To predestine
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G4309 is the verb commonly translated predestine, describing God's prior determination toward a stated end. Its six governed forms concern the events gathered around Jesus' death, God's wisdom for believers' glory, adoption through Jesus Christ, inheritance within God's purpose, conformity to the image of the Son, and the sequence from predestination to calling, justification, and glorification.
Reader summary
Full entry for προορίζω (G4309) · Open the biblical lexicon
G4309 is the verb commonly translated predestine, describing God's prior determination toward a stated end. Its six governed forms concern the events gathered around Jesus' death, God's wisdom for believers' glory, adoption through Jesus Christ, inheritance within God's purpose, conformity to the image of the Son, and the sequence from predestination to.
The BSB source-word alignment has 6 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include He predestined (2), destined (1), had decided beforehand (1), having been predestined (1), He also predestined [to be] (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Acts 4:28. Its strongest book concentrations include Ephesians (2), Romans (2), 1 Corinthians (1), Acts (1).
G4309 is the verb commonly translated predestine, describing God's prior determination toward a stated end. Its six governed forms concern the events gathered around Jesus' death, God's wisdom for believers' glory, adoption through Jesus Christ, inheritance within God's purpose, conformity to the image of the Son, and the sequence from predestination to calling, justification, and glorification. The object or goal is stated by each passage and should not be replaced by a complete theological system imported into the verb.
Acts 4 joins God's hand and purpose with the accountable actions of Herod, Pontius Pilate, Gentiles, and peoples of Israel. The prayer does not authorize collective blame against Jewish people, erase the named actors' responsibility, or make later violence morally good because God is sovereign. Romans 8 places predestination inside suffering, the Spirit's help, God's purpose, conformity to Christ, assurance, and inseparable love. Ephesians places it inside blessing in Christ, adoption, grace, redemption, inheritance, and praise.
Christians disagree about how these texts relate to individual and corporate election, foreknowledge, freedom, perseverance, reprobation, and the order of salvation. G4309 alone does not settle every disagreement, explicitly teach predestination to condemnation, or authorize speculation about named people's final destiny. Pastoral use should strengthen hope in God's Christ-shaped purpose, not create fatalism, spiritual superiority, neglect of prayer or evangelism, indifference to injustice, or terror in people experiencing doubt, grief, compulsive fear, depression, or thoughts of self-harm.
Six governed forms describe God's prior purpose concerning the cross, hidden wisdom, adoption, inheritance, conformity to the Son, calling, justification, and glorification.
Predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son
The sentence names conformity to Christ, not an abstract fate detached from the Son.
Predestined us for adoption as His sons through Jesus Christ
Prior purpose moves toward adoption through Christ and praise of grace.
Your hand and purpose had decided beforehand
The praying church confesses divine purpose while continuing bold mission under threat.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Greek word. Divinely determining beforehand what will occur; God's sovereign arrangement preceding creation or human action.
Divinely determining beforehand what will occur; God's sovereign arrangement preceding creation or human action.
to predetermine, foreordain: with accusative, Rom.8:30; id. and inf., Act.4:28; id. before εἰς, 1Co.2:7, Eph.1:5; with dupl. accusative, Rom.8:26; pass., Eph.1:11.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpus Greek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
6 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
I foreordain, predetermine
Read verseI foreordain, predetermine
Read verseI foreordain, predetermine
Read verseI foreordain, predetermine
Read verseI foreordain, predetermine
Read verseI foreordain, predetermine
Read verseFull New Testament corpus: 260 chapters, 7,957 verses, 140,628 tokens. Data source: honza/textus-receptus (data only), with authority check against byztxt/greektext-textus-receptus.
How mood, tense, and voice shift the force of this verb in context.
This verb appears through different tense, voice, mood, or stem patterns. Those forms help readers see how the action is presented in context.
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
How this verb appears across 5 occurrences in the NT discourse index (MACULA Greek SBLGNT).
Aspect reflects grammatical form — not authorial emphasis. Participles and infinitives are verbal adjectives and nouns respectively.
Clause data: MACULA Greek (Clear Bible, CC BY 4.0) · SBLGNT (Logos/SBL, CC BY 4.0)
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 1 selected witness from 6 lexical occurrence verses.
προορίζω is built from these roots:
Shows God’s sovereign determination to shape believers into Christ’s image. Romans 8:28-30
G4309 never appears as a bare invitation to speculate about fate. Acts locates the cross within God's purpose while the church prays for courage. First Corinthians speaks of wisdom prepared for glory. Romans names conformity to the Son and moves through calling, justification, glorification, suffering, and inseparable love. Ephesians places predestination in Christ and toward adoption, inheritance, hope, grace, and praise.
These ends make the doctrine pastoral and Christ-shaped. The six forms do not by themselves settle every debate about election, freedom, corporate identity, perseverance, or reprobation. Teaching should produce worship, assurance, holiness, mission, endurance, and humility, never ethnic blame, spiritual rank, coercion, passivity toward harm, or despair about an anxious person's hidden status.
Rom.8.29
Three morphology labels account for the six aorist forms. Four are third-person singular active indicatives with God or God's purpose as the acting subject. Ephesians 1:5 uses an active nominative masculine singular participle, and Ephesians 1:11 uses a passive nominative masculine plural participle for people predestined. The aorist presentation does not by itself define the philosophical mechanism, temporal sequence, or complete scope of the doctrine.
Psalm 2 supplies the rulers-and-peoples pattern quoted in Acts 4. Israel's Scriptures repeatedly confess God's purpose, covenant choice, mercy, and power to accomplish his word while also addressing human obedience and responsibility. Those themes provide canonical background, but later theological conclusions must still be argued from the full context rather than read out of the verb alone.
MorphGNT Strong's Dictionary XML — CC0 1.0 Public Domain
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (morphhb/OSHB) — CC BY 4.0
Open Scriptures Hebrew Lexicon — CC BY 4.0
Berean Standard Bible (BSB) source-word alignment - CC0 Public Domain