AP

Unconditional Election

In previous articles on AP we have seen how the ‘Five Points of Calvinism’ are a re-ordered expression of the findings of the ‘Canons of Dort’ and that the first of these Five Points is ‘Total Depravity’.  This brings us to the Second Point which is ‘Unconditional Election’.  We have seen how important it is to understand the meaning of the adjective ‘Total’, that it refers to the extent (breadth) of our depravity, not the depth of it.  Similarly, we must appreciate the implications of the adjective ‘Unconditional’.  The doctrines of ‘Election’ and ‘Predestination’ are clearly presented to us throughout Scripture, from the fact that God chose Abraham to be the Father of his great nation, and that he cared for this nation throughout history as his chosen people, through the fact that Jesus said to his disciples: “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit – fruit that will last” (John 15:16) to Luke’s comment in Acts 13:48: “When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and honoured the word of the Lord; and all who were appointed for eternal life believed.”

People of Arminian persuasion try to accommodate these clear statements to something that is more acceptable to their worldview and to the absolute nature of human responsibility and freewill by suggesting that God’s choosing is on the basis of his foreknowledge of what we will choose to do.  They use texts like Romans 8:29 – “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, …” to support their view.  This overlooks the fact that the verbs to ‘know’ in Greek and Hebrew carry with them, not just the idea of having information about something, but of being intimately connected with its cause, as in “Adam knew his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain.” (Genesis 4:1)  The verb “to predestine” clearly carries the meaning of “determining before, and quite apart from” any other factors.

However, the ‘unconditional’ aspect of God’s choosing us is borne out by other Scriptural truths, and is closely related to ‘Total Depravity’.  It is probably made clearest in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.  Paul lays the foundation for the point he is making at the very beginning of his letter: “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.  For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.  In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will – to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.” (Ephesians 1:3-6)

He then drives the point home in the next chapter: “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.  All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts.  Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.  But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved.  And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.  For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.  For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Ephesians 2:1-10) 

We have perhaps the clearest example of how this dynamic works in Jesus’ raising of Lazarus.  Jesus goes to the tomb of a man who has been dead and buried for four days, stands outside the tomb, and makes what has all the appearances to bystanders of an ‘evangelistic’ appeal: “Jesus called in a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’” (John 11:43).  Lazarus had been dead for four days.  His ear-mechanism, his brain, and all the connective nerves, were dead, no longer functioning.  The process of getting Lazarus to obey, and come out among them wrapped in his shroud, was God’s work from start to finish.  Lazarus was already on his way out before he was aware of anything happening.  It was unconditional from a human perspective.  The same point is made clear in the preceding chapter in John 10:26, where Jesus says, “you do not believe because you are not my sheep.”  An Arminian would have expected him to say: “you are not my sheep because you do not believe”,  but that is not what he says.  

There are countless examples in Scripture where God is the one who alone, unconditionally, takes the initiative in saving those who are his by his sovereign choice.  Paul emphasises this in Romans 9:6-29 by quoting several significant OT examples.  In the divine Revelation given to the apostle John at the end of the First Century, we read: “All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast – all whose names have not been written in the Lamb’s book of life, the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world” and “The inhabitants of the earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the creation of the world will be astonished when they see the beast, because it once was, now is not, and yet will come.” (Revelation 13:8, 17:8) 

When I first came to profess Christ as my Saviour in my late teens, I used to sing with enthusiasm, “There’s a new name written down in glory, and it’s mine, Oh yes it’s mine”, and then I only discovered many years later that it had actually been written there since before Creation!

Yes, the totality of my depravity, affecting every part of my being, my will, my feelings, my intellect, so that I am spiritually dead – incapable of wanting to be saved, unable to trust my feelings about being saved, and incapable of working out by logic how to be saved, so I am entirely dependent on God, by his grace alone, taking the initiative and saving me.  What God has unconditionally chosen to do in me becomes a reality to me through faith in Christ alone.  This is possibly the most humbling truth we can ever come to believe.

“Chosen, not for good in me, wakened up from wrath to flee; hidden in the Saviour’s side, by the Spirit sanctified: teach me, Lord, on earth to show by my love, how much I owe.” (Robert Murray M’Cheyne)

– Bruce Christian