The Progress of Salvation

God has a purpose and that purpose is to express His love to sinners. God foreordains, predetermines to love a certain person, a predetermined love relationship born in the eternal purpose of God. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. Boot camp, it's an agonizing trial every soldier must face, week after week of being yelled at, pushed to grueling physical limits, and forged into a hardened warrior. In the midst of that crucible, when the mental, emotional, and physical toil is at its worst, there's great comfort in looking ahead and knowing there's a day coming when boot camp will end. Now, in a much more profound way, there's great comfort for you, if you're a Christian, in looking ahead to the glories of heaven and knowing that God has secured a place for you there. That's John's focus today as he considers the issue of God's sovereignty over salvation. It's part of his study titled, The Grip of God.

Here's John MacArthur now with today's lesson. We have again the privilege to open the Word of God and my own heart is rejoicing in what prospects await us as we look back to the eighth chapter of Romans, Romans chapter 8. And we're looking at verses 28 to 30 as the section that we're in right now out of this great, great chapter. We've been discussing the fact that this chapter assures us that our salvation is eternal.

So many people wonder and debate about the issue of whether you can lose your salvation. And it is sad because the text of this chapter is so clear about the matter of a believer's security. In fact, these three verses, verses 28, 29 and 30, really sum up the most powerful statement of security in all the Bible. Verse 28 says, And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose, for whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son that He might be the firstborn among many brethren, and whom He predestined, these He also called, and whom He called, these He also justified, and whom He justified, these He also glorified. This is, to put it mildly, a monumental portion of Scripture.

And these three verses guarantee without variation, without equivocation, and without exception, the final glory of all of those who are saved. And so much of modern evangelism today fails to grasp this. So much of modern evangelism leaves people the idea that somehow their eternal destiny is based upon a decision that they make. Scripture, frankly, has quite a different emphasis. In the first place, an unregenerate man is dead in trespasses and sin and utterly unable to respond to the gospel. The God of this world has blinded his mind. He is ignorant. He is the captive to sin.

So much so that according to 1 Corinthians 2, 14, it says, a natural man, that's an unconverted man, does not accept the things of the Spirit of God. They're foolishness to him. He cannot understand them. He can't on his own. He can't make that decision.

It's impossible. In John chapter 8 and verse 43, Jesus says something I think is very important. He says, why do you not understand what I'm saying to the Jews who are listening to Him? It's because you cannot hear My Word.

You can't. You are of your father, the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. And when he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature. He's a liar and the father of lies, but because I speak the truth, you do not believe Me.

You can't. You belong to Satan. Your minds are blinded. You're dead in sin. You're a slave to iniquity. You're a natural man who cannot understand the things of God. You can't make that decision on your own.

It's impossible. This has to be initiated by God. John chapter 6, if you back up just a little bit, and this is very familiar, so I won't spend a lot of time on it. John 6, verse 44, no one can come to Me, Jesus said, unless the Father who sent Me draws him. No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day.

That is the same pledge. You can't be saved. You can't make a decision, quote-unquote, for Christ unless the Father draws you, and whoever the Father draws, Christ will raise to eternal glory.

Nobody gets lost in the middle. This is the plan and the purpose of God unfolding in redemptive history. In the seventh verse of Romans 8, it says the mind, and this is the unregenerate person again, the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God.

It does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so. Those who are on the flesh cannot please God. You see, when you talk about human depravity, we talk a lot about what human depravity is. Human depravity, sinful depravity, does not mean everybody is as wretched as they could be. Some people are basically humanly better than others.

They're more moral, more loving, more kind, more...there's more goodness in their lives and things like that. Not everybody is as bad as they could be. But the doctrine of total depravity, human depravity, fallenness, is not to say that everybody is as wretched as they could possibly be, but that everyone is utterly unable to do anything to change their sinful condition. Nobody's going to come and make a decision for Christ unless God draws them.

That's essential. A man can't make a move toward Christ until God moves him that direction, in line with His eternal purpose. So this passage bases our salvation's security not on what we've decided or will decide in the future, but on what God decided long ago in the past before the world began. And since salvation is His plan and His purpose, ultimately for the love of His Son that He might give a bride to His Son, since God chose to save some out of the human race to be a bride to His Son, He is the One who purposed it, and He is the One who pledges to bring it to pass.

It is His plan, it is His purpose, and it will be brought about by His will and His power. We respond by faith to the prompting of the Spirit of God that is true, but it is His purpose. Now let's go back to Romans chapter 8, and with that in mind, just some basics on understanding, let's go into verse 29. We talked about the purpose of salvation, we talked about that last time I'll just mention briefly. The purpose of salvation, according to verse 29 of Romans 8, is this. First of all, that we might become conformed to the image of His Son. That is that the purpose of salvation from God's initial planning, at the end of verse 28, according to His purpose, and what is His purpose? That we might be conformed to the image of His Son. He wanted to give, as I said, a bride to His Son, but He wanted to give to His Son this redeemed humanity that would be able to reflect His glory, that would somehow be made like Him, and that's what we talked about last time. We are saved in hope, and someday we will be conformed to the image of Christ.

Philippians 3 21, we'll take on the same kind of glorious body that He had in His resurrection, we'll be made like Him. Now, let's look at how the plan unfolded in verses 29 and 30. Start at the beginning of verse 29. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined. Now verse 30, And whom He predestined, these He also called, and whom He called, these He also justified, and whom He justified, these He also glorified.

There's the progression right there. We saw the purpose of salvation, here's the progress of salvation. And Paul outlines the unfolding, eternal purpose of God in five steps, foreknowledge, predestination, calling, justification, and glorification. Those are very, very important to understand because now you will be able to grasp the progress of God's unfolding, saving purpose.

Let's take step one. For whom He foreknew, foreknowledge, foreknowledge is the first one. And for whom He foreknew, foreknowledge. This is the first one because it is the most primitive of these steps.

That is to say it's the first one. It is the most foundational, it is the most essential. The purpose of salvation, the purpose of bringing men and women to eternal glory that they might manifest the image of Christ is determined initially in foreknowledge. Now what does that mean? When you hear the word foreknowledge, what do you think of? What does that word mean?

Well, let me give you some options. Some people think it means foresight. It means that God...this is for some people a great escape from the burden of the doctrine of predestination.

And they want to say, well, all this is is foresight. God, because He's God and knows everything past, present, and future, can look down through history that hasn't happened yet and see who was going to believe. And He could see who was going to decide for Christ and who was not. And once He looked down through history and saw what all of us were going to do, then He predestined those whom He saw were going to believe to be saved based on what He saw they were going to do.

Well, I admit it is true. He can see history before it happens. He can write it before it happens, and He does.

He knows everything. The problem with that doctrine is a very serious problem, and it is this. Man, wicked, ignorant, blind, unable to understand the truth, unable to understand the gospel, unable to comprehend God, unable to get past His iniquity, who hates God, is God's enemy, loves His wickedness, is dead in trespasses and sins, can't make the decision for Christ.

That's the first thing that we have to recognize. Secondly, even if you agree that God just saw what people were going to do, you really don't save God from some imagined injustice because you still have to ask the question, if He knew that and He knew people were going to choose against Him and go to hell forever, why did He create them? And if you say He didn't have any power over whether they were created or not, do you really have a problem? Because now you have a God that's less than sovereign. You have a God that's not the King of the universe, and He's not in control, and that's not the God of the Bible.

Then you have to ask the question, all right, if He just looks down the road and sees some people believe and some people not believe, and some people don't believe, you have to ask the question, where did their faith come from? Is it natural for an unregenerate, wicked, blind, hopeless, helpless sinner to all of a sudden exercise saving faith in Jesus Christ? No, it's not natural. It's impossible, right? It's absolutely impossible. Can't happen.

Couldn't do it. I mean, the terminology is dead in trespasses and sins, cannot understand the things of God, blinded, ignorant, hopeless, helpless, desperately wicked. No knowledge of God is in them.

They love darkness. There's no way that this can mean foresight. God does have foresight, and He does see who will have...listen to this...He does see who will have faith, who will have faith, but it is the faith that He Himself grants that He foresees. But that's not what the word foreknowledge means. I mean, He knows. Of course He knows, because He knows everything.

But there's something preliminary to that information. You know what it says in John 3? You can't enter My kingdom, Nicodemus. A man cannot enter the kingdom of God unless he is what?

Born again. How are you going to pull that off? How are you going to...how are you going to do that?

The prophet says, can the leper change his spots? It can't be done. You can't do it. No man comes under the Father unless the Father draws him.

It's impossible. In Philippians 1 29, for to you, this is so good, for to you it has been granted for Christ's sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake. Listen to that verse. God granted you the privilege of believing for Christ's sake, for the glory of Christ. For the eternal honor of Christ He allowed you to believe.

You can't believe apart from that, you who are dead in trespasses and sins. Well, if it doesn't mean foresight, what does it mean? Well, some people suggest it means foreordained. It just means that He just decrees, decrees that He just says, I decree that such and such is going to be saved.

Well, that's true. It says in 1 Peter 1, verse 1, who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. Some people think that just means that He just foreordained.

But there's more to it than that. It does contain that concept, and the doctrine of predestination contains that concept, although there's more than that in the word foreknowledge. I'm just thinking of the word foreknowledge. It appears also in 1 Peter 1 elsewhere in verse 20, Christ was foreknown before the foundation of the world. That certainly doesn't mean foresight, doesn't mean before the foundation of the world, Jesus looked down history and saw what Christ was going to do. He planned it. Acts 2 23 says that Christ went to the cross, listen to this, by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God.

That's a very important verse, Acts 2 23. Counsel is bule, it's used in classical Greek for convened counsels making decisions. This is a decision for a pre-decided course of action. The determinate counsel of God means God determined the course of action. Determinate is a perfect participle, speaks of a completed action with continuing results.

Literally the word is horizo from which we get horizon, which speaks of the boundaries or limits that are marked out. God then pre-decided a course of action and marked out the boundaries of that action. This is determinate counsel and foreknowledge. Foreknowledge means in that passage, by virtue of an old Greek rule that some of you know, the Granville Sharp rule, foreknowledge in the passage Acts 2 23 means the same thing. So foreknowledge means determinate counsel.

That passage is very important in coming to that conviction. Foreknowledge doesn't just mean God knows what's going to happen. It is...it is pre-determinate counsel. It is a pre-decided course of action with the boundaries and limits marked out. That equals foreknowledge. So it definitely has the aspect of foreordaining in it, but...but that doesn't say enough.

That doesn't say enough. It is true that in predestination, God in His omniscience can see down the line of history, that nations can see down all the eons of history. And it is true that God in His foreknowledge has predetermined and preordained the flow of what is going to happen. But there's another component in this that I want to bring to you, and that is this. The concept of foreknowledge embraces the idea of a pre-determination, not just to take a course of action, but to take a course motivated by love...motivated by love.

And this is very, very important. It is to pre-determine an expression of love. God was pre-determining even in the fore...in foreknowing Christ, as we saw, an expression of love toward Christ which would bring Christ great glory forever through redemption.

It is a pre-determined, foreordained, foreseen love relationship born in the eternal purpose of God. And I want to show you that throughout Scripture, the concept of knowing is more than information. If you go back in the Old Testament, you don't need to follow me, I'll just quote these things to you because I have a couple of them here. In Amos chapter 3, this is a very, very simple statement, but in Amos 3, 2, listen to what it says, God is speaking to Israel, you only have I literally known...you only have I known among all the families of the earth. Now does that mean that the families of the earth...of all the families of the earth, they're the only ones He knows about? No, it's not information here, it's pre-determination. In fact, the NAS translates the word know here as chosen.

So there is that foreordaining aspect. But behind that idea of knowing is a very intimate truth. For example, you go back in the book of Genesis and it says, Cain knew his wife. Now that means more than he knew who she was or where she was or what she was like because it follows it by saying, Cain knew his wife and she bore a son. The word know is used sort of like a euphemism in Scripture to express the most intimate expressions of love. And Joseph, you remember, in the New Testament, was shocked when Mary was pregnant because he had never known her.

He had never known her. The concept of knowing then carries that beautiful, intimate love that brings two together. It has the idea of caring for someone. In Hosea, for example, 13.5, I knew you in the wilderness, in the land of drought.

And the NAS translates it cared for you. But it's the word know, I knew you. There is a wonderful, intimate expression in the word know. This is true in the New Testament.

I could show you others in the Old, but listen to 1 Corinthians 8, 3. But if anyone loves God, he is known by Him. Now from a standpoint of cognition, you don't have to love God to be information in His infinite mind. He knows everybody on the face of the earth. But here's knowing in an intimate sense. If anyone loves God, He is known by Him in the sense of an intimate love relationship.

You remember in Matthew chapter 7, Many will say unto Me, Lord, Lord, and then I will say unto them, Depart from Me, I never...what? I never knew you. Does He mean I don't know who you are? I never heard of you?

Where did you come from? You're not on the list? No. He means I don't have any...I don't have any intimate relationship with you. I don't have any love relationship with you.

I don't belong to you and you to Me. Galatians 4, 9, Now that you have come to know God...and I love this...or rather to be known by God. When you become a Christian, you become known to God, not as information, but in intimacy. John 10, 14, My sheep hear My voice and I know them.

It's an absolutely beautiful concept, beautiful concept. Even today in a sort of a perverse way, you have the expression carnal knowledge, which is really a holdover from this to express a fleshly intimacy. In 2 Timothy 2, 19, it says, The Lord knows those who are His. The Lord knows those who are His. So back to Romans chapter 8, when you see the word foreknowledge there, of course there is a foreordaining element to it, and of course there is a foresight element to it, as God can see down the path. But there is also a forelove in it.

God foreordains, predetermines to love a certain person, a predetermined, foreordained, foreseen love relationship born in the eternal purpose of God. That's whom He foreknew. He would come to know them. That's why fore is there.

It hadn't happened yet. He foreknew. He would come eventually to an intimate relationship with them down the way through redemptive history.

So what you have is this. God has a purpose, and that purpose is to express His love to sinners. He predetermines on the basis of the desire to express His love to sinners, which sinners He foreordains unto salvation, who will be the recipients of His eternal intimacy, His eternal love, and that of His Son. That's John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary, with a look at God's eternal love for Christians.

It's part of John's current series on Grace to You, titled The Grip of God. John, I love this study, and I know it's giving our listeners helpful biblical truths that they can lean on for assurance of their salvation. And with that in mind, what would you say is the single most convincing evidence that a person is saved?

Can you boil it down to one thing? John MacArthur I would say that one thing is what Peter says in 1 Peter 1, where he says that the testing of your faith yields assurance. There are a lot of things that indicate your genuine salvation—your love for the Lord, your love for His Word, your love for His people, humility, your willingness to acknowledge your sin, your desire for obedience. But I think the great test of true salvation is a severe trial. And when you come out the other side of that trial and your faith is intact, that is the acid test.

That's the ultimate test. You know, when you see somebody who claims to be a Christian and somebody—they get cancer or they have some terrible disaster in their life, and all of a sudden they walk away from God, that was the manifestation that that faith wasn't real. True faith is unbreakable.

And who is the classic illustration of that in the Bible? Job. You know, the devil says, well, Job just serves you because you bless him. And God says, no, this faith that saves is forever faith. It's eternal.

It's not going to ever be broken. So he proves the point by just allowing Satan to batter Job, and everything is lost. I mean, death of his family and illness, and he loses everything, and then the worst of it is stupid counsel from well-intentioned but misguided friends. And in the end, Job, the triumph of the book of Job is, though he slay me, yet will I trust him. That is the kind of faith that survives a test that's incomprehensible, what Job went through. And that's the reason for the book of Job, to show you that the faith that God gives to those who are his children can't be broken by any trial or a mass of trials. So ultimately, it's coming out the other side of a serious trial, and that's why, when you get to our age, my age, I've seen enough of those, and my faith has come through all of them intact, and I know it's a faith that God has given me as a heavenly gift.

So let me just say this. If you want some help on this, there's a book called Saved Without a Doubt. It's available, affordable, 220 pages. Saved Without a Doubt.

You don't need to doubt. This book will help you. Affordably priced and shipping is free in the U.S. That's right, friend, and if you're not sure you're a Christian, if you're battling doubt and fear, Scripture has answers. And John's book, Saved Without a Doubt, can show you where to find the biblical assurance you're looking for, or reveal that you haven't repented and you need to submit to Christ. To order a copy, contact us today.

Saved Without a Doubt costs $10.50 and shipping is free. To order a copy, call toll-free anytime, 800-55-GRACE, or go to our website, GTY.org. Again, to order this book, call 800-55-GRACE or go to GTY.org. And if you're wrestling with other questions as you study Scripture, let me encourage you to get our flagship resource, the MacArthur Study Bible. It has nearly 25,000 notes, introductions to each book of Scripture, more than 100 charts and maps, all of it designed to help you align your thoughts, affections, and actions with the Word of God. The Study Bible comes in the New King James, New American Standard and English Standard versions, and also several non-English translations, including Spanish, Italian, French, Russian. To get yours, call 800-55-GRACE or visit our website, GTY.org. That's GTY.org. Now for John MacArthur and the entire Grace to You staff, I'm Phil Johnson, encouraging you to be here tomorrow when John continues his look at what it takes to know that your salvation is secure. Don't miss the next half hour of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace to You.