“At that time Jesus said, ‘I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure. ‘All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. ‘Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.’” --Matthew 11:25-27
We now move onto the second point of “TULIP”, which is Unconditional election, or, as some know it, predestination. As I said in “A Brief Overview of Calvinism”, this is the belief that God, before the foundations of the earth were laid, chose certain people to be saved, and chose certain people not to be saved. This view is not to be confused with, nor compared to the doctrine of pre-science, which is the belief that God knew before hand who would choose Him, and chose His people according to the choices He knew they would make. This is also known as the “fore-knowledge of God”.
One might ask, how do the two differ? Do they not both essentially mean the same thing? Is not God choosing his people in both cases? The answer is, no, they are not the same. Unconditional election is based on the belief that we, as fallen men, are totally depraved, as defined by Sola Gratia in the last post. If man is in fact totally depraved, he would be incapable of making the decision to follow Christ.
“he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will” --Ephesians 1:5
This would leave us with but one choice: God chose us according to His own good pleasure, based on nothing but His own sovereign will. Not according to anything He knew we would do, or any choice He knew we would make (since as fallen men we are incapable of making that choice), but simply according to His sovereign will. After all, we know for a fact that God chose us before hand by simply looking into His word.
“For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love” --Ephesians 1:4
--Sola Gratia had the honor of writing the post on total depravity, and I would highly recommend you look back on it frequently. We will probably have more posts on it on the future, simply because it is the most important to fully grasp out of the five points. It is the basis of the Calvinist doctrine.--
So we find that the doctrine of unconditional election can be summarized by saying: God, before the creation of the world, chose certain people to be saved according to His good pleasure and will. Note that this has nothing to do with anything we have done.
This raises a question though. Wouldn’t the doctrine of unconditional election make God arbitrary? RC Sproul answers this question by saying: "To be arbitrary is to do something for no reason. Now, it is clear that there is no reason found in us for God to choose us. But that is not the same as saying that’s God has no reason in Himself. God doesn’t do anything without reason. He is not capricious or whimsical. God is as sober as he is sovereign."
The doctrine of unconditional election depends not only on total depravity, but also largely on the sovereignty of God. This doctrine simply takes into account just how powerful and sovereign God is, and how powerless we are as subjects to His will. One could never argue that god would not be justified in saving only a few the He chooses, because He is the creator. To say He does not have the right to do what He wants with His creation is most unreasonable. If you spent weeks constructing a house, and then, as soon as it was finished, proceeded to tear it down, would that be wrong of you? Absolutely not. That house was your creation, and you would be justified in anything you chose to do with it. So it is with the relationship between God and His creations.
“One of you will say to me: ‘Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?’ But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? ‘Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?' Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?’” --Romans 9:19-21
Some look at Calvinism as a confining doctrine. They look at it as a doctrine that limits us, and takes away our free will and freedom. I think this is a terrible misunderstanding. It would seem that unconditional election is a depressing subject, because God only chooses some, and not others. Although this is the way we are tempted to look at it, it is not the way we should look at it. The doctrine of unconditional election is in fact very FREEING.
We have already gone over how man is totally depraved and is, in and of himself, incapable of seeking out God. Since this is the case, how, without God electing us, would we ever be saved? The answer is we would not. We could not. Without the divine intervention of God we would have no other way of salvation, because any other way is dependant on something from us, that we need to do. The doctrine of unconditional election frees us from that responsibility.
Why some and not others?
None of us deserve the reward of eternal life. God, because He is a loving God, chose to save some people. Those He did not choose to save are getting nothing they do not deserve. They are getting nothing you and I do not deserve. We all deserve it, but God chose to show mercy to some, because it pleased Him to do so. We do not, however, know who God has and has not elected, and are therefore commanded to preach the gospel to all men.
"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." --Matthew 28:19-20
“And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.” --Mattehew 28:19-20
Thanks for reading!
Renzzy
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10 comments:
One question, do you believe we have any free will at all? Say I am faced with the option of running over a dog or a boy. Do I make the choice not to run over the boy but the dog or does God make me make the choice?
Don't take this as an attack and don't assume anything from the question. I am simply wondering.
I myself don't yet know if competely agree with unconditional election alone. But I will only learn by reading the Bible with a clear mind and coming to my conclusion from there. So please don't try to convince me one way or the other.
I am still not sure what I believe when it comes to free will. Me and mos had this thought:
What if we had free will before the fall?
Free will to not only choose where we wanted to go, but also to choose between good and evil. When we chose evil over God, God banned us from the Garden. Not only were we banned from the garden, but in choosing ultimate evil over a perfect and loving God, we lost the ability to use our free will for anything but evil.
Thus, all of our works that we consider to be "good" would be tainted by the choice we made in the garden. Any truly good works that we do could only have been influenced by God. This would make sense with the verse:
For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, WHICH GOD PREPARED IN ADVANCE FOR US TO DO. --Ephesians 2:10
Thats just an idea.
So do you think we choose to do evil when we are in our sinful state? What about when we are born again and God gives us the ability, freewill, or whatever to do good, then do you think we choose to do evil? We must, since we do have the ability or power through Christ to resist sin. Oh, how confusing.
My idea was that we, as fallen men, no matter if we are born again or not, hove only the ability to choose evil. Any good works we do have to be by the direct influence of God.
Yes, we have the ability to resist sin, but the Bible makes it clear that this ability is GOD GIVEN. It is not something our conciences "evelove" if we are elect.
My idea was simply that, if it falls under the category of "spiritually good", then we are incapable of doing it without God's direct help.
Liz, I agree with you there. We DO have the free will to choose to do evil or good. That type of "free will" and the type of "free will" concerning salvation are two very differant things. I dont think any calvinist will tell you that we have no control over what we do. That would be absurdity because that would assume that we are like robots. God did not create us to be robotic; he created us with a choice to serve him or not to. I do NOT think that choice extends to our ability to choose salvation, but i DO think that we, once we are saved, have the choice of weather or not to do what HE wants. Make sense? if u need any clarification there justlet me know!
Andrew
Ya, Andrew, that is about what I think. I am just not sure about if we can choose salvation or not. I mean I know we can't on our own but mabey God preordains us to choose him with his help. I have to read more about it in the Bible.
Notice how I am not getting involved in this debate. I think it is perhaps better if we let future posts make our arguments for us, Adam.
I thnik a constructive exchange of ideas is a good thing. As long as we are not tearing eachother apart, which we are not, I think it is something that helps us understand eachother, and helps us see the others side a little bit.
For me and Sola Gratia, our posts will make up most of our ideas, but comments are a good thing too.
this is not a debat. I am asking questions or stating my views not arguing. Same for the others.
Liz is right. My goal is to present biblical evidence for my Calvinistic beliefs, and the readers can take what they want from it. I think questioning and commenting is healthy to sustain that type of an atmosphere on this blog. After all, we did make it to exchange ideas and beliefs.
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