Acts 13.48 - As Many As Were Ordained to Eternal Life Believed
"As many as were ordained to eternal life believed" (Acts 13.48).
If you are ordained to eternal life, of course you will believe, but how you came about being ordained is the question. Are you ordained/predestinated by God foreknowing your free-choice to believe, or are you chosen without regard for your choice?
If God offers salvation to everyone and Jesus died on the cross for everyone's sins, then God ordains by foreknowing your free-choice since, obviously, not everyone receives this offering and responds to His pleading for our salvation.
How could initial repentance come after regeneration when John's baptism came before Jesus' death on the cross? "Before his coming John had preached a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel. And as John was finishing his course, he said, 'What do you suppose that I am? I am not he. No. But after me one is coming...." (Acts 13.24,25).
The clue to how to read the Acts 13.48 passage correctly is in its context. McGarvey, comments that "the context has no allusion to appointment...but the writer draws a line of distinction between the conduct of certain Gentiles and that of the Jews addressed by Paul.... Luke says, many of the Gentiles 'were determined' for everlasting life. It is an act of the mind to which Paul objects on the part of the Jews, and it is clearly an act of the mind in the Gentiles which Luke puts in contrast with it..."
Several authorities trace the KJV's "ordained" to the corrupt Latin Vulgate. Cook's Commentary reads, "The A.V. [KJV] has followed the Vulgate. Rather, [it should read] were...disposed for eternal life..." Dean Alford translated it, "as many as were disposed to eternal life believed." The "Redactive Hebrew" version, based on word-for-word Greek-Hebrew equivalents, would render Acts 13.48 "as many as submitted to, needed, or wanted salvation, were saved." If "ordained" were the correct meaning, these Greeks still would have had to believe the gospel and accept Christ by an act of their own faith and will, as all of Scripture testifies.
Other uses for "ordained" (tasso): "...into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them" (Matt. 28.16); "For I also am a man set under authority" (Luke 7.8); "...they determined that Paul and Barnabas...should go up to Jerusalem" (Acts 15.2); "...all things which are appointed for thee to do" (Acts 22.10); "they had appointed him a day" (Acts 28.23); "...the powers that be are ordained of God" (Rom. 13.1); "...they have addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints" (1 Cor. 16.15).
There is no support that a sovereign decree was the sole reason. The Expositor's Greek Testament says, "There is no countenance here for the absolute decretum." A. T. Robertson likewise says: "The word ordained is not the best translation here.... There is no evidence that Luke had in mind an absolutum decretum...of personal salvation." Robertson writes, "This verse does not solve the vexed problem of divine sovereignty and human free agency."
Foreknowledge is always given as the reason for predestination, decree and ordain. "For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate.... Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father" (Rom. 8.29; 1 Peter 1.2). Never is there a hint of God's predestining certain ones to heaven whom He will sovereignly regenerate and irresistibly cause to believe the gospel while withholding grace from others.
It is further stated through Acts chapter 13 after Paul convinces the Jews and the Gentiles that Jesus is the one in fulfillment of prophecy in the second psalm (Acts 13.33; cf. Ps. 2.7), Isaiah (Acts 13.34; cf. Is. 55.3), Psalm 16 (Acts 13.35, cf. Ps. 16.10). "Through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you" (v.38). "Everyone that believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses" (v.39). Forgiveness in regeneration and the new birth follows believing. You ought to "Beware, therefore, lest there come upon you what is said in the prophets..." (v.40). Heed this warning, obviously, because you have a choice. God has supplied them and you with sufficient grace to have the choice to be able to choose.
The judgment upon the Calvinist, like the unbelieving, is this: "'Behold, you scoffers, and wonder, and perish; for I do a deed in your days, a deed you will never believe, if one declares it to you'." (v.41) What did Jesus do? He died on the cross for the sins of all men.
The peoples' repentance was seen in that they "begged" (v.42) to hear more on the next sabbath and some even "followed" (v.43b) already. So Paul and Barnabas continued to "urge them" to continue in the sufficient "grace of God" freely given to all (v.43c).
Like many Jews, the Calvinists "saw the multitudes, they were filled with jealousy, and contradicted what was spoken by Paul, and reviled him" (v.45).
The Jews received immense grace, so they are without excuse; just like the Gentiles were given sufficient grace... "I have set you to be a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the uttermost parts of the earth" (Acts 13.47).
When the Gentiles "heard this [about salvation offered to them too], they were glad and glorified the word of God" (v.48a) as it was their choice by their own free-will to do so. This is why God "ordained" them to "eternal life" in foreknowing their free-choice to have "believed" (v.48b).
Calvinists jealous of born-again believers of "multitudes, they were filled with jealousy" (v.45a). So they "stirred up persecution against Paul" (v.50) and other Apostles, even today, and "drove them out of their district" (v.50) like John Calvin did, the Protestant Pope of Geneva. "But they shook off the dust from their feet against them, and went" elsewhere (v.51). "And the disciples were were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit" (v.52).
Based on Paul's urging and pleading with the Jews and Gentiles, it would not make much sense if not everyone was provided sufficient grace to have the choice.
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