Don't worry if you missed class the previous week as both Pastor David and Terri were a bit under the weather so class was cancelled until the following week. Instead we had a sweet time of Worship and then corporate prayer time. It turned out to be a wonderful evening.
So now lets pick up with last week's class and delve into the topic of Unconditional Election.
Often people will ask, 'why bother teaching election and predestination?' 'If all I need is to believe in Jesus to be saved, then why teach a doctrine that is so devicive?' Well the main reason, of course, is because it is in the Word of God. In fact, once God opens your eyes to see these deeper truths, you can't help but see God's elective grace all throughout Scripture.
Spurgeon said, "Why preach election? Because it is in the Word of God!" You see, as Christians, we do not have the liberty to teach and believe just certain portions of Scripture that make us feel good about ourselves while ignoring the many warnings and other tough passages that show us how unholy we really are and that there is a cost to pay for our rebellion. Either you believe ALL of Scripture or you don't believe at all. Every word, evey character in the Bible is 100% God's word. So if you don't learn all of Scripture, are you then telling God that some portions of His word are unimportant?? I wouldn't want to be you standing before your Creator on judgement day and have to tell Him that.
Here's something Pastor David said that I thought was quite profound. Ponder this, "God does not do what's right, its right because God does it." Just think about that a moment.
If we say it the other way around, God does what's right, that is putting man's precepts over God as if He has to obey our law and conform to our standards of right & wrong. Right & wrong comes from God first, therefore things are right or wrong because God declares them to be.
Unconditional Election can be defined as: God's eternal choice of some persons unto everlasting life - not because of foreseen merit in them, but of His mere mercy in Christ - in consequence of which choice they are called, justified and glorified.
So obviously this begs the question: On what BASIS does God elect individuals for salvation? The answer to this question lies in Eph 1:3-6 which states, "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 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."
The answer is really in 4 parts:
1) Every blessing, including salvation, is "in Christ" through His merits alone. In other words, only Christ merits salvation, it has nothing to do with us.2) The Father chose us before the foundation of the world.
3) His motive was two-fold: His "love" and "according to the purpose of His will."
4) His goal: "to the praise of His glorious grace."
God chooses according to the good pleasure of His will. That's it and that's all we need to know. After all, He's the Creator and who are we to rail against Him? In my next post we'll talk about the Arminian View and discuss some common objections to Unconditional Election.
Rob
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