I. “Jesus Christ, who was predestinated Son of God in power, according to the spirit of sanctification, by the resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead” (Rom. i. 4). All things were foreseen and ordained by God from eternity; so Our Lord, as being man, was predestined like the rest of His race. He was to be the first-born of humanity, the father of all supernatural life, both to the generations following Him and to those preceding Him; and all the rest of mankind were predestined after Him, and with relation to Him. There was a double predestination in Jesus Christ. It was first predestined that the Sacred Humanity should be united personally with the Word of God; and this, not in consequence of its being merited by the works and virtues of Christ, but by the infinite bounty of God. Secondly, it was decreed that He should not remain for ever in the suffering stage of human nature, bearing our afflictions, but that He should be raised from the dead and glorified by the exhibition of divine power, and that He should occupy as man the first place in heaven. This predestination had reference to Christ’s deeds and merits, as the reward earned thereby. Rejoice with Our Lord that His name is the first one written in the Book of Life; pray that yours may be written there after His, and strive to make it so.
II. “He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy . . . who hath predestinated us unto the adoption of children through Jesus Christ unto Himself . . . He made us acceptable through His beloved Son” (Eph. i. 4-6). According to this passage, the predestination of Our Lord is the occasion and the source of ours. As the world in all its evolutions was prepared for the sake of man, so are the elect prepared for Christ, to lead up to Him as the perfection of humanity to glorify Him by multiplying His likeness, and to form a court around His majesty here and hereafter. “All things are yours . . . and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s” (1 Cor. iii. 22, 23). Further, we are predestined in Our Lord, and not by ourselves or for ourselves. We have no claim of our own and no merits by ourselves, but only as His brethren, and as members of His body. As all things were created through the Word of God, so it is through the Incarnate Word, the Image of the Father on earth, that all of us are created anew to the life of grace and glory. Recognize that without Him you are nothing, and that in Him you are everything both here and hereafter. Take care that you never allow yourself to be separated from Him by unbelief or sin.
III. The Predestination of Christ is further the exemplar of ours, and explains its method. 1. Our Lord received the grace of the Hypostatic Union in advance of His merits; but His heavenly glory as the reward of the merits operated in that union. So we receive from God the grace of our first enlightenment and vocation without any effort of our own; but the subsequent increase of grace and light, our further progress, and our final glorification depend on the use we make of grace and light, on our own fidelity and exertions in union with God’s assistance. 2. We also learn that our Lord’s merits and glory are closely associated with suffering. “Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and so to enter into His glory?” (Luke xxiv. 26). So also it must be with us. We are “predestinated to be made conformable to the image of His Son” (Rom. viii. 29), not only in glory, but in the means by which He entered into it. God requires of you not only action but endurance. Nerve yourself for suffering, and welcome it for the benefits it brings. “Labour the more that by good works you may make sure your vocation and election” (2 Pet. i. 10).
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