The Doctrine of Election

Part I

The doctrine of election or … "predestination" … as it is sometimes called is a difficult subject to get a clear understanding of. How can God choose some to save and not others?

Ephesians 1:4-5 … "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will …"

Ephesians 1:11 … "In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will …"

The apostle Paul is basically telling us here in Ephesians that we have been predestined in Christ as He saw fit through the counsel of His own will to adopt us as His children. Paul also follows that very same theme in the book of Romans. Some of us as we read these two books struggle with the concept of … divine sovereign election.

We need to understand this one basic point … that God in considering the human race in its fallen condition sees all of us as in a state of rebellion against him. If He were to exercise His justice totally and completely toward the whole world, then all of us would certainly perish. But He has elected, He has chosen not to.

The Scriptures tell us that in our natural, fallen state, we are in a state of bondage to sin. We still have the ability to make choices, we do have a free will; but those choices follow the desires of our hearts and flesh. What we lack because we are fallen creatures is a natural desire for God. It's just not there.

John 6:44 … "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day."

John 6:65 … "And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father."

Jesus said, "… no man can come unto me except it is given unto him by the Father." Until what is given to him? The "it" is the drawing power of the Holy Spirit. It's the thing tugging on your heart, the feeling you have when convicted of sin in your life; sin you want to get rid of.

Although this act of drawing is an act of power, it is not done by force. God in drawing the unwilling, makes them willing by enlightening their understanding, bending their will, drawing them with love. We usually think of drawing as applying power to pull or move something like the power of a drag line by force.

But God's drawing power might be better understood if it is shown as working in the same way that music draws the ear, beauty draws the eye and love draws the heart. But God's problem with man's free will (if I may say it that way) was that no man would ever come to Christ on his own; because no one would, without this drawing, ever feel the need of a Savior.

I think that what "the doctrine of election and predestination" is all about is this … that God sovereignly calls and gives the desire for Christ to those whom He chooses. The difficulty and the great mystery in all this, is that apparently He doesn’t do that for everyone.

God reserves the right, as He told Moses and as Paul states again in the New Testament … "to have mercy upon whom He will have mercy" … just as He chose Abraham and not his brother Nahor; just as Christ appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus in a way that He didn’t appear to Pontius Pilate.

Let me say it this way, in other words … God doesn’t treat everyone the same. Sorry. But even so, He never treats anyone unjustly.

God has reserved the right to give or to withhold His mercy and blessing to those whom … He chooses.

In Part II of The Doctrine of Election, I will look at … "many are called, but few are chosen."