God’s Predetermined Plan for You
God’s story has a predetermined plan (Acts 2:23). There is only one story, and it is known by its Author from beginning to end. God’s foreknowledge of His entire story does not mean He is passive (Deism), simply because He knows every person, circumstance, and event in cumulative history.
God has an eternal purpose (Eph 3:11) that He is implementing every day, including the day of Christ’s death. In fact, Christ’s death is the centerpiece of God’s purposeful story, which will be summed up in Him, at the consummation of the ages (Eph 1:9–10).
From God’s eternal good pleasure comes the will of God, decreed from eternity to be fulfilled with utmost precision by His eternal power. What God, in His infinite wisdom, has willed, shall come to pass. Every jot and tittle is in place because the immutable Author has established and sustains all things. Even the wicked, atheistic, reprobate, hater of God is playing her part, according to His plan (Prv 16:4).
God’s omniscience and purpose includes you and me, regardless of whether we were made by God to be vessels of wrath, prepared for destruction (Rom 9:22), or whether we were made to be vessels of mercy, prepared for glory (Rom 9:23). God knew whom He elected before He made each one (Eph 1:4–5). Jesus is God (Jn 1:1; 10:30); hence, Jesus is omniscient. He knows His sheep, for whom He laid down His life (Jn 10:11; Eph 5:25).
God knows the day He has appointed for each of His elect people to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit (Mt 3:11; Acts 2:38; 10:47). God’s elect people were appointed to eternal life by the ordination of God (Acts 13:48). He chose His beloved bride, the church, to be His holy nation, the Israel of God (Gal 6:16).
Christ demonstrated God’s love for His possession in His certain death (Rom 5:8; Eph 5:25). This people, a royal priesthood (1 Pet 2:9), comes from every nation, tribe, and tongue (Rev 5:9). Christ adds to His church, those He is saving, according to this one plan of salvation. He has even bound Himself to actually redeem each elect soul, by the blood of His unconditional covenant of grace.
The grace of God is the power and wisdom of God, abounding toward those God purposed in His sovereign predestination, and for whom Christ died in His particular atonement on the Cross.
The cross was the plan from the beginning. It is the plan, today, and to the end of the age. There is one effectual work to certainly redeem God’s chosen people. It was entirely a success on that day at Golgotha, when the Lamb of God, slain from before the foundation of the world, actually redeemed everyone He intended to save. All uncertainty in salvation, from man’s perspective, was removed when Jesus uttered, “It is finished.”
With Christ’s blood shed on the cross, God was reconciling His people, and making peace with them. He was redeeming His church, canceling our debt of sin. With the forgiveness of sins, the separation was removed, and Christ is now in union with His beloved (Eph 2:6; Gal 2:20).
The gathering of God’s elect, Jew and Gentile, is the current work in God’s eternal plan, set in time. God’s elect, regenerate, believing disciples are redeeming the time by bearing witness of God’s eternal plan and purpose in Christ (Acts 1:8).
Christ is building His church (Mt 16:14), with living stones, crafting those He has chosen to fit into His Holy Temple in the Spirit (Eph 2:11–22; 1 Pet 2:4–7). He cannot fail because of His sovereign power. None of His select branches will be cut off and thrown into the fire (Rom 11). None of His chosen stones will be misplaced, nor replaced in His glorious temple. None of His elect sheep will be lost, stolen, or fall prey to wild beasts (Rom 8:35–39). None of His beloved people will be plucked from His hand.
Here is the predetermined plan of God, authored by His determinate counsel in eternity. It is fully known to Him with no surprises, nor mistakes. Praise God for His sovereign plan and praise Him for including you in it…whoever you are…for better or worse.
David Norczyk
Spokane Valley, Washington
September 4, 2021
