I recently turned in a paper on Progressive Sanctification. Here is an excerpt from the section on Doctrinal Misconceptions…

Another grave misconception surrounding the doctrine of sanctification arises within the Reformed view of Predestination. Charles Spurgeon said, “We shall never be able to escape from the doctrine of divine predestination – the doctrine that God has foreordained certain people unto eternal life.”[1] Those who hold to the Calvinistic view of predestination may be distracted from seeing the beautiful synthesis of predestination with sanctification. God did not predestine who would choose salvation; instead he preordained the path of sanctification that would be available for whosoever will. In Ephesians 1:4 Christ is seen as the one who chose before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. God did not choose who should be holy and blameless, but that those who choose, by a choice of the free will to accept Christ by faith, submit to becoming holy and blameless. In this verse, God has clearly predestined the path of sanctification. Likewise, we see in Romans 8:29 that God predestined believers to be conformed to the image of his Son. Once again, this predestination is not unto a choice but unto a process of holiness in Christ. Leroy Forlines says in his commentary on Romans 8:29, “The word for predestine (Greek proorizo) never has saving faith as its object. When predestination comes into the picture, it is always presupposed that the person is already a believer. It is never said that any person is predestined to believe. In the verse before us, it is predetermined that believers will be conformed to the image of Christ. To be conformed to the image of Christ refers to the sanctification of believers… It is the entire process of sanctification which is the focal point of predestination.” [2]

Romans 8:30 brings these elements together in a stunning climax! “And those he predestined, he also called; those he called,[3] he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.”[4] In these two verses there is predestination to sanctification and an invitation to justification that leads to glorification.


[1] Tom Carter, Spurgeon at His Best: Over 2200 Striking Quotations from the World’s Most Exhaustive and Widely-Read Sermon Series (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1988), 164.

 [2] F. Leroy Forlines, Romans (Randall House Bible Commentary) (Nashville: Randall House Publications, 1987), 238.

[3] Forlines goes on to say in his commentary on Romans, “Calvinist make a point of saying that whenever the call is mentioned in the epistles, it only refers to believers… To refer to believers as ‘called ones’, does not mean that the call has not been extended to anyone else. A speaker at a special occasion may address the audience as invited guest. The only thing that he is affirming is that those who are present have been invited. They are not intruders. It does not mean no one else was invited. Romans (RHBC), 239.

 [4] Rom 6:19, NASB