This happened BEFORE the foundation of the world. It was God's PLAN for MANKIND that was predestined and foreknown, not the individual conformity to the plan. He predestined that all of new race of Adam who accept Jesus Christ should be holy and without blame before him in love. All are called and chosen to become holy before God in love if they want to accept God's Plan, but only those who meet God's conditions will be accepted: Faith in what God has given man to believe for righteousness throughout the ages. From Genesis to Revelation. From Time Past to But Now to the Ages to Come. It all looks forward or back to Jesus Christ and the Cross. And it is the Cross that, no matter what age particular men lived in, was the goal of His perfect predestinated and foreknown plan for mankind. From before the foundation of the world.
As was said, God is not willing that any should perish, (2 Peter). So how can Eph 1:4,5 be true and 2 Peter?
Because God CHOSE and Predestined EVERYONE to be saved, but some are NOT willing. God allows this. He could overrule, but he allow humans to have free will.
Read Romans Chapter 1 — it shows that God wants sinners to repent, and will struggle with them for a long time, but will finally give up and let them have their will.
How could God tell us to do something that the unsaved cannot do? (i.e. repent)?
God is NOT like man, He can see, and know something has happened and NOT be the cause of it. Knowledge is NOT CAUSATION when it comes to God.
Mankind has Free Will — God has absolute power — Calvinism (5 point) is an attempt to explain God’s plan with the reasoning of man. However, God is not bound to time and causation like man is. This is the failing of Calvinism - assuming that God conforms to the rules of the universe HE CREATED!!
“This happened BEFORE the foundation of the world.”
What is “this”?
That is the problem. You read Calvin into the text, rather than read the text. What does it SAY?
“3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.”
Please notice it does NOT say God chose us to be justified. It says he “has blessed us in Christ” and “even as he chose us in him” that what? “we should be holy and blameless before him”
Please do not edit the words “in Christ” out of the text. We are chosen, not as individuals, but IN CHRIST. God has ordained, from before the earth was created, that those “IN CHRIST” should be holy and blameless.
Corporate election. We are one of God’s chosen people if we are IN CHRIST. Those who believe are placed in Christ - as Paul writes a short time later, “In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, 14who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.”
IN CHRIST. Two of the most important words in the New Testament, and not words to be deleted by Calvin.
Predestination is totally biblical, but Calvin screwed up WHO is predestined, and WHAT they are predestined for.
WHO = those in Christ
WHAT = to be conformed to the image of Christ
And how are we placed IN CHRIST?
“In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit...”
When YOU HEARD...AND BELIEVED.
Subject. Verb. When the subject does the verb, they are placed in Christ, sealed with the Holy Spirit.
The letter is written to the saints (1:1), not all mankind. When Paul says "he chose us" the "us" refers to the saints (1:1), not all mankind.