FOREORDAINED

FOREORDAINED

“For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren.” Rom. 8:29

An initial thing of the Christian experience. Take that simple little passage out of the great paragraph, a paragraph full of mystery and yet full of revelation, a paragraph in which the apostle is showing the "original thought and intention of God in the work of His Son", a passage in which occur the words that still fill us with fear as we attempt interpretation of them, the words “foreordained” and “elect.” The fore ordination is not to salvation but to character, “foreordained to be conformed to the image of His Son.” That is the will of God. A great deal has been lost in our own Christian thinking and in our own Christian life by treating the initial things of Christian experience as though they were the final things, by not getting far enough back in our endeavor to understand the real purpose of God in the mission of Jesus and the work of Christ. Therefore not the cause but the intention. Men do not think that way.

“For both He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one Father; for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren.” Heb. 2:11

His original intent and not the cause as Rom. 1:29 states. It was pre-eminently the life of a Son of God and not only of a righteous man; of a Son ever rejoicing before the Father, His whole being filled with filial love and obedience, peace and joy. In ways God ward and man ward, in self-denial and in full surrender to His Father's will, in hatred of sin and in grace to sinners, in purity of heart and forgiveness of injuries, in gentleness and all condescension, in restful yet ceaseless service, in unity of purpose and faultless obedience-in a word, in all excellencies and graces, in all virtues and beauties of the Spirit, in light and in love, the Lord Jesus set forth, the mold and substance of the life spiritual, divine, eternal.