Well, as you know, this section
here, the apostle has set forth the gospel of God's grace in
Christ Jesus so meticulously, so clearly, so simply, that salvation,
the salvation of sinners, is totally conditioned on Christ,
And Christ, as our representative, as our surety, as our substitute,
as our sacrifice, as our redeemer, has fulfilled every condition
that God required to secure our salvations unto that we can boast
of these two things, that there is therefore now no condemnation
to them that are in Christ. We deserve condemnation, but
in Christ, We have no condemnation because he took our just desserts.
That's what he did. Our sins imputed, charged to
him. And therefore there's no condemnation. Absolutely, there's
no possibility. And we'll see this in the following
verses in a couple of weeks where we get to where he says, who
shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? And then in Christ,
we have a right standing with God that cannot be interrupted,
cannot be changed, cannot be taken away, because he's the
same yesterday, today, and forever. He is our great high priest,
ever living to make intercession for us. We stand before God righteous,
really, legally righteous in God's sight, based on his righteousness
imputed. And as a result of that, we receive
the power of his righteousness, the power of his life, which
is our spiritual life in the new birth. And we're going to
talk a little bit about that today, but look at verse 28.
It says, and we know, and I made the comment, whatever he's going
to say, we know, we know this because of God's revelation,
because of God's word. This is not just a feeling that
we have. You know, religion, so much religion
today is based upon feeling, and it's false. How you feel
today, you know, feelings come, feelings go, feelings are deceiving. Our warrant is the word of God.
That's the only thing worth believing. And so we know this, whatever
he's gonna say, we know it because God not only has said it in his
word, But he sent his spirit from Christ to convict us of
this. We have a conviction of this
from the word of God. So we can say we know. Well,
what do we know? That all things work together
for good to them that love God. All things work together. Now,
as I said last week, he's not saying that all things are good
in and of themselves. There's sin and there's evil
in this world. There's sin and evil within us,
the flesh. And those aren't inherently good,
but what he's saying is that God is powerful enough, God is
wise enough, God is gracious enough towards his people that
he works all things, good and bad, for good, for our eternal
spiritual good. To them that who? Love God. And
we know that's talking about sinners saved by grace, believers.
Nobody loves God by nature. We're all by nature God haters.
Now you know that's something that religion today won't accept.
Fought man's religion, humanistic religion. But no one loves the
God of the Bible. We love a God of our imagination.
People love their God, but their God is an idol. And I know this
from personal experience, the God that I served and worshiped
in my youth is not the same God that I serve and worship today. Because the God of the Bible
powerfully, spiritually brought me to faith in Christ and repentance
of dead works and idolatry. And dead works and idolatry go
together. Because whatever God accepts
those dead works, he's not the God of this book. He's an idol. But those who love God are those
who have been convicted of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment,
and they've come to Christ. And it says, to them who are
the called, that's those who are effectually, invincibly called
by the Spirit, and it's according to His purpose. And what is His
purpose? It can be summarized like this.
Well, take a passage like 2 Corinthians 4, 6. The glory of God revealed
in the face of Jesus Christ. God's purpose is to glorify himself
in the salvation of his people by his grace through the merits
of the obedience unto death of the Lord Jesus Christ as our
surety, substitute, and redeemer. to secure our salvation unto
his glory. Now, verse 29, I left off here
this first phrase, for whom he did foreknow. Now remember the
word foreknow, when it comes to God, doesn't mean something
that God just knew before a certain time or that he foresaw looking
down through some sort of imaginary telescope of time. God's not
a crystal ball gazer. He foreknew these things because
he foreordained these things. You can go all over the scripture
and see that. Read passages like Isaiah 46,
Ephesians chapter 1, and others that we could go to. God is not
a God of chance or fate or kismet. Nothing takes God by surprise.
Everything is done by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of
God. And that's what this means, God foreknew these things because
he foreordained those things. And this means this foreknowledge
is God's purpose. He knows the end from the beginning,
Isaiah said, because he determined the end from the beginning. And
I admit that our finite, limited minds cannot comprehend all of
the ins and outs and how these things fit together because we're
not God. God is God and we are who we
are. God is infinite. We're finite. And so God, you
know, God understands these things because his understanding is
infinite. And we rest in him. And that's why these things are
revealed this way. They're secret things that belong
to God, the revealed things that belong to us. But it says here,
now look at each phrase here. He says from verse 29, for whom
he did foreknow, it says he also did predestinate. to be conformed
to the image of his son. Predestinate means to determine
beforehand. That's what it means. Peter referred
to it in Acts 2.23, the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of
God. And what was he talking about?
He was talking about the death of our Savior on the cross. And
he says that God predetermined this. This is the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God, he said. And somebody says,
well, does that mean that we're not held accountable? No, Peter
said, we with wicked hands have crucified and slain the Lord
of glory. But it was still the determinate counsel and foreknowledge
of God. Now how are you going to jive
those two things in our human minds? You can't, but this falls
under the heading of those things that God is working together
for good to them that love him who are the called according
to his purpose. Do you believe salvation, as far as the purpose
of God and the foreknowledge of God, do you believe salvation
is older than creation? I do. I heard a man talking about,
you know, origins today. And of course, when we think
of origins, we go back and we say God created the heaven and
the earth, and he did. But salvation's older than that.
Scripture talks about a salvation that was given us in Christ Jesus
before God created the heavens and the earth, before the world
began. Isn't that mind-boggling? Isn't it mind-boggling that the
people of God, the people of His choice, were in His mind
and heart from eternity? And that's amazing, isn't it?
But it was always based on a just ground, that Christ would come
and do the work that he was required to do in establishing a righteousness,
whereby God could justify sinners like us. Well, now that precludes
the fall of man, doesn't it? If Christ is gonna be our savior,
that means we had to be fallen. Did God predetermine that? Yes,
he did. Does that make him the author
of evil? No. No, it doesn't. Well, how do you explain that?
I can't. And neither can you. And I'll be honest with you,
if your religion, your faith, is hinged on you understanding
that, you might as well get up and leave. Shut the Bible, eat,
drink, and be married. Tomorrow you die. Now, am I right? But God reveals these things
for our comfort, for our peace. And he says the same God who
chose a people, The same God who determined the fall and our
fall into sin and depravity, which means that our minds, our
affections, and our wills are under the dominion of sin, and
if left to ourselves, we will not choose God. The same God
who tells us that in this word is the same God who commands
whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
So what are you to do? Well, you can't climb into the
mind of God and find out things he hasn't revealed. You can't
climb into the infinite mind of God and understand things
that you're not equipped or I'm not equipped to understand. So
what are we to do? We're to seek the Lord, period,
that he may be found. That's it. That's the command. Believe the gospel. Repent and
believe the gospel. That's the only way we can react
to such truth. And you say, well, why even deal
with that? Because it's in the Bible. This is God's word to
us. This is God speaking to his people. And so, when we read things like,
I've got listed here, Ephesians 111, the purpose of him who worketh
all things after the counsel of his own will. Well, is there
anything that's accepted there? Well, apparently not. Those whom God foreknew, he has
predestinated that they all be conformed to the image of his
son. That's what he's saying here. Now here, this proves several
things. You know, a lot of people, you
know, when they come to the ideas of predestination and election
in the Bible, they'll try to lessen the depth and validity
of these truths. Like for election, they'll say,
well, God elected nations, not people. Well, tell me something,
what is a nation? I think it's a group of people,
isn't it? Well, the Bible tells us, in
2 Peter, for example, to give diligence to make our calling
and election sure. Is that talking about a nation?
No, it's talking about God's elect, it's talking about believers.
And then on predestination, they'll say something like this, well
God didn't predestinate the people, he predestinated events. Well
read that again. Is it his purpose that events
in history be conformed to the image of his son? No, his people. Another thing this proves is
there is absolutely no possibility that anyone whom God foreknew,
predestinated, whom he elected, shall perish. They cannot perish. It's his purpose for his glory
through the blood of Christ that they be conformed to the image
of his son. And what's that talking about? It's talking about final
glory. And Christ is able to save us to the uttermost, the
scripture says. I know whom I have believed,
and I'm persuaded that he's able to keep that which I've committed
unto him against that day. And what have I committed unto
him? My whole salvation. My whole eternal destiny. Heard
a man talking about destiny this morning. Well, what is our destiny?
It's to be conformed to the image of Christ, to be like him. And
John said that doesn't yet appear to us today. I mean, we have
some foretaste of it in the power of the Spirit, who draws us to
Christ and indwells us to keep us convicted of our sins and
convicted of righteousness and judgment, keep us looking to
Christ, the author and finisher of our faith. Look here in verse
29. Predestinated to be conformed
to the image of his son, that he might be the firstborn among
many brethren. What that means, when Christ
is called the firstborn, it means he has the preeminence Colossians
1 speaks of that. He's the head of the church.
He has the preeminence in all things. Christ has the preeminence
in creation. He has the preeminence in salvation. He has the preeminence in providence. Now why is that so? Because the
Godhead determined that it was in Christ that the full glory
of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit would appear, would be
manifested. For in him dwelleth all the fullness
of the glory of the Godhead, in the God-man, in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Somebody said, well, his being
the firstborn refers to his actual birth, because he's the first
one to be born of a virgin, and the conception that took place,
the miraculous, well, he was, but he's the only one that'll
ever be that way. Some say the firstborn refers
to his resurrection, and I believe there are passages of scripture
that speaks of that. What it is, firstborn from the
dead, Christ was the first to be resurrected. Now, somebody
said, well, what about Lazarus? Well, Lazarus was raised from
the dead, but he wasn't resurrected unto glory. He had to die again.
And so Christ was the first, in 1 Corinthians 15, he's the
first fruits of them that slept. But the major issue here is the
firstborn. You know the law of the firstborn
back in the Old Testament. I think I've got a list here,
Exodus 13 and verse two, where God told Israel under the old
covenant that the firstborn was to be set aside and made special.
The firstborn was to be the head, spiritual head of the family.
And that basically was the birthright. You remember Esau despised the
birthright? It wasn't money that Esau despised or anything like
that. He just didn't care about spiritual
things. He was a man of the earth. He was what we call an earth
dweller. See, believers aren't earth dwellers. I know we live here, but we're
not citizens of the earth. We're citizens of a heavenly
kingdom. We're looking for a kingdom that's not made with man's hands. But Esau was a man of the earth
and he didn't care about spiritual things and that's what he despised.
That birthright of the firstborn. The firstborn was the head of
the family. Well, Christ is the head of our family, our spiritual
family. He's the firstborn. He was the
first resurrected. And the firstfruits and all who
are in him shall be resurrected unto glory. So there's another
proof that salvation cannot be lost. Romans chapter four says
that he arose from the dead because of our justification. And what
does that mean? That means righteousness was
established. And those, listen, where God
imputes righteousness, there has to be life. There has to
be eternal life. Sin demands death. Christ put
away our sins. How do you know that? Well, he's
the firstborn among many brethren. Who are his brethren? All who
will be born again, who will be preserved, and who will be
resurrected unto glory. All believers. Well, that brings
us to verse 30 now. How can I know? All right, now
this is the question. How can I know personally that
God is working all things together for my good? How can I know? This doesn't apply to everybody
now. Those who live and die under the wrath of God You can't say
all things are working together for their good. He that believeth not shall be
damned, cursed under the wrath of God. How can I know, all right,
how can I know that God predestinated me to be conformed to the image
of his son? How can I know that? How can
I know that I'm one of these many brethren? that he's the
firstborn of. How can I know that I'm called
according to his purpose? Well, look at verse 30. He says,
moreover, whom he did predestinate, whom he foreordained, all right,
them he also called. Now, first of all, understand
again, There are many, for example, there are many who have been
predestinated by God to be conformed to the image of his son, who
were chosen before the foundation of the world. There are many
who haven't even yet been born. There are many who are still
lost sheep. Remember Christ talked about the lost sheep. I came
to seek and to save that which was lost. That's how we all started
out life, wasn't it? I know I was born and raised
in religion, but I was still lost. I thought I was a sheep,
but I was a lost goose in the high weeds. Because I didn't know the way.
That's what it is to be lost, isn't it? You don't know the
way. You ever been out on the road going somewhere and you
get lost? You don't know the way, so you have to stop and
ask directions. And I had people who were giving
me the wrong directions. They were called false preachers,
telling me this is the way, that's the way. But then God, by His
sovereign grace, brought me under a preacher who told me the right
way from the Word of God. Christ said, I'm the way, the
truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father
but by me. I thought I was coming to the
Father by him, but the him that I was coming by was a false him,
a counterfeit Christ. You see, Paul here, he paints
a portrait in the doctrine of Christ. that shows us the glory
of who he is and the certainty and the power of what he accomplished
to secure me unto salvation and final glory and that's his righteousness
imputed, established for me. So what we see here we have assurance
of salvation and we can know that God is working all things
together for our glory because it's impossible for God to fail
to accomplish his purpose It's impossible for God to lie. It's
impossible for God to fail to keep any of His promises. And
secondly, all His promises, all of His purpose, finds its fruition
and completion and success in Christ, the glory of God, the
God-man, conditioned on Him, and He fulfilled those conditions.
So what does that mean? Well, if you've been chosen,
if you've been predestinated, If all things are working together
for your eternal good, for whom he did foreknow, he also did
predestinate. Verse 30, moreover whom he did
predestinate, them he also called. Now what is that calling? That's
the effectual, powerful, invincible calling of the Holy Spirit in
the new birth by the preaching of the true gospel. That does
not come, this calling, Remember I mentioned in 2 Peter chapter
1, what is that, verse 9 or 10, I can't remember. It says, give
diligence to make your calling and election sure. Well, if I'm
going to know I'm one of God's elect, I've got to make sure
that I have the right calling. Now, what is that calling? Well,
what does God's word say? It's when God calls his people
by the preaching of the gospel under faith in Christ and repentance
of dead works and idolatry. It's when the Holy Spirit takes
the word of God and convinces us of sin, because we believe
not on him, that we're all sinners, that we have no spiritual life,
spiritually dead, and convicts us of righteousness because Christ
did the work and went unto the Father, and convicts us of judgment
because the prince of this world is being cast out. In other words,
he convicts us in the gospel that Christ put away our sins
as our surety, my sins imputed to him. As my substitute, he
died on the cross to put away my sins, to satisfy justice,
to bring forth a propitiation, to secure my salvation. He redeemed me. He bought me
lock, stock, and barrel, and there's no way that I can be
lost forever. No way that I can perish in damnation. I'm justified. Those whom he
called, he calls by the gospel. A corrupt tree cannot bring forth
good fruit. That corrupt tree is the false
gospels which relays, communicates a false Christ,
a false way of salvation. And so, check your calling. Somebody says, well, I didn't
believe the doctrine of grace, but I was called, I was saved
when I heard a false gospel. That's wrong. You hadn't been
brought to repentance. You haven't repented of dead
works and former idolatry, now that's just the case. The gospel
is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to
the Jew first and the Greek also, for therein is the righteousness
of God revealed from faith to faith as it is written, the justified
shall live by faith. That is looking to Christ as
he's identified and distinguished in this book and what he did.
Well, he goes on, he says, Them he also called, and whom he called
them he also justified. Now this is not teaching that
we are justified based on our calling. What is it to be justified? It's to be forgiven of all my
sins on a just ground. And what is the only just ground?
That's the blood of Christ. What is it to be justified? It's
to be legally declared righteous in the sight of God based on
Christ's righteousness imputed to me. If I'm justified before
God as a result or as the fruit of that, I will be called by
the gospel. So this is not saying that it's
our believing that justifies us. What it's saying is that
our calling and our believing by the power of the Holy Spirit
gives evidence that we've been justified. All of these verbs
here in the past tense, this called, them he also called. That's past tense. Well you know
there's some who haven't been called yet? Because we're still
here on this earth, we're still preaching the gospel. There's
some lost sheep out there and he's gonna call them. But he
writes here as if it's already a done deal because in the mind
and purpose of God, it is a done deal. There's no possibility
of failure. So this calling evidences that
God has justified us through the blood of Christ. And that
justification means we have a right standing before God. We're going
to see later it means we can't be condemned because we can't
be charged with sin. Sin cannot be imputed to us because
it was imputed to Christ and he satisfied justice on our behalf
for that sin. He put away our sin. He took
them away. Righteousness has been imputed
to us. We cannot be charged. We cannot be condemned. All of
that. And then it says in verse 30,
and whom he justified, them he also glorified. Now, technically
speaking, you know, when God calls us into the kingdom, it's
a wonderful glory, isn't it? When you see the glory of God
in the face of Jesus Christ. But the glorification that he's
speaking of here is that which comes in the end when Christ
comes back and calls his church unto himself, gathers his people,
and spoken of in 1 Corinthians 15, that's when we'll all be
changed in the twinkling of an eye. That'll happen to all of
us together. Right now, the glorified, the spirits of those who have
gone on are with the Lord, but they yet wait to this glorification,
this future glorification. But you know here it's spoken
of in past tense as if it's already happened. Why is that? Because in God's mind and purpose
it's a done deal. You know the Bible says that
in the book of Romans that God calls those things which are
not as if they are because in his mind he's not, listen, God's
not, he's not, he created time and he controls time but he's
not subject to time. not in his purpose of glory.
And all of these things will unfold in time as he purposed
them. But it's past tense. So keep these, look on your lesson,
keep these three things in mind. Number one, it has happened in
the mind of God already, who calleth those things that are
not as though they were, Romans 4.17. Number two, it's sure and certain
to be our experience because of the sovereign power of God's
grace in Christ who is risen as the first fruits of believers
who have died. It's sure to happen. All the
promises of God in him are sure, are yay and amen. And then number
three, we who believe are already glorified in the person of Christ,
our head and representative. Christ is on the throne. And
we are glorified in him, not in our own persons, but in the
person of him, our representative. And one day we will be glorified
personally when he comes again to bring us all together to inhabit
the new heavens and the new earth as he fulfills all that he promised
and purposed and planned to do in Christ.