Bible Verses for Predestination in the Bible

Predestination is the biblical teaching that God, according to His own sovereign purpose and grace, has from eternity determined to save and bring to glory those who belong to Christ. The word means to mark out or appoint beforehand, and Scripture applies it to God's loving, deliberate plan for His people. It is not a cold fatalism but the assurance that salvation begins and ends in the gracious will of God. Paul lays out the unbroken chain of God's saving work in Romans 8:29-30: "For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son... 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 goal of predestination is conformity to Christ, and every link, from foreknowledge to final glory, is secured by God Himself. The letter to the Ephesians grounds this choice in eternity past and in God's love. "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love" (Ephesians 1:4). He "predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will" (Ephesians 1:5), so that we are made heirs, "being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will" (Ephesians 1:11). Romans 9:11 stresses that this purpose rests on God's call and not on human works, made "that the purpose of God according to election might stand." And 2 Thessalonians 2:13 gives the believer's response: thanksgiving, "because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth." Far from undermining human responsibility or the call to faith, predestination magnifies God's grace, secures the believer's hope, and turns the heart to humble worship of the God who chose us before we ever chose Him.