On July 6th, we looked at predestination or why God’s nature makes it impossible for Him to have arbitrarily preassigned souls to heaven or hell before they ever drew breath. You might ask, “Why do I need to know these deeper doctrinal issues?” Well, God’s Word instructs us to study so we can give an answer to those who are seeking the precious truth of the Gospel! God’s truth is the only gift we can give others that lasts forever, and we should be able to do it with excellence, right?
So, let’s do a quick recap from July, because it’s the lens for this devotional. God is sovereign—but His sovereignty cannot mean that He acts against His own nature. Ice is no longer ice if it’s hot, right? God cannot be different from who He says He is and still be God. As we discussed fully on July 6th, His very nature makes arbitrary, preassigned condemnation impossible. How? In short:
God’s Love—is a love that “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” and thus, cannot also be a love that creates people for the sole purpose of destroying them. (1 Corinthians 13)
God’s Justice means a verdict must follow a choice. (Deuteronomy 32:4) A teacher who decides on day one of her class which students will pass and which will fail—isn’t simply unjust—she’s corrupt.
God’s Righteousness represents the consistency between what God says and what He does. So, for example, He commands us to “be holy.” (1 Peter 1:16) This command is made to real people with a real choice. He could not be righteous and issue a command to someone He’s already decided will never be holy.
So, any time we read a verse that talks about the ideas of predestination or election, we must read it with two things in mind: 1. Who God is; and 2. What the verse’s actual context is.
Scripture never contradicts Scripture, and God never contradicts Himself.
Thus, if a single verse, pulled out and read in isolation, seems to describe a God who arbitrarily condemns people before they have a choice, that reading has already failed the test the rest of the Bible sets for it. The correct reading is always the one that fits both the immediate context of the passage and the unchanging nature of the God who wrote it. We will keep both hands on that steering wheel as we discuss some of the most misunderstood verses about predestination and election—verses that are often interpreted to mean that God chose some for heaven and some for hell.
1. Romans 8:29–30
“For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.”
What is actually being predestined here? Notice that the sentence never actually says “predestined to be saved.” It says predestined “to be conformed to the image of His Son.” Conformity to Christ is the outcome being described—not the entry point. Think of the difference between a company deciding in advance what an employee’s career path, training, and promotions will look like once hired and that company deciding in advance who gets hired at all. This verse is entirely about the first kind of decision, not the second.
If this verse were teaching that salvation itself was predetermined apart from a person’s faith, it would be describing salvation as something detached from—and unaffected by—an individual’s own response. But that’s not what the sentence structure does. Paul lists a chain: foreknew, predestined, called, justified, and glorified. Every step in that chain already presumes that the person is in the “whom He foreknew” group to begin with. The verse describes the unfolding stages for those already responding to Him—it never addresses how someone enters that group in the first place.
“Foreknew” is the Greek word proginōskō—relational knowing, the same word used of a husband “knowing” his wife. “Predestined” is proorizō—literally, to mark out a boundary line in advance. What God marked out beforehand wasn’t a guest list of names. It was the destination and the journey for someone who says “yes” and then receives a calling, justification, and glorification. They are laid out in order like a benefits package that activates the moment a person is born again.
This passage answers what happens to those who respond—not who is permitted to respond.
2. Ephesians 1:4–5
“Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.”
Look at the sentence structure itself: “He chose us”—that’s the verb and its object. Then Paul adds “in Him”—a prepositional phrase telling us where, or in what sphere, the choosing happened. Paul isn’t saying God chose specific individuals and then, as a separate second step, placed them in Christ. The choosing itself is located “in Him.”
Here’s how we know that’s not incidental phrasing: “in Him” (or “in Christ,” “in the Beloved”) is the drumbeat of this entire chapter. Look at what’s said to happen “in Him” just a few verses later — “He made us accepted in the Beloved” (v.6), “in whom we have redemption through His blood” (v.7), and then explicitly, “In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined” (v.11). Every single spiritual blessing Paul lists in this chapter is anchored to that same phrase. Paul isn’t randomly attaching “in Him” to election alone—it’s the organizing principle of the whole passage. Christ is the location where every blessing exists.
Elsewhere, the Bible identifies Christ as “the Elect One” outright. Isaiah 42:1 and Luke 23:35 both use that title for the Messiah. So, when Paul says God chose “us in Him,” the most natural reading, in light of how the rest of the chapter functions, is that the elect status belongs to Christ, and we share in it by being united to Him—it’s been described as the same way an employee shares in the employer’s benefits only once they’ve accepted employment and entered the role. God chose the position before the world began. Whether any individual person chooses to occupy the position of being “in Him” is still a real, personal choice.
3. Romans Chapter 9
“The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, ‘Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.’” (Romans 9:12–13) “Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?” (Romans 9:21)
To understand this, we must go back to where the Jacob-Esau line originates in the book of Malachi, which was written centuries after both men were dead. It isn’t discussing their eternal souls at all. It’s discussing the nations that descended from them, one of which would carry the covenant role of bringing God’s redemptive plan into the world.
“Hated” is the Greek word miseō—a Hebrew idiom of comparative preference, meaning “loved less” or “not chosen for this particular role.” It’s the same idiom Jesus uses when He says a disciple must “hate” his father and mother compared to his devotion to Him—nobody reads that as literal hatred. In other words, Esau’s personal salvation was never the subject of the sentence.
The potter-and-clay language works the same way. Paul is defending God’s right to hand Israel’s covenant assignment over to Gentiles who never had that role before, because Israel, as a nation, temporarily forfeited that specific function. This is God asserting authority over who administers the mission at a given point in redemptive history. It is not God flipping a coin over any individual’s eternity.
4. John 6:44
“No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him.”
Two chapters later, same book, same speaker, Jesus Christ, said: “And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw ALL peoples to Myself.” (John 12:32) The same Greek word—helkō—is used and means “to draw.” If the drawing in chapter 6 were a narrow rope thrown to a preselected few, Jesus wouldn’t turn around two chapters later, and contradict Himself and call it universal. The Father’s drawing is the pull of the Gospel going out to all people through the cross. No one comes apart from the drawing of the Holy Spirit—but it isn’t withheld from anyone. Rather, it is either resisted or received.
5. Acts 13:48
“And as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.”
“Appointed” is the Greek word tassō—a word that, across the New Testament, is used far more broadly than “hand-picked before birth.” It’s the same word used for authorities being “instituted” (Romans 13:1), for a group “determining” to send Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem (Acts 15:2), and elsewhere for people arranging or positioning themselves toward something. It’s an ordering word, not exclusively an eternal decree word.
Furthermore, let’s look at the verse in its actual setting. One verse earlier, Paul and Barnabas quote a command to be a light to the Gentiles. The Jewish leaders in that synagogue reject it outright—the text says they “judged themselves unworthy of everlasting life.” (Acts 13:46) That phrase is key: Their exclusion is described as their own doing, a self-judgment based on their response. Then verse 48 describes the Gentiles who heard the same message with joy. Luke is drawing a straight, deliberate contrast between two groups and their two responses in the very same scene—not revealing a hidden roster written before either group existed. The people “appointed to eternal life” are simply the ones whose hearts were disposed to receive what the others had just rejected. The appointment and the believing aren’t two different mechanisms happening in sequence; they’re two descriptions of the same event, seen from two angles—the inward readiness and the outward response.
In summary….
Each one of these passages, read in context, describes what belongs to the person who says yes to salvation—not a decision made in advance about who is allowed to accept it. That’s the same pattern from Genesis to Revelation: God extends the invitation to all, and the benefits belong to everyone who accepts it. God’s sovereignty does not make Him an arbiter of random judgment over people who never were given a choice regarding salvation. Rather, His nature is such that He desires for ALL to come to Him for salvation.
And for those who receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, God gives us not only a divine purpose, but also an amazing benefits package!
Prayer: Father, thank You that You are exactly who You say You are—loving, just, and righteous, all at once, without contradiction. Forgive me for the times I’ve read Your Word carelessly and allowed it to paint You as smaller or colder than You are. Root out any thoughts or plans that derail me from the divine plan You have for me today. Help me to glorify You in all I do today. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
