What does Acts 13:48 mean, "as many as were ordained to eternal life believed"?

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Whosoever Will · Accepted Answer

Whosoever Will, God Chose Judas: First, it contains no election word at all. Not chosen, not elect, not predestinate. The word is “ordained,” Greek tasso, which means to arrange, to set in order, to dispose. It is not in the 251 verses because it is not one of these words. It is here because I went and got it anyway. Second, the Greek form is one where the passive and the middle voice look identical. “Were appointed” and “had set themselves in order toward” are the same letters. The grammar does not decide it. Third, read two verses earlier. “ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life.” The people who are lost in this passage are shown doing something to themselves, actively: judging themselves unworthy. Then the Gentiles, who “were glad,” are described as set in order toward the very thing the others judged themselves unworthy of. The passage is a contrast between two responses to the same word. Can you read it the Calvinist way? Grammatically, yes. Can one verse, with no election word, in an ambiguous voice, standing next to people who judged themselves unworthy, carry a doctrine that 251 other verses never state? No. It is the hardest verse they have, and it is exactly one verse, and it is not clear. That is the honest whole of it. Scripture, King James Version: Acts 13:48, "And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.".

What does Acts 13:48 mean, "as many as were ordained to eternal life believed"?

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