Against the doctrine of the election an objection is often raised that this casts a shadow on what we know of the love of God. Lets talk about that:
Salvation – Part 10
What About The Love of God?
Reply
What You Need Is Love
‘Grace’ According to Rome
Article: “Understanding the Roman Catholic ‘state of grace’” by Simon van Bruchem, pastor, All Nations Presbyterian Church, Perth, Western Australia. – original source here: https://writtenforourinstruction.com/understanding-the-roman-catholic-state-of-grace/
The word ‘grace’ is a simple word; it means getting something good that you don’t deserve. You experience grace when someone gives you a gift. Grace is not something you earnt or worked for; it was simply given to you by someone who loves and cares for you. The concept of grace is at the heart of what it means to be a Christian.
Yet words can sometimes mean entirely different things to different people. The word “grace”, when heard by someone who has grown up in the Roman Catholic Church, is understood to mean something entirely different, and rather more complicated, than when it is heard by someone used to the kind of definition I gave in the last paragraph.
In Roman Catholic doctrine, when Jesus died and rose again, he won a storehouse of grace for his people. This storehouse of grace is distributed to believers through the ministry of the priests. As you take part in the sacraments, you receive grace from the storehouse Jesus won.
Now, that’s quite different from the simple Biblical description of grace. That’s because this doctrine is not only derived from the Bible, but it is the result of various scholars and Popes over the centuries adding to the simple Biblical teaching.
Related to this ‘storehouse of grace’ idea is the concept of a ‘state of grace’. The Roman Catholic doctrine is that we are born sinful, but when we are baptised in the church, we have our sins washed away and enter into a state of grace. That means that if we were to die after being baptised, we would be OK with God. Baptism is not seen as permanently removing your sin, however. As you continue to sin, you can drop out of a state of grace and be under God’s judgement once more. You return to a state of grace by going to confession, doing whatever penance is necessary, and then regularly taking part in the mass. All of these are seen as sacraments; all of them are ways in which you receive grace from the storehouse Jesus won through the priests and the sacraments. Just before you die, ideally you would receive the last rites (seen as another sacrament) which would return you to a state of grace before you stand before God.
This means, in practice, that a committed Roman Catholic would need to attend mass consistently, regularly go to confession, and even then they might be worried that they are not in a state of grace. How much is enough? The result can be a sense of duty and religion and not a lot of joy in what Jesus has done. The focus shifts from what Jesus has done to all the sacraments and religious duty you have to do to be OK with God.
Grace should be simpler than that. Jesus died for your sins if you trust in Him. This is a gift you receive by the kindness of God (Eph 2:4). There is no middle man. You don’t need to take the sacraments to remain in a state of grace. It is all to do with what God has done for you in Jesus, not what you do through your religion. What Jesus won for us is applied to our hearts by the work of the Holy Spirit, not a priest.
Understanding grace is a freeing thing. If we know that it is all about what God has done, and not what we do, that means we should be joyful. We should be confident about our status before God because it cannot be ruined by our lack of religion or our mistakes. We should want to be involved in church as a response to Jesus’ work, not to remain in God’s good books. Grace, rightly understood, will truly change your life.
The Purpose of the Law
Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones – (Romans Exposition, Chapters 3:20-4:24, pp 21-22):
The whole function of the Law is to define sin, to reveal its nature; and that is why we are without any excuse at all. The law is in our hearts; but that is not clear enough, so God made it explicit. He had defined it, He has underlined it, He has shown it plainly in the written Law give to the Jews.
. . . The Law was given to pinpoint sin, to define it, to bring it out of its hiding-place and to show its exceeding sinful character. . . Nothing so shows the exceeding sinfulness of sin as the Law itself does; and once a man has seen the real meaning of the Law he sees the foulness, the vileness of his own nature.
. . . The Law was never given to save man, but it was given as a “school-master” to bring him to the Savior. The whole object and purpose of the Law is to show man that he can never save himself. Once he has understood the Law and its spiritual meaning and content he knows that he cannot keep it. He is undone. . . What is the summary of the Law? It is: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and all thy soul, and all thy mind, and all thy strength; and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Has anyone done that and so kept the Law? No, “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” That is what the Law says. It shows us our utter helplessness and hopelessness, and thereby it becomes “our schoolmaster to lead us to Christ,” the only One Who by the grace of God can save us, and deliver us, and reconcile us to God, and make us safe for all eternity. Paul glories in the Gospel which proclaims that “the just shall live by faith,” because “by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in His sight, because by the law is the knowledge of sin.”
Objections to Divine Election
Whatever You Ask In My Name
Passage: John 14:13,14 – Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.
https://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=719202354533339
New Testament Prayers for the Church
Eph. 1:15-23 For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
Eph. 3:16-19 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Phil. 1:9-11 And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
Col. 1:9-12 And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.
2 Thess. 1:11-12 To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Regulative Principle of Worship
Riches and Poverty
J. C. Ryle:
Many in every age have disturbed society by stirring up the poor against the rich. But so long as the world is under the present order of things, universal equality cannot be attained.
So long as some are wise, and some are foolish; some are strong, and some are weak; some are healthy, and some are diseased; so long as children reap the fruit of their parent’s misconduct; so long as sun, and rain, and heat, and cold, and wind, and waves, and drought, and blight, and storm, and tempest are beyond man’s control–so long will there be inequality in this world.
Take all the property in England by force this day, and divide it equally among the inhabitants. Give every person over twenty years old an equal portion. Let all share alike, and begin the world over again. Do this, and see where you would be at the end of fifty years. You would just have come round to the point where you began! You would just find things as unequal as before!
Some would have worked–and some would have been lazy; some would have been always careless–and some always scheming; some would have sold–and others would have bought; some would have wasted–and others would have saved. And the end would be that some would be rich–and others would be poor.
We might as well say that all people ought to be of the same height, weight, strength, and cleverness; or that all oak trees ought to be of the same shape and size; or that all blades of grass ought to be of the same length as that all people were meant to be equal.
Settle it in your mind that the main cause of all the suffering you see around you, is sin. Sin is the grand cause of the enormous luxury of the rich–and the painful degradation of the poor; of the heartless selfishness of the highest classes and the helpless poverty of the lowest.
Sin must be first cast out of the world; the hearts of all people must be renewed and sanctified; the devil must be bound; the Prince of Peace must come down and take His great power and reign. All this must be before there ever can be universal happiness, or the gulf be filled up which now divides the rich and poor.
Beware of expecting a millennium to be brought about by any method of government, by any system of education, or by any political party.
Labor to do good to all men; pity your poorer brethren, and help every reasonable endeavor to raise them from their low estate. Do not slacken your hand from any endeavor to increase knowledge, to promote morality, to improve the temporal condition of the poor.
But never, never forget that you live in a fallen world, that sin is all around you, and that the devil is abroad.