QUESTION ABOUT 
PREDESTINATION ANSWERED
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 "My name is…and I come to your site quite often. It is a great site for the Christian person to come and read about several topics on the Bible. Recently I went to [another] web site…and was reading their Bible studies. But on this lesson I found them to be teaching predestination. I have always believed that it is not true based on the Bible. Here they used several Scriptures in Romans and I am not sure what to think… But I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic. Thanks for any help you can give." (E-mail, Web page response)
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 Answer: Yes, I believe that predestination is taught in the Scriptures. But it is not a fatalistic predestination that infringes upon the free will of man (as many times seen in Calvinism). Both predestination and free will are found in the Word of God. (Read on). Bible predestination is all tied up in the foreknowledge of God, what and then whom God foreknew. God didn’t predestinate, then foreknow. The foreknowledge came before the predestination. Romans 8:28 through the remainder of that chapter is a great section of Scripture to read. Verses 29 and 30 read, "For whom he [God] did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified." The foreknowledge came before the predestination. There is a difference. God did not decide to create man and arbitrarily, individually and irrevocably assign a segment to hell and another to heaven from all eternity (just for the sake of doing it). But, being God, He knew and knows everything. He knows everything that was, everything that is, and everything that will be (He even knows what might have been). Acts 15:18 states, "Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world." That being the case, He could foresee that man He would create would sin and need a Savior. Thus Peter speaks of Christ, and our redemption, as "with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world…" (1 Peter 1:19,20). Paul told the Ephesian Christians that God had "chosen us IN HIM [in Christ] before the foundation of the world… Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will" (Ephesians 1:4,5). We all know what John 3:16 says and perhaps equally the complementary Scripture, Revelation 22:17. It says, "whosoever will" may come. Paul in 1 Timothy 2:4 speaks of God "who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth." In the same vein, 2 Peter 3:9 tells us, "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise [of judgment], as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." So, we see the "good pleasure of his will" is in Christ, that "whosoever will" may be saved in him. We were chosen and predestinated in him. God looked down throughout all eternity and saw all who would have good and honest hearts and of their own free will and volition accept Christ as their Savior. He knew who they would be, and in accepting Christ, God designated them as the saved ones to be conformed to the image of His Son. They were thus predestinated in Christ. In the foreknowledge of God it is almost like everything has already taken place, since He knows everything in advance, but it hasn’t happened yet. According to Romans, God sees the end from the beginning. In one panoramic sweep of the mind of God, foreknowledge, predestination, the calling, the justification, and the ultimate glorification of the saved flashes before Him. God knows how it will all end. It is mind-boggling to think about, or to fully grasp, but that is the way it is. Yes, in true Bible predestination man is a responsible free moral agent, and 2 Peter 1:10-11 strongly admonishes us, "Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall: For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."—J.E.G.
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EXPLANATION OF "EASTER"
IN THE KING JAMES TRANSLATION
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 IN THE 12TH CHAPTER of Acts we are told about Herod having the apostle James killed with the sword (the first apostle to be put to death). Seeing that it pleased the Jews, he apprehended the apostle Peter also. We are told that "then were the days of unleavened bread" (verse 3), and that Herod was "intending after Easter to bring him [Peter] forth to the people [the Jews]" (verse 4).
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 The Greek word behind this word translated "Easter" is pascha. The King James translation stands alone in rendering it as "Easter." All other translations represent this word with "Passover," and the context here in Acts 12 easily shows that it has reference to "the days of unleavened bread" (the Passover). Passover is what pascha means, but the King James scholars translated the word as "Easter." Were they wrong in doing this? The answer is yes, and the answer is no. What is the story behind this?
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 The early church did not observe Easter. The Lord came forth from the grave on the first day of the week (Luke 24:1-3; Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:1-9; John 20:1), and instead of continuing to keep the Sabbath (Colossians 2:14-16; Galatians 4:9-11), the early church met on the first day of the week (evidently tied in with memory of the resurrection of Christ). (Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:2). But as time went by and changes began to take place, an annual celebration of the resurrection came into being in addition to meeting on the first day of the week (which we still do). The name "Easter" (originally a pagan festival in honor of the goddess of spring) was not used at first to refer to this day. In the Greek speaking world the name that was applied to this day was pascha, the word for Passover, but having reference now to the day set aside to celebrate the resurrection of Christ. We can easily see how pascha could be switched over to this day by non-Jewish people, as the time frame is the same when it originally took place. And still today in modern Greece their word for "Easter" is pascha, which really is "Passover."
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 As a matter of further interest, the Greek word in use today for Friday is paraskeue. In Mark 15:42 we read about "the preparation, that is, the day before the sabbath." Friday was the day of preparation, as the Jews were involved in getting ready for the Sabbath. Paraskeue is the word translated "preparation." This word was also carried over into the Greek speaking world, and it is their word for Friday.
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 So, were the King James scholars wrong in translating pascha as "Easter"? It seems they imposed a later meaning of the word pascha that was used in the Greek world. But for the Bible times in which the book of Acts was written, "Passover" best represents what is meant here.
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CREATED "FULL-GROWN"
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 SOME BELITTLE even the thought of a "young" earth, pointing to the stratified, molten layers in the earth’s formation and speaking of all the light years the celestial bodies are removed from the earth. They speak of millions of years. But they don’t take into account that, of necessity, different laws and principles would have to be involved in creation than that which sustains the creation after it was brought into being. We cannot judge how things came into being by what we see now. For example, God instantaneously created Adam from the dust of the earth. He was created full-grown. If this could have been observed from the sideline, Adam might have looked like he was, say, thirty years old, whereas, in fact, he would have been only thirty minutes or even thirty seconds old. The same can be said of the universe. It was created "full-grown" to fulfill the purpose for which it had been brought into being, with the rays from the heavenly bodies instantly striking the earth. If one believes in special creation, and not evolution, this is all quite simple to accept and understand. Also, even from this side of creation, there is evidence indicative of radical and catastrophic changes in atmospheric and climatic conditions that had a bearing upon the earth which would make judging the past by the present not always reliable and hard to do.

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