Acts 2:22-32, What has God determined?

The teaching in the local church I serve will be from this passage this Sunday.  I don’t have time to do a word study of the word determined in Ac. 2:23. The Greek term is orizo.  If you put a pro in front of this verb you have the word usually translated “pre-destined.”  Oh, great, you are thinking.  Here we go on the Calvin-Wesley debate, or Arminius or whoever you want.  Well, no!  That is not where we are going.  If you have read this blog over the years you know I consider that argument to be generally non-productive.  One of the points in my teaching will be to point out that God was in full control of the crucifixion; He devised a plan that required Jesus to go to the cross.  Another point will be that the people who crucified Jesus were in full control of their lawless faculties. 

But here is what I want us to meditate on today.  In the NT uses of orizo and proorizio what are we told God has determined? 

·       Acts 2:23: God determined Jesus being delivered up.  This term can speak of the betrayal by Judas.  From the human perspective the betrayal kicked off the taking and crucifying of Jesus so that He died.  This was prophesied (Zech. 11:12-13).  That did not make it happened but it guaranteed it would happen.  Jesus knew Judas was a liability (John 6:70-71).

·       Acts 4:28: As persecution began to hit the early believers, they went to pray.  And they took comfort in knowing that God had pre-determined the suffering of Jesus.  Thus they could understand, as Jesus said, that if they persecuted the Teacher they would persecute His followers.  Are you in a hard trial?  Consider Him who endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls.  You have not resisted unto bloodshed, striving against sin (Heb. 12:3).

·       Luke 22:21-22: This speaks of the same event.  The betrayal was the way God determined for the righteous Son of God to become sin for us.  Meditate on this.  What does it say about God’s love?  About the sacrifice of Christ?

·       Acts 10:42; 17:31:  These passages tell us God determined to judge the world by His Son, the Lord Jesus.  Peter told Cornelius this..; Paul told the Athenians on Mars Hill.  He will judge the nations/Gentiles.

·       Rom. 1:4: Jesus was “declared” to be the Son of God by His resurrection.  This is, to me, a poor translation.  The term is orizo, He was set in place, determined to be the Son of God.  This was God’s plan all along: THE RESURRECTION!

·       1 Cor. 2:7: You can wrap up everything we have seen so far in this: the mystery of God is His wisdom that is at work in the world to this day.  If the rulers of the world knew this, they would not have crucified Christ (v8 says so).  The mystery is God’s promise to exalt His Son, from Zion, over the nations (Psalm 2).  But note the last phrase of 1 Cor. 2:7: for our glory.  How does this affect us?

·       Rom. 8:29-30: God pre-determined that we should be conformed to the image of Christ.  Our glory is Christ’s glory.  The more we are like Christ the more we bear His glory.  But how can this happen?

·       Eph. 1:5: The answer is that God also pre-determined that those who believe in Christ should receive the adoption of sons.  We become sons of God.  That is the only way we could ever hope to be conformed to THE Son of God.  As new creatures. we have been born again into God’s Family.

What a great plan the Father has set in order, wouldn’t you say?  It could not be better.  What a great Savior we have, who bore our sins in His body on the tree that we might live in righteousness.