God's Eternal Purpose Cannot Fail

"According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love." - Ephesians 1:4

    God's purpose in eternity and His accomplishments in time are of the same extent. Hence, His purpose which was founded in sovereignty, ordered by infinite wisdom, ratified by omnipotence, and cemented with immutability can never fail. One of the great Biblical examples of God's purpose and its fulfillment being of the same extent is Romans 8:28-30. Paul proves to the enlightened mind that the foreordained equal the predestinated, the predestinated equal the called, the called equal the justified, and the justified equal the glorified in number. Hence, the mathematical axiom "things equal to the same things are equal to each other" applies here.

    God has intellectually displayed His eternal purpose in His word to remind the elect that their salvation is no afterthought with Him. Our salvation was God's forethought. Hence, God has displayed before us not only what He eternally purposed but what He actually does in time. God's purpose is not the same as His execution of the thing purposed. For example, God's purpose to create is not the same as creation itself. Moreover, His purpose to save certain ones is not the same as salvation itself. Our creation and salvation do not coexist with God's purpose, but His purpose coexists with them.

    God has only one purpose, but it has many parts. The eternality of God's purpose means that all of its parts are but one intuition: God "is in one mind, and who can turn him? and what his soul desireth, even that he doeth" (Job 23:13). Man has succession of thoughts, but God never has a new thought. What He thought He thinks. Nothing can be added to God's one mind. However, there is succession in the execution of God's purpose. Although succession is related to time and not to eternity, that does not destroy the idea of order in God's purpose.