by Dr. David Murray

Some opponents of Reformed theology argue that the doctrine of election produces unfeeling and fatalistic preachers: “If God has already chosen who will believe, what’s the point in preaching passionate and persuasive evangelistic sermons?” However, although that’s (usually) an unfair caricature of Reformed truth, there’s no question that Reformed pastors sometimes have to counsel people who will say something like, “But if I’m not in the elect, there’s no point in believing in Christ. If my name’s not written in the Book of Life, then all my believing is in vain.” Some of those will be simply using election to excuse their inaction. However, others are genuinely concerned and confused.

Ralph Erskine deals with this pastoral challenge in his sermon on Isaiah 53:6: “I will give you for a covenant to the people” [Works, Vol 1, 128]. After some words on the covenant in general, Erskine shows how Christ is the covenant of the people, and then asks: “For whose benefit is He a covenant?”

Erskine is at pains to emphasize that “whosoever of all the people will subscribe to this covenant, and go into it by faith, shall have the everlasting benefit of it.” Then, as was commonly done in his day, he imagines a hearer asking, “But if I am not among the elect whose names are in that covenant, then surely my subscribing of it will be in vain.”

It’s here that Erskine provides wise and helpful guidelines for pastors to follow in counseling such anxious souls. In summary:

There are two copies of this covenant, two writs of this charter: the original and an extract.

The original is in heaven and contains all the names of all the elect that ever were, are, or shall be (Eph. 1:4). This original is locked up in the cabinet of God’s secret purpose and is marked “For God’s eyes only” (Deut. 29:29).

The extract is in the Bible, which God has revealed and put in your hands. “This copy of the covenant is sent open to you all to sign and subscribe, by giving faith’s assent and consent to the covenant of the people, Christ, as he is offered in the Gospel.”

In order to gather in the elect and to leave all others inexcusable, this faithful extract is “directed to all, and every one of you, giving you full and sufficient warrant to sign and subscribe for yourselves.” Christ is “a covenant of the people” as it is put in the verse.

You cannot possibly “see” your name in the original, till you have signed your consent to the copy which has been let down to earth.
If you sign the extract, then you may lay claim to the original, and “see” your name there (by “seeing” Erskine is referring to assurance of faith).

Although some who, by faith, subscribe the extract copy, are kept in the dark about their names being in the original, yet none shall “see” their names there (the original), but those who subscribe their names here (the extract).

Erskine does a great job here of balancing God’s sovereignty with human responsibility, and also of illustrating a difficult concept with a memorable image. I especially like the way that he leaves hearers without excuse, yet also inspires and motivates faith in Christ. May his counsel make us better counselors.

The Works of Ralph Erskine, Vol. 1, (Glasgow: Free Presbyterian Publications, 1991), 128-197. See especially pages 142-143.

with a great flood? Why did God order Israel to exterminate the Canaanites from the face of the earth? Why is the reality of hell and eternal punishment taught in Scripture? Why does the Apostle Paul say that “neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 6:9-10)?

These are difficult doctrines, and only the naïve or ignorant would deny it. But there is one doctrine found throughout the Bible that more so than all the others combined causes people to object. It is undoubtedly the most controversial and emotionally explosive subject in the history of the Christian church. I’m talking about the notion of divine election or predestination, specifically the teaching in John’s gospel that the Father has “given” hell-deserving sinners to the Son in order that they might inherit eternal life.

We must reckon with the words of Jesus in John 17:2 that he has authority over all flesh, that is, over all of the human race in every age, “to give eternal life to all whom you [the Father] have given him.” What we read in John 17:2 is neither the first nor the last time this language is found in John’s gospel and on the lips of Jesus. Look at John 17:6 where twice we read of this “gift” from the Father to the Son:

“I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.”

Look at John 17:9 –

“I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.”

Once more in John 17:24 we read this,

“Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.”

And it isn’t just in John 17 that Jesus speaks this way. In John 6 Jesus said this:

“All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out” (John 6:37).

“And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day” (John 6:39).

Again, a bit later in John 10 Jesus says much the same thing:

“I give them [my sheep] eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand” (John 10:28-29).

Thus, no fewer than 8 times in the gospel of John alone do we find this notion of the Father “giving” men and women to the Son. This act of the Father in “giving” men and women to Jesus is the same as what we read in Ephesians 1:4-6 where Paul says that God

“chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved” (Eph. 1:4-6).

Perhaps one more passage from Paul will be enough for us today. This is what we read in 2 Thessalonians 2:13-14,

“But we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the first fruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth. To this he called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Thessalonians 2:13-14).

So what are we to make of these biblical texts, together with dozens of others that say much the same thing? Should we ignore them? Deny them? Pretend they don’t exist? Or should we honestly and forthrightly, with great humility, try to understand them? Surely the latter is the only proper approach. Perhaps I can defuse your concerns about divine election or predestination by articulating several principles that are an essential part of this biblical truth.

(1) First, let’s begin with a definition. Election is a pre-temporal decision by God, a choice he made before any of us ever existed. God chose us in Christ “before the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:4). God “saved us,” said Paul, “and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began” (2 Tim. 1:9).

(2) One reason people tend to react negatively to the idea of divine election is that they have an unbiblical view of the condition of sinful humanity. All human beings deserve hell and eternal condemnation. We are by nature and by choice rebellious, morally corrupt, spiritually blind, God-defying, Christ-rejecting sinners (Eph. 2:1-3). As such, God doesn’t owe us anything, other than judgment. Continue reading →

but never Christmas.

In C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the land of Narnia was under the cruel reign of the White Witch. But Aslan was on the move. When the witch and lion finally meet, the witch says to Aslan that one of the children, Edmund, has been found to be a traitor. The law of Narnia is that anyone who is a traitor belongs to the White Witch, and will be punished with death.

So Aslan strikes a deal with the witch and agrees to die in Edmund’s place. But then Aslan comes back from the dead. After he returns, the children are confused.

“But what does it all mean?” asked Edmund’s sister, Susan.

“It means,” said Aslan, “that though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know: Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backward.”

Behind the Curtain of Eternity

In this children’s tale, Lewis masterfully gets to the heart of our redemption. And he helps us see the love of the triune God toward us in “the stillness before time dawned.” There, in eternity past, Father and Son and Spirit conspired to love a people for themselves. They determined both to create us and — knowing that we would bring their good creation to ruin — also decided to set their loving and eternal gaze on us, as particular, chosen, and treasured children.

It’s unfortunate that the biblical teaching of “God’s decree” (as theologians have called it) and his predestinating glory has turned sour among so many Christians. When something so biblically rich and spiritually nourishing becomes so distasteful that we refuse to consume it, we need to reconsider our diet.

In the Stillness Before Time

In the first chapter of Ephesians, the apostle Paul is so overtaken with the majesty of our redemption that he can hardly stop to put a period behind his statements. So, his one long sentence runs from verse 3 through to verse 11. But what infuses every pore of that one, long sentence is its beginning:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will. (Ephesians 1:3–5)

God’s servant is inspired by God’s Spirit to show us what God was doing before the world began. In these verses, we have what only God can give: a glimpse into the eternal moment of his glorious plan. The triune God prepared every detail of the blueprint for his eternal kingdom. Not only did he plan it all, but he himself would work the entirety of that blueprint according to the counsel of his own sovereign will (Ephesians 1:11).

Without the solid meat of this biblical truth, our souls eventually will falter. Unless we eavesdrop on eternity, we will develop spiritual cataracts. In order to see clearly, we first need to hear clearly. We must set our minds on the transcendent so that the immanent can take its proper place in our lives.

Not to Us, O Lord

Paul begins by ascribing blessing to God the Father because of what he has accomplished in his Son. But Paul won’t let us focus that accomplishment on us. His immediate interest is not in the benefits we receive from Christ, important as those are. His mind moves immediately from praising God to God’s eternal choice. Paul’s interest is to help us see that what we have from the Father, through the Son, is a result of the Father’s determination “before the foundation of the world” to so love us that he would save us from our sin.

We’ve just finished another Olympic year. American athletes earned a record number of medals. These athletes committed the entirety of their lives to their athletic tasks. It is natural, then, that they take pride in their accomplishments.

But the Christian can never think that the salvation that we have in Christ is anything like the rigors of athletic training. Not only have we earned nothing of what we have in Christ, but what we have is a result of decisions made by the triune God before we, or anything else in creation, even existed.

Who Gets the Glory?

Most Christians recognize that, apart from Christ, there is no salvation. But far fewer recognize that our salvation had its beginning before time began. It was there that the triune God determined to love you for eternity. It was there that the Son did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, being obedient to the point of death on a cross (Philippians 2:6–8).

Until we see this divine determination as the eternal “ground zero” of our salvation, we simply cannot engage in wholehearted worship of God. If God did not unilaterally, from eternity, instigate his sovereign plan of salvation for me, then my salvation must, even if in some small way, be “up to me.” If we contribute anything to our salvation, our songs of praise to the glory of God will always be playing our own tune in a minor key.

Paul will not let us speak into eternity past; we can look, but not touch. Only in that way will the light shine in the proper place, on the stage and not the audience. Only in that way is it possible to say, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” without whispering on the side, “And me, too.”

Dr. Steve Lawson – From a conference message at the 2012 Expositors’ Conference in Mobile, AL.

the essay is limited to a concern for the “double” aspect of predestination with particular reference to the question of the relationship of God’s sovereignty to reprobation or preterition.

The use of the qualifying term “double” has been somewhat confusing in discussions concerning predestination. The term apparently means one thing within the circle of Reformed theology and quite another outside that circle and at a popular level of theological discourse. The term “double” has been set in contrast with a notion of “single” predestination. It has also been used as a synonym for a symmetrical view of predestination which sees election and reprobation being worked out in a parallel mode of divine operation. Both usages involve a serious distortion of the Reformed view of double predestination. Continue reading →