Ive always been told and taught that we have the free will to choose Jesus or not. In working on my Bible study today I came across this in reference to freewill: "Man has a will. But Luther said it was a "will in bondage." And the Bible says that our will is always a slave. It's either a slave to sin, or a slave to righteousness." Without Christ we are dead in sin and cannot be righteous and we will always choose sin. So, with all this being said, I'd like to know your thoughts on Roman's 8:29 when Paul talks about being predestined. Does God have to reveal himself to us before we can make the choice to follow Him?
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If God is sovereign, then He knows...everything...all the time...for eternity. It is important to break down verses 29 and 30 by what it says, but also by what it doesn't say. I would encourage all the readers of this question to put the text within the context.
Those that he did foreknow that were going to be saved...he predestined them to be Justified and Glorified.
God is not a puppeteer, deciding who will go to hell and who will see salvation.
But God knows, read sovereign here, who will be saved. For believers, they were conformed to the image of Christ. They are justified by the work of Jesus on the cross. Also by the work of Christ, they are glorified.
Great question and hard to put into a couple of paragraphs. Looking forward to seeing responses to your question Daniel.
The sort of “knowing” Paul intends in this passage is not merely intellectual knowledge, but rather an intimate affection. Paul is rather saying that God loved these people ahead of time. Now, although God fore-loved the nation of Israel, there were still individuals within this corporate whole who clearly rejected God’s love for them (e.g. Saul, Judas), as well as individuals outside this corporate whole who chose to receive God’s love for them (e.g. Rahab, Ruth). So the fore-love spoken of in this passage is toward the class of people who keep covenant with him. Individuals can choose to either align themselves with this class of fore-loved people or not. This passage can’t be used to support that idea that God predestines who will and will not be in Christ. Read the text carefully. What is predestined is not who will be in or out, but what will happen to all who are in. They will eventually be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ and glorified. God predestines the consequence of the choice to be in Christ or not, but he doesn’t predestine the choice itself. Scripture is clear that God wants every person to put their trust in his Son, and through his Spirit God empowers us toward this end (2 Pet. 3:9).