The True Meaning of Predestination

What is predestination? This question has puzzled scholars, theologians and millions of Bible believers for many centuries. Yet the answer to this question is of staggering importance to your salvation!

Predestination is about the leadership serving under Jesus Christ during the Millennium.

The Bible is a simple book if you understand the big picture. Many believe we are prejudged before birth—destined to be guilty or innocent before we even act. That is not true! God is not angrily writing us off before we even have a chance to do the right thing.

Notice this inspiring, uplifting Bible passage in the Moffatt translation: “Paul, by the will of God, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the saints who are faithful in Jesus Christ: grace and peace to you from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who in Christ has blessed us with every spiritual blessing within the heavenly sphere!” (Ephesians 1:1-3). In this passage, the Apostle Paul was referring to himself and a select few faithful servants of God—not all mankind.

Christ has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly sphere! This is the greatest reward any human could ever imagine, the epitome of a blessing. Those who are serving God and doing His Work today will inherit this reward promised throughout the Bible.

“He chose us in him ere the world was founded, to be consecrated and unblemished in his sight, destining us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ. Such was the purpose of his will, redounding to the praise of his glorious grace bestowed on us in the Beloved” (verses 4-6; Moffatt). Again, this is not about the world but about God’s chosen people.

Verse 5 in the King James Version uses the word adoption instead of sons. That is wrong! God is talking about real sons being born into the Family of God!

“In whom we enjoy our redemption, the forgiveness of our trespasses, by the blood he shed” (verse 7; Moffatt). This is like an open secret from God—how the shed blood of Christ pays for our sins, making possible our eventual birth into the God Family.

“In the Christ in whom we have had our heritage allotted us (as was decreed in the design of him who carries out everything according to the counsel of his will), to make us redound to the praise of his glory by being the first to put our hope in Christ” (verses 11-12; Moffatt). The small group of people serving God today is just the first to put our hope in Christ. This little flock has been called and chosen by God out of the entire world. Even Christ converted only 120 people during His 3½-year ministry. God’s one true Church has always been a little flock.

The King James Version translates verses 11-12: “In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will: That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ.” God’s firstfruits are called out of this world during this age of 6,000 years of man’s failed rule over his fellow man, for the purpose of bringing praise and glory to God!

Christ Himself promised to build God’s Church and ensure it would never die (Matthew 16:18). This Church is alive and doing a work today, with saints backing the leader God is using before Christ’s Second Coming.

Ephesians 1:11 discusses the predestination of the firstfruits “after the counsel of his own will.” It is God’s will to warn the world and explain the cause of mankind’s horrifying problems! Predestination makes this cause very clear.

God’s warning message is going out as a witness to the world today, but only a handful of people are responding and will be saved from the coming punishment. Most people simply won’t pay attention to the warning! Human nature is automatically hostile toward God (Romans 8:7). The little flock of firstfruits is predestined by God to be instruments in His hands, serving in His Work, helping to deliver the warning message.

A predestinated group of humans is now coming out of the world before Christ’s return and being prepared to lead the world, ruling from the throne of David with Christ, as His Bride. Beyond the 1,000-year rule of Christ on Earth, they will extend God’s perfect law and government into the universe, causing it to blossom as a rose.

God is training His firstfruits for positions of leadership in the World Tomorrow. This way of life is much harder today than it will be in the Millennium, when the devil will be locked away. Today, Satan is the god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4), deceiving all mankind (Revelation 12:9).

God the Father calls and chooses us as a predestined generation (John 6:44). We are drafted by the power of God’s Holy Spirit grabbing our attention; we do not volunteer.

The firstfruits are the first ones to understand the plan of God. The world does not know God! You can go all the way back to Adam and Eve choosing to walk away from God and the tree of life, instead eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—really, the tree of death. Mankind has followed in their footsteps ever since.

The firstfruit way of life can be difficult at times—more difficult than the Millennium, as stated before. But the rewards are awesome! God is reproducing Himself. We are chosen to be teachers and leaders to facilitate all mankind entering God’s Family.

When Christ returns, He will work with the firstfruits of today and from past millenniums, even some from Old Testament times. We will be God beings serving under Christ!

“That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ” (Ephesians 1:12). Our predecessor, the late Worldwide Church of God founder Herbert W. Armstrong, wrote about this verse: “To whom is the passage speaking? Only to the saints who were faithful. Note well these points. Predestination has only to do with being called to the inheritance of becoming sons of the living God, and those predestinated are said to be the first so called” (Plain Truth, November 1976). The predestinated are the first people to be called, before Christ’s return.

“Others are to be called later! Predestination refers to those pre-called—NOT prejudged or pre-condemned. Nothing in this passage nor in Romans 8 says anything about being prejudged or pre-condemned. Therefore, it has only to do with when some are specially called and only to do with those first called before the world in general …” (ibid).

If you start watching a movie halfway through, you won’t know what is going on. You need the big picture: “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren” (Romans 8:29). Christ is just the firstborn of many brethren into the God Family! The firstfruits will be next, and then all mankind! Real sons of God. This is reality.

“Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. … He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?” (verses 30, 32). Christ freely gives us all things. God is promising us every spiritual blessing within the heavenly sphere! (Ephesians 1:3; Moffatt). So of course we have trials. It is harder for us to make it into the Kingdom of God because God is preparing us for high offices that require much training and teaching. We need the Holy Spirit to really think like God. That’s what conversion is all about—thinking and acting like God.

So much has happened leading up to our predestination. God and the Word were together in unity for eternity. They created the angels. Lucifer and a third of the angels had an opportunity to establish God’s government on Earth, but they rebelled and wrecked the Earth and universe. They didn’t want to live the give way, so God turned to Plan B: re-creating Himself in human beings made male and female so they could build families that picture the God Family (Genesis 1:26). God renewed the Earth so humans could inhabit it (Psalm 104:30). Satan, formerly Lucifer, convinced Adam and Eve to follow him. The Word became Christ and was born of the virgin Mary as the Son of God the Father, later dying for our sins. We now have an opportunity to master repentance and turn our lives over to God, following Christ’s example so we may be born into the God Family as He was after His death and resurrection.

Study the example of Job. Job saw his self-righteousness and came to abhor himself! We all must reach the point where we hate ourselves and love God, so God can build His character in us.

Whether or not you end up in the first group of spirit-born sons of God, you have everything ahead of you! You can’t even imagine it unless you do a lot of studying to get to know God.

God has always known that a small group of loyal people would do His Work before Christ’s return. These predestinated firstfruits are blessed with all the spiritual blessings within the heavenly sphere!