The Progress of Salvation B

God's love for the Son caused him to choose us. God's wonderful love for us caused him to choose us. He started out with a pre-determination to love us, and on the basis of that he marked us out. He called us to be his own. My, what a tremendous truth that is. A theater owner once thought he had a shrewd business idea. He offered free admission, though with one important condition.

Each guest had to pay to get out when the movie was over. Sadly, a good many people hold a similar view of salvation, thinking the free gift of eternal life isn't really free at all. You have to pay for it, and on top of that, you can never be certain that your salvation is permanent.

What encouragement would you have for someone with that mindset? John MacArthur helps you frame your answer today on grace to you as he continues a study he calls, The Grip of God. Now follow along as John begins the message. 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. 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, their foolishness to him, he cannot understand them. He can't on his own. He can't make that decision.

It's impossible. This has to be initiated by God. Nobody's going to come and make a decision for Christ unless God draws them. 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 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 1, for whom He foreknew. 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 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. The second word then, in verse 30, actually in verse 29 also, whom He foreknew, He also predestined, down in verse 30, and whom He predestined. So it starts with this foreordaining, foreseeing, foreloving, that's step one.

That's the primitive, initiating element of it. Those people whom He foreordained to a love relationship, to a relationship of loving intimacy, He predestinated, pro oridzo, to mark out, to mark out. He marked them out, wrote their names down. Those whom He predetermined to love, He predestined, Ephesians 1, 5, as I read earlier, to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will. God's love for the Son caused Him to choose us.

God's wonderful love for us caused Him to choose us. Revelation 13, 8 says, whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life, of the Lamb who has been slain. Same thing in Revelation 17. He marked us out by writing us in His book before the world began. He started out with a predetermination to love us, and on the basis of that, He marked us out.

My, what a tremendous truth that is. In Acts 4, it says that God will do whatever His hand and purpose predestined to occur, Acts 4, 28. Whatever He predestines to occur will come to pass.

Then you come to a third word, and that's the word calling. That's in verse 30, whom He predestined, these He also called. And with this element, this is very important, with this element, we move from eternity past into the present tense.

In eternity past, He predetermined and foreordained to love and marked out the objects of that foreordaining love. Now we come into time. And in time, He activates His foreordained predestined plan by calling us. Now this is central. There are five of these terms here, two precede calling and two follow it.

Now this is sort of the central truth. As we studied in verse 28, go back to verse 28, we know that all things work together, or God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called, the called. Now may I hasten to remind you, this is an inward call and not an outward call.

This doesn't mean all the people who heard some preacher, or who heard some evangelist. This is an inward call. This is the saving, redeeming call.

This is John 6.44, this is the father drawing. It is a saving, redeeming call. And it's done in time, and it's done through the preaching of the gospel, but by the Spirit of God.

So God predetermined and foreordained to set His love upon some men and women, marked out specifically who they would be, that's predestination. And then in time, He called us. He called us to be His own. He called us to be set apart holy. Romans 1, 7, He called us to be saints. That's set apart unto holiness. In verse 11 of Romans 9, it says, talking about Jacob and Esau, the twins who were not yet born had not done anything good or bad, in order that God's purpose according to His choice might stand, not because of works, but because of Him who...what?...calls. Before they were ever born, God determined whom He would call. First chapter again of 2 Timothy, He saved us.

How? By calling us with a holy calling. Any time you ever see a call in the epistles of the New Testament, okay, the epistles, not the gospels necessarily, but the epistles, it always means an inward saving call. 1 Peter 1, 15, like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves. You say, well, what is this call?

What do you mean? It's when the Father draws you. 1 Peter 2, 9 talks about the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. He began to move on your darkened heart. He began to move on your blackened mind. He began to move on your spiritual deadness and to begin to awaken and quicken and give understanding. The Spirit of God began to move and you began to feel the conviction of sin. And when you heard the gospel, the truth of the gospel began to dawn on your mind and that is all the calling of God as He begins to move you from death to life and from ignorance to truth and from darkness to light. First verse of Ephesians 4 says that we are to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which we have been called. We've been called to God.

How does this call come? Galatians 1, 6 and 15 says it comes by grace. Revelation 11, 29 says it comes irresistibly. 2 Thessalonians 2, 13 and 14 says it comes through the gospel. God has chosen you from the beginning, then verse 14, and it was for this He called you through our gospel that you might gain the glory. The gospel came and by the gospel He awakened your heart and you heard and you believed and you repented in order that you may gain the glory. You're not going to fall through the cracks between then and eternal glory. The doctrine that you can lose your salvation is a frightening aberration on Scripture that refuses to take clear instruction on the pages of the Word of God. God comes, He awakens your dead life, lightens your darkness, moving as the Spirit of God comes in John 16 and convicts the world of sin and righteousness and judgment.

You feel the weight of sin, the burden of sin, the pain of isolation and alienation from God and all of that is the quickening work and it comes upon hearing the gospel. Paul says, I'm a messenger and I preach the gospel so that the chosen of God can hear and believe, Titus 1. It's not my job to call people.

I can't do that. It's just my job to present the truth of the gospel because faith comes by hearing the Word. The call of God occurs in a context of an understanding of the gospel. You might hear it from a preacher. You might hear it from a teacher.

You might read it in a book. You might hear it from the pages of Scripture, from the witness of a friend or a family member, with the conviction of sin and the desire for righteousness and a comprehension of forgiveness and the understanding of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. When the heart responds to all of that, that's the call of God. Whom He predetermined and foreordained to love eternally, He marked out as predestined to go all the way to glory and be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. That was the plan before time began. Then in time, He's been calling, calling, calling and all whom He has ordained hear the call and believe. And then comes the fourth great term.

We don't need to spend a lot of time on this, although we could spend years on it. Whom He called, He also justified, justified. This simply means to declare someone righteous. It's a legal term.

It's a legal term. It's a term of standing before the bar of God. I remind you that you're not righteous and I'm not righteous. I'm like Paul, a wretched man that I am, chief of sinners. I sin, I fail, I fall short, I don't love God perfectly with all my heart, soul, mind and strength all the time or my neighbor as myself. I don't fulfill the law of God in perfection.

I fall, I fail, I stumble. But nonetheless, I stand as justified. It just, it means that God has declared me righteous. Righteous means right.

Just means right. So how did you ever get to be declared righteous? Because God called me and I came and believed as He prompted my heart. Scripture says He gave me the righteous righteousness of Christ, Philippians 3. Paul says, I now have a righteousness not of my own, Philippians 3, 9, derived by keeping the law, but a righteousness through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith. You believe in Christ that God gives you righteousness, just gives it to you. And you remember in 2 Corinthians 5 21, that most important and notable verse on this subject, it says, He made him who knew no sin, Christ, to be sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. What happened was very simply this. On the cross, God treated Jesus as if He had committed all the sins of all the people who would ever believe.

Okay? On the cross, God treated Jesus as if He had committed all the sins ever committed by every person who would ever believe. God just punished Jesus for all the sins of all the people who would ever believe. So their sins were taken care of. God gave Jesus our sins and then turned around and gave us His righteousness.

It comes down to this. On the cross, God treated Jesus as if He had committed all those sins, though He had committed none of them, so that He could treat us as if we lived the perfect life of Jesus, although we do not. Since God's justice was satisfied by the sacrifice of Christ, sin needs no further punishment. God, having been satisfied because Christ bore our sins in His own body on the cross, grants us His righteousness. And as I've said so often, Christ couldn't just come into the world, die on a cross, and leave again. He stayed here for 33 years and lived a perfect life.

Why? Because there needed to be a perfect life. He needed to fulfill all righteousness, live a perfect life so that perfect life could be credited to us.

That's the incredible truth of justification. And it is by faith and faith alone. You don't earn it. You can't gain it.

You can't win it. It's not an honor that you get because you performed in a certain way. God declares you right before Him and treats you as if you lived the perfect life of Jesus Christ, simply because you put your faith in Him. That happened because He called you and He drew you. He declares you forgiven, your sins paid for in Christ, and you bear His righteousness.

This is incredible, isn't it? Foreknowledge, predestination, calling, justification. Finally, verse 30, whom He justified, these He also glorified. Folks, there's no slippage in here. Nobody's going to be left behind.

Nobody gets off the bus anywhere along this trek. In fact, it says in the past tense, whom He justified, these He also glorified as if it already happened. This is what's called a proleptic aorist, which is a technical term for you Greek students, just so you know I keep up with that stuff. It's the use of an aorist to express an already accomplished reality because it's totally secure. It's saying something as if it happened because it's so sure that it will. I couldn't save myself. I didn't save myself and I can't keep myself saved. I don't have to worry about that. The God who chose me because of His predetermined love, the God who put the boundaries around my life and said, this one belongs to me, the God who called me, drew me out of the darkness, out of the death to put my trust in Jesus Christ with repentance, the God who then took care of my sins and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and imputed the righteousness of Christ to me is going to be the God who brings me to glory.

I didn't start this deal and I don't have the capability to finish it. Frankly, folks, I'm just along for the ride and this is some ride. It's not apart from my faith, but it's by the prompting of the Spirit of God that I can believe. They say, well, that's all very clear. That's all true and it's all there and yes and... But what about the people who don't believe? Aren't they responsible?

Yes. If you don't believe, you reject the gospel and you go to hell and you're in a natural, blind, dead condition, it's because you deserve it. And you're going to bear the punishment for that because you're responsible for that. You say, I don't understand that. I don't understand that. I don't understand that. If you go to heaven because you're chosen, how you can hold people responsible who go to hell because they weren't chosen?

No, it doesn't work like that. They go to hell because they didn't believe. You say, but that's... I don't understand that. Of course you don't understand that.

I don't understand that either because it's not understandable. But I can cry to every sinner on the face of the earth, repent and believe the gospel of Jesus Christ. Repent and be saved. Why will you die? Come unto me all you that labor and are heavy laden.

Whosoever will, let him come. You say, how can you...that seems like a contradiction. Well it seems like a contradiction because you're so puny in your comprehension, and so am I. It's not a problem to God.

I don't know how it works. But look, you have the doctrine of predestination over here. You have the doctrine of human responsibility over here. And we have this tremendous temptation to just run over here and all camp around this one and come up with some kind of weird double predestination thing as if God's up in heaven saying, okay, these are going to heaven and you bunch are going to hell, and it's all...it's not like that. Sinners are told to believe, and if they don't believe, they'll perish. Jesus says, where I go, you're not going to be able to come because you don't believe on Me. Jesus says, go unto all the world and preach the gospel to how many people?

Every creature. And if they don't believe, that's their fault, they're guilty, and they'll perish. I don't understand how that all works together.

I can't...but look, the things I don't understand far, far outnumber the things I do. I don't understand...if you ask me who wrote Romans, I'm not sure I fully understand that. You say, well, Paul wrote Romans. Yeah, but it was inspired by the Holy Spirit. Well, every word was Paul's.

Yeah, but every word was inspired by the Holy Spirit. I don't understand how that works together. I don't...when somebody says to me, what's the secret to living the Christian life? I'm paralyzed at that moment.

Is it you or is it Him? You know, there's the people who say, let go and let God. You just sort of...you just sort of stand there and He'll do it. And you hear people talk that, I want to live the crucified life. I'm just trying to kill myself, kill myself. I'm just trying to be nothing and nobody and disregard myself and let Him live through me. And then on the other hand, you've got the people who are reading Paul's words, I beat my body to bring it into subjection and I need to be obedient to God. And you look at yourself and you say, well, who's living my Christian life? Well, it's certainly not me.

It must be Christ in me. Well, I don't know if...but then I'm responsible. Why are all these commands in the Bible if I'm not responsible? So you say, well, it comes down to this. Anything bad I do, that's me. Anything good, that's God through me.

Yeah, but you have responsibility in that. Paul dealt with the problem. Galatians 2, 20, I am crucified with Christ. He said, nevertheless I live, yet not I. He didn't understand it either.

Nobody understands it. There is no way whenever you bring God down, as John Murray said, any doctrine, any major doctrine of Scripture has inherent and apparent contradictions and inscrutable truth. I just know that sinners are accountable to God to believe and I just know we're to crisscross the earth and make sure that every sinner hears the gospel and we're to beg them to be reconciled to God, aren't we? I don't know how God sorts through all of that, but I'll tell you what, He doesn't expend any energy trying to figure it out.

It's crystal clear to Him, it's just not to us. And I really believe...that's one of the reasons I believe in the inspiration of Scripture, because of apparent contradictions and inscrutable things like that. Look, I write books, I know editors, and if I have a contradiction anywhere in what I write, they fix it. And there are these massive, incomprehensible, inscrutable truths in here that nobody ever touched because this is the Word of the living God. And one of the reasons I know God wrote the Bible is because those things are in there that are way beyond the capability of human understanding. And I'm so glad for that. I'm so glad that this book is transcendent. I'm so glad that it's...Listen, if I fully understood the Bible, my mind would be equal to the mind of God. And if my mind was equal to the mind of God, we would be in serious trouble having a God like that. I rejoice in the doctrine of predestination, don't you?

It gives me...you say, well, doesn't that make you lazy and...not at all. I'm so thrilled with this plan. I'm so exhilarated.

I'm so overwhelmed with it. I'm so grateful for it. And I am guaranteed success in my endeavors as an evangelist and a preacher, am I not? Because it's going to happen the way God purposed it to happen. I'm not trying to change God's plan, but what a thrill to be engaged in a plan that will be fulfilled. This is Grace to You with John MacArthur.

Thanks for being with us. Today John continued his study from Romans 8 titled, The Grip of God. John, we often talk about the sovereignty of God in drawing sinners to himself. And it's always a miracle, of course, when anyone is saved.

But sometimes those transformations happen in much more dramatic ways than others. And we recently heard from a woman who, along with her family, has experienced the transforming power of God, and the circumstances are so remarkable. I want you to share it. So give the details. You have her letter there in front of you.

The letter begins, This letter has been a long time coming. Your preaching has changed my family's lives. I spent most of my life having anti-government beliefs and being connected with a neo-Nazi community that called itself a church.

Looking back, I cringe at calling that group a church. We believed in Christ, but thought we still had to keep the Old Testament law in order to be saved. I was constantly haunted by my failure to keep the law.

We were discouraged from having friends outside of our group, attending public schools and holding jobs that could interfere with keeping the law. I felt like a robot. About seven years ago, my husband and I began questioning whether our beliefs were really based on the Bible. We knew, 1 John 4.1, Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God because many false prophets have gone out into the world. So we prayed for Christ to reveal Himself and for the Holy Spirit to give us answers. I'm not sure how this happened, but one day my morning alarm clock was changed from the annoying buzzing sound to a radio station that had 30-minute sermons, and I began waking up to John MacArthur. It was so good. I looked forward to waking up every morning and hearing you. I also found grace to you on the Internet. I was listening and watching one sermon after the next.

I couldn't get enough. The issues my husband and I were praying about were suddenly being answered in every lesson we heard from you. Not long after that we left our community.

I could fill ten more pages with all the details of our life that God overturned and revealed Himself in. We struggled as we transitioned away from our former group, but we joined a small church and made new friends. I told one of my ministers about my chance encounter with you on the radio, and he became so excited because he and his wife spent the early portion of their marriage in Los Angeles and attended your church. My family has been changed by the power of Christ through your teaching. We continue to know that God has plans for us in this world and the next. Thank you for everything you're doing to preach the gospel.

Sign our name, L. What else can you say? A brand snatched from the burning. That's the power of the gospel. Thank you, folks, for supporting grace to you.

You make these kinds of stories a reality. That's right, and friend, God used His Word to save that woman and her family, and we can reach people like that across the globe with biblical truth because listeners like you give. To partner with us, get in touch today. You can mail your donation to Grace to You, Box 4000, Panorama City, California, 91412. Or you can give when you call, 855-GRACE. You can also donate online at our website, GTY.org. Again, to help us strengthen believers and churches around the world with biblical truth that changes lives, call 800-55-GRACE or go to GTY.org.

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Our website, again, GTY.org. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson, reminding you to watch Grace to You television this Sunday. And be here tomorrow when John shows you that if God has saved you, nothing can separate you from His love and His incredible salvation. That's John's focus when he returns with another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace to You.