TEXT: Ephesians 1:3-6

SUBJECT: The Five Points of Calvinism #5: Unconditional Election

Today, with God’s leave, we will continue our study of The Five Points of Calvinism. If you can spell ‘tulip’, you can remember the five points, which are,

• Total Depravity
• Unconditional Election
• Limited Atonement
• Irresistible Grace
• Perseverance of the Saint

Last week we looked at Total Depravity and saw that the whole man is fallen into sin, that he is unable to please God, and without the gift of Special Grace, he cannot repent, believe, or be saved. This is the Reformed doctrine of Total Depravity—and, more significantly, it is what the Bible teaches about the whole human race after the Fall of Adam. There is none righteous, no not one.

Now we come to the second point of Calvinism, called Unconditional Election.

The words need a little explaining. Because the second is easier than the first, I’ll start with it. Election means in the Bible and theology just what it means in everyday conversation: it means a choice. Every four years Americans ‘elect’ or ‘choose’ a president. Every day, we elect to do some things and leave other things undone. To elect means to choose.

It is found all over the Bible and, to the best of my knowledge, it never means anything else. Once in a while it is used in a purely secular way, but most of the time, it is a religious or a theological choice of some kind.

Jesus Christ is God’s Elect Servant, Isaiah 42:1. Israel is God’s chosen people, Deuteronomy 7:6. Aaron was selected for the high priesthood, Exodus 28:41. Prophets were picked men, Jeremiah 1:5. The kings of Israel were anointed, Psalm 132:17.

The choices differ in many respects, but they have one thing in common: God chooses and men are chosen. While this seems obvious when it comes to prophets, priest, kings, nations, and the Messiah, many fine people cannot see it when it is comes to who will be saved.

This is what the ‘election’ we’re talking about refers to. It says God chooses who will be saved.

The second word is Unconditional. It seeks to explain why God chose some to be saved and not others.

Arminianism teaches conditional election, that is, while God did the choosing of sinners and did it before the foundation of the world, He chose some and not others because He foresaw that someday they would believe the Gospel. In other words, His choice of sinners was conditioned on something in them, on the faith He foresaw they would have one day.

Calvinism agrees with most of this: it says God chose sinners, and from eternity, but that He did it—not because of something in them--but because of something in Himself.

What is that ‘something’? It is His love. Does God love everyone? Yes He does, our Lord told us to love our enemies, so that we would resemble our Father in heaven, who sends rain on the just and the unjust, and makes His sun to rise on the evil and the good. But the love He has for all sinners in general is not the same as the love He has for some sinners in particular.

If this sounds unfair to you, it shouldn’t, because you do the same thing yourself, and you don’t feel guilty. I love many women, but I love one woman more than any other, and in a very different way than I love other women. That one woman is my wife.

If men are free to choose on whom they will set their special love, why isn’t God permitted the same freedom of choice?

I hope this sounds reasonable to you, but you mustn’t be satisfied with ‘reasonable’. On a matter of this importance, nothing less than ‘Biblical’ will do. So, does the Bible teach that God loves some more than others and that this love is what causes Him to elect them and not the others?

It does. The most striking passage is Deuteronomy 7:7-8a,

Israel was chosen to be God’s People—not because they were more fit for the honor than others were—but because the Lord loved them more than He loved the Canaanites, Hitties, Amorites, Perizzites, and all the other Ites He might have chosen instead of them. But didn’t.

Why did He love them more than others? He doesn’t say why He felt that way, only that He did.

If this is the most striking passage, it may be less persuasive than you think it is because His choice of Israel was not—mainly-- for their salvation. Most of those elect people died in their sin. Alas.

A better place to go is Romans 9.

Paul is grieved because most of his beloved Jews are lost. But, he hastens to add, this should not be taken to mean God has gone back on His word to Israel.

What Word? The promise of salvation He made to Abraham way back in the day.

Well, then, if God is keeping His Word to Israel, how come most of Abraham’s seed are not saved? The short answer is, For they are not all Israel who are of Israel (v.6).

This sounds like double-talk, but Paul proves it is anything but that. Did God promise to save all of Abraham’s seed? No He didn’t for in Isaac your seed shall be called. Abraham had many other children: Ishmael by Hagar and others by Keturah. But the promise of salvation came only to Isaac. Why him and not the others? Paul doesn’t say.

But then he comes to the next generation—to Isaac’s sons, Jacob and Esau. They, too, support Paul’s argument, for one of them received the Promise and the other one didn’t. Which one got it? Jacob?

Why? Because God loved him—Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.

Why did God love Jacob and not his brother? You’d think it was because he was a better man than Esau. But Paul says no, that’s not why—

Jacob was not preferred to Esau because he was a better man because God preferred him before he did anything good and his brother did anything bad.

The cause of Jacob’s election was not in Jacob, it was in God! Election, therefore does not depend on us, but on Him who calls. In other words, Election is…

Unconditional.

If you make this argument to a group of intelligent Christians, it won’t be long until some of them open their Bibles and show you where you got it wrong. Election, they say, is based on God’s foreknowledge. In other words, He looked down the corridors of time, saw who would believe, and chose to save them, and not the ones who would remained in unbelief.

Is this in the Bible? The words are, but they don’t mean what our friends say they do. Two verses are always cited, Romans 8:29 and I Peter 1:2.

I don’t have the time to work through the two verses in any detail, but I’ll have you note: neither of them says anything about God foreknowing their faith, repentance, good works, perseverance, accepting the Lord, or asking Jesus into their hearts. What He foreknew was them—not what they would do (or not do).

What does it mean to foreknow?

Does it mean know ahead of time? I guess so, but if that’s all it means how do they differ from anyone else? God knows everything ahead of time! In fact, to ‘know’ or ‘foreknow’ means something like ‘approve’ or ‘love’. I have two verses to back me up and another image after I cite them.

This meaning makes good sense of Acts 8:29 and I Peter 1:2. God saved these dear people in time because—before time—He knew them.

The Bible uses, ‘know’ in another way too. Do you remember what it is? Adam knew his wife, that is he knew her in an intimate way, he loved her and approved of her. While this may be pushing things too far, it’s not by much, as the Bible often likens God’s love for us to a man’s love for his wife.

If my quick exegesis hasn’t won you over to my side, I’ve got a verse for you to explain, Matthew 11:21,

This is the Bible’s one and only example of foreseen faith. God saw that the people of Tyre and Sidon would have repented if He had done mighty works in those cities. But He left them to perish in their sin. Seeing what they would have done, He did not elect them. Only God knows why. In any event, election does not depend on us.

If it is does not depend on us, it can pre-date us, and that’s what it does—by a long ways! The Bible plainly teaches that the elect were chosen before the world was made, in other words, were chosen in eternity—

This means we have always been chosen by God, which also means He has never not loved us—even when we were at our worst, in our deepest unbelief and most stubborn impenitence, even then He loved us and purposed to bring us to Himself.

THE MEANS

Are ‘election’ and ‘salvation’ the same thing? No they’re not, no more than a desire to build a house is the same thing as a house!

Using the same figure of speech, if you wanted to build a house, what would you do next? You’d draw up the plans. Then what? You’d start the work. Then what? You’d work on it until you finished it. Then what? If you did a good job, you’d invite your friends over to admire your workmanship.

This is precisely what God does.

He chooses to save us, and then He draws up the plans for doing so. This includes the death of His Son and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. After the plans are finished, He goes to work saving us, first by exposing us to the Gospel and then enabling us to repent and believe. He continues the work by making us holier over time, by giving us a blessed death, and then by raising us from the dead and giving us a place with Him in glory.

When He’s done, He turns to the universe and says, Well, what do you think? With a single voice, every living creature salutes the glory of His grace!

What are the goals of Election? Who knows how many there are, but I thought of four:

The confounding of the devil. The only sin Satan is not guilty of is laziness. Though he works hard against all people, he works doubly hard against believers, whom he hates with a special passion because of their resemblance to Christ. But because God chose His people for salvation, they will be saved, and the devil will gnash his teeth in impotent rage!

The restoring of the earth. When man fell into sin, he brought the world down with him. Even now it groans like a woman in the throes of childbirth. But when believers are resurrected from the dead, the curse will be removed, and the desert will blossom as a rose. God’s plan commenced in eternity with election.

The salvation of sinners. God did not chose us for salvation, only to let us go if we messed up often enough. No, He chose to save us and we will be saved.

The glory of God. The highest goal of election is the glory of God. It’s sad that so many people—some of whom are Christians—dislike and resent God’s decree because instead of being something to apologize for, its worthy of our heartiest celebration—

If Unconditional Election is in the Bible, it ought to be preached as often and widely as possible. Right? Wrong! In fact, Unconditional Election ought to be withheld from some people—not because they don’t need it—but because they don’t need it now!

Preach the doctrine to an unsaved man and he will use it to excuse his belief—well, I wasn’t chosen. Preach it to a man who lacks assurance, and it will bury him with doubts—have I been chosen or not, have I or not, have I or not?

This is a distinctly Christian doctrines, and does not answer the question, What must I do to be saved? Or Am I saved? But rather, Why am I saved?

Dave and Dan are identical twins and so much alike even they forget which one is which. One day, they’re tuning their radio and accidentally come across a preacher yelling, Repent! They both start laughing at the old fool, but before long Dave stops laughing. By the time the program is over, he has repented and become a new creature in Christ. Dan, however, is unchanged by the sermon. Ten years later, Dave is a pastor and Dan is a prisoner. Dan starts thinking, Why me and not my brother? I’m no better than he is and he’s no worse than I am, but I’m saved and he’s lost. How come?

Flipping through his Bible, hoping for an answer, he come across Ephesians 1, where he reads—Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before Him.

Dan was saved by that sermon because God chose him for salvation. Will his brother be saved? Maybe he will, perhaps God sent him to prison for that very purpose.

In any even, Election has to be preached with wisdom and humility—and without speculation!

While the doctrine of election should not be brought up in witnessing to the lost, it should have a strong and positive effect on our witnessing. Why?

Because of the number of people God has elected and the kind of people. How many are chosen for salvation? A great multitude which no man can number out of every nation, kindred, tribe and tongue. And what kind are they? Every kind—God is no respecter of persons.

This means you can witness to everyone and expect all kinds of people to be saved. It also means you don’t have worry so much, because their salvation does not depend on how quickly you find the verses or how sharp your answers are, but on what God has planned for the sinner.

Finally, if you’re tempted to feel proud of yourself for being chosen by God, go over to the end of I Corinthians 1 and find out what kind of people He chose—and why,