Before I was born, Thou didst precede me, preparing for me the way by which I should walk and enter into the glory of Thy house. Before my formation in my mother's womb, Thou didst know me, and before my departure from the womb, Thou didst predestest all that was pleasing to Thee for me (Flowers of Grace-filled Life, p. 130).

What does God's predestination mean in general? The Scripture itself will best answer this question: With an oath saith the Lord of hosts: As I have thought, so shall it be; as I have ordained, so shall it come to pass (Isaiah 14:24).

I declare from the beginning what will happen in the end, and from ancient times what has not yet come to pass, I say: My counsel will come to pass, and whatever pleases Me I will do. I have called an eagle from the east, from a far country, the fulfiller of my decree. I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have ordained, and I will do it" (Isaiah 46:10-11).

No one can frustrate God's plan: "I know that Thou canst do all things, and that Thy purpose cannot be stopped" (Job 42:2), For the Lord of hosts has determined, and who can undo it? (Isaiah 14:27). This plan exists in relation to each individual believer: "My bones were not hidden from Thee, when I was created in secret, I was formed in the depths of the womb. Thy eyes have seen my embryo; in Thy book are written all the days appointed for me, when none of them were yet (Psalm 138:15-16).

In His omniscience, God cannot be wrong. All whom He has predestined to salvation will surely be saved: for whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. And those whom He predestined, He called, and those whom He called, He also justified; and those whom He justified, He also glorified (Romans 8:29-30).

The day of judgment – when every person will receive eternal damnation or eternal glory – is also already recorded in the book of God. As I prayed this morning, I was turning to God, who already knows my eternal destiny quite definitely. God foresaw my life from beginning to end and had already decided what to do with me. The doctrine of predestination can cause deep confusion; fallen man treats God with deep distrust and suspicion, and he is not at all pleased with the thought that he will in no way escape the fate prepared for him; but for one who trusts in God, predestination is a source of the greatest comfort, because God has not ordained us to wrath, but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thess. 5:9).

Very interesting in this respect is the passage already quoted above in 2 Thess. 2:13-14. There are three successive stages here: (a) God has chosen you from the beginning unto salvation, (b) To which He has called you by our gospel, (c) To attain to the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. That believers have been called through the preaching of the gospel is a manifestation of the fact that they were "chosen from the beginning." We did not choose the Lord, but He chose us (John 15:16). Our turning to God is not a matter of our uncertain and restless will, but a question of His eternal and immutable decision to save us, in order to attain not our glory, but the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

For what reason did God predestinate believers to salvation? There are three main points of view on this matter: a) God predestined those who, as He foresaw from eternity, would love Him, live godly and do good works (predestination based on the foreknowledge of human merits); b) God predestined those who, as He foresaw from eternity, would believe in Christ (predestination based on the foreknowledge of man's response to God's mercy); c) God predestined people to salvation solely by His mercy, without any reason or merit on their part (unconditional predestination).

The latter two points of view do not differ as much as it may seem: when we speak of God's "foreknowledge," we must not forget that in relation to created reality, God is Creator, Preserver, and Provider, and not merely an outside Observer. He not only observes the course of events, but also actively directs it. God not only waits for the conversion of sinners, but actually leads them to it (John 6:37, 44). Repentance is a gift from God (Acts 5:31, 11:18; 2 Tim. 2:25). Many Christians, looking back on their lives, can recognize that God directed all the circumstances of their lives long before their conversion and showed concern for their salvation when they did not yet know Him and did not want to know Him. Thus, in foreseeing the repentance and faith of sinners, God foresees not some fact external to Him, but the result of His own actions. It is therefore difficult to draw a clear line between God's foreknowledge and His predestination. The Greek word translated "foreknew" in Rom. 8:29, as Bishop S. Cassian Bezobrazov, already contains the moment of election (Christ and the First Christian Generation, p. 225). It is God's acts in our lives that have led us to conversion, not our actions that have caused God to take care of us.

I must also admit that I have not been able to find convincing support in Scripture for what we have designated in point (a) as "predestination according to foreseen merit." If we ask directly why God predestined us to salvation, then the Apostle answers: according to the good pleasure of His will (Ephesians 1:5). This is exclusively a matter of His goodwill. We cannot claim that any of our own merits and good works, which God foresaw, have disposed Him in our favor: But if by grace, it is not by works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace. And if by works, then this is no longer grace; otherwise a deed is no longer a deed (Romans 11:6).

The Apostle Paul writes that election is election by grace (Romans 11:5). This question is explained in detail by Blessed Augustine: Let us therefore understand the calling by which the elect are chosen: not those who are chosen because they believe, but those who are chosen to believe. For the Lord sufficiently reveals this calling when He says: "Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you" (John 15:16). For if they were chosen because they believed, they themselves would have chosen first, believing in Him, that they might deserve to be chosen. All this is completely taken away by Him who said, "You did not choose Me, but I chose You." For they themselves undoubtedly chose Him when they believed in Him. Wherefore for no other reason did He say, "Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you," except that they did not choose Him to choose them, but He chose them to choose Him: for His mercy preceded them (Psalm 58:11) by grace, and not by duty. So He chose them out of the world when He lived here in the flesh, but those who had already been chosen in Him before the foundation of the world. This is the unshakable truth of predestination and grace. For why does the Apostle say: "He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world" (Ephesians 1:4)? For if this is said because God foreknew their faith, and not because He was going to make them believers; then the Son opposes this foreknowledge when He says, "You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you": for in this case God rather foreknew that they would choose Him, that they might deserve to be chosen by Him. Therefore they were chosen before the creation of the world by the predestination by which God foreknew His future works: but they were chosen of the world by the calling by which God fulfilled that which He had predestined. For whom He predestined, He also called; the very vocation that is according to the intention. And so, not others, but those whom He predestined, they themselves He called: not others, but those whom He so called, whom He also justified: not others, but those whom He predesceed, called and justified, and glorified them also (Romans 8:30); With the goal, of course, which in turn has no purpose. So God chose the faithful, but in such a way that they might become faithful, and not because they were already faithful. The Apostle James says: "Did not God choose the poor of the world to be rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to them that love Him" (James 2:5)? And so, in choosing, He makes them rich in faith, as well as heirs of the Kingdom. It is rightly said that He chose in them what He Himself created, for which He chose them. I ask, who, hearing the words of the Lord, "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you," will dare to say that men believe in order to be chosen, while they are rather chosen to believe, lest those to whom Christ says, "You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you," be found against the truth?

Who, listening to the Apostle saying, "

In him we have also become heirs, having been predestined to this according to the decree of Him who doeth all things according to the purpose of His will, that we might serve for the praise of His glory" (Eph. 1:3-12): who, I say, hearing this attentively and with understanding, will dare to doubt the truth which we defend? God in Christ chose before the creation of the world the members of His body: and how would He have chosen those who did not yet exist, except by predestination? So He chose us, predestinating. And did He choose the ungodly and unclean? For if it be asked whether he has chosen those of whom we have spoken above, or rather the holy and blameless, no one will hesitate to answer, and will immediately vote for the holy and blameless.

"Therefore He foreknew," says the Pelagian, "who would be holy and blameless of His own free will: and therefore before the foundation of the world, according to His foreknowledge, by which He foreknew that they would be, He chosen. Therefore He chose them before they existed, predestining as sons those whom He foreknew to be holy and blameless: and of course He Himself did not do so, nor did He intend to do so, but foreknew that they would be so." Let us consider, then, the words of the Apostle, and see whether He chose us before the foundation of the world because we were going to be holy and blameless, or that we might be. "Blessed," says the Apostle, "is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in heaven, inasmuch as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we might be holy and blameless." Therefore, not because we were going to be, but because we wanted to be. How certain and how clear it is: because it is we who will be like this, because He Himself has chosen, predestined that we should be so by His grace. And so "He has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in heaven, because He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him in love, having predestinated us to be adopted as sons by Jesus Christ." Then, notice that he adds, "according to the good pleasure of his will"; so that in such a blessing of grace we should not boast of our will, "by which He has done us good in the Beloved": that is, by His will He has done us good. For the word "beneficence" comes from the word "grace," as well as "justify" from "righteousness." "In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace, which he hath given us in abundance in all wisdom and understanding, having revealed to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure." In this mystery of His will He placed the riches of His grace, according to the good pleasure of His will, and not ours, which could not have been good, if He Himself, in His good pleasure, had not helped it to become so. And having said, "According to His good pleasure," he added, "which He had first laid in Him," that is, in His beloved Son, "in the dispensation of the fulness of times, that all things in heaven and on earth might be united under the head of Christ. In Him we have become heirs, having been predestined by the decree of Him who does all things according to the purpose of His will, that we may serve to the praise of His glory."