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“Whom he did foreknow he also did predestinate.” (Rom. 8:29)

Disguise and explain as we might the doctrine of predestination, as we received it from the “dark ages” through the Westminster Confession of Faith it is necessarily a horrible doctrine, painful and difficult for every reasoning mind connected with a good and sympathetic heart. Now, as our eyes of understanding begin to see the Word of God more clearly and as we more and more allow it to be its own interpreter, we find that a gross blunder of interpretation is responsible for our confusion. We cannot wonder that good Brother Wesley was led to take a position utterly at variance with our text and at variance also with other Scriptures which speak of the Elect, and to conclude and to teach that there could be no election, that on the contrary divine grace must be free and impartial to all mankind. It was because this view so appealed to the hearts of men that Methodism made such great and rapid advances, so that today it is so firmly established and so in accord with the sentiments of the human heart that those who still hold to the doctrine of election, predestination, etc., theoretically and in their Confession of Faith, avoid any particular mention of its tenets. They prefer not to come into conflict on the subject, which is sure to enlist the hearts of men in opposition to them whatever their heads may think respecting the teachings of the Scripture.

And our Methodist friends also are quite contented to avoid a battle along these lines well knowing that the Scriptures as a whole do teach something respecting a divine election and elect class, that they do mention the Very Elect and urge upon God’s people to make their calling and election sure. So, then, while having a theory that is more attractive to the hearts of good people, our Methodist friends let the subject alone lest some should be stirred up to investigate who would follow the Scriptures at any cost. Indeed, it is plain to be seen that Christian people in general either have no confidence in the doctrines of the Bible which they have professed in their creeds, or else they have no faith in their ability to expound them before the close and cogent reasoners of our day. The effect is in some respects advantageous and in other respects injurious. It is to their advantage that people are no longer so hidebound and narrow as once they were in their reasoning; it is to their disadvantage in that their broader reasoning is not along lines of a better understanding of the Bible, but because of their neglect of the Word of God. Hence we find that the present generation of Christians are generally ignorant of the Word of God except along the paths of Sunday school lessons, which generally avoid all disputed points such as our text.

THE SHORT BED AND NARROW COVER

It might be supposed that the doctrine of divine predestination would be a very comfortable one to those who could convince themselves that they belonged to the Elect class. This has been true to some extent. Thousands have been willing to think of the Almighty as determining in advance of Adam’s creation how many of his posterity would be born into the world, how few of these would reach the heavenly estate and what immense hosts would be consigned to an eternity of torture — their consent to proposition being in view of the fact that they believed themselves to be of the favored few, the Elect. Nevertheless many have been the anxious hours of thought devoted to seeking full assurance of faith on this subject. Subtle fear persistently attacks and it causes disquiet by asking the question, “Are you sure that you are one of those predestinated to glory and not one of those predestinated to eternal torment? Are you certain that you are one of the Very Elect, making your calling election sure?

The Lord through the Prophet Isaiah pictures this uncertainty of the mind which particularly attaches to those who hold this doctrine of predestination, but which also is applied to others, for all with one consent agree that the Scriptures teach a narrow way of life and tell us that few there be that find it—and with the thought that all except these few go to an eternity of torment the question obtrudes itself time and again before the minds of the most earnest christians. Are you sure that you are one of the saints, that you are one of those walking in the footsteps of Jesus, that you are one of the called, chosen, faithful? The trepidation of mind is dreadful, and we do not wonder that the majority of the Christian people prefer not to think much about these things and incline to hope that there is no eternal torment; but immediately they are perplexed with the thought, If there is no eternal torment, then how do I know that there is any eternal life at all. Their difficulty lies in the misinterpretation of the Scriptures given in the “dark ages” which teach that eternal torment, purgatory, etc., is to be.

The statement of the Prophet to which we advert is, “The bed is shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it, and the covering is narrower than a man can wrap himself in it.” (Isa. 28:20) In this comic pen picture the Prophet tells a volume of truth, as nearly every Christian heart can agree. Our creeds, formulated in or directly after the dark ages, are too short. Designed as resting places of faith, beds of ease, they were long enough for so long as we were infantile in our experiences and reasoning. But in proportion as we became developed in heart and in head, we find, as the Prophet has graphically portrayed, that the bed is too short and that we cannot have ease or rest therein; the more we grow the more we must kink and double ourselves in order to remain in these short beds. As a consequence the noblest minds are deserting the creeds as being anything else than faith rests. The narrow covering of the pen caricature represents the attempt we make to wrap and cover ourselves, to protect ourselves, to secure ourselves. When we were children, actually or merely in mental development, we thought as children and understood as children and were well satisfied with the assurances that we were of the Elect and perfectly safe; but as we grew larger these assurances were too narrow for us, we wanted a reason why, we wanted a proof, we wanted a demonstration. The covering of assurances satisfied us and wrapped us well as babes, but a man cannot wrap himself in them and the larger he grows, the greater is the discomfort until he gets out of the short bed and its narrow covers and reaches a higher understanding of the divine character and plan, and awakes clothed in his right mind, children of the day and not of the night.

WHAT GOD DID NOT PREDESTINATE

We might be sure, even without a divine revelation at all, that our Creator did not predestinate that either a large or small proportion of the human family should spend an eternity of torment in a burning hell nor an eternity of any other kind of torment. If he could not create us to some better fate than that he surely would not have created us at all. So surely as we recognize the difference between the Word of God and the word of the devil, so surely must we hold to this conviction; because if to us the word God properly means the supreme and holy one, the loving one, the wise one, the all-powerful one, then we know that such a being could not premeditate, predestinate, foreordain or otherwise fix upon any of his creatures yet unborn an eternity of torture, suffering. To have any other conception of God than this would mean that any of us who have just, loving, generous minds could not worship God at all, because we would be obliged to admit that he would be much our inferior and hence unworthy of our worship. The trouble in the past has been that with illogical reasoning we have appropriated to the Almighty the characteristics of the devil—worse indeed than we have any knowledge of in respect to the devil. In view of this false premise it was in vain that we called upon our souls to worship and adore. It was only in proportion as we were able to hide from our minds and hearts these erroneous teachings of the “dark ages” that we were able to surmount the barriers and to realize something of a God of love and justice and to give to him worship and homage as such.

SCRIPTURAL FOREORDINATION

Foreordination is perfectly proper. It would have been wrong for the Almighty to undertake a haphazard creation without any forearranged or foreordained plans in respect to the same. What would we think of the man who would undertake the erection of a large building without counting the cost, without mapping out in some considerable degree the kind of a building he would construct and the purpose for which he intended it to be used. The man who would proceed to the erection of a building without any fore-arrangement for its use and construction would be held in derision, and much more so a God who would undertake the creation of this world and the twenty thousand millions of Adam’s race which have been born into it.

The difficulty comes when we begin to attach to this reasonable thought of foreordination the erroneous, unscriptural thought that the majority of men are to spend an eternity of torture. When we link the truth with the error we corrupt the whole thought. Thus it has been that we have blinded and confused ourselves on this subject of foreordination. It was first determined that there was to be a class tormented; it was secondly determined that God must have foreknown and must have forearranged this, and on this wrong foundation our theological blasphemy was reared. It is time that we get back to the proper basis of reasoning, that we eliminate altogether from our theology the hell torment of the “dark ages” and substitute for it the Bible teaching respecting hell, respecting the punishment of sin. This, as we have already shown, is a death penalty. Any of God’s creatures who will not use his gift of life in harmony with his direction must forfeit that life, must die as a brute beast. The Scriptures show us that Father Adam committed an intelligent, wilful sin and that the death penalty was visited upon him and descended naturally to all of his children. This would have meant that we would all die without hope of a future life, like the lower animals, had it not been that God, in his foreknowledge and love, had predestinated something better.

What did God predestinate in respect to our race and for our benefit? The Scriptures declare that he purposed in advance the sending of his Son to be the Redeemer of the world — father Adam and all of his race - to give his life a ransom for many who lost their life through father Adam’s disobedience. This part of the divine foreknowledge Christians gladly believe has already been fulfilled and as the Apostle declares, we believe that “Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures; and that he was buried and rose again on the third day” for our justification. (1 Cor. 15:3; Rom. 4:25) But what more did God predestinate or forearrange in his divine plan for our race? We see no great change in the world’s condition since our Redeemer died for us. How then is the world to be benefited according to the divine solution? We reply that according to the Scriptures God predestinated or purposed that the one who redeemed the world at Calvary should be the one who later on in due time, will take to himself his great power and reign King of earth under the whole heavens. The Scriptures explain to us that he must put down all insubordination and bring order and righteousness out of present confusion incidental to the reign of sin and death, which has persisted throughout the 6,000 years. The Scriptures show us that part of his work as the great King will be the binding of Satan, and that as a result of the Millennial blessing the knowledge of the Lord shall reach every member of Adam’s race and an opportunity be given to all to be restored from sinful and dying conditions back to full harmony with God and to eternal life, the gift of God. But they show us that this will be left optional with each person, that each will be required to co-operate to his own blessing and u1)lifting and eternal life and that the unwilling will (lie the Second Death “as natural brute beasts made to be taken and destroyed.” 2 Pet. 2:12

THE PREDESTINATION OF THE CHURCH

We have spoken of the world as a whole and of the time for its blessing, the Millennial Age, during which Christ will be King over all the earth. We now come to another feature of divine predestination, a feature which does not relate to the world as a whole, but merely to a small number of Adam’s posterity. The Scriptures assure us that in God’s eternal purpose which he purposed in himself before the world was, he foreknow us, the Church. (Eph. 1:9-11; 3:9-11; 2 Tim. 1:9; Titus 1:2) We are interested! What did God foreknow or predetermine respecting the Elect Church? The Scriptures tell us that the divine purpose from the beginning was to gather out from amongst the nations, peoples, kindreds and tongues of earth a “Little Flock” to be the Bride, the Lamb’s Wife, to be associated with their Lord and Bridegroom during the Millennial Age as members of his Kingdom class in the work of blessing mankind and uplifting them and instructing them in the ways of the Lord. If this can be shown to be the true Scriptural theory of the election of the Church it should surely be a gladsome message to every thinking Christian the world over. We meet, however, with a difficulty: our minds, long poisoned with the false doctrines, find it difficult to believe that God is as good as he is great. Hence many are disposed to say that this simple message, so well supported by the Word of God, is too good to be true. But, dear friends, how could anything be too good to be true when we consider that the source is the Word of the living God, the very embodiment of wisdom, justice, love and power; the God who declares to us that his very name is love, and of whom the Apostle says that we are unable to appreciate the heights and depths and lengths and breadths, and to know the love of God which passeth all understanding. Eph. 3:18,19

“ELECT IN THE FOREKNOWLEDGE OF GOD”

The Apostle Peter declares of the Gospel Church that it is Elect according to the foreknowledge of God. But let us not fall into misapprehension. Let us see that the Apostle means that the Church as a whole was predetermined of the Father not that the members of the Church were individually predetermined and elected. God predetermined before he created mankind at all that he would select such a company from the nations of the world and that such a chosen company should constitute the Bride of Christ, his joint-heirs in the Kingdom. Let us be content with this simple and harmonious view of the matter. The entire work of this Gospel Age has been the finding of those who would be worthy to be of this Elect class. There is not an arbitrary election; on the contrary God has limited and defined the elements of character necessary to a share in this Elect Church. He had a standard of character for our Lord, Jesus, who was found faithful and who was granted a glorious resurrection; as we read, Wherefore, because of his faithfulness unto death, God hath highly exalted him and given him a name above every name. (Phil. 2:8,9) Similarly he has called us to glory and to virtue, and we can reach the grand end of our glory only by the attainment of the virtues which God has marked out as conditions.

To our understanding this work of calling, testing, proving, finding who are worthy to be of the Very Elect class has constituted the great work of this Gospel Age, lasting now for nearly nineteen centuries. To our understanding this work of finding and testing, chiseling and polishing the Very Elect, preparing them for their future work in association with their Redeemer and Bridegroom, is nearly accomplished. All through the age there has been a nominally elect company under test, under investigation, under trial, to see whether or not they would make their calling and election sure by obedience to the terms and conditions of their covenant with the Lord full consecration to him and his cause. Reasonably the number who will not make their calling and election sure will be much larger than the number who will make it sure; as the Scriptures declare, “Many are called but few are chosen.” But be it noticed that the called ones, not chosen, are not condemned, are not to be consigned to a future torment; they lose the great prize, the great privilege to which they were invited to aspire. They lose the joint-heirship with their Lord in the Kingdom and the privilege of being co-laborers with him in the great work of blessing all the families of the earth during the Millennial Age. As for mankind in general, the vast majority are not even of the called, let alone of the Elect. The heathen millions who have never heard the name of Christ, the only name given under heaven whereby men must be saved, have not been called in any sense of the word. The Apostle speaks of these and declares that they are deaf and blind, they cannot see, they cannot hear. He explains to us that the god of this world is responsible for their condition, that he has put darkness for light and light for darkness so craftily before their minds that they are entirely confused. But we are assured also that the time is coming when all the blind eyes shall be opened and all the deaf ears shall be unstopped and all shall come to a knowledge of the truth.

OUR TEXT PROPERLY INTERPRETED

How strange it seems that for so long a time we have read into this beautiful text doctrines which it does not even hint at. Where does it refer to the predestination of damnation to anybody? Where does it refer to a divine predestination that anybody shall go to heaven? What it does most beautifully teach is that God I foreknew the Church and that he predestinated that whoever would be acceptable as a member of that Church must be conformed to the character likeness of his Son our Lord. How reasonable, how beautiful, how strangely our eyes were holden by error in the past, so that we were blind to this grand truth. It is not sufficient that God foreknew and prearranged to have a Church as the Bride of Christ; it is right that we should know additionally that he fixed certain limitations of character for all those whom he would accept to that glorious position. And what a high standard is set for them! They must be conformed to the image of his dear Son; not a physical likeness is here meant most evidently, but a heart likeness. In the spirit of their minds these must be copies of Jesus. As he was loyal to the Father and faithful even unto death this must be their spirit; as he was willing to endure hardness as a good soldier in the cause of right, this must be their attitude; as he laid down his life for us, these must also lay down their lives for the brethren. This predestination teaches us then that there will not be a single one in the Bride class who will not, during this period of call and acceptance and chiseling and polishing, attain to heart-likeness to our Lord. And how reasonable this is when we consider the high honor, the distinction to which these are invited, to be heirs of God, joint-heirs with Jesus Christ their Lord; if so be that they suffer with him that they may also be glorified together.” (Rom. 8:17) This is a reasonable predestination, it exalts our conception of the Almighty that he should require so high a standard of harmony with himself and the principles of righteousness in those whom he would accept to the high honor to which he has invited the Elect Church.

On the other hand, not a word of predestination respecting the wicked or respecting the world in general; the world is not elect in the largest possible sense. But this does not signify in any sense of the word their injury. Consider our own use of the word election in connection with politics; see how the public elect a few to Congress, one out of an entire district. Yet no one considers that the non-elect should be eternally tormented; they lose enough in that they do not gain the special office or honor. And so with those whom he calls or nominates through the message of truth and grace and who respond; they are informed that it is with them to determine their success or failure. So far as God is concerned all whom he calls may make their calling and election sure if they will; all the grace, all the assistance will be granted on the terms upon which they were called. How reasonable! How beautiful! Let us no longer regard this matter from the standpoint of the past, dishonoring the great Creator and dishonoring ourselves also by the imagination of the “dark ages.”

STATED IN REVERSE ORDER

The Scriptures frequently remind us that God has not declared that his Word is so simply written that it can be understood by everybody. The time when a wayfaring man shall not err therein is still future; the wisest of the worldly wise find difficulty in the present time. Only the truly wise toward God understand his Word now. To this end it is written in parables and (lark sayings, that seeing they might see and not perceive, and hearing they might hear and not understand.

For an illustration of this principle of measurably hiding the truth except from a certain class and hiding the truth under a measure of obscurity until a certain time, notice in our context the statement, “Whom he did predestinate, them he also called, and whom he called them he also justified, and whom he justified them he also glorified.”

This word glorified is an improper translation and is confusing; it should be rendered honored. The mind naturally expects the Apostle to take the standpoint that God first predestinated, secondly called, thirdly justified and fourthly honored and that the honoring here referred to is the honor of the Kingdom the change promised to the faithful in the “First Resurrection.” But this mistake has doubtless been responsible for much of the error connected with the understanding of this passage. As a matter of fact the Apostle begins at the opposite end to count. He first declares that God predestinated these. He looks down through the Gospel Age to the glorification of the Church and declares that those whom God predestinated before the world was are the very ones who will be the glorified “Little Flock” the Bride of Christ, in the future. He tells that every one of those must previously have been called and that every called one must previously have been justified and that every one must previously have been honored — honored with the opportunity of a knowledge of the Lord. Let us consider the matter from this standpoint: Looking out into the world we see today 1,600,000,000, but not many of these have been honored by the Lord with the privilege of hearing the good tidings of his grace in Christ. The majority of them are blind and deaf. The comparatively few who have been honored of the Lord with a knowledge of the Gospel obtained thereby the opportunity for justification by faith. True, not all of the honored ones accept the favor of God and allow Christ to be unto them wisdom. Only a comparatively few accept this message and consequently only a few comparatively have been justified through faith. Next these justified ones are privileged to be called, are invited to be heirs of God, joint-heirs with Jesus Christ their Lord as members of the Bride class. But where many of them are called, few will be chosen, because the vast majority of the justified seem unwilling to hear the call when it does reach them. But all of the called ones who will prove faithful to the call, faithful to their obligations of consecration, will then be glorified and constitute the Very Elect of God, the very Church, the very Bride which God foreknew and predestinated —all of these members conformed to the image of God’s dear Son.

Let us, dear friends, who see the beauty of divine election, give earnest heed that we may make our calling and election sure. Let us hearken to the Apostle, who tells us that we must add to our faith the various fruits of the Spirit which characterized our Redeemer and who declared that if we do these things we shall never fall, but so an entrance shall be administered abundantly into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. (2 Pet. 1:11) Let us so run that we may obtain, faithful is he who has called you who also will do it; — he will do all that he has promised, any failure therefore will be because of our own fault. As for the world, their trial time, their time of testing as to whether or not they will be worthy of life eternal or death eternal belongs to the next age, the Millennium. There will be no election there, free grace will prevail toward every creature. The Lord’s picture of that glorious coming day of blessing represents a river of the water of life flowing from the New Jerusalem, the glorified Church, and to its refreshment of life eternal all mankind are invited in the words, “The Spirit and the Bride say Come and whoever will, may come and take of the water of life freely.” The Bride is not yet saying Come, because as yet there is no Bride. We are waiting for the marriage, that we may become the Bride. Then shortly after it will be our glorious privilege to call the poor, blind, deaf world, which then will be able to hear and to heed, that they all may be blessed with this stream of refreshment and life everlasting which will proceed from the throne and from the Lamb, who redeemed us with his blood.

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