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PATTERN #2: God’s Eternality, Sovereignty, & Higher Righteousness Exalted |
It is essential that you understand that the Covenant of Christ is not yet fulfilled. The problem of sin is with us today as it was with those of former Covenants. The promises take the same patterns as the former ones, and as always, the conditions are clear and equally binding. The promises are presented with convincing power, because they are pointedly reliant on God’s work of faithfulness, until the reader, being exercised by reason and righteousness, will feel disarmed from gainsaying against them, and resign at last to surrender to the safety of faith. This is one of the reasons why an intermittent glorification of the sovereignty of God with the eternal perfectness of all the promises has become a pattern of preaching in the scripture. When one ventures to study all the promises of God throughout the centuries, he will quickly see that this is no strange occurrence. However, the burden I have been compelled to make plain to the reader is that God’s eternal perfectness, sovereignty, and higher righteousness does not negate the possibility of breaches, failures, fallings, and repentances – for these are enabled by the condescension of God. These exultations are the glory of God’s “eternal purpose” which He will fulfill, in its time – but which is not fulfilled yet. Therefore, while we are yet unglorified, therefore we are partially saved, seeing, resurrected, living, light-inhabited, kingdom dwellers. When we will be glorified, we will be fully saved, face-to-face seeing, finally resurrected, fully living, without the presence of the body of death, and dwelling in the unapproachable light and Kingdom which has come. While yet in relation to God, by His condescension, there can be a falling away from grace, but the glory of God is always capitalized in the praises of eternal security so that men will, by faith, be persuaded that they are eternally secure, and those that have fallen are accounted with the wicked, which are forgotten.
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Impossibilities
In this section I will address things I have already addressed heretofore, but it is to put you in mind and memory of what was already covered, to the end that I may successfully establish the point at hand now, and remember, because of the exhaustiveness of this study and how unfamiliar you may be with its subjects, I have taken leave to be repetitive. God is not a man and therefore does not repent (God in the ways of God), but He has repented (God in the ways of man), and yet still never repented (God in the ways of God). |
When Saul was rejected as King, God repented of His mind to save Saul, which salvation, God said, was formerly intended to be forever; nevertheless in the very passage where God “repented that He had made Saul king over Israel”, it is written for the glory of God - “The strength of Israel will not lie nor repent: for He is not a man, that HE should repent” (1 Sam. 15:35, 29). In the end, when men fall, it cannot taint the glory of God: His word, will, and promises are still immutable, everlasting, and sure – and all that we see otherwise in biblical history are darkened happenings within the tent of time and condescension. If men fall, it will be because of an unrepentant purpose decreed in heaven by the King Who reigns above the orchestra of events and time. If they fall, it is “whereunto also they were appointed” (1 Pet. 2:8), and this appointment was never repented of, though He repented within time of a genuine purpose by condescension.
God casts His people away (God in the ways of man), but He cannot
make them castaways (God in the ways of God);
He forsakes them (God in the ways of man), but He cannot forsake
them (God in the ways of God).
make them castaways (God in the ways of God);
He forsakes them (God in the ways of man), but He cannot forsake
them (God in the ways of God).
Though these realities are real, experiential, warned of, feared by the godly, interceded against by the prophets, and are forever the doom of the reprobate – there are promises which declare that it is an impossibility for God to cast off, cast away, and forsake His people ((Jer. 31:37, 33:24, Psalm 94:14) --> [casting off] (Psalm 94:14, 1 Sam. 12:22, 1 Kings 6:13, Neh. 9:31) --> [forsaking]), but these scriptures refer to the final and entire annihilation of Israel, not the annihilation of nearly all except a remnant, and it in no way negates biblical history when the many promise-bound saints rebelled through the centuries and so lost their salvation. Parallel to this are the instances of God’s repentances, but God promises with an unrepentant purpose that He will never fully and entirely annihilate His people (Rom. 11:29).
God changes (alters) His word (God in the ways of man), but He
cannot alter it, change it, or lie (God in the ways of God);
He changes (God in the ways of man), but He cannot change, and
never changed (God in the ways of God).
cannot alter it, change it, or lie (God in the ways of God);
He changes (God in the ways of man), but He cannot change, and
never changed (God in the ways of God).
They wronged His righteous faithfulness which was toward them, like as is represented in Isaiah 63:8, and God did plead with them according to their wrong that they did toward His righteous goodness, saying – “I said, I will never break My Covenant with you” (Judges 2:1) – and this promise of God they despised by disobeying His commanding voice (Judges 2:2). On this the promises hinged, and God dealt with them – break for break – thus He said: “Wherefore I also said, I will not drive them out from before you; but they shall be as thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare unto you” (Judges 2:3). Hovering high above, and transcending over, the events of time as they unfolded throughout history, there is an unbreakable eternality in God’s promise, though throughout time there were so many who perished in the justice of break for break. This is the mystery of damnation which God executed upon His backsliding children through the centuries. It was not that men understood it entirely, so as to understand all the ways it was entirely just, but rather, they were bewildered and confounded about it. Thus they were led to pray to God – “Thou hast made void the Covenant of Thy servant” (Ps. 89:39). Their complaint was that it was VOID. It is not surprising that they were confused, because God said: “So shall My Word be that goeth forth out of My mouth: it shall not return unto Me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it” (Isaiah 55:11). They knew the promise and oath of God: “My Covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of My lips. Once have I sworn by My holiness that I will not lie unto David” (Ps. 89:34-35). God’s justice was termed break for break in Ezekiel 16 & 17, as formerly addressed; thus in Psalm 89, the bewildered prophet feels as though God is being froward and deceptive. The prophet feels as though he is beholding a froward face upon God, and in the representative stead of all the Israelites, the prophet cries: “How long, LORD? Wilt Thou hide Thyself for ever? Shall Thy wrath burn like fire?...Lord, where are Thy former lovingkindnesses, which Thou swarest unto David in Thy truth” (Ps. 89:46, 49)? This prophet feels deceived because he remembered that God said, “I will not lie unto David” (Ps. 89:35).
Jeremiah knew the feeling of shame and adverse darkness under the shadow of the froward face of God. He cried, “O LORD, Thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived: Thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed” (Jer. 20:7). And again, “Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuseth to be healed? Wilt Thou be altogether unto Me as a liar, and as waters that fail” (Jer. 15:18) – and Jeremiah knew that God had said of Himself that He would not – “suffer My faithfulness to fail” (Ps. 89:33). These cries of Jeremiah were all in the dilemma when his personal, prophetic covenant that he had with God (Jeremiah 1) was breached, without Jeremiah knowing it; therefore he was deceived, he felt deceived, thus he speaks of deception in his personal ministry and relationship with God (Jer. 15:18 & 20:7), as was formerly addressed. Jeremiah was the intercessor for the generation of the captivities who also, like unto Jeremiah’s personal experience, underwent the woeful darkness of the froward face of God, when God turned their light into darkness, but unlike Jeremiah’s quick restoration back into the favor of his covenant with God, this generation was never able to recover themselves. For them, just retributions of deception fell upon them unto their reprobation. My reader, let these words of inspired scripture cry aloud in your conscience as if you were beholding Jeremiah himself when he was gasping, confounded, and crying loud and long – AHHHH! “Then said I, Ah, Lord GOD! Surely Thou hast greatly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, Ye shall have peace; whereas the sword reacheth unto the soul” (Jer. 4:10)! The form of this deception is break for break; thus Jeremiah cries on behalf of the generation: “Do not abhor us, for Thy name’s sake, do not disgrace the throne of Thy glory: remember, break not Thy Covenant with us” (Jer. 14:21), but for them there was no hope (save a small remnant). Intercession was impossible… “Then the LORD said unto me, Though Moses and Samuel stood before Me, yet My mind could not be toward this people: cast them out of My sight, and let them go forth” (Jer. 15:1). Though it is impossible that God would eternally and everlastingly break His Covenant (Jer. 33:20), God is able to reprobate generations and persons from the company of those bound in this saving Covenant for the glory of His wrath against lying children. “Children that will not lie” (Isa. 63:8) are the ones to whom God will NOT show Himself as a liar, and so He will save them by the keeping performance of His promises and oaths. It is impossible for God to be evil, impure, and froward; likewise it is “impossible for God to lie” (Heb. 6:8), but in retributive deceptions, God brings upon man a just penalty of his action done vertically toward Him, and thus He can show Himself to be froward to them. By show Himself, I mean that He appears to be this way in the God-ordained deception upon their own mind – froward for froward, impure for impure, break for break, and lie for lie – nevertheless, in God’s higher righteousness it cannot be so. “Wilt Thou be altogether unto Me as a liar” (Jer. 15:18), Jeremiah asked of God, though he knew that it was written of God that He “will not lie” (Ps. 89:35).
As many as will fall must fall. Before reprobation, when a Christian is in a damnable state, it is against God they do wrestle, against His will to damn them, and if haply they prevail, “it may be” that they will find personal or corporate mercy in their day, but if they for salvation do not prevail – God is not in need of them to fulfill His promises. God can “of these stones” “raise up children unto Abraham” (Lk. 3:8). The false prophets presume upon the promises of God, supposing that they are unable to fall from them, and that God is indebted to perform salvation with them, and it is not so. He does not respect their person, because God can make a stone into their person. The great struggle through the centuries has been the difficulty and scarcity with which Israel attained or maintained salvation, but the bottom line made sure by these struggles is – if you are in defiance of the warnings of God, even as the chosen, elect, called, and covenanted people, God will do the impossible to fulfill His word, with or without you. God does not need you, even if all reason, logic, and possibilities demand it, though all promise and purpose prophesy it – a stone can replace you as God justly reprobates you, and still all His words will be true. IF you are elect, called, and regenerate now, and yet fallen, “it may be,” “haply,” “peradventure” God will grant you repentance; it does not say there is no alternative but God granting the fallen regenerate man repentance, BECAUSE God does not need you to fulfill the integrity of His word! Is that not what is written? They that are fallen from grace are “those that oppose themselves,” and they will find salvation “if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will” (2 Tim. 2:25-26). Peradventure He may decide to restore you, and peradventure He may decide otherwise. He is impossibly, unimaginably perfect in His ways – look up and blush, and whisper: “Amen”.
Jeremiah knew the feeling of shame and adverse darkness under the shadow of the froward face of God. He cried, “O LORD, Thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived: Thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed” (Jer. 20:7). And again, “Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuseth to be healed? Wilt Thou be altogether unto Me as a liar, and as waters that fail” (Jer. 15:18) – and Jeremiah knew that God had said of Himself that He would not – “suffer My faithfulness to fail” (Ps. 89:33). These cries of Jeremiah were all in the dilemma when his personal, prophetic covenant that he had with God (Jeremiah 1) was breached, without Jeremiah knowing it; therefore he was deceived, he felt deceived, thus he speaks of deception in his personal ministry and relationship with God (Jer. 15:18 & 20:7), as was formerly addressed. Jeremiah was the intercessor for the generation of the captivities who also, like unto Jeremiah’s personal experience, underwent the woeful darkness of the froward face of God, when God turned their light into darkness, but unlike Jeremiah’s quick restoration back into the favor of his covenant with God, this generation was never able to recover themselves. For them, just retributions of deception fell upon them unto their reprobation. My reader, let these words of inspired scripture cry aloud in your conscience as if you were beholding Jeremiah himself when he was gasping, confounded, and crying loud and long – AHHHH! “Then said I, Ah, Lord GOD! Surely Thou hast greatly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, Ye shall have peace; whereas the sword reacheth unto the soul” (Jer. 4:10)! The form of this deception is break for break; thus Jeremiah cries on behalf of the generation: “Do not abhor us, for Thy name’s sake, do not disgrace the throne of Thy glory: remember, break not Thy Covenant with us” (Jer. 14:21), but for them there was no hope (save a small remnant). Intercession was impossible… “Then the LORD said unto me, Though Moses and Samuel stood before Me, yet My mind could not be toward this people: cast them out of My sight, and let them go forth” (Jer. 15:1). Though it is impossible that God would eternally and everlastingly break His Covenant (Jer. 33:20), God is able to reprobate generations and persons from the company of those bound in this saving Covenant for the glory of His wrath against lying children. “Children that will not lie” (Isa. 63:8) are the ones to whom God will NOT show Himself as a liar, and so He will save them by the keeping performance of His promises and oaths. It is impossible for God to be evil, impure, and froward; likewise it is “impossible for God to lie” (Heb. 6:8), but in retributive deceptions, God brings upon man a just penalty of his action done vertically toward Him, and thus He can show Himself to be froward to them. By show Himself, I mean that He appears to be this way in the God-ordained deception upon their own mind – froward for froward, impure for impure, break for break, and lie for lie – nevertheless, in God’s higher righteousness it cannot be so. “Wilt Thou be altogether unto Me as a liar” (Jer. 15:18), Jeremiah asked of God, though he knew that it was written of God that He “will not lie” (Ps. 89:35).
As many as will fall must fall. Before reprobation, when a Christian is in a damnable state, it is against God they do wrestle, against His will to damn them, and if haply they prevail, “it may be” that they will find personal or corporate mercy in their day, but if they for salvation do not prevail – God is not in need of them to fulfill His promises. God can “of these stones” “raise up children unto Abraham” (Lk. 3:8). The false prophets presume upon the promises of God, supposing that they are unable to fall from them, and that God is indebted to perform salvation with them, and it is not so. He does not respect their person, because God can make a stone into their person. The great struggle through the centuries has been the difficulty and scarcity with which Israel attained or maintained salvation, but the bottom line made sure by these struggles is – if you are in defiance of the warnings of God, even as the chosen, elect, called, and covenanted people, God will do the impossible to fulfill His word, with or without you. God does not need you, even if all reason, logic, and possibilities demand it, though all promise and purpose prophesy it – a stone can replace you as God justly reprobates you, and still all His words will be true. IF you are elect, called, and regenerate now, and yet fallen, “it may be,” “haply,” “peradventure” God will grant you repentance; it does not say there is no alternative but God granting the fallen regenerate man repentance, BECAUSE God does not need you to fulfill the integrity of His word! Is that not what is written? They that are fallen from grace are “those that oppose themselves,” and they will find salvation “if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will” (2 Tim. 2:25-26). Peradventure He may decide to restore you, and peradventure He may decide otherwise. He is impossibly, unimaginably perfect in His ways – look up and blush, and whisper: “Amen”.
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“Abba, Father, all things are possible unto Thee…” (Mark 14:36) |
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Do you know that Christ means what He said when He prayed, “Abba, Father, all things are possible unto Thee” (Mark 14:36)? This was the agonized cry of the Savior of the world as He prayed in Gethsemane. It was the predestinated plan of God from eternity past to slay the Lamb of God for the sin of the world. The whole host of elect and precious persons were everlastingly in the mind of God before He ever created their soul or knit them together wonderfully in their mother’s womb. Before ever the earth was, He did have His elect souls, their faces, their names, and all the numerous hairs on their body, every one of them foreordained for glory! Foreordained I say, “according as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will… 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” (Eph. 1:4-5, 11). Before the foundation of the world, the chosen were chosen, and elect, and predestinated; therefore the names of the Book of Life were written and set, as much as His unchanging choice predestinates and determines all things by His sovereign power. Again it is written to the Christians that “God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation” (2 Thess. 2:13), and, they are “elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father” (1 Peter 1:2); but how, my dear reader, can the following scripture be answered? “He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the Book of Life, but I will confess his name before My Father, and before His angels” (Rev. 3:5). This Book is not any other book, but the book of the elect, and any careful and honest study of this Book will reveal this. Those that perish do perish because their names are not written in the book, and the names were written before time began, before Christ spoke this in Revelation 3:5. Those names are said to be unmovable names, inerasable names, unchangeably there – the very time they were written, the power of predestination, and the changeless glory of His love toward the elect do all exclaim this truth! Even the scriptures say that the men that are lost are lost because their “names were not written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 17:8), and, “whosoever was not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the Lake of fire” (Rev. 20:15). What truth is being communicated, but that those who are regenerate are therefore written in the Book, and those in the Book were there before the foundation of the world, thus their salvation was predestinated; but somehow Jesus Christ the Lord is able to change this book within time!? This should baffle us all! Creating shock, wonder, praise, humiliation, fear, and honor in our hearts toward God. How can it be? All things are possible with God!
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If God does rewrite the elect’s names which were evidently written before the foundation of the world, what can we say about this? God can rewrite eternity’s plan! Yet you may complain and say – “then His ‘promises’ ‘fail’, His ‘Covenant’ is ‘void’, His word is ‘altered’, and He is ‘a liar’ – but who are you to question Him? He says He knows not these persons! Such were the complaints of the saints in time past in their exact words. God did such things then, and can He not do them now? |
The fact that all things are possible with God has never more powerfully been communicated but in the time when Christ acknowledges before the Father that He can, as a wise preacher once said as a paraphrase of what Christ is acknowledging, “Thou [Father] art able to rewrite eternity’s plan” (J.M. Gardner). How? The Lamb of God was slain, Revelation 13:8 states, “from the foundation of the world”, and this is clearly seen in Revelation 5:6 when Christ appears from eternity past after the throne is set in heaven (Rev. 4:2-3) and before all things were created on earth (Rev. 4:11); so also then, the Lamb of God appeared long before the first century, and Christ is described to be in this place of timeless eternity – “A Lamb as it had been slain” (Rev. 5:6), meaning already crucified. His sacrifice and the plan of it were both timeless and eternal, thus He was the Lamb of God “slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8); and yet, Christ knew and understood when He approached the agony of the cross where He would become sin under the wrath of God’s intense hatred for sin – and the love He had known uninterrupted, unblemished, and perfectly outpoured upon Him from eternity past would then be turned into wrath – being in an agony because of this, He was pressed in a righteous desire not to undergo such a thing, out of love for the Father in His heart…with the reality in mind that He was able to pray to the Father another plan than what has already been predestinated from eternity, and God would do it – because He could rewrite eternity’s plan and do the impossible! Revealing this truth, He boldly declared to the disciples, “Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He shall presently give Me more than twelve legions of angels” (Matt. 26:53)? It is not that it cannot be; it can be – though the scriptures, the Book of Life, and eternity’s realities are against it, it can be! Though His sacrifice was “foreordained before the foundation of the world”, it still can be (1 Pet. 1:20)! This is the very thing that Christ was acknowledging when He said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible unto Thee; take away this cup from Me: Nevertheless not what I will, but what Thou wilt” (Mark 14:36). Will you disagree with the acknowledgement of Christ and say that such a thing is not possible? Christ prayed this prayer out of the agony that He would, for the first time ever, and for the only time ever, experience the castaway wrath of God to forsake Him on the cross – He thus prayed what He prayed – but beforehand, He set His will to the utter subjection that sinless righteousness was in its glory, for He was a servant to the Father, preferring the Father, and loving to the Father unto the END – thus was His prayer, “Father, glorify Thy Name”, and the Father answered back from Heaven, one of three times in biblical history He did ever do this in the life of His dear Son: “Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again” (John 12:28)! Hallelujah! Look closely at the Master and His mind toward suffering, our great “Captain” of salvation (Heb. 2:10): “Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save Me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify Thy Name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again” (John 12:27-28)!
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"Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world." (Acts 15:18) |
God can make a stone become a child of Abraham. We don’t need to understand how that is or could be. With God, it is, if He wants it to be. Though all possibilities and laws of creation join hand in hand with what you think is logical, and though men riot against it, with God it is possible, perfect, and logical. With God, all His works have been “finished from the foundation of the world” (Heb. 4:3). Though He worked for six days to create the earth, He did not work, and His works were ever finished beforehand. Though God repented of making Saul King, He did not repent, and His repentances have ever ceased since the foundation of the world. Though Christ was incarnate and crucified within time, He was slain before time, even “slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8). The impossible is possible, but will you acknowledge it? God does repent, but He cannot repent. God casts His people away (castaways), but He cannot make them castaways; He forsakes them, but He cannot forsake them. God changes His word (alters it), but He cannot alter it, change it, or lie. He changes, but He cannot change.
These attributes and sayings impossibly exist in God, but these are not to be understood by us. The height of this matter is well expressed by Adam Clarke. Though I disagree with the final conclusions he draws about the omniscience of God (written in other portions of his writings but not here), I do confess to and agree with him in: the unlimited transcendence of God beyond all of our understandings, and therefore the infinite condescension He has undergone to stoop into the grounds of our limited understanding; thus we are left with wondrous statements like Revelation 13:8, and infinitely lofty thoughts like the expressions well written and accounted of by Clarke: “The foreknowledge of God is never spoken of in reference to Himself, but in reference to us: in Him properly there is neither foreknowledge nor afterknowledge. Omniscience, or the power to know all things, is an attribute of God, and exists in Him as omnipotence, or the power to do all things. He can do whatsoever He will; and He does whatsoever is fit or proper to be done. God cannot have foreknowledge, strictly speaking, because this would suppose that there was something coming, in what we call futurity, which had not yet arrived at the presence of the Deity. Neither can He have any afterknowledge, strictly speaking, for this would suppose that something that had taken place, in what we call pretereity, or past time, had now got beyond the presence of the Deity. As God exists in all that can be called eternity, so He is equally everywhere: nothing can be future to Him, because He lives in all futurity; nothing can be past to Him, because He equally exists in all past time; futurity and pretereity are relative terms to us; but they can have no relation to that God Who dwells in every point of eternity; with whom all that is past, and all that is present, and all that is future to man, exists in one infinite, indivisible, and eternal Now.”
When God speaks, He “calleth those things which be not as though they were” (Rom. 4:17), and we must, through faith, lay hold upon these realities and promises so as to become them (Rom. 4:18), but your eternal election will finally determine if you will fulfill the word of God for salvation or reprobation. All reprobations that will happen until the consummation of the gospel, covenants, and salvation, will be forgotten, ruled out of mind (Heb. 10:17, Ezek. 3:7, 18:24), and God’s perfect fulfillment of salvation and promise will be His glory now and then! Psalm 105 glorifies the Abrahamic Covenant as perfectly fulfilled, as if there was never any breach to it. Why? NO breach can taint the glory of His immutable faithfulness, and no fall of men will “be mentioned” (Ezek. 18:24) or “remembered” (Ezek. 3:7) as a scratch to the untouchable gold of God’s goodness - nor could “The Golden Chain” be marred or rusted! Tremble at the saying and give God the glory: "Behold, I, even I, will utterly forget you" (Jer. 23:39). God cannot lie, thus it is said, “He remembered His holy promise and Abraham His servant” (Psalm 105:42), and all “breaches” are forgotten (Numbers 14:30-34). To them that will be saved, it will be under the banner and name of God “Who keepest Covenant and mercy”, though to diverse persons, He breached it for justice as He forewarned He would do (Neh. 9:31-33). So it is in Romans 8:28-30. This is “The Golden Chain” of God’s eternal glory!
These attributes and sayings impossibly exist in God, but these are not to be understood by us. The height of this matter is well expressed by Adam Clarke. Though I disagree with the final conclusions he draws about the omniscience of God (written in other portions of his writings but not here), I do confess to and agree with him in: the unlimited transcendence of God beyond all of our understandings, and therefore the infinite condescension He has undergone to stoop into the grounds of our limited understanding; thus we are left with wondrous statements like Revelation 13:8, and infinitely lofty thoughts like the expressions well written and accounted of by Clarke: “The foreknowledge of God is never spoken of in reference to Himself, but in reference to us: in Him properly there is neither foreknowledge nor afterknowledge. Omniscience, or the power to know all things, is an attribute of God, and exists in Him as omnipotence, or the power to do all things. He can do whatsoever He will; and He does whatsoever is fit or proper to be done. God cannot have foreknowledge, strictly speaking, because this would suppose that there was something coming, in what we call futurity, which had not yet arrived at the presence of the Deity. Neither can He have any afterknowledge, strictly speaking, for this would suppose that something that had taken place, in what we call pretereity, or past time, had now got beyond the presence of the Deity. As God exists in all that can be called eternity, so He is equally everywhere: nothing can be future to Him, because He lives in all futurity; nothing can be past to Him, because He equally exists in all past time; futurity and pretereity are relative terms to us; but they can have no relation to that God Who dwells in every point of eternity; with whom all that is past, and all that is present, and all that is future to man, exists in one infinite, indivisible, and eternal Now.”
When God speaks, He “calleth those things which be not as though they were” (Rom. 4:17), and we must, through faith, lay hold upon these realities and promises so as to become them (Rom. 4:18), but your eternal election will finally determine if you will fulfill the word of God for salvation or reprobation. All reprobations that will happen until the consummation of the gospel, covenants, and salvation, will be forgotten, ruled out of mind (Heb. 10:17, Ezek. 3:7, 18:24), and God’s perfect fulfillment of salvation and promise will be His glory now and then! Psalm 105 glorifies the Abrahamic Covenant as perfectly fulfilled, as if there was never any breach to it. Why? NO breach can taint the glory of His immutable faithfulness, and no fall of men will “be mentioned” (Ezek. 18:24) or “remembered” (Ezek. 3:7) as a scratch to the untouchable gold of God’s goodness - nor could “The Golden Chain” be marred or rusted! Tremble at the saying and give God the glory: "Behold, I, even I, will utterly forget you" (Jer. 23:39). God cannot lie, thus it is said, “He remembered His holy promise and Abraham His servant” (Psalm 105:42), and all “breaches” are forgotten (Numbers 14:30-34). To them that will be saved, it will be under the banner and name of God “Who keepest Covenant and mercy”, though to diverse persons, He breached it for justice as He forewarned He would do (Neh. 9:31-33). So it is in Romans 8:28-30. This is “The Golden Chain” of God’s eternal glory!
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"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose. 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. 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." (Romans 8:28-30)
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It cannot be broken, though it has been broken through history; such links are unmentionable, nonexistent, and forgotten, while the glory of salvation and His faithfulness is the praise of His saints now, and in the END! No good thing can come to man without due thanks to His sovereign hand, and no bad thing can come except in God it was preplanned. God is the sole possessor of all His rights, and in them are included all things in His powers. It is in HIS power to break off links to this chain as others were “broken off” from the tree of salvation (Rom. 11:17), but whatever has temporarily befallen this golden chain, and all the removed names in the Book of Life is of no effect on the eternality of God’s name, election, love, and salvation!
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The names written before the foundation of the world will be there forever,
And what happens within the hours, days, and centuries of time cannot ever, The glories of God’s timeless, eternal purposes sever! |
God is the possessor of these rules and powers within and outside of time, working all things to the glory of Himself – showing the world wrath and mercy (Rom. 9:22-23). Hear ye His powers:
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“See now that I, even I, am He, and there is no god with Me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of My hand.” (Deut. 32:39)
"That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside Me. I am the LORD, and there is none else. I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness: let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together; I the LORD have created it. Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to Him that fashioneth it, What makest Thou? Or thy work, He hath no hands? Woe unto him that saith unto his father, What begettest thou? Or to the woman, What hast thou brought forth?" (Isaiah 45:6-10) |
As He forms light, so He creates darkness, and because light can turn to darkness, will you now strive with your Maker? Shall “the clay say” anything to God, dishonoring Him, as a reviler to a father, “what begettest Thou? Or to the woman, what hast thou brought forth?” Many would accuse the doctrine of losing salvation that it is based upon a misunderstanding of grace, reliance upon works, and a negating of faith. Ye hypocrites! If we believe we have received salvation, not apart from but through saving faith, how then is the loss of saving faith a salvation based upon works? If faith gained was no work, then faith lost is also no work. The sovereignty of God is evidenced by a man’s inability to come to Christ, because the man has an inability to believe – meaning faith “is the gift of God” (Eph. 2) “according as God hath dealt to every man” (Rom. 12:3). But what if God, in His sovereignty, does shew forth those who are elect as “vessels of wrath fitted to destruction” by their eventual discontinuance of faith and repentance, while formerly, they were able to obtain salvation through faith and repentance, and conclusively, He glorifies His own eternal integrity before, during, and after their fall, as an exultation of judgment outside the realm of our logical comprehension and understanding?! Thus, it is a glorification of God’s sovereignty. Of this glory, it is written, “no flesh can glory in His presence”, therefore these attributes of judgment are to be wondered at from below, a looking up at the loft of infinite purity in sovereign, just pleasure.
What is the glorification? It is consistently declared as the capstone and governor of all events and circumstances, judgments and condemnations, perseverances and salvations. God would have it that His people, throughout all the events which are on the relational plane of God in the ways of man, throughout all the uncertainty and difficulty to keep the narrow way, beholding others fall away and all the venomous damages Satan succeeds upon God’s people – God would have it that His people never come to think that God has slipped off of His throne! He would have us understand that He has infinitely condescended, and whatsoever they see now is infinitely below Him, under Him, and securely ruled by Him Who sits as the immovable Determinate and completely sovereign King – The Only Wise Potentate.
If God desires (in the ways of God) to shower upon your life as a converted man “the riches of His glory”, He will show you the glory of His sovereign “mercy” (Rom. 9:23). He will therefore continue to work in you the perseverance of all those who are elect after His eternal counsel. He will “incline our hearts unto Him, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, and His statutes, and His judgments, which He commanded our fathers” (1 Kings 8:58). If you “run the way of His commandments”, and finish your course through keeping the faith (1 Tim. 6:7), it is because God did ever “enlarge” your “heart” (Ps. 119:32). If you have put on the helmet of hope, and escaped damnable shame, it is because God “caused” you “to hope” (Ps. 119:49). If you fall, and God grants you repentance, if you are wounded by Him, and from Him you seek healing - you must seek it now like as all the brethren sought, saying: “Heal me, O LORD, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved: for Thou art my praise” (Jer. 17:14). During this raging “war against your soul” (1 Pet. 2:11) all throughout your days, in this present progressive struggle against the lethal end of sin (Jas. 1:15), if ever or always you desire freedom, your request is subject the dispensation of His sovereign will, and you cannot turn yourself. Knowing this – that if you cannot be turned from evil to God, then your course is set on damnation – therefore our brethren of old did pray this prayer, with hands lifted up: “turn Thou me, and I shall be turned; for Thou art the LORD my God” (Jer. 31:18). You may be of eternal value to God, that in you, this express purpose would be fulfilled, to shew forth the power of His wrath (Rom. 9:22). Under this fear the faithful groan, “incline not my heart to any evil thing” (Ps. 141:4). God is hope (Ps. 39:7), God is holding stability (Ps. 71:6), God is the continual source and praise of initial and present progressive salvation, and at all times the godly are made to understand, “my praise shall be continually of Thee” (Ps. 71:6). If you are silenced into hellfire, behold, “Thou didst it,” said the psalmist to God (Ps. 39:9). If you never turn back from God, behold, it is of God - “So will not we go back from Thee: quicken us, and we will call upon Thy name. Turn us again, O LORD God of hosts, cause Thy face to shine; and we shall be saved” (Ps. 80:18-19). My fellow brethren in truth, I pray that your ministers who are as a flame of fire (Heb. 1:14, Rev. 2:1, 8, 12) do say to your soul, “And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ” (2 Thess. 3:5). Faith’s beginning, perseverance, and end, is God’s glory, so all the saints like stars emanate God’s good praises, shining light in the darkness of night, giving heaven its sparkling diamonds and due honor. When I see many fall away, and in their reprobation they introduce damnable heresies with a wolverine viciousness, still then I will know that these are men “of old ordained to this condemnation” (Jude 4), doing that “whereunto also they were appointed” by predestination, that by Potter-like ordination they have become “them which stumble at the word” (1 Peter 2:8). The darkness of night is not ruled without Light (Gen. 1:14-19). God hath therefore forbidden the quarrel, “Why hast Thou made me thus” (Rom. 9:20). If some of these stars lose their place, what can be said? They are “wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever” (Jude 13).
In the end, God’s glory takes preeminence! As it was written in Romans 8, those that are called will be glorified. This is true to them who are predestinated to be glorified. Those who are called, and yet not glorified, were predestinated to be damned. In the showcase of God’s glory, there are precious stones laden on all fixtures of gold. One is the glory of God to save and the other the glory of God to damn. In these two works, throughout the sojourning of time, God seeks to get Himself a Name. Eternally, it is not possible for the elect to be deceived, but within the temporary dispensation of God’s condescension, the temporary elect can be deceived, but all those that were deceived and fell can ne’er blemish the eternal glory of the saying, “if it were possible” in Matthew 24:24 and Mark 13:22.
Jesus said “the gates of hell will not prevail against my Church,” but this does not mean that they never have in OT Church history, nor never will in NT Church history since the day Christ spoke that word, but in the END, the gates of hell will not prevail. All of God’s enemies are not yet under Christ’s feet, and all of God’s friends do not always gather with Him at present that He might daily put under their foes (Eph. 6:11-18). Unfortunately, because of Matthew 16:18, men understood Christ to mean that the gates of hell shall never prevail against the Church. Those poor souls on whom the gates of hell do prevail against, even they “shall not be remembered” (Ezek. 3:20, 18:24) as the Church. God’s credit goes on undaunted and unmarred by these. In this instance, Christ did not say or mean never, and even if He did, those who fall He will forget and sever (John 15:6), and God will fulfill every promise of never and forever, but now hell rages to catch holy men through our fleshly body (Jas. 3:6), the world (2 Cor. 4:4, Eph. 2:2-3, Matt. 23:15), and the reigning principalities (Eph. 6:12). Now, in our day, men seek to gain confidence through the study of extra-biblical Church history, supposing that therein lies the consistent witness of the faithful Church throughout time, and anything that they find new or inconsistent from the pages of extra-biblical Church history spanning since the first century, this doctrine or deed is dismissed and named heretical, because it is a “new thing” from the witness, they suppose, of what God has kept from the gates of hell throughout time. On this one promise, men seek to follow the mass witness through the centuries, when a true study of biblical Church history would reveal the truth of the saying, “many are called and few are chosen.” Which will you follow, the many or the few?
What is the glorification? It is consistently declared as the capstone and governor of all events and circumstances, judgments and condemnations, perseverances and salvations. God would have it that His people, throughout all the events which are on the relational plane of God in the ways of man, throughout all the uncertainty and difficulty to keep the narrow way, beholding others fall away and all the venomous damages Satan succeeds upon God’s people – God would have it that His people never come to think that God has slipped off of His throne! He would have us understand that He has infinitely condescended, and whatsoever they see now is infinitely below Him, under Him, and securely ruled by Him Who sits as the immovable Determinate and completely sovereign King – The Only Wise Potentate.
If God desires (in the ways of God) to shower upon your life as a converted man “the riches of His glory”, He will show you the glory of His sovereign “mercy” (Rom. 9:23). He will therefore continue to work in you the perseverance of all those who are elect after His eternal counsel. He will “incline our hearts unto Him, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, and His statutes, and His judgments, which He commanded our fathers” (1 Kings 8:58). If you “run the way of His commandments”, and finish your course through keeping the faith (1 Tim. 6:7), it is because God did ever “enlarge” your “heart” (Ps. 119:32). If you have put on the helmet of hope, and escaped damnable shame, it is because God “caused” you “to hope” (Ps. 119:49). If you fall, and God grants you repentance, if you are wounded by Him, and from Him you seek healing - you must seek it now like as all the brethren sought, saying: “Heal me, O LORD, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved: for Thou art my praise” (Jer. 17:14). During this raging “war against your soul” (1 Pet. 2:11) all throughout your days, in this present progressive struggle against the lethal end of sin (Jas. 1:15), if ever or always you desire freedom, your request is subject the dispensation of His sovereign will, and you cannot turn yourself. Knowing this – that if you cannot be turned from evil to God, then your course is set on damnation – therefore our brethren of old did pray this prayer, with hands lifted up: “turn Thou me, and I shall be turned; for Thou art the LORD my God” (Jer. 31:18). You may be of eternal value to God, that in you, this express purpose would be fulfilled, to shew forth the power of His wrath (Rom. 9:22). Under this fear the faithful groan, “incline not my heart to any evil thing” (Ps. 141:4). God is hope (Ps. 39:7), God is holding stability (Ps. 71:6), God is the continual source and praise of initial and present progressive salvation, and at all times the godly are made to understand, “my praise shall be continually of Thee” (Ps. 71:6). If you are silenced into hellfire, behold, “Thou didst it,” said the psalmist to God (Ps. 39:9). If you never turn back from God, behold, it is of God - “So will not we go back from Thee: quicken us, and we will call upon Thy name. Turn us again, O LORD God of hosts, cause Thy face to shine; and we shall be saved” (Ps. 80:18-19). My fellow brethren in truth, I pray that your ministers who are as a flame of fire (Heb. 1:14, Rev. 2:1, 8, 12) do say to your soul, “And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ” (2 Thess. 3:5). Faith’s beginning, perseverance, and end, is God’s glory, so all the saints like stars emanate God’s good praises, shining light in the darkness of night, giving heaven its sparkling diamonds and due honor. When I see many fall away, and in their reprobation they introduce damnable heresies with a wolverine viciousness, still then I will know that these are men “of old ordained to this condemnation” (Jude 4), doing that “whereunto also they were appointed” by predestination, that by Potter-like ordination they have become “them which stumble at the word” (1 Peter 2:8). The darkness of night is not ruled without Light (Gen. 1:14-19). God hath therefore forbidden the quarrel, “Why hast Thou made me thus” (Rom. 9:20). If some of these stars lose their place, what can be said? They are “wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever” (Jude 13).
In the end, God’s glory takes preeminence! As it was written in Romans 8, those that are called will be glorified. This is true to them who are predestinated to be glorified. Those who are called, and yet not glorified, were predestinated to be damned. In the showcase of God’s glory, there are precious stones laden on all fixtures of gold. One is the glory of God to save and the other the glory of God to damn. In these two works, throughout the sojourning of time, God seeks to get Himself a Name. Eternally, it is not possible for the elect to be deceived, but within the temporary dispensation of God’s condescension, the temporary elect can be deceived, but all those that were deceived and fell can ne’er blemish the eternal glory of the saying, “if it were possible” in Matthew 24:24 and Mark 13:22.
Jesus said “the gates of hell will not prevail against my Church,” but this does not mean that they never have in OT Church history, nor never will in NT Church history since the day Christ spoke that word, but in the END, the gates of hell will not prevail. All of God’s enemies are not yet under Christ’s feet, and all of God’s friends do not always gather with Him at present that He might daily put under their foes (Eph. 6:11-18). Unfortunately, because of Matthew 16:18, men understood Christ to mean that the gates of hell shall never prevail against the Church. Those poor souls on whom the gates of hell do prevail against, even they “shall not be remembered” (Ezek. 3:20, 18:24) as the Church. God’s credit goes on undaunted and unmarred by these. In this instance, Christ did not say or mean never, and even if He did, those who fall He will forget and sever (John 15:6), and God will fulfill every promise of never and forever, but now hell rages to catch holy men through our fleshly body (Jas. 3:6), the world (2 Cor. 4:4, Eph. 2:2-3, Matt. 23:15), and the reigning principalities (Eph. 6:12). Now, in our day, men seek to gain confidence through the study of extra-biblical Church history, supposing that therein lies the consistent witness of the faithful Church throughout time, and anything that they find new or inconsistent from the pages of extra-biblical Church history spanning since the first century, this doctrine or deed is dismissed and named heretical, because it is a “new thing” from the witness, they suppose, of what God has kept from the gates of hell throughout time. On this one promise, men seek to follow the mass witness through the centuries, when a true study of biblical Church history would reveal the truth of the saying, “many are called and few are chosen.” Which will you follow, the many or the few?