Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1043
Delivered on Lord’s Day Morning, March 24th, 1872, by, the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.
‘For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.”Romans 8:29.
YOU WILL HAVE NOTICED that in this chapter, Paul has been expounding a very deep inward, spiritual experience. He has written concerning the spirit of bondage, and the spirit of adoption, the infirmities of the flesh, and the helpings of the spirit; the waiting for the redemption of the body, and the groanings which cannot be uttered. It was most natural, therefore, that a deep spiritual experience should bring him to a clear perception of the doctrines of grace, for such an experience is a school in which alone those great truths are effectually learned. A lack of depth in the inner life accounts for most of the doctrinal error in the church. Sound conviction of sin, deep humiliation on account of it, and a sense of utter weakness and unworthiness naturally conduct the mind to the belief of the doctrines of grace, while shallowness in these matters leaves a man content with a superficial creed. Those teachings which are commonly called Calvinistic doctrines are usually most beloved and best received by those who have had much conflict of soul, and so have learned the strength of corruption and the necessity of grace.
Note, also, that Paul in this chapter has been treating of the sufferings of this present time; and though by faith he speaks of them as very inconsiderable compared with the glory to be revealed, yet we know that they were not inconsiderable in his case. He was a man of many trials; he went from one tribulation to another for Christ’s sake; he swam through many seas of affliction to serve the church. I do not wonder, therefore, that in his epistles he often discourses upon the doctrines of foreknowledge, and predestination, and eternal love, because these are a rich cordial for a fainting spirit. To be cheered under many things, which otherwise would depress him, the believer may betake himself to the matchless mysteries of the grace of God, which are wines on the lees well refined. Sustained by distinguishing grace, a man learns to glory in tribulations also; and strengthened by electing love, he defies the hatred of the world and the trials of life. Suffering is the college of orthodoxy. Many a Jonah, who now rejects the doctrines of the grace of God, only needs to be put into the whale’s belly and he will cry out with the soundest free-grace man, ‘Salvation is of the Lord.’ Prosperous professors, who do no business amid David’s billows and waterspouts, may set small store by the blessed anchorage of eternal purpose and everlasting love but those who are ‘tossed with tempest, and not comforted, are of another mind.’ Let these few sentences suffice for a preface. I utter them not in the spirit of controversy, but the reverse.
Our text begins by the expression, ‘Whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate,’ and many senses have been given to this word ‘foreknow’ though in this case one commends itself beyond every other. Some have thought that it simply, means that God predestinated men whose future history ho foreknow. The text before us cannot be so understood, because the Lord foreknows the history of every man, and angel, and devil. So far as mere prescience goes, every man is foreknown, and yet no one will assert that all men are predestinated to be conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus. But, it is further asserted that the Lord foreknow who would exercise repentance, who would believe in Jesus, and who would persevere in a consistent life to the end. This is readily granted, but a reader must wear very powerful magnifying spectacles before he will be able to discover that sense in the text. Upon looking carefully at my Bible again I do not perceive such a statement. Where are those words which you have added, ‘Whom he did foreknow to repent, to believe, and to persevere in grace?’ I do not find them either in the English version or in the Greek original. If I could so read them the passage would certainly he very easy, and would very greatly alter my doctrinal views; but, as I do not find those words there, begging your pardon, I do not believe in them. However wise and advisable a human interpolation may be, it has no authority with us; we bow to holy Scripture, but not to glosses which theologians may choose to put upon it. No hint is given in the text of foreseen virtue any more than of foreseen sin, and, therefore, we are driven to find another meaning for the word. We find that the word ‘know’ is frequently used in Scripture, not only for knowledge, but also for favor, love, and complacency. Our Lord Jesus Christ will say, in the judgment, concerning certain persons, ‘I never knew you,’ yet in a sense he knew them, for he knows every man; he knows the wicked as well as the righteous; but there the meaning is, ‘I never knew you in such a respect as to feel any complacency in you or any favor towards you.’ See also John 10:14-15, and 2 Timothy 2:19. In Romans 11:2, we read, ‘God hath not cast away his people which he foreknow,’ where the sense evidently has the idea of fore-love; and it is so to be understood here. Those whom the Lord looked upon with favor as he foresaw them, he has predestinated to he conformed to the image of his Son. They are, as Paul puts it in his letter to the Ephesians, ‘predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his will.’