254 - GOD’S SUPER RACEDecember 9, 1962
Henry F. Kulp
Romans 8: 29, 32 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. 32 He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?
Now as we continue our study in the 8th chapter of Romans, we come to a very important doctrine. We have discussed the doctrine of manifestation and the doctrine of glorification. We shall be glorified with uncreated glory, the glory of God, and we will be manifested, revealed unveiled as the sons of God before all created beings
1/ But now we come to a doctrine that has been much misunderstood—the doctrine of predestination. So this morning, we want to talk about the doctrine of foreknowledge, and the doctrine if predestination.
2/ When we come to the 8th chapter, we come to the 28th verse which has been a verse if great consolation to the Lord’s people for many years. It is doubtful whether any verse is more often quoted than Romans 8: 28 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.
The minister, the missionary, the child of God, they all quote it—all things work together for good, but this morning, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to make verse 29 just as glorious and precious as verse 28 for indeed it is. These two verses can actually not be separated—they are joined together. Very few people ever quote verse 29 when they quote verse 28 and they are closely connected.
3/ Notice verse 29 begins with the word, for, and it has in it the meaning of because. So verse 29 is because of verse 28.
4/ But now let us look at Romans 8: 28. This is the master verse—no doubt about it. It is full of consolation to the Lord’s people who pass through dark places. It does not say that everything that happens to you is the best—but it does say that everything that happens to you, God will work out for good.
5/ Now the thing we want you to recognize is that God is working out a plan. We don’t always give the credit for that, do we? We look about our lives and see a lot of loose ends and we forget that God has a plan in our lives. He is working something out in our lives. Man will say—I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m on the way. That is not true for a Christian. He knows that he is part of God’s master plan. God has a plan for him and He is going to work all things together for his good.
6/ Romans 8: 29 begins by saying, for whom He did foreknow, and I suppose this is the spot where we get into deep water, because people have had it drilled into them way back in the past that God foreordained that certain people should be lost and certain others should be saved. And I certainly want you to get that out of your mind this morning. Let me say that it isn’t in the Bible.
7/ Notice that predestination is founded upon God’s foreknowledge, and when you consider predestination, the foreknowledge of God should never be left out. So we know that God predestinating us to a certain thing is founded on the fact that He has foreknowledge. This foreknowledge comes from a word in the original that means acquainted with all things. God is acquainted with all people is that God knows that which is coming to pass.
8/ The foreknowledge of God is that God knows that which is coming to pass. God is omniscient, which means He is all wise. He knows everything. He knows beforehand all that will cone to pass. We can’t do that, because our knowledge is limited and because of our limitations we have to wait until Tuesday to find out what happened on Monday. It is not so with God. He knows before Monday comes what is going to take place. He knows on Friday before—He has known years and years before.
9/ And the wonderful thought is that God shares His foreknowledge with His people. This is seen in Isaiah 42:9 Behold, the former things have come to pass, and the news things do I declare before they spring forth I tell you of them.
Praise God for this—it means that none of us need to be blinded as to what is coming to pass in the years that lie before us. God has told us.
10/ There is another aspect of God’s foreknowledge that is worthy of consideration, and it is a point that is often overlooked or misunderstood. We must not confuse the foreknowledge of God with the actions of mankind. Foreknowledge is the revelation of God as to what is coming to pass but the knowledge of God does not make a thing necessary. It makes it certain, but not necessary. God knew that Adam would sin and made provisions against it long before he sinned. But Adam did not have to sin. God was not responsible for his disobedience. God knew that Judas would betray His Son and He even prophesied it up to this point. But God’s foreknowledge did not mean that Judas could not help doing that dastardly deed.
11/ God knows all your evil deeds, your acts that are wrong. Yet He is not accounting you for them.
Remember in James 1: 13, 14 Let no man say when he is tempted – I am tempted of God for God cannot be tempted of evil, neither tempted He any man.
The only conclusion we can come to is that God’s foreknowledge has nothing more to do with the act than our after-knowledge. In other words, we’ll say on Tuesday we learned there was an accident on the corner near our home on Monday. We know it is for a certainty, but our knowledge does not mean that it had to take place.
12/ Romans 8: 29 For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate.
I don’t understand why folks stop right here. If you stop here, you do not get the sense of the passage—that is what most people do. For notice, if you do not stop, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son. God’s predestination is not salvation. God’s predestination is that those who receive the Lord Jesus Christ shall be like the Lord Jesus Christ—that is predestination and nothing else. God from the beginning by His foreknowledge predestinated that every believer should be made like Christ, and nothing else in the bible is predestination. That predestination is that God has ordained one to be saved and another to be lost in hell eternally is not within the covers of the Holy Bible.
13/ Let us just look at the word itself. Predestination is a word in two parts:
Pre-meaning beforehand, and destination meaning the end of the journey. So it is decided here before the end of the journey that we are going to be like Christ.
I Timothy 2: 4 Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.
God does not ordain that some men shall be saved, and some shall be lost and damned and go straight to hell—Oh no, He wants every man to accept Jesus Christ. If men are lost, it is because they will to be lost.
14/ Matthew 23: 37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!
This verse gives us a key of what I am talking about—here Jesus Christ said, how often would I and ye would not. God would save all men, but not all men will be saved.
15/ When men say that predestination is that God in eternity past choose some men to be saved and some men to be lost, that is not predestination that is fatalism. Predestination is something to be happy about—not something to be gloomy over. Predestination is something to make men move, get busy, serve the Lord Jesus Christ. Predestination is not something to make them sit down and forget about their service to the Lord Jesus Christ. But erroneous teaching of predestination usually makes people sit down and say, well, those who are going to be saved are going to be saved, and I don’t really have to work and see others learn this wonderful Gospel.
16/ This is God’s super-race. Hitler wanted a super-race, didn’t he? And other leaders of nations wanted to build up a super-race, but this is the super-race.Those who have found the fountain of everlasting life in Jesus Christ. How did this super-race begin? God began this super-race by birth. God didn’t take the old and make it over again. For notice, the words, in Romans 8: 29 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.
“First born” This is a born race. As the Lord Jesus Christ was born so the Lord’s people, or God’s super-race was born.
17/ Now the birth of Christ Jesus that is referred to here as the firstborn, was not the birth of Bethlehem. I want you to look at a very interesting portion of scripture.
Acts 13: 33 God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again; as it is also written in the Second Psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.
This day is the resurrection day. When Jesus Christ was raised from the dead, He became first born of God. He had to die, and He rise again, and every one of the members of His Body—those who are the members of this super-race who are to be like Him are raised from the dead—every one. This must be done spiritually.
18/ We have another verse that declares this very clearly to us.
Romans 1: 4 And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead:
He has always been the Son of God. But officially He was declared when He was resurrected from the dead. The decree went forth, Thou art my Son. So we, too, are declared to be sons of God by resurrection, and this is explained to us in Romans 6: 3, 4 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
Here we are baptized--placed into His death, and we are buried with Him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even we also should walk in newness of life. And that is where we are declared to be the sons of God.
19/ Romans 8: 30 Now notice, Moreover, whom He did predestinate, them He called, and whom He called, them He also justified, and whom He justified, them He also glorified.
For some unknown reason, perhaps because of the teaching we have had and people have really not analyzed it—we put all of this in the past—we take a verse like this and say, only those who the Lord has called to come to him. When the Lord Jesus Christ said, Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy-laden. He called everyone. He wants all to be saved.
20/ Now the word called, in the 30th verse is a form of the word used only eleven times in the New Testament, and in no place is it necessary to put it in the past. It is a word that can be translated CALLED OUT after the Lord saved you, He called you out, because you are distinctly His. The Lord’s people are called-out-ones. He didn’t call them out to save them, He called them out to be made like Him.
21/ Verse 30 wasn’t before you were saved—but it was after you are saved.
22/ Now let us notice Romans 8: 31 What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?
What is there to be afraid of? The Lord is with me as a mighty, terrible one. There are some translations of the Bible that read this way—The Lord is with me as a mighty Giant, who is afraid?
And I believe that is the meaning. It is the picture of a little boy who has been bullied by larger boys in the neighborhood, and now he is afraid. He is afraid to venture out of the house and play on the sidewalks, but now he walks down the street with his father. He has his hand in his father’s hand, and he is not the least bit afraid. The bullies will not bother him when his father is there. Oh yes, the neighborhood bullies are there, but they see his father, and they don’t come up to him and hit him, so let us not be afraid. So that is the picture. The Lord is with me as a mighty Giant. If God be for us, who can be against us? If God be for us, God has predestinated us, if God has ordained us now, if we believe and receive the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be like him, what is there to be afraid of?
23/ Romans 8: 32 He that spared not His own Son but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?
Notice, how that is worded. It doesn’t say he shall—it says how can He help—How is it possible if God has done this that He should withhold anything from us, for truly if God has not withheld his Son, it must be absolutely impossible that He should withhold anything from whom He gave His Son. He gave the best He had—He gave His all.
24/ So if we are to be glorified, and when we share in this uncreated glory of God, we shall be made like the Lord Jesus Christ and at that time we shall be manifested as the sons of God, being made just like the Lord Jesus Christ.
Colossians 3: 4 Notice, When Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory.
This is our manifestation, for the word, appear, as we said, is manifested to be unveiled. And we are predestinated to be like the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, what a happy day!
25/ It is not any wonder then, that the Appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ in the heavens for His Church, for His Body when we shall be caught up to be with Him is called the “Blessed Hope.” Blessed, we said, means “prosperous” it means filled with many benefits.
Just notice, Titus 2: 13 Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;
And these benefits are that we shall share in the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be unveiled as the sons of God, we shall be like Him, for we shall be predestined at that time to be made like unto the Lord Jesus Christ. What a glorious, wonderful truth!
AMEN
Ref: 12/09/1962 / 254 - GOD’S SUPER-RACE / 03/06/2021
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