P3 God’s Plan Before The Christian Life’s Beginning For Sanctification

Introduction:

    In our first post in this series, we began with the richness of the Christian life's beginnings here Growing Christian Resources: The Richness Of The Christian Life's Beginning. We then explored in the last post an introduction to the doctrine of sanctification or what I called "beyond the Christian life's beginning" here Growing Christian Resources: P2 Getting Beyond The Christian Life’s Beginning.. 

    In as much as it is the case that the Christian life and sanctification begin at regeneration and saving faith, as well as sanctification progressing forward from that point, we must realize how often the Bible speaks of God's planning of the Christian life for each believer well-before they were born. 

    The Apostle Peter and other writers in the Bible spend quite a bit of time spelling out God's planning of Christian salvation from all eternity. This is important to establish the overwhelming emphasis of the Bible on salvation being totally of God's grace and not of human effort. I suppose I should had maybe placed this post as the first in this series (Peter does that in the opening chapter of his first letter). 

    Nevertheless, my goal in this series was to introduce the reader to an overview of what the Bible teaches about the Christian life's beginning. We've witnessed what that beginning looks like and what follows after the beginning. However, it bears reminding the reader that the only reason anyone becomes born again in saving faith and is even able to live the Christian life in the first place is because of God's grace planned ahead of time for them from all eternity. 

God’s plan before the Christian life’s beginning.

     What follows below is an exposition of the first two verses of 1 Peter 1. Peter in this letter and Paul in his letter to the Church at Ephesus ground human salvation in the eternal plan of the Triune God before time began (compare 1 Peter 1:1-2 to Ephesians 1:1-5). Let's explore a little bit about what all this entailed. 

  A. The plan’s motive was God the Father's love of sinners for the Son.

      Let’s look at 1 Peter 1:1-2 

“Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who reside as aliens, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who are chosen 2 according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood: May grace and peace be yours in the fullest measure.”

       Ephesians 2:8-9, a most beloved passage that explains how salvation is of the Lord, says this in verse 10 “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” There are terms Peter and Paul use in their letters to indicate the eternal origins of God’s plan of salvation. As our Baptist Faith and Message 2000 reminds us:

“Election is the gracious purpose of God, according to which He regenerates, justifies, sanctifies, and glorifies sinners. It is consistent with the free agency of man, and comprehends all the means in connection with the end.”

    As we loop back to 1Peter 1:1-2, its worth noting some terms. We see that first term, “elect”. God the Father desired to give a love gift to His Son – a redeemed people. As I noted earlier, Paul grounds Christian salvation in God's Sovereign election. Notice what he writes in Ephesians 1:4 “just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love”. Peter similarly describes those to whom he writes as “chosen” in 1 Peter 1:1-2. 

     Secondly, we see the term “foreknowledge” used by Peter in 1 Peter 1:2, tied closely to the first term “elect”, “according to the foreknowledge of God the Father.” Paul does this as well in Romans 8:29 “For those whom He foreknew…”. 

    The specific term “foreknowledge” refers to God’s “foreloving”. The Bible will oftentimes use the term “know” to euphemistically to talk about the love between a husband and his wife (see Genesis 4:1, KJV “Adam ‘knew’ his wife Eve”). In the Old Testament, God used this language of knowing to describe how He set his affection upon Israel above the other nations in Deuteronomy 7:7 “The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples.” 

    Why and when did God in the Person of the Father set His affection upon sinners? He did so for the sake of the Person of the Son. Nothing in the sinner merits such love. Rather, God's electing love arose from within Himself as the loving Triune God. 1 John 4:19 reminds us "we love Him because He first loved us." It's for the sake of love that such choosing occurred. 

    So, what of the "when"? Paul tells us in 2 Timothy 1:9 “who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity”. Thus, the plan’s motives for salvation (and Christian sanctification) was rooted in God’s love.

B. The plan’s map included a holy life lived by the Christian for the Son.

      We have the motive of God’s planned sanctification – love (as seen in the Biblical terms “election” and “foreknowledge”). But what of the map for the plan? That’s where we come to our third term, “predestination” or “predestined”. The term itself speaks of literally marking out the horizons or “specs” of something beforehand. Paul uses this in Romans 8:29a “For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son….”.

      As a side note, the Bible never presents God’s foreknowledge and predestination as contradicting our responsibility to believe the Gospel and to grow in sanctification thereafter. With that note, let's look at two passages that feature our term "predestined" with respect to God's plan for salvation and sanctification. 

Ephesians 1:5 “He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will.” Ephesians 1:11 “also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will.”

    Therefore, when you see that word "predestined" in the Bible, think of it as God's map for salvation.  

C. The plan’s methods for sanctification of the Christian in the Son.

     God’s motive for planning sanctification was love in election and foreknowledge, with the map being that of predestinating those sinners whom He desired to give as a love gift to His Son. We now go from motives and a map to the methods God included to make His people more and more sanctified upon their profession of faith in Jesus Christ. This included the places we would live and the cross of Christ.

(C1). God’s plan included places. 1 Peter 1:1

     God had already chosen people out of those seven areas to whom Peter wrote about in His letter. When they believed on Jesus Christ, God would use circumstances and where the people lived to shape and mold them. 

    Did you ever think about your current station in life right now? God is using challenges in your finances, relationships, job opportunities or lack thereof, health, the details of where you live, your home, past experiences and present ones in His overall plan of sanctification. For the Christian, this includes their church and every sermon or Sunday School lesson they’ll ever hear. Every relationship with other Christians, ministries the Christian reader experiences, and sometimes challenges as well – all of it is in God’s plan. God’s methods included places.

(C2). God’s plan included the cross.

      Peter writes in 1 Peter 1:2a “according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood.”  

    In the Bible, when people were sprinkled with blood, that signaled they were set apart by God to be His people. In the Old Mosaic Covenant for example, we read in Exodus 24:7-8 “Then he took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people; and they said, ‘All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient!’ 8 So Moses took the blood and sprinkled it on the people, and said, “Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.”  Think of how that sprinkled blood was a permanent reminder to the people, since you cannot wash blood out of garments!

     However, the New Covenant in Christ does something that Old Covenant could never do – provide power for godly living. That is why Peter mentions the work of the Holy Spirit in applying all Jesus did for us in the cross and the empty tomb. We know this by how Peter ends 1 Peter 1:2 “May grace and peace be yours in the fullest measure.”  

Final thoughts:

    Well, we must end there. Suffice to say, God’s plan for the Christian life not only included our sanctification, but the power to live it. Over the last couple of posts, we've explored the beginnings of the Christian life, what follows beyond the beginning, and in today's post what all God did way before the Christian life's beginning. In the next post I want to begin to lay out the overall Biblical and doctrinal vision of Christian sanctification.