beloved. Love thus seeks out what is in the ambit of love for encompassment in Christ, THE Beloved; and NONE is lost through lack of it, misdirection, lack of application. It is as wide as the world, nay, beyond it, reaching to heaven and earth (cf. Revelation 12!).It is the atonement which is not applied where love has not found its own. God does not pay for what He does not take, and those for whom He is actually in Christ delivered up, these HAVE ALL THINGS! (Romans 8:32).
Thus another confusion is removed. There IS a limited atonement, and you could almost*1A say, limited attainment; but there is NO limit to the love of God in its embracive reality, though what is enshrined on the other side*2 in an ultimately chosen darkness, becomes hateful and is known as such from the first before the world began.
Merit is in grace - HIS merit in HIS grace, and merit for salvation is found nowhere else. Disgrace is in sin; even choice of God is something HE has realised, discovered if you will, though that realisation and discovery is eternal; but it is sovereignly realised, so that man's defects are neither determinative nor relevant. In grace the truth is known, applied and fulfilled, to the glory of His grace, without which none could come. When one does come to know God, it is in the availability of salvation, the application of the salvation and the foreknowledge in terms of what is statedly wrought by God Himself, that He takes His own. In doing so, He knows the will of man as man does not; in receiving His own, He takes what grace has wrought, and just as in love, He predestined, BEING love, so in love He applied it.
How was this done ? Having SO loved that world, and not just a segment of it, and NOT come to judge, thus not to judge even a SEGMENT of it (John 3:16-17,19, 15:21-23, Colossians 1:19ff., II Timothy 2:1ff.), filled with just that passion for compassion which is so prominent so often as in Hosea 7, 11, Ezekiel 33, Jeremiah 1-17, II Chronicles 36, Luke 19:42ff., John 15:21-23, Christ showed just that same urgent insistence and the very original and beauty of love as He acted, seeking the lost, even if in the highways and byways. Yet the judgment did come, not as the objective, but as the resultant. The love came as it does come, and it finds and reaps; and the judgment results, as it must result, and the testimony of truth is to be found in the barns of beauty and in the burning of shame, grain and husks.
It is the grace of God which is glorified and the illimitable love in its searching, yearning; and in truth is judgment wrought, not because of simple sin, but sin compounded in rejection and preference: rejection of goodness and preference for darkness (John 14:21-23, 3:19).
Nothing changes in spirit here; but those changed by the Lord to the image of His own by salvation through faith by grace, they are changed from glory to glory, according to His love (II Corinthians 3:18), moulded and moved not erratically, but insistently to grow more and more like Him, into whose image they have been restored (as in Colossians 3:10). Even the conforming changes are towards what does not change. Praise God for His grace and for His love; and let none impugn either of them. In His word we see it, in history we find it.
NOTES
See:
The Glow of
Predestinative Power Chs.
4, 8,
1, The Christian Pilgrimage Ch. 3,
Great Execrations, Great Enervations, Greater Grace Chs.
7
and 9,
To Know God ...Ch.
1, Keys to the Comfort of the
Kingdom of Christ Ch.
7,
Hapless Hitches and Holy Healings ... Ch.
2, The Open Mind, The Closed Door and the Call of Christ
Ch. 1.
ALMOST ? There is a possibility some may misunderstand, and while some are appointed to do this (I Peter 2), one tries to dissuade such proclivities. Thus God CAN attain what He will; but His name is not another word for "undirected power." HE IS WHO HE IS. His love is not gross, brash or intrusive contrary to the nature of the love He has given to us, to the prophets and apostles. There are domains where it seeks, but does not lasso; where it looks, but is not regarded. TURN, says Proverbs 1, and then He will enlighten; but BECAUSE YOU DID NOT, then out pours the outpouring of wrath; for what love presented in truth and wisdom, folly rejected in intemperance and self-will.
GOD DOES ATTAIN what He will; but being pure and perfect, He never forces the heart which, made in His image, would not love if it were forced. Love does not change itself for the sake of power; indeed God does not change (James 1:17, Psalm 102, Malachi 1, Hebrews 1, Habakkuk 3:6). Desire is not decision, and purity is not dumped. God attains what He will but within the confines of His heart, His Spirit, His nobility of beauty and the splendour of His humility so exhibited in Christ, so epitomised in Matthew 23:37 and Luke 19:42ff..
See:
Dizzy Dashes, Heady Clashes and the Brilliant Harmony of Inevitable Truth Ch. 6