Some Christians believe that we are predestined to salvation or damnation before we are born. However, I believe that “the elect“ are those who respond to the Gospel. And anyone is able do so, if they are also willing. Even most of those influenced by Arminian free-will teaching, like Baptist, United Methodists and Seventh Day Adventists, believe that God knows what we are going to choose before we are born. They explain God’s omniscience as requiring His complete knowledge of all of our decisions in life from the minute to the landmarks, adding that God operates outside of time. So, we chose but God knows our choices before we are born.
I believe that God created the world and all that is in it at a given time about six thousand years also. He he operates in real time. Jesus works in the present, speaking to individuals in their respective generations. For sure, He knows hearts, but He does not know outcomes for all personal agents, as He Works to build the Kingdom by workings of His Word and His Spirit.
Predestination is summed thus: In the LORD's "munificence He promises to enrich indefinitely all those who make a good use of the gifts confided to them. But He will banish from His universe those who, in their ingratitude, refuse to accept the position that He assigns to them, or rather He will at last abandon them to the fatal consequences of their guilty folly. The predestination of the wicked may simply consist in the determinate purpose of the Creator not to oblige those to live for ever who obstinately plunge themselves into death. The predestination of the righteous would be the determinate purpose and promise to give 'eternal life to them that by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honour and incorruption'; those will be the elect who will fulfil the required conditions. These purposes, at the same time unchangeable and conditional, would leave intact the liberty of man, an intelligent mite going and coming at his will within the narrow precincts of his perishable dwelling." [The Problem of Immortality by E. Petavel Chapter 12- III. As an evangelical synthesis, it bears the character of a theodicy, and it replaces in their true light several doctrines generally misunderstood:§ 1. THE NOTION OF GOD AND PREDESTINATION]
So, Jesus calls us to obedience on various matters. And when we try to walk in obedience, He ultimately calls us to enter into His rest by accepting His perfect work (His life) on our behalf: “Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of trial in the wilderness, where your fathers tested Me, tried Me, and saw My works forty years.Therefore I was angry with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart, and they have not known My ways.’ So I swore in My wrath,‘They shall not enter My rest.’” [Ps 95:7–11] (Hebrews 3:7-11). Paul goes on to explain that the seventh-day Sabbath and occupation of the land of Canaan were only types of the Rest (the Antitype) offered by trusting in Jesus’ blood and righteousness for salvation. No works will do.
Greg Boyd’s book- “God of the Possible”- helps me to understand the operation of the Spirit of God in my life better. It presents what he likes to call ”an open view of the future.” In this view, some things are predetermined and some are not. The preface begins with the epiphany of the author: “The Lord told him [Hezekiah] through the prophet Isaiah, ‘Thus says the LORD: Set your house in order, for you shall die; you shall not recover’ (v. 1). Hezekiah then prayed earnestly and persuaded the Lord to add fifteen years to his life (v. 6). I’d read these verses many times before, but for some reason they struck me as more profound and more peculiar this particular evening. What puzzled me was this: Was God being sincere when he had Isaiah tell Hezekiah he wouldn’t recover from his illness? And if so, then must we not believe that God really changed his mind when he decided to add fifteen years to Hezekiah’s life? I began to wonder how this could be true if God foreknew all that was going to happen ahead of time, as I had been taught to believe all my Christian life. How could God have truly changed his mind in response to a prayer if the prayer he was responding to was forever in his mind? How could Scripture say God added fifteen years to Hezekiah’s life if it was certain to God that Hezekiah was going to live those ‘extra’ fifteen years all along?” (“God of the Possible” by Gregory Boyd) In fact, the author lists a plethora of such contradictions to the traditional views of predestination on pages 52-57.
Set Apart from the Womb
Jeremiah 1:5 Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations.
Galatians 1:15 But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, 16 to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood,
“Our understanding of the Scriptures leads us to depict God, the sovereign Creator, as voluntarily bringing into existence a world with significantly free personal agents in it, agents who can respond positively to God or reject his plans for them.”(“Systematic Theology” by Clark Pinnock) Accordingly, Yahweh God “appointed Jeremiah to be ‘a prophet to the nations, when he was still in the womb (Jer. 1:5) and set Paul apart before he was born (Gal. 1:15–16). Defenders of the classical view of foreknowledge consider this evidence that God foreknows everything that every individual will do before he or she is born.” (“God of the Possible” by Gregory Boyd)
But the open view is this—> “It is clear from these verses that God had a life plan for Jeremiah and Paul before they were born. This is evidence of exhaustively settled foreknowledge only if Jeremiah and Paul had no choice but to carry out God’s plan. Why should we assume this, however? As Paul suggested to King Agrippa, he could have chosen to be ‘disobedient to the heavenly vision’ by which he was called (Acts 26:19). This alone suggests that God’s ‘call’ on a person’s life isn’t a guarantee that the person will follow Him. Scripture is filled with examples of people who ‘rejected God’s purpose for themselves’ (Luke 7:30). In fact, every sin we have ever committed is an example of resisting God’s purposes for our lives, for God doesn’t intend us to sin. The same is true of every person who refuses to enter God’s eternal kingdom, for God wants ‘all to come to repentance’ and be saved (2 Peter 3:9). The reality of sin and damnation, in other words, demonstrates that God’s purposes do not always come about. Hence, the fact that God intended a course of action for Jeremiah and Paul didn’t guarantee that it would come about. Jeremiah and Paul were still free agents, despite God’s unique calling on their lives. We know about God’s prenatal intentions for these individuals only because they, perhaps unlike others who were called, did not disobey this heavenly calling. (“God of the Possible” by Gregory Boyd)
Sanctification before birth is a mystery, perhaps similar to John's message that Jesus is "the true Light, which lights every man that comes into the world." (John 1:4)
Big Predestination Verses
Ephesians 1: 3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, 5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.
Not only has the Father given the church spiritual blessings through Jesus, but He also chose us in Him before the foundation of the world. Before the foundation of the world, God determined that we would be ”chosen“ on the basis of faith in the work of Jesus Christ for salvation, resulting in a change of character, from sin to holiness. “Holiness is the habit of being of one mind with God, according as we find His mind described in Scripture. It is the habit of agreeing in God’s judgment, hating what He hates, loving what He loves, and measuring everything in this world by the standard of His Word. He who most entirely agrees with God, he is the most holy man… A holy man will strive to be like our Lord Jesus Christ. He will not only live the life of faith in Him and draw from Him all his daily peace and strength, but he will also labor to have the mind that was in Him and to be conformed to His image…” (J. C. Ryle)— "having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself," (Ephesians 1:5a) “Having foreordained that all who afterwards believed should enjoy the dignity of being sons of God, and joint - heirs with Christ.” (John Wesley)— “according to the good pleasure of His will," (Ephesian 1:5b) “....according to His free, fixed, unalterablee purpose to confer this blessing on all those who should believe in Christ, and those only.” (John Wesley)— “by which He has made us accepted in the Beloved.“ (Ephesian 1:6) “The Greek word translated here ‘accepted in the Beloved’ is the exact same word rendered ‘highly favored’ in Luke 1:28. ‘And the angel came in unto her [Mary] , and said, ‘Hail, thou that art highly favored, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women’” (Andrew Wommack)
That God does not have complete knowledge of the our individual futures does not detract from the majesty of God— impressive stateliness, dignity, or beauty. Our God in Christ Jesus can still have complete understanding of all the possibilities and gently guide us to the right path. And we can affirm— “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to thosewho are the called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28)
Romans 8:29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.
A people who God "foreknew."— “In customary Semitic fashion, Paul seems to be using the word know to mean ‘intimately love.’ This is clearly his meaning when, two chapters later, he refers to Israel as the people ‘whom [God] foreknew’ (Rom. 11:2). In this context, Paul has Israel as a corporate whole in mind, not individual Jews, for one of his primary goals throughout Romans 9–11 is to show that not all Jews are real Israelites. Israel was in God’s affection and plan long before she became a nation—she was foreloved—even though at the time Paul was writing most of the Jews individually had rejected God’s plan.” (“God of the Possible” by Gregory Boyd)
Paul teaches that these—Israel of old and the Church of new—“He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son that He might be the Firstborn among many brethren’— that is, the Head and Captain of all the adopted children of God, among whom He will forever shine, distinguished from them all in rays of peculiar glory.— ’Moreover, whom He did predestined’— or describe beforehand by His holy prophets, as persons who should resemble the Messiah; ‘these,’ in due time, ‘He also called’ — by His Word and Spirit; and ‘whom He called’— when obedient to the heavenly calling, Acts 26:19; ‘these He also justified’— accounted righteous, pardoned, and accepted; ‘and whom he justified,’ provided they continued in His goodness, Romans 11:2; ‘these He,’ in the end, also glorified.’ The apostle does not affirm, either here or in any other part of his writings, that precisely the same number of persons are called, justified, and glorified. He does not deny that a believer may fall away and be cut off, between his special calling and his glorification, Romans 11:22. Neither does He deny that many are called who are never justified. He only affirms that this is the method whereby God leads us, step by step, toward heaven. He glorifies none whom he does not first justify, and indeed also sanctify: and He justifies none who are not first called, and obedient to the call.“ (Jospeh Benson)
We are in a spiritual war, but all of the futuristic particulars are not known of God. We must choose Christ daily and fight battles in His name, persevering to the end. “God predestined and foreknew the death of Jesus without predestining or foreknowing which individuals would condemn Him, so God predestined and foreknew the church without predestining or foreknowing which specific individuals would belong to it.... Consider this analogy: Suppose you attend a seminar in which a certain video is shown. You might ask the instructor, ‘When was it decided (predestined) that we’d watch this video?’ To which the instructor might respond, ‘It was decided six months ago that you’d watch this video.’ Note that it was not decided six months ago that you individually would watch this video. What was decided was that anyone who took this seminar would watch this video. Now that you have chosen to be part of this seminar, what was predestined for the seminar applies to you. You can now say, ’It was decided six months ago that we would watch this video.’ This is what Paul meant when he said that we were predestined in Christ ‘to be holy and blameless before him in love.’ Now that you are a believer who is ‘in Christ,’ what was predestined for all who are ‘in Christ’ is predestined for you.” (Gregory A Boyd) "What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?" (Rom 8:31)
Excerpt from “God of the Possible” by Gregory A. Boyd pg 74–
Blotting Out from the Book of Life
Similarly, several times in Scripture God warns people that He may blot their names out of the Book of Life (Exod. 32:33; Rev. 3:5; cf. Rev. 22:18). This raises an interesting question: If God foreknew from all eternity that certain names would be “blotted out” of His book, why did He bother to put them there in the first place? If God may indeed “take away [a] . . . person’s share in the tree of life and in the holy city” (Rev. 22:19), and God knew this would happen, why did He give them a share in the first place? If we take these verses at face value, doesn’t this “blotting out” and “taking away” describe a genuine change in God’s attitude toward these people? And doesn’t this change entail that the eternal destiny of these people was not fixed in God’s mind from the start?
As the texts stand, they give us every reason to believe that God truly planned on saving these people, which is why their names were written in the book and they were given “a share” of the Tree of Life. Then they rebelled, so His plan for them was altered. They were “blotted out” and their share “taken away.” If these texts don’t teach us this much, it is not at all clear what they are intended to teach.
From an open view perspective, God creates the people He creates because He sees the possibility (but not the certainty) that they will become citizens of the eternal kingdom. He genuinely strives to win everyone because He hopes that they will surrender to Him. When they meet the condition of salvation by exercising faith in Him, He writes them in His book. When the condition is lost, so are they. The God who loves the entire world (John 3:16) is genuinely grieved when this happens. He knows that their loss was not inevitable. They could have, should have, and would have been his children.
So far as I can see, the open view makes better sense out of this wealth of biblical references than the view that people’s destinies are certain before they are ever born.
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Here is an online response of Greg Boyd to critics of the open view of the future. https://reknew.org/2007/12/response-to-critics/
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