Ephesians 3:18 May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; 19 And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God.
To be filled with all the fullness of God, it seems that this passage is saying one would have to know things that are beyond knowledge and comprehend things that cannot be comprehended.
To know the unknowable and comprehend the incomprehensible takes faith. By exercising deliberate faith we reach beyond intellect and come to know and comprehend things that are beyond human understanding; we begin to experience the fullness of God. An understanding of predestination gives us a basis for such faith.
God’s Higher Ways
Isaiah 55:9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
God’s ways are higher than our ways because his ways are in a higher dimension. Look once again at Ephesians 3:18. There are four dimensions in God’s reality: breadth, length, depth, and height. To comprehend God’s four-dimensional reality in our three-dimensional frame of reference does not compute, but things that conflict and contradict in lower dimensions are resolved when viewed in higher dimensions.
Consider an O-ring. When you give it a little twist and view it in two dimensions it looks like a figure 8. It is not a continuous smooth surface but clearly intersects itself. But when you view it in three dimensions, you can see that there is no intersection.
At the top of this page is a picture of a Klein bottle. Take a look at it. There is a conflict where the neck passes through the side of the bottle: Is the side of the bottle continuous, or is there a hole in the side where the neck passes through? It can’t be both. Right? When viewed in four dimensions it can be both. And so it is with predestination.
God’s Sovereignty
Ephesians 1:4 According as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. 5Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will.
There is little question that the Bible presents God as sovereign, predestinating people according to his good pleasure, choosing whom he pleased long before they had any chance to choose for themselves, even before the foundation of the world.
This is not a very satisfying view of God: punishing people for the choices he made for them, rewarding others according to a script that was written by him long ago. This view does not make sense to me because I don’t feel like my actions are being controlled. I feel free to make my own decisions, even the stupid ones. If it was God who composed my story, why would he include so many bad decisions and contradictions? There must be another side to this story.
Man’s Free Will
Deuteronomy 30:19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.
In this passage, God is offering man a choice: life or death. God is offering man the opportunity to choose “this day”, which is clearly after God has already chosen., if indeed it was God that chose.
So which is it? Did God choose before the foundation of the world, or do we get to choose today? It can’t be both. Right?
Yet both God’s sovereignty and man’s free will are presented in the Bible as truths; either viewpoint can be supported by many verses. Both are true, but embracing one to the exclusion of the other gives us less than half the story. A valid understanding of predestination must simultaneously embrace both concepts to resolve the contention. To understand predestination, we need to extend our reality to take into account the fourth dimension.
Predestination Defined
Ephesians 1:9 Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself 11In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:
The Greek word for worketh is energon, from which we get the word energy.
It means to work within. Predestination is God working within, doing all things according to his purpose.
Everything God does in us is according to his purpose, and he does everything by working within. This does not describe what he works within nor what his purpose is.
God’s Timing
Ephesians 1:4 According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.
This verse tells us that God chose who would participate in his plan before the foundation of the world. This seems to leave little room for the free will of man.
Ephesians 2:10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
God also prepared works for us to do. Again, he did this before the foundation of the world. It says good works, and since we know man is not capable of good works, these must be God’s works: God working in us..
God’s Purpose
Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. 29For whom He did foreknow, them He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son. 30Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called. And whom he called them he also justified. And whom he justified, them he also glorified.
Listing the dependencies in reverse order: glorification, justification, calling, predestination, foreknowledge, we see that predestination is not first in the sequence.
An Implied Dependency
There is one more dependency which is implicit: God’s foreknowledge. God knew what our choices, our actions, and our thoughts would be before the foundation of the world.
The difficulty is that God finished his works before the foundation of the world. These are the works that he prepared for us to do. He decided who would do them and perhaps when they were to be done. But how can we have free will when everything is already predetermined? There is a fundamental problem with this chronology.
God’s Omniscience
One of the attributes generally assigned to God is omniscience – God knows everything. It is logical to limit the scope of “everything” to what is in the past. But is that really the extent of his knowledge?
Romans 8:29 talks about God’s foreknowledge, implying that God knew things before they happened. So the question is, at what point did God come to know what your choices would be today? Tomorrow? The answer is incomprehensible – from before the foundation of the world. God’s knowledge transcends time.
An important thing to note is that God’s foreknowledge does not control Man’s choice. Rather, our free will informs His foreknowledge. Predestination takes into account our choices. God’s sovereignty does not violate man’s free will, rather it encapsulates man’s free will.
God’s Plan
The Bible always speaks of God’s purpose in the singular. In Romans 8:28-30, working together is a single Greek word, from which we get the word synergy. The English translation puts the object of the verb in the middle of the verb. Strange. It also says that we know this, yet, if we are to use the common interpretation of this verse, it is more like we have been bullied into believing it. All things work together for the good? Is this something everyone buys into?
God works together. Who is he working with? Those who love him. Those whom he called. What is the more likely interpretation? One that we can all agree that we know? All things we do together as co-laborers, God and I, are good. We are not called according to his purpose, but all things we do together are according to his purpose.
And here we see God working within us. We are also informed concerning his purpose in verse 29: that we would be conformed to the image of His Son.
Do you want to know God’s plan for your life? His plan is that you would be conformed to the image of his Son. As Jesus was conformed to the image of the Father, so should we be conformed to the image of the Son. For details on this, check out the Diving Pattern.
Resolution
God’s sovereignty is not exclusive of man’s free will. To the question, “Is it God’s sovereignty or man’s free will?” the answer is no. It is God’s sovereignty and man’s free will. When God put his plan together he took everything into account, including man’s free will choices. And the purpose of his plan – the goal of his plan – was that we would be conformed to the image of His Son. Time wraps back around on itself and the choices we make today have already been taken into account. Denying that, we deny the omniscience of God.
Faith
God does not control our choice, but he does control the set of choices from which we choose. Each choice we make alters the next set of choices. If I want a better set of choices, I need to make a better choice today from the set I have been given.
With this in mind, what do you want God to have known when he put together his plan for your life? Knowing God’s objective – to be conformed to the image of his Son – knowing that when you make it hard on him, you are making it hard on yourself, what choices will you make today.
Stop asking God what his plan is for your life and start making choices in the direction of God’s purpose. His plan is dependent on your choices. Make better choices, his plan for your life depends on it.
But we still have to be called, don’t we? That word is in the passive voice, meaning it is God’s choice, not ours. What is his basis for calling? He calls the ones he did foreknow. And what did he foreknow? Our choices. Whom did he call?
Revelation 22:17 And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.
What is the good toward which all things work?
Psalm 17:15 As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.
New Wine 