For those whom He has known beforehand He has also pre-destined to bear the likeness of His Son, that He might be the Eldest in a vast family of brothers;
»But the King will answer them,« `In solemn truth I tell you that in so far as you rendered such services to one of the humblest of these my brethren, you rendered them to myself.'
»Do not cling to me,« said Jesus, »for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But take this message to my brethren: `I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'«
God has not cast off His People whom He knew beforehand. Or are you ignorant of what Scripture says in speaking of Elijah–how he pleaded with God against Israel, saying,
But in dealing with truths hitherto kept secret we speak of God's wisdom–that hidden wisdom which, before the world began, God pre-destined, so that it should result in glory to us;
And all of us, with unveiled faces, reflecting like bright mirrors the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same likeness, from one degree of radiant holiness to another, even as derived from the Lord the Spirit.
In Him we Jews have been made heirs, having been chosen beforehand in accordance with the intention of Him whose might carries out in everything the design of His own will,
who, in the exercise of the power which He has even to subject all things to Himself, will transform this body of our humiliation until it resembles His own glorious body.
For He saved us and called us with a holy call, not in accordance with our desserts, but in accordance with His own purpose and the free grace which He bestowed on us in Christ Jesus before the commencement of the Ages,
Yet God's solid foundation stands unmoved, bearing this inscription, »The Lord knows those who really belong to Him.« And this also, »Let every one who names the Name of the Lord renounce all wickedness.«
chosen in accordance with the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, with a view to their obedience and to their being sprinkled with the blood of Jesus Christ. May more and more grace and peace be granted to you.
He was pre-destined indeed to this work, even before the creation of the world, but has been plainly manifested in these last days for the sake of you who, through Him,
Dear friends, we are now God's children, but what we are to be in the future has not yet been fully revealed. We know that if Christ reappears we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is.
And all the inhabitants of the earth will be found to be worshipping him: every one whose name is not recorded in the Book of Life–the Book of the Lamb who has been offered in sacrifice ever since the creation of the world.