Closely akin to the obvious fact of God’s sovereignty lies the truth of election, that is, God, acting in sovereign grace, has chosen some persons out of many with a view to blessing them. God chose Abraham out of an idol-worshipping world and made him the depositary of His promises and blessings, and who shall challenge His right to do so? It was God’s choice, not Abraham’s.
When we come to the New Testament, we find that “He [God] hath chosen us in Him [Christ] before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love” (Eph. 1:44According 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)). The point of time of His choosing does not enter into the question of His sovereignty, for it would still be His choice if He should choose some now or at any time. The fact that He did it before the foundation of the world shows that He had His thought and counsel about certain people before the world existed. He chose them independently of the world, and they were not to be of it (though in it for a time), as the Lord Jesus said, “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world” (John 17:1616They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. (John 17:16)).
Election
Peter also wrote of election when addressing the converted Jews, saying, “Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:2). They had been chosen by God out of an unbelieving nation. It was His sovereign choice, not theirs. As the Lord said to His disciples, “Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you” (John 15:1616Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you. (John 15:16)).
Christians should not, however, rush to the conclusion that whenever we find the word “elect” in Scripture it refers to us, for God has elect ones in other dispensations, as Abraham most surely was in his day. The Lord Jesus said that when the Son of Man comes, He shall send His angels and “gather together His elect from the four winds” (Matt. 24:3131And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. (Matthew 24:31)). These will be the elect Jews out of an apostate nation when He comes back to reign. Paul also speaks of elect angels (1 Tim. 5:21), which we judge to be those that were kept from sinning when many others did.
Predestination
Predestination is often confused with election, or choosing, and many profitless controversies have thereby ensued. While God set His heart upon us and chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, He has predestinated to something those whom He thus chose. So we read in Ephesians 1:55Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, (Ephesians 1:5) of those whom He chose: “Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.” Predestination then is the purpose of God concerning those whom He chose. He chose us out of a lost race that “we should be holy and without blame before Him in love,” and then He marked us out, or predestinated us, “unto the adoption of children.” It is the peculiar place belonging to those whom God has chosen in this age. In Romans 8:2929For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. (Romans 8:29) we read of being predestinated “to be conformed to the image of His Son.” Again, it is plain that predestination is separate and distinct from election or choosing and is the marking out of the chosen ones to a certain portion.
One servant of the Lord used this homely illustration to explain God’s predestination: a father of a large family marked out each child for a certain vocation in life — one son was to be a physician, another an accountant, and another an engineer.
Foreknowledge
“Foreknowledge” is another word that is often confused with election, and even made to limit it, but there is no reason for such confusion. Foreknowledge is God’s knowing certain persons in a past eternity; it is a knowledge of persons, not what they would do. (Not but what He does know, as omniscient, all that everyone does and will do.) When God chose to have a people out of a lost race before Him in love, He did not merely decide that a certain number of persons had to be saved to fill up certain niches in heaven, but He actually knew these persons individually. In Romans 8 we read, “Whom He did foreknow,” not, “What He foreknew.” Nor does it mean that He merely foreknew the fact that we would be saved, but that He foreknew each one individually. Peter also said, “Elect according to the foreknowledge of God”; He knew the persons whom He chose.
No Place for Carelessness
All of this is most comforting to the heart of the saved soul. We gladly acknowledge that it was all of His grace and that we were the unworthy objects of His sovereign choice. This does not (as some charge) make for any carelessness in our walk, for He who chose us created us “in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:1010For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:10)). Where Peter speaks of election, the same principle holds true, for our election of God is unto sanctification (or setting apart) of the Spirit “unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.” We are set apart by the Spirit, not only to the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus, but to His obedience; that is, we are to obey as He did. And how was that? He as a man always had a will that delighted in God’s will. He could say, “I delight to do Thy will, O My God,” and “I do always those things that please Him [the Father].” His was not a legal obedience where a human will had to submit itself to God’s will, but His will always was to do the Father’s will (except that He shrank from being made sin — a part of His divine perfection).
Adapted from Christian Truth