Eph 12 5/3/85; 35 6/4/85; 280 5/6/86; 507 3/19/87

DOCTRINE OF PREDESTINATION

A. Introduction:

Election and Predestination.

1. Predestination is one of the two computer assets in your portfolio of invisible assets; the other is election.

2. The computer of divine decrees is made up of two different types of computer chips. The rom chip is programmed by the sovereignty of God and is God’s sovereign will. The prom chip is programmed by the omniscience of God, comprising the free will of man. In human history, the sovereignty of God and the free will of man coexist by divine decree. God will not and cannot force the believer to execute His plan. Motivation, mental attitude, volition must come from the thinking of your soul. God does not coerce or hinder your volition by any coercion in eternity past or in time.

3. The two printouts, election and predestination, are taught in Eph 1:4-5. They are both rom chips, for they originate from the sovereignty of God. God’s sovereignty means God’s will, God’s wish, God’s volition.

4. Election is the expression of the sovereignty of God before the human race, the universe, or anything else existed except God. Election is the expression of God’s will for you long before anything existed. And God willed for you in eternity past the very best. God the Father wants nothing but His highest and best for you.

a. To define these ethereal, abstruse terms, we explain highest and best as being your greater escrow blessings for both time and eternity, having been deposited by God the Father in eternity past. Greater means far, far greater than any normal blessings you associate with life; i.e., far more than logistical grace blessings.

b. These blessings were deposited in Christ as both the depositary and the escrow officer.

c. However, the very definition of escrow means there are conditions to be fulfilled by the grantee before the blessings can be conveyed. You are the grantee. The condition you must fulfill is the execution of the protocol plan of God in time.

d. We could define God’s highest as being your escrow blessings for time, and God’s very best as being your escrow blessings for eternity.

e. But these escrow blessings will remain on deposit in Christ forever unless you, as the grantee, utilize your positive volition by learning your portfolio assets so you can use them. After all, a portfolio’s purpose is to be utilized, applied, expanded. Your portfolio assets are invisible but very real

. f. In order for God to will the highest and best for you by electing you, He had to give you the same privileges and opportunities as He gives to all Church Age believers; there could be no exceptions. Therefore, when you believe in Christ, you receive equal privileges and equal opportunities with all other believers. No one is better or worse than you in God’s sight

g. Your equal privilege of election is your very own royal priesthood. No believer, including your pastor, is any more of a priest than you are. A priest represents himself before God. This rules out counseling. You as a priest have the right of going directly before the throne of grace in prayer. You have the right of becoming spiritually self-sustaining, which is the purpose of the priesthood. Only in this dispensation of the Church is every believer a priest. In all other dispensations there were specialized priesthoods.

h. Your equal opportunity of election is logistical grace blessing. This is extended to every believer, winners and losers. No matter how terrible a believer is, God is still going to bless him. The purpose of God’s logistical blessings is to not only keep the believer alive, but to provide each believer with the same opportunity to execute His plan as anyone else. Therefore, logistical grace includes some fantastic blessings in life! (This negates all the religious solicitations for you to give or to do Christian service in order to gain blessing from God. God doesn’t bless you on the basis of anything you can, will, promise or actually do.) Logistical grace blessings is the fantastic, marvelous grace of God. You are not even to be motivated by the expectation of receiving blessings from God; you are to be motivated from doctrine to execute His plan. Understanding this principle will cause you to begin to understand God’s grace. You won’t flaunt God’s grace, because you will understand that there is no blessing and happiness in anything in life when you’re out of fellowship.

5. Predestination is the provision of the sovereignty of God for you in eternity past to execute God’s plan, purpose, and will for your life.

a. If God’s going to deposit all those escrow blessings and will them for you, He must provide a way for you to fulfill the escrow conditions. He provides the way and means; He doesn’t leave anything to your works, abilities, personality, or attractiveness. He provided it all in eternity past.

b. God provided for you, under predestination, everything you need to execute His plan, the protocol plan of God, the only game plan for the Church Age.

c. Predestination is God’s grace provision for each one of us to fulfill His plan and to receive the conveyance of our escrow blessings. Therefore, predestination also provides you with equal privileges and opportunities.

d. Your equal privilege of predestination is being made royal family by the baptism of the Holy Spirit, who placed you in union with Christ at salvation. This is called positional sanctification. Being in union with Christ means we share all that Christ is and has. Specific to this doctrine is the fact that we share Christ’s heirship, being made heirs of God. Also we are the sons of God, adopted as adult sons Roman style.

e. An important application of being royal family is that you are to no longer distinguish yourself or other believers by human standards, such as being a certain race, rich or poor, successful or unsuccessful, attractive or ugly, male or female, socially acceptable or unacceptable, smart or dumb. Your only attitude should be that you are a person! As a result, you no longer compare yourself with others, determining them to be superior or inferior to you. So no matter what your human distinctions, you are to think of yourself only as a person! This change of thinking produces phenomenal changes in your life experientially. You must come to realize that this equal privilege of being in union with Christ and royal family is a fantastic asset. When you add doctrine to this asset, you no longer feel threatened by life or by people. You no longer take any insults personally.

f. Your equal opportunity in predestination is your very own palace, the operational-type divine dynasphere, prefabricated for you in eternity past.

B. Definition of Predestination.

1. Predestination is the work of God the Father in eternity past on behalf of every Church Age believer to execute God’s plan, purpose, and will for his life. Therefore, predestination is the grace provision of God the Father for the royal family.

2. Predestination is the provision of the sovereignty of God for the execution of the protocol plan of God. Predestination includes equal privilege and equal opportunity for the fulfillment of God’s plan and purpose for your life in the Church Age.

3. Predestination has its own equal privilege: the baptism of the Spirit at salvation, positional sanctification, which refers to the formation of the royal family. The royal family or Church Age believer shares the destiny of Christ.

4. Predestination has its own equal opportunity: your very own prefabricated palace, the operational divine dynasphere with its eight gates and system of divine power, the omnipotence of the Holy Spirit. For it is the filling of the Spirit that provides the divine power necessary to execute God’s plan and to fulfill your destiny on earth. This includes the mandate to live, reside, function, and grow in grace in your palace, that you might accomplish and achieve everything that God has designed for you.

5. The humanity of Christ received the first divine dynasphere, His being called the prototype divine dynasphere. He utilized it so that He remained impeccable in His humanity and was therefore qualified to go to the cross and be judged for the sins of the world.

6. What we call in time the protocol plan of God is, from the divine viewpoint of eternity past, called predestination.

7. Therefore, predestination means three things.

a. Predestination means protocol. The provision of the protocol plan of God for every believer in eternity past. Eph 1:11, “Having been predestined for a predetermined plan.”

b. Predestination means the possession of your very own royal palace, the operational-type divine dynasphere. Rom 8:29, “He also predestined us to be conformed to the image of His Son.” Jesus Christ resided in the prototype divine dynasphere while on earth. He has given us, His royal family, the operational divine dynasphere for our life on earth.

c. Predestination means royalty. The believer is royal family of God. Eph 1:5, “He has predestined us for the purpose of adoption to Himself.” Adoption refers to a Roman custom of aristocracy. At salvation, every believer is adopted not only as an adult son but as royal family. Being adopted as an adult son and royal family at salvation means that all your previous handicaps related to your physical birth and unbeliever life have been eliminated. This includes all genetic, environmental, and volitional handicaps.

8. God the Father prefabricated the divine dynasphere as the Christian way of life, not human beings and their legalistic standards. Predestination is the pre-existence of the divine dynasphere as God’s plan for your life.

C. The unbeliever is not predestined to hell, Jn 3:18,36.

1. The doctrine of predestination deals with the believer only.

2. In the Bible, if the antithesis is not stated, it does not exist. The unbeliever is not predestined to hell; he goes by his own free choice because he rejects Christ as his savior. No unbeliever is ever predestined or predetermined to judgment; they go by means of their own volition.

3. The Biblical concept of predestination does not conflict with human volition but emphasizes it.

4. “God is not willing that any should perish.” Unlimited atonement verifies that God’s sovereignty wills salvation for the entire human race.

5. The purpose of this doctrine is to relate the believer permanently to the plan of God through positional truth, Eph 1:5. Only the believer has a destiny. Only the believer is foreordained under the provision of the divine dynasphere. (See the Doctrine of Lapsarianism for a more detailed treatment of this point.)

D. Etymology. There are five Greeks words used to communicate this doctrine.

1. Proorizo means to predesign, Rom 8:28-29; Eph 1:5,11.

2. Protithemi means to predetermine, Rom 3:25; Eph 1:9.

3. Prothesis means a predetermined plan, Rom 8:28, 9:11; Eph 1:1, 3:11; 2 Tim 1:9.

4. Proginosko means to foreordain, 1 Pet 1:20; Rom 8:29, 11:2.

5. Prognosis means foreknowledge or predetermined purpose, Acts 2:23; 1 Pet 1:2.

E. Subjects related to God’s predetermined plan

. 1. The crucifixion of Christ, Acts 2:23.

2. All believer’s suffering, Rom 8:28.

3. The believer’s provision for time and eternity, Rom 8:29-30.

4. The Father’s grace concept of propitiation, Rom 3:25.

5. The believer’s life, Rom 9:11.

6. The Jewish believers of the age of Israel, Rom 11:2.

7. The life and work of Christ, Eph 1:9; 1 Pet 1:2,20; 2 Tim 1:9. 8. The production assets of the believer, Eph 2:10, “For we are His production [when we live inside the divine dynasphere] having been created in Christ Jesus [baptism of Holy Spirit, positional sanctification] for the purpose of good accomplishments which God has prepared in advance that we should walk in them.”

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