Predestination is a term used to mean that God, in His sovereignty, chose people (the elect) to be saved even before the world began (Ephesians 1:3-14). He was pleased to do this because of His great love, rather than for any merit or righteousness humans could generate by themselves (Deuteronomy 7:7-8), and it was so that they might be ‘for the praise of his glory’ (Ephesians 1:12). This means that there is no place for pride or boasting in our own goodness, as we are saved only as an act of His sovereign grace (Ephesians 2:8-9). It is perhaps difficult for us to grasp this fully, but this teaching needs to be held in tension with the human responsibility to choose to be obedient or disobedient to God, in answering His call to salvation in Jesus Christ (2 Timothy 2:19, Romans 8:28-30). This tension is seen in many parts of the New Testament, which urge people to respond to God (Acts 3:17-22, Acts 17:24-30, 2 Peter 3:8-9). Predestination cannot be used to justify a lack of need to evangelise, nor to ignore the need to respond to the message, as that would make us disobedient to His will. Indeed, the apostle Paul sees predestination as a reason for evangelism, that we may play a part in God’s sovereign plan of salvation (2 Timothy 2:10).
