Dear Friends,

God’s incredible grace surprises even those who believe in it!  I have often read the ninth chapter of Romans and paused in amazement at Paul’s inspired development/ defense of the doctrine of election.  Over two thousand years later the critics of this doctrine still revert to the same objections that Paul raised and refuted by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.  One would think the devil would be more creative in his efforts to deceive God’s children.  The principle of the “perspicuity of Scripture” simply framed states that the more important God considers a truth or doctrine to be the more space He gives it in Scripture.  Given the emphasis that Paul gives to election in this chapter, as well as the incredible clarity with which he surfaced and neutralized the common objections to that doctrine, we may well conclude that God considers election to be one of His more important revelations in Scripture.  

May we embrace this doctrine as the Holy Spirit directed Paul to teach it, and may we find the comfort in it that God intended.

God bless,

Joe Holder

Election:  Personal and Individual

What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?  As he saith also in Osee, I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved. And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people; there shall they be called the children of the living God. Esaias also crieth concerning Israel, Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved: For he will finish the work, and cut it short in righteousness: because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth. And as Esaias said before, Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we had been as Sodoma, and been made like unto Gomorrha.  (Romans 9:22-29)  

            On occasion I have mentioned two contemporary explanations of election in the context of Romans the ninth chapter that in one way or another evade Paul’s conclusion that God’s electing grace is individual and personal, not national/cultural or “class” or conditional election, the conditions based on what the system of thought in question requires of man to do to cause his/her own election.  Paul’s conclusion of his teaching on election in our study verses refutes both claims.  Notice the twenty-fourth verse, “Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?”  Paul used these words to frame and focus his conclusion regarding the vessels of mercy whom God “…afore prepared unto glory.”  How could words more clearly reject the idea that all Biblical election deals only with God’s election of the Jews in the Old Testament?  Notice Paul’s specific emphasis on God’s personal election of individuals, “…not of the Jews only (the precise point asserted by Christian radio talk show host Bob George, as well as many other contemporary Christian teachers; they teach that God’s election exclusively deals with Jews in the Old Testament), but also of the Gentiles.”

            As further complication to the contemporary rejection of personal and individual election, Paul goes on to identify that God’s election is not a secondary response to man’s primary interest or “free moral agency” decision to choose God.  Notice Paul’s selective use of several Old Testament prophecies.

As he saith also in Osee, I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved. And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people; there shall they be called the children of the living God. Esaias also crieth concerning Israel, Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved: For he will finish the work, and cut it short in righteousness: because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth. And as Esaias said before, Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we had been as Sodoma, and been made like unto Gomorrha.  

God’s calling a people His own who were not formerly His own further rejects the national/cultural idea that God chose only Jews in the Old Testament.  Consistently from Hosea and Isaiah, Paul’s point affirms that election originates with God, not with God’s pre-knowledge of man’s decision or choice of Him.  I use the term pre-knowledge, for many in our time are using “foreknowledge” in a way wholly contrary to its use in Scripture.  For example, in Romans 8:29 when Paul states, “For 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,” Paul is not referring to divine pre-knowledge or to God’s comprehensive omniscience.  He is rather referring to God’s selective, electing love of a special people, chosen by Him and secured to Him for eternity exclusively by the redemptive work of our Lord Jesus Christ.  When someone asserts that divine foreknowledge, as used in this lesson, is not causative, but merely refers to God’s advance knowledge, or to His “pre-knowledge” of these people, they destroy the consistent flow of God’s active purpose and grace as summarized in the five sequential verbs of the passage.  If we successfully make the case that God’s foreknowledge in Romans 8:29 is not causative, we must either deny the parallel flow of the five verbs, or we must make a case that the other four verbs (predestinate, called, justified, and glorified) are also not causative, a preposterous idea!

            Paul’s use of the various Old Testament prophecies in our study lesson affirm that God’s election embraces a people who were not formerly considered to be God’s people.  We could interpret this point either in terms of the Jew-Gentile, Old Testament-New Testament perspective, almost certainly Paul’s intent.  Or we could interpret the point in reference to God’s individual dealings with His chosen children in the surprising work of regeneration or the new birth.  God doesn’t “knock on the unregenerate sinner’s heart door” and plead for admission.  He invades their heart, changes it, and makes it suitable for His grace.  The passage typically used to support the idea of God knocking on the unregenerate sinner’s heart ( Revelation 3:20-22 ) in fact applies to a pride-filled, rebellious church, not to unregenerate sinners.  Thus the application of the passage to unregenerate sinners is a blatant misapplication that is rejected by a contextual reading.

            So what is Paul’s point in choosing these particular passages?  God’s election of individuals to be made into vessels of mercy, prepared for His future and eternal glory, is not only a surprise to people around them, it is often—if not always—a surprise to them!  The real miracle—the real surprise—of election is not that God didn’t choose all humans, or give all humans an opportunity to save themselves.  It is rather that God chose anyone at all!  The truth that Paul has built in this chapter affirms that anyone so chosen is—and will eternally be—a vessel of divine mercy.

            As a Biblical example, no one was more surprised than Paul when the light struck him to the ground outside Damascus (ninth chapter of Acts).  In fact, if you look up the meaning of the Greek word translated “suddenly” in Acts 9:3 , the primary meaning of the word is “unexpectedly.”  Not even Paul was expecting this event!  The idea that Paul was under conviction and struggling with his future has no Biblical support.  It is specifically rejected by the inspired use of this word “suddenly,” “unexpectedly.”

            When God’s chosen and redeemed people arrive in heaven, they will be able with full understanding to appreciate the incredible truth that Paul here affirms.  God made Himself known to a people who were not looking for Him, who were not seeking Him, and who were in fact not at the moment interested in Him.  And divine transforming grace and mercy changed them from being “…far off…” to being “…made nigh by the blood of Christ.”  ( Ephesians 2:13 )

            The amazing truth of God’s electing mercy appears in the truth of these prophetic verses.  While we hear the oft-repeated chorus that God loves us because we first showed love for Him, Scripture affirms the mirror opposite, “We love him, because he first loved us." ( 1 John 4:19 , KJV , emphasis added)  To be true, the populist view of God’s love is that God “loves” every human being alike, but strangely the common view of God’s love asserts that God’s love accomplishes nothing whatever until and unless the unregenerate sinner responds.  Thus we have a powerless love, an ineffectual love that accomplishes nothing until the fallen sinner loves God.  In fact the logical implications of this popular view makes man his own savior and empowers man to catalyze God’s impotent, ineffectual love.  Otherwise God’s love changes nothing whatever.  Such a view of God’s love—and of God’s election—clearly contradicts Paul’s use of these Old Testament references in our study lesson.  In each passage, and in comfortable harmony with Paul’s own teaching already developed earlier in the ninth chapter of Romans, God, not man, is the causative agent in the changes that occur in those elected and drawn by divine mercy and grace to a position of eternal security through God’s chosen Surety, the Lord Jesus Christ and His finished work.

           Notice the words from the old English hymn writer Thomas Hart from Gadsby’s hymnal, printed in the early nineteenth century (Hymn #222).