Answers to Correspondents.
By M. L. G.
O. A. PENNOYER: The address you inquire for, is Lebanon, Linn Co., Oregon. J. C. TUCKER: For an exposition of Isa. 65:20, see REVIEW, Vol. 35, No. 4. A CORRESPONDENT who is puzzled over foreordination, predestination, &c., wishes to have Eph. 1:4, 5, explained. “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: having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will.” When God made the earth, he made it for the habitation of man; and it was his design to people it with holy beings. This was in the plan before the foundation of the world. And had man not transgressed, but attained unto a state of perfection, after a certain period, temptation would no doubt have been removed, and man made equal with the angels. But man transgressed, and fell from the favor of God. Yet the plan of the Almighty was not to be thwarted; and in view of the love he bore for the human race, he, with his Son, devised a way of escape, that all who would accept the offered mercy through the atoning blood of Christ, might return to their first estate. “Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children, by Jesus Christ to himself.” The word predestinated, is defined by Dr. Clarke, thus: “To define beforehand, to circumscribe by certain bounds or limits; and applied also to anything concluded, or determined, or demonstrated.” By this text we understand that God, in his great wisdom, fore-ordained, or determined beforehand, that all who by faith in Jesus Christ would cleanse themselves and be purified, and attain unto the first resurrection, should be made the adopted children of God. “They which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead: . . . are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.” Luke 20: 35, 36. The adoption has not yet taken place; for we read in Rom. 8:23, “Even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” But it is evident that it will take place when Christ comes to redeem his people. And those who are then redeemed are the ones whom God has ordained, or chosen, to inhabit the earth when it is made new.