In Romans 8:29, we read, "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" (NKJV).  In Ephesians 1:4-5, Paul says, "For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will."  What I wish to underscore here is that these two things (sanctification and adoption) to which the follower of Jesus Christ is destined for, are at least in part experienced in his or her life even now.  Indeed, it is not until we see our Lord  face to face at His coming that we will be made "holy and blameless" or "conformed to" His image.  And although we are adopted as children of God, we still await our homecoming and the receiving of our inheritance. 

Nevertheless, it can be said, and from Scripture, that the process of being made like Christ is already at work.  Take 2 Corinthians 3:17-18.  ^"Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.  And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit" (cf. 2 Corinthians 4:16-27).  We are waiting patiently to be made perfect (as we should), yet He is already in the process of doing so, as we are being transformed-even now!  So if anyone doubts that God has chosen them in Christ, let them reflect on how the Lord has changed them, if even a little.  If even you have the desire to be more like Christ, then you can be sure that you are His.

Although we wait for our homecoming, and our inheritance, we are apart of God's holy family in Christ, and have the witness of the Holy Spirit that we are God's children.  "For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship.  And by him we cry, 'Abba, Father.'  The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children.  Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory" (Romans 8:15-16 cf. Galatians 4:6).  While we must wait patiently and endure the troubles of this life, we can do so because we have the assurance of those promises by the witness of the Spirit, and because of the strength He provides.  "For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has?  But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express" (Romans 8:24-26).  And after this, Paul leads into v 29, where God's children, who love Him and are called according to His purpose, and whom He foreknew, are predestined to be made like Christ and to be one of His brothers.

In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering.  Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers.

Hebrews 2:10-11

Predestination: who is predestined and for what?  That is the real question.  And the answer in perhaps too simple to accept for some who would like it to be complicated.  However, beyond the simple answer, God's predestining is impossible for the finite human mind to fathom. 

The answer is that everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is predestined by God's love to be 1) conformed to the image of God's Son (i.e. made like Jesus) and 2) to be adopted into God's family.  In Christ, we are predestined for glorification and reunion with our Father in heaven.  

Therefore, predestination is not about who is destined to be saved, but about what those who are saved through faith in Christ are destined for, which all can be described best, yet still inadequately, as glory.  The glory of adoption, the glory of holiness, the glory of life in God's kingdom, and the glory of our inheritance.

While I would contend that predestination is for the elect, it must be remembered that election is not something that excludes anyone from salvation.  In other words, election is in Christ, therefore everyone who believes in Him is elect because they are in the Elect One.  Those who do not believe exclude themselves from God's election and therefore exclude themselves from the glory that God's children are destined for.  God is not the one who chooses to condemn, but does so only on the grounds of His righteous judgment that those who reject His invitation are condemned. 

The first generation of Israelites to escape from Egypt with Moses were excluded from entering the Promised Land.  The author of Hebrews tells us that this was because of unbelief.  Moreover, in Paul's analogy of the olive tree some of the branches were cut from the cultivated olive because of unbelief.  It was unbelief that kept these generations from taking hold of the promises of God.  It is through belief in the Son of God that we have (or can take) taken hold of those promises. 

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.  For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.

Ephesians 1:3-6

For me, the most perplexing aspect of election and predestination is foreknowledge.  The word means to "know before hand".  Now that foreknowledge is attributable to God is no problem for me, God is omniscient, and would surely mean He has knowledge of things to come.  This issue is whether foreknowledge means He foreordaines.  This is, has God determined before creating the universe every event that has or will happen.  In relation to salvation, does it mean He had determined beforehand who is saved and who is condemned?  Or does it mean that God sees in advance those who will have faith, thus knowing His elect before they believe?  Of the two, I would prefer the latter.  Yet I am not too sure of that either.  I surely do not believe that God in any less sovereign if He has not fatalistically determined everything in the sphere of history. 

Both views (Calvinist and Arminian) suffer from the fact that they impose a temporal perspective onto the transcendent God.  When we think about foreknowledge, it is natural for us to think in terms of God "looking ahead" for the past (His present) to the future (our present and our future).  We forget that this is not how God perceives time.  Peter says that with the Lord "a day is as a thousand years" and vice versa.  When God foreknew His elect, it is not as though God peered down a temporal corridor into the future from a past vista.  He vista is eternal. 

Did God know His elect intimately before they were born?  Yes.  But what He knew about them, however, did not determine His election.  When God chose Jacob over Esau, it was nothing that Jacob would do or could do that persuaded Yahweh to make him the father of the Israelites.  He made the choice out of love.  As Paul said in Romans 9, God's mercy (or election) is not based on man's effort or desire.  It comes down to God's love demonstrated in Christ, and His grace provided by the redemption that is in Christ.  God knows His elect, who are in His Anointed One, His Christ.  If we are in Him, then God knew us in Him and chose us in Him "before the creation of the world". 

For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.  And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

Romans 8:29-30

Not all are chosen, i.e., not everyone is elect (eklectos).  However, everyone is called (i.e. invited) through the gospel.  Now everyone who is in Christ is elect, and all of those were called through the gospel.  Yet, not everyone who is invited is the elect, for not all who are invited will accept the invitation.  Refer to the parable in Matthew 22:1-14.  The king had guests he had invited before the banquet was ready.  When he sent out for them, they refused to come, and in extreme cases murdered the king's servants.  Those the king invited were in essence called, but they chose to refuse the king's goodness.  Afterward, the king sent out his servants to invite everyone they could find out in the streets.  These were invited by the king and accepted the invitation.  One man was found without wedding clothes. 

This man may have been brought in the streets along with the others.  In this case he and the others were given proper attire for the banquet.  Thus, he was invited, but did not continue in the king's goodness in providing the proper attire.  On the other hand, he came off the street without invitation and so had not business being there.  Whatever case is true, this parable illustrates that invitation is not on our terms, but on God's.  It was the king's goodness to invite those off the street to his banquet, just as it was his goodness to invite those who rejected him.  Neither group of invitees were invited on their merits or status.  Those who do not continue in the kings goodness or who are not invited will not have the benefits of that goodness.

The invitation of the gospel is not given to us because of our own merits or background.  Regardless of our gender, our religious or ethnic heritage, we are called by the cross to come to Christ and be reconciled to the God who made us.  No one is excluded from His call through the gospel.  "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.  Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son" (John 3:16:-18).  Whoever believes, not just a few that God foreordained, will "have eternal life".  Jesus died for the sins of the world, not an elect few.  So through His Son, God invites the world to repent and be saved.  Those who do not believe are condemned because the did not believe the gospel; not because God foreordained their damnation.  He did not peer down corridors of time and pick out Joe on the street and say "he's condemned" or "he's saved."  If we present the gospel (i.e. the invitation) and he believes, then he is saved and elect in Christ.  Yet, if Joe does not believe, and continues in unbelief he will stand condemned because of unbelief in God's Son.

Belief is not how we earn salvation, it is how we accept the invitation.  It is how we RSVP.           

Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: "The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son.  He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come."

Matthew 22:1-3

In transition from the discussion of election into that of calling, I am going to discuss here Parable of the Wedding Banquet Jesus tells in Matthew 22:1-14. 

This parable illustrates well the history of Israel's election.  They are the ones who in the parable were invited to the banquet but refused to come.  It is quite interesting how the story plays out, closely parallel to the history of Israel and her rebellion.  God sent his servants-Moses, Aaron, Joshua, and the Judges.  Yet largely, the people of Israel ignored them and went after the ways of the Canaanites.  It even got to where the people tired of God's servants and requested a human king like the Gentiles.  

Yahweh then sent His prophets, just as the king in the story sends a second volley of servants to gather his invited guests.  "But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business.  The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them.  The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city" (Matt 22:5-7).  This corresponds to the post-Solomon monarchy, which had Israel divided into Northern (Israel) and Southern (Judah) kingdoms.  Although Judah had a few godly kings, but the North and South were like the invited guests in the parable, they either ingnored Yahweh's servants or they killed them.  Both kingdoms met God's wrath through foreign armies.  Israel through Assryia, and Judah through Babylon.

After the transgression of these invited guests, the king sent out more servants to gather everyone they could find.  Since the invited guests proved unworthy to come, the invitation was extended to those who previously were not invited.  This is precisely what Paul in Romans 9-11 was teaching.  Particularly in Romans 11, Paul brings out the fact that Israel's transgression in rejecting Christ has meant good for the Gentiles.  It was through their rejection that the Gentiles were accepted.  Israel rejected the invitation, and so it was extended to the Gentiles.  And this was foretold in the OT, as Paul points out in Galatians where he says, "the Scripture foresaw that the Gentiles would be justified by faith."  This was foreseen in the life of Abraham, for he believed God, and so was declared righteous (i.e. justified by faith); moreover, it was told Abraham that the Gentiles (peoples/nations) would be blessed through his seed (which is Christ).

The parable also has some relation (as far as the idea) to Paul analogy of the olive trees.  In Jesus' parable, the folly of the invited guests was the invitation of those who were not invited.  In Paul's analogy in Romans 11, it was the cutting off of unbelieving Israel that gave place for the grafting in of Gentiles.  In Jesus' parable, a certain man from off the street was found not wearing wedding clothes, which may have been provided for him.  Because he refused the king's goodness and did not wear the attire provided him, he was thrown out.  In Romans 11, Paul admonishes the ingrafted Gentiles to continue in God's goodness, or they too may be cut off as was unbelieving Israel

For many are invited, but few are chosen

Matthew 22:14