On election and faith

From Walter Marshall's work, The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification, we see a few things about election and faith:

1. All who hear the gospel are obliged to believe.

Though the Spirit works saving faith only in the elect, and others do not believe because they are not of Christ's sheep (John 10:26), and on that account it is called the faith of God's elect (Titus 1:1); yet all that hear the gospel are obliged to the duty of believing, as well as to all the duties of the moral law, and that before they know their own particular election, and they are liable to condemnation for unbelief, as well as for any other sin: 'He that does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed on the name of the only begotten Son of God' (John 3:18).

2. Before believing it is not possible to know if we are elect or not.

We cannot have a certain knowledge of our election to eternal life before we do believe; it is a thing hidden in the unsearchable counsel of God, until it be manifest by our effectual calling and believing on Christ.

3. We can be confident we are of the elect if we believe.

And it is no presumption for us to trust confidently on Christ for everlasting life, before we have any good evidence of our election, because God, that cannot lie, has made a general promise 'that whoever believes on Him, shall not be ashamed', without making the least difference among them that perform this duty (Rom. 10:11, 12). The promise is as firm and sure to be fulfilled as any of God's decrees and purposes, and therefore it is a good and sufficient ground for our confidence.

4. The evidence of election is seen in our believing and the evidence of our reprobation is apparent in our not believing.

And we need not fear that we shall infringe God's decree of election by believing on Christ confidently for our salvation, before we know what God has decreed concerning us, for, if we believe, we shall at last be found among the number of the elect and, if we refuse to believe, we shall thereby willfully sort ourselves among the reprobates, 'that stumble at the word, being disobedient, whereunto also they are appointed' (1 Peter 2:8).

Nearer the truth

Humbling Orthodoxy

The doctrine of God’s divine election of unworthy sinners is a humbling truth. Or to use Spurgeon’s words, “a sense of election causes a low opinion of self.” That is the bullet point under which the following quote from Spurgeon comes to us, as recorded in a sermon delivered on July 1, 1888:

Brother, if any man thinks ill of you, do not be angry with him; for you are worse than he thinks you to be. If he charges you falsely on some point, yet be satisfied, for if he knew you better he might change the accusation, and you would be no gainer by the correction. If you have your moral portrait painted, and it is ugly, be satisfied; for it only needs a few blacker touches, and it would be still nearer the truth.

From Tony Reinke!

God's love and the atonement

From Redemption accomplished and Applied by John Murray:

No treatment of the atonement can be properly oriented that does not trace its source to the free and sovereign love of God...

The love of God from which the atonement springs is not a distinctionless love; it is a love that elects and predestinates. God was pleased to set his invincible and everlasting love upon a countless multitude and it is the determinate purpose of this love that the atonement secures...

Truly God is love. Love is not something adventitious; it is not something that God may choose to be or choose not to be. He is love, and that necessarily, inherently, and eternally...Yet it belongs to the very essence of electing love to recognize that it is not inherently necessary to that love which God necessarily and inherently is that he should set such love as issues in redemption and adoption upon utterly undesirable and hell-deserving objects. (9-10)

Sam Storms on the sovereign love of God in election

"Many mistakenly assume that, if God is by nature loving, he must choose all, as if to say it would be a contradiction of the divine character were he not to love everyone equally. But this fails to note that the saving love of God is also sovereign. John Murray explains it this way:

Truly God is love. Love is not something adventitious; it is not something that God may choose to be or choose not to be. He is love, and that necessarily, inherently, and eternally. As God is spirit, as he is light, so he is love. Yet it belongs to the very essence of electing love to recognize that it is not inherently necessary to that love which God necessarily and eternally is that he should set such love issues in redemption and adoption upon utterly undesirable and hell-deserving objects. It was of the free and sovereign good pleasure of his will, a good pleasure that emanated from the depths of his own goodness, that he chose a people to be heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ. The reason reside wholly in himself and proceeds from determinations that are peculiarly his as the "I am that I am."

Thus, to say that love is sovereign is to say that it is distinguishing." (Chosen for Life, 183)

Three Impossibilities from John 6

Image by Tony Reinke - www.spurgeon.wordpress.com

Sam Storms spends several chapter in his book Chosen for Life discussing sections of Scripture relevant to divine election. You can see here how he engages different sections of the New Testament:

7. Unconditional Election (1): The Gospels and Acts
8. Unconditional Election (2): The Epistles and Revelation
9. Unconditional Election (3): Romans 9:1-13
10. Unconditional Election (4): Romans 9:14-23
11. Unconditional Election (5): Romans 9:14-23

In Chapter 7 the author considers a segment of The Gospel of John; John 6:37-40, 44, 65.

All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. 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. 40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day...No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day...And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”

Storms draws out 3 impossibilities from these verses:

1. It is "morally and spiritually impossible for a person to come to Christ apart from the "drawing" of that person by God the Father...Their not coming to Christ is due to their moral and spiritual refusal to do so, a refusal in which they willingly and freely delight."
2. It is "impossible for someone the Father "draws" not to come to him...all the elect will come to faith in Christ. God's drawing of them is efficacious."
3. When a person whom the Father has drawn comes it is "impossible for him or her to be cast out...Their life in Christ is eternal and irrevocable because that is the will of the Father, a will or a purpose that the whole of Christ's person and work was designed to secure."

(Chosen for Life, 92-4, emphasis mine)

Storms has shown how the 'God of the Possible' is also the 'God of the Impossible'; and that is a great thing!

Spurgeon on Election

Chosen for Life is an outstanding book! The more I read the more it was impressed upon me how thoroughly, fairly and concisely Storms had covered the topic of unconditional divine election. He also considered and, where appropriate, discussed related issues and doctrines. It is a must read.

Storms provides an well-known quote of Spurgeon when considering the 'fairness' of election to those who would rail and grumble about it. I had read this before and had heard Storms share it in a sermon as well. But it is worth posting to allow first-time readers to enjoy it as well as those seeing it again to reconsider the 'Prince of Preachers' words:

But there are some who say, "It is hard for God to choose some and leave others." Now, I will ask you one question. Is there any of you here this morning who wishes to be holy, who wishes to be regenerate, to leave off sin and walk in holiness? "Yes, there is," says some one, "I do." Then God has elected you. But another says, "No; I don't want to be holy; I don't want to give up my lusts and my vices." Why should you grumble, then, that God has not elected you to it? For if you were elected you would not like it, according to your own confession. If God this morning had chosen you to holiness, you say you would not care for it. Do you not acknowledge that you prefer drunkenness to sobriety, dishonesty to honesty? You love this world's pleasures better than religion; then why should you grumble that God has not chosen you to religion? If you love religion, he has chosen you to it. If you desire it, he has chosen you to it. If you do not, what right have you to say that God ought to have given you what you do not wish for?

Supposing I had in my hand something which you do not value, and I said I shall give it to such-and-such a person, you would have no right to grumble that I did not give to you. You could not be so foolish as to grumble that the other has got what you do not care about. According to your own confession, many of you do not want religion, do not want a new heart and a right spirit, do not want the forgiveness of sins, do not want sanctification; you do not want to be elected to these things: then why should you grumble? You count these things but as husks, and why should you complain of God who has given them to those whom he has chosen? If you believe them to be good and desire them, they are there for thee. God gives liberally to all those who desire; and first of all, he makes them desire, otherwise they never would. If you love these things, he has elected you to them, and you may have them; but if you do not, who are you that you should find fault with God, when it is your own desperate will that keeps you from loving these things—your own simple self that makes you hate them?

Suppose a man in the street should say, "What a shame it is I cannot have a seat in the chapel to hear what this man has to say." And suppose he says, "I hate the preacher; I can't bear his doctrine; but still it's a shame I have not a seat." Would you expect a man to say so? No: you would at once say, "That man does not care for it. Why should he trouble himself about other people having what they value and he despises?" You do not like holiness, you do not like righteousness; if God has elected me to these things, has he hurt you by it? "Ah! but," say some, "I thought it meant that God elected some to heaven and some to hell." That is a very different matter from the gospel doctrine. He has elected men to holiness and to righteousness and through that to heaven. You must not say that he has elected them simply to heaven, and others only to hell. He has elected you to holiness, if you love holiness. If any of you love to be saved by Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ elected you to be saved. If any of you desire to have salvation, you are elected to have it, if you desire it sincerely and earnestly. But, if you don't desire it, why on earth should you be so preposterously foolish as to grumble because God gives that which you do not like to other people? (Chosen for Life, 187-8)