Appointed to Eternal Life

Acts 13:48 “And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.”

This is a very sensitive topic in Christianity where many believe that only those who are predestined to eternal life would believe and others do not have the opportunity of salvation. There are some groups which say that God has pre-planned all our lives and nothing is in our control. There are some who believe in complete free will where it is completely our responsibility and so, prayer is not necessary. But, it is important for us to have a clear understanding of this. Our God is full of love and not just laws. If it is just the law, there is no dispensation of grace. If it is just grace, there is no glory. That’s why our situation is a great combination of predestination and obedience which is otherwise mentioned clearly in the Bible as Grace and Faith. If we cannot understand this clearly, there is no way we attain eternal life. Our verse also explains that those who were appointed gave their faith as the first step towards eternal life.

This understanding explains this predestination has greater responsibilities. We can read in Acts 13:46 that the Jews had they had thrust it aside and so have brought Judgement on themselves as unworthy to eternal life. This means that there was grace to this group, but since they did not believe, God sees the action as thrusting aside the biggest action of God. In Matthew 15:28, we read the Canaanite woman who was pestering Jesus for healing and the Lord was hesitant in the beginning but in the end, He admired the faith. We have to understand that this woman did not have grace, but her faith alone was so strong that she received grace from the Lord. This woman had humbled herself so down to dogs but the Jews in Pisidia wanted honor which Paul was getting. So, they lost worthiness because of their greed.

The predestination to eternal life is otherwise mentioned in Ephesians 1:5 towards adoption to become sons of God. The verse says that it is not God’s mercy that pre-destined us but it is His pleasure and love. This son-ship is explained in the previous verses where God wants to present us before Himself holy and blameless and this presentation will be to the praise of His glorious grace. This means that God’s plan is that His grace would be praised when we stand in front of Him being holy and blameless. This plan is achieved through Jesus and this is why God has blessed us with all heavenly blessings in Christ. So, Jesus is every spiritual blessing from heaven for us to become holy. This gives us a life that is so perfect that it is called Life which is Jesus.

In Romans 8:28, if we are called by God with a purpose with grace, we should love God with Faith. And this purpose of God drives everything else in the world.  This purpose of God is executed in the coming verses by fore-knowing them to be predestining them to the image of Christ. When Paul explains eternal life as Son-ship in Ephesians 1:5, it is further improved here to have the image of Jesus Himself. This image was lost by Adam and Jesus had won this glory back to us again in the Cross. Calling is followed by predestination and then if we apply faith we are justified by God and then glorified if we persevere.  

If we understand the word predestination or appointment, it does not mean that we are already there. It means that we are given tickets to a bus travelling there. We do not go to the bus stand and look for good looking vehicles, but only those which go to our destiny. Anything which is against God’s will is a bus that takes us somewhere else and coming back to our destiny from that location is further hard than our travel from our current situation. Romans 8:18 explains how unworthy it is to look at the troubles of travelling when we know the importance of the glory ahead. In the following verses, Paul explains how the creation waits for the glory and the purpose of the Holy Spirit in us is to intercede for us in our weakness (8:26) so that there is complete salvation for the creation and us.

Proverbs 16:9 is a good verse how we plan everything for our own pleasures, but it is the Lord who directs us to the right path by the Lord Jesus who called us with His sacrifice and the Holy Spirit who teaches us the truth from inside us. Let us allow God to direct us forward.

Amen.