Five reasons to embrace the doctrine of election

Posted on by
1

but precious. Of course, it can’t be precious if it’s not true. So that’s the biggest reason we embrace it. But let’s start with a definition:

Unconditional election is God’s free choice before creation, not based on foreseen faith, to which traitors he will grant faith and repentance, pardoning them, and adopting them into his everlasting family of joy.

1. We embrace unconditional election because it is true.

All my objections to unconditional election collapsed when I could no longer explain away Romans 9. The chapter begins with Paul’s readiness to be cursed and cut off from Christ for his unbelieving Jewish kinsmen (verse 3). This implies that some Jews are perishing. And that raises the question of God’s promise to the Jews. Had it failed? Paul answers, “It is not as though the word of God has failed” (verse 6). Why not?

Because “not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel” (verse 6). In other words, God’s purpose was not to acquit every individual person in Israel. It was instead a purpose of election.

So to illustrate the point of God’s unconditional election Paul uses the analogy of Jacob and Esau: “Though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad — in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls — [Rebekah] was told, ‘The older will serve the younger’” (verses 11–12).

In other words, God’s original purpose in choosing individuals for himself out of Israel (and all the nations! Revelation 5:9) was not based on any conditions that they would meet. It was an unconditional election. And thus he says, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion” (verse 15; see verses 16–18; Romans 11:5–7).

Jesus confirms this teaching: “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out” (John 6:37). Coming to Jesus is not a condition we meet to qualify for election. It is the result of election. The Father has chosen his sheep. They are his. And he gives them to the Son. That is why they come. “No one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father” (John 6:65). “You did not choose me, but I chose you” (John 15:16; see John 17:2, 6, 9; Galatians 1:15).

In the book of Acts why did some believe and not others? Luke’s answer is election: “As many as were appointed to eternal life believed” (Acts 13:48). This “appointment” — this election—was not based on foreseen faith, it was the cause of faith.

In Ephesians 1 Paul says, “[God] chose us in [Christ] before the foundation of the world. . . . In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Ephesians 1:4, 11). It is the “counsel of God’s will” that is eternally decisive in this affair.

What will you say to God at the judgment if he asks, “Why did you believe on my Son while others didn’t?” You will not say: “Because I was smarter.” No. Surely you will say, “Because of your grace. Had you not chosen me, I would have been left spiritually dead, unresponsive, guilty.”

2. We embrace unconditional election because God designed it to make us fearless in our proclamation of his grace in a hostile world.

“If God is for us, who can be against us? . . . Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect?” (Romans 8:31, 33).

3. We embrace unconditional election because God designed it to make us humble.

“God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise . . . so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. . . . Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:27, 29, 31).

4. We embrace unconditional election because God made it a powerful moral impetus for compassion, kindness, and forgiveness.

“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and loved, compassionate hearts, kindness . . . forgiving each other” (Colossians 3:12–13). No one has seen or savored his election truly who is not moved by it to become kind and patient and forgiving.

5. We embrace unconditional election because it is a powerful incentive in our evangelism to help unbelievers who are great sinners not despair.

When you offer Christ freely to all unbelievers, suppose one says, “I have sinned too terribly. God could never choose to save me.” The most ultimate despair-destroying thing you can say is this: Do you realize that God chose before the foundation of the world whom he will save? And he did it based on absolutely nothing in you. Before you were born or had done anything good or bad, God chose whether to save you or not.

Therefore, you dare not get in God’s face and tell him what qualifications you lack in order to be chosen. There were no qualifications for being chosen. “What then should I do?” he asks. “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31). That’s how you begin to “confirm your calling and election” (2 Peter 1:10). If you will embrace the Savior, you will confirm that you are elect, and you will be saved.

Can’t Live Without It

Posted on by
Reply

which had embraced and endorsed the Nazi party.

Now back to the quiz. Here’s Bonhoeffer’s answer: “Christology is by nature bound up with the doctrine of justification.” This sentence comes from his lectures on twentieth-century systematic theology. He began the last lecture, which he entitled, “Preaching,” with a simple but urgent and ultimate question, “What should we preach?” We must preach Christ, he declares. Preaching Christ means nothing other than preaching the gospel. Preaching the gospel means, and only can mean, preaching the doctrine of justification.

Pulling a page from Luther’s playbook, Bonhoeffer speaks of how the cross is God’s “No” to humanity and to any attempt to achieve salvation, to attain righteousness. The cross slams the door on any and all attempts to merit salvation, to merit God’s grace. The cross is also simultaneously God’s “Yes” to us. Through his active and passive obedience, Christ has achieved for us what we could not. Christ died for the penalty of sin, enduring God’s wrath. Christ fully kept the law as the perfectly obedient Son. At the cross, Christ both undid what Adam had done and did what Adam could not do. “This is the reason,” Bonhoeffer says, “for the cross.” We have no hope without it.

In his discussion of justification, Bonhoeffer goes on to address the “alien righteousness” of Christ. This is one of the key concepts of the Reformers and of their protest against Rome. We are passive; God acts upon us. Even our act of faith is, in the words of Bonhoeffer, “the expression of the most profound human passivity.” We are justified, declared righteous before God, because of Christ’s righteousness imputed to us. It is outside of us, alien from us. The Latin expression is extra nos.

Why is Bonhoeffer stressing justification, imputation, and alien righteousness in his lectures? Because, while it was so central to Luther in the sixteenth century, the Lutheran church of the twentieth century had let the doctrine go by the wayside. The church had sold its birthright. We should not wonder at this. The doctrine of alien righteousness is offensive to human nature. It tells us we are unable to do something, that we lack capacity and ability. It tells us more. It tells us we are sinful and deserving of nothing but God’s wrath (Ephesians 2:1-3). That was not a popular message in twentieth-century Germany.

It’s not a popular message today, either. Even those who profess to be evangelicals have expressed an unease with historic formulations of the doctrine of justification. Some have outright rejected it.

At the end of Bonhoeffer’s lectures he left his students with one last statement:

Who will show us Luther!

We can put the same question to the twenty-first century evangelical church. Luther saw justification as the centerpiece to the whole Reformation enterprise. It is the doctrine the church can’t live without.

Calvinism, Arminianism & Hyper-Calvinism

Posted on by
Reply

tom-ascolTom Ascol, at the Founders blog writes:

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones once observed that “the ignorant Arminian does not know the difference between Calvinism and hyper-Calvinism.” The good news is that not all Arminians are ignorant. The bad news, however, is that such ignorance is not limited to Arminians.

Throughout evangelical history, where evangelical Calvinism as spread among Bible believing Christians, charges of hyper-Calvinism inevitably arise from those who do not know the difference. That pattern is being repeated today both within and beyond the borders of the Southern Baptist Convention. Examples of such careless accusations are not hard to find.

One of the most recent and most egregious came in the exhibit hall during the recent Southern Baptist Convention in Houston, Texas. On Monday, June 10, 2013, the day before the convention actually began, Baptist21 interviewed the president of Louisiana College about the treatment of some Calvinistic professors whose contracts were not renewed by the administration. In the course of responding to questions that he had been sent in advance, Dr. Joe Aguillard (though he probably would not identify himself as an Arminian) proved Lloyd-Jones’ point.

That display of doctrinal misunderstanding reminded me of the present need to clarify repeatedly and rigorously difference between Calvinism and hyper-Calvinism. Some writers and teachers seem to confuse them so often and so willingly that one must wonder if the practice is intentional. In one sense, hyper-Calvinism, like Arminianism, is a rationalistic perversion of true Calvinism. Whereas Arminianism destroys the sovereignty of God, hyper-Calvinism destroys the responsibility of man. The irony is that both Arminianism and hyper-Calvinism start from the same, erroneous rationalistic presupposition: Man’s ability and responsibility are coextensive. That is, they must match up exactly or else it is irrational. If a man is to be held responsible for something, then he must have the ability to do it. On the other hand, if a man does not have the ability to perform it, he cannot be obligated to do it.

The Arminian looks at this premise and says, “Agreed! We know that all men are held responsible to repent and believe the gospel [which is true, according to the Bible]; therefore we must conclude that all men have the ability in themselves to repent and believe [which is false, according to the Bible].” Thus, Arminians teach that unconverted people have within themselves the spiritual ability to repent and believe.

The hyper-Calvinist takes the same premise (that man’s ability and responsibility are coextensive) and says, “Agreed! We know that, in and of themselves, all men are without spiritual ability to repent and believe [which is true, according to the Bible]; therefore we must conclude that unconverted people are not under obligation to repent and believe the gospel [which is false, according to the Bible].”

In contrast to both of these, the Calvinist looks at the premise and says, “Wrong! While it looks reasonable, it is not biblical. The Bible teaches both that fallen man is without spiritual ability and that he is obligated to repent and believe. Only by the powerful, regenerating work of the Holy Spirit is man given the ability to fulfill his duty to repent and believe.” And though this may seem unreasonable to rationalistic minds, there is no contradiction, and it is precisely the position the Bible teaches.

Why are these things so important to our discussion? Baptists have been confronted with these theological issues throughout their history. The Arminianism–Calvinism–hyper-Calvinism debate has played a decisive role in shaping our identity as Baptists, and particularly our identity as Southern Baptists. The Southern Baptist Convention has never welcomed either Arminians or hyper-Calvinists within their ranks. It has, however, from its beginning been home to evangelical Calvinists. In fact, though we cannot say there were only Calvinists among the original generation of Southern Baptists, Calvinism was certainly the overwhelming doctrinal consensus among the delegates that met in 1845 to form the convention.