2. Election
Election
Election means choosing. The words "chosen" and "elect" are translated from the same Greek word in the Bible. The doctrine of Election sets forth the fact that God chooses men for his eternal kingdom and servants for his work. The Bible is one vast treatise on Election. We merely make suggestions and direct your attention to a few features of Election. With the Bible a vast storehouse of Election teaching, we point out that Election is completely ignored in modern religious thinking and activities. Everywhere it is taken for granted that the more millions of dollars are contributed, the more men will be eternally saved: the more preaching, the more converts. Men and women suffer the pangs of conscience because it is constantly suggested that imperfections in their own lives are turning others away from Christ. We wish to bring you scriptures which plainly teach that these things are not so.
Foreordination, foreknowledge, predestination, promise, prophecy, election, and grace are so interwoven in the scriptures that it is difficult to separate the strand of election from predestination; or predestination from foreknowledge.
Grace says—For by grace are ye saved through faith-and faith is not of yourselves but the gift of God. (Eph. 2:8, 9)
Election goes a step farther and says that God chose the objects of his grace—"But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things—and the things which are despised hath God chosen—that no flesh should glory in his presence," (1 Cor. 1:26-31). Election does away with human glory: the big enterprises doing big things for God are pretenders. God does his own choosing, at his own time, and in his own way.
Predestination goes a step farther than Election and says that he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world and predestinated us unto the adoption of children according to the good pleasure of his will. (Eph. 1:4, 5)
Foreordination has to do with the intimate events of our lives. "Thine eyes did see mine unformed substance; and in thy book they were all written, even the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was none of them." (Ps. 139:16 R.V.)
Foreknowledge differs little from foreordination. "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee—and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations." (Jer. 1:5) Paul speaks in similar language of himself, "But when it pleased God who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace." (Gal. 1:15) Only a small portion of an iceberg appears above the water; and salvation is tike the iceberg: foreknowledge, predestination, election, are out of sight; while men see only confession, baptism, church life, and service. Paul prayed for the Ephesians not that they might do more; but that they might know more—"able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge." (Eph. 3:18, 19) Some of the height and depth is expressed in—"For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son-whom he did predestinate, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified." (Rom. 8:28-30)
Justification is not the first rung on the ladder of salvation. Before justification comes the call of the living God and before the call, God’s foreknowledge and predestinating purpose. From a most imperfect memory we quote the lines by Babcock:
Back of the loaf there is the flour; And back of the flour, the mill; And back of the mill, the sun and shower; And back of it all the Father’s will.
Yes, back of the conversion of the humblest man is the Father’s will, and the Father’s call.
It seems to suit the popular fancy to refer to man as a free moral agent and even Bible teachers refer to free moral agency as one of the inalienable rights of man. Let us examine the matter. The materialist and the evolutionist do not believe in the personal God of the Bible. They see glory in the heavens; but not THE GLORY OF GOD. They see wonders is the earth; but they see NO GOD. Life is unexplained: men evolve: birds fly: fish swim: stars move in exact and intricate patterns; but the God, who plans, ordains, and rules is non-existent. The evolutionist lives in a universe of free moral agents where the germ of today, by watching his p’s and q’s, may become the elephant of a future age; and the nebulae of our day may become a green and fruitful world on which future clams may evolve into men. Men who prattle of free moral agency have exactly the same attitude toward the intricate pattern of spiritual experiences. Men are saved because preachers preach and others pray. A free moral agent tends to became preoccupied with human responsibilities and forgetful of the fact that—"As for man, his days are as grass." Men feel like free moral agents; talk like free moral agents; boast of being free moral agents; but they are not. The universe seems to be running without a ruler; but it is not.
JESUS PREACHES ELECTION
One day the Lord Jesus was surrounded in a desert place by a multitude of people. He was moved with compassion and healed their sick; and when evening came he took five loaves and two fishes and fed about five thousand men; and when they were filled, the disciples gathered twelve basketfuls of fragments. The crowd wanted to make their gracious benefactor king. That is the model and goal of successful preaching today; the creation of enthusiasm for Jesus. The next day the same crowd followed him into Capernaum and heard a sermon from the man who had fed them the day before. The sermon is regarded in John 6:22-71 and will bear many readings. In it he made some striking statements on the subject of ELECTION.
He told the crowd that had seen his miracles: "Ye have seen me and believe not." He was not deceived by crowd enthusiasm and curiosity. With a multitude of unbelievers before him, he said with utter confidence, "All that the Father giveth me shall come unto me." If the Father gave, they came. Persuasion would not do the work. And then he said something that every preacher should preach, every church member should hear, and every human being has a right to know. "No man can come unto me except the Father which hath sent me draw him." (John 6:44)
These words were spoken by the same lips that spoke John 3:16 and they are just as true. No man can preach or portray Jesus as something more wonderful than he really is; yet here is the real Jesus, the miracle working Jesus, standing before a multitude who did not believe is him; and telling them that no man could come unless the Father draw him. Many think that if the preacher prays enough or if his people pray enough, multitudes will be saved. Did Jesus say anything like that? Did anyone else in the Bible say it?
"It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me." (John 6:45) God himself must teach the man who comes to Jesus. This is the doctrine of Election.
Many of his disciples murmured and said, "This is an hard saying." (John 6:60) But Jesus knowing who they were that believed not; and that Judas would betray him repeated the hardest saying of all. "Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me except it were given unto him of my Father." (John 6:65) From that time many of his disciples (not the twelve) went back and walked no more with him. Turned away from Jesus chiefly by what he said about Election! A poet once wrote a poem which has for its theme—Only God can make a tree. Nobody ever seemed to get mad about that poem, for it is obvious that even super-educated men cannot make a tree. But when it comes to salvation, people get mad when you tell them that only god can make a saint; even disciples turned away from Jesus at Capernaum and left him with only twelve discouraged men and, of them, one was known to be a devil. They understood Jesus perfectly but they did not like what he taught.
Those eleven men with no more courage than you or I, and with no more love of being rejected, picture the faith that only God can give. Jesus could say, Will ye also go away? And Peter could answer for all, "To whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life." (John 6:68) When hungry, they could go into the fields and eat the raw grain. No loaves and fishes for them, they had the words of eternal life. Later when Jesus was about to leave them he told them, "Ye have not chosen me but I have chosen you." (Jonah 15:16) They stayed because they had been chosen.
Election does not make salvation a narrow thing: Election makes salvation a thing of grandeur that only God can create; and man with his money, buildings, social attractions and entertainment can imitate but never duplicate. And Judas remained a devil!
JESUS AND HIS SHEEP
There may be some uncertainty as to how shepherds manage their flocks in Palestine today; and more uncertainty as to how they did it nineteen hundred years ago; but the usual explanation is: that they were cooperative and several flocks were kept by night in the same fold; in the morning each shepherd led his own flock to the hills.
Jesus spoke a parable concerning sheep. "But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice. And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers." (John 10:1-5)
Just so simply Jesus came and called his sheep, Zacchaeus from the sycamore tree, a woman from her water-pot. None of them needed urging: they came at his call. He went away and left them to tell their friends, "How great things the Lord hath done to thee and hath had compassion on thee." (Mark 5:19) They would not follow anyone else: they belonged to him for eternity. Of this shepherd, David wrote a thousand years before, "The Lord is my shepherd: I shall not want. And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever."
Jesus’ parable of the sheepfold did not win the approval of the crowd and it does not meet approval today. "And many of them said, He hath a devil, and is mad; why hear ye him? Others said, These are not the words of him that hath a devil. Can a devil open the eyes of the blind?" (John 10:20, 21) "Then came the Jews round about him and said unto him, How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly." We see no reason for believing that wrong motives lay behind their question. They had honest doubts: and millions have honest doubts today. There is an honest question, Why do so many not believe? Many who grow up in church and Sunday school do not believe. Preacher’s sons do not believe. Why did Abel believe; and Cain not believe? Why did Jesus, the shepherd, come into the fold, call his own sheep by name, lead them forth, and leave so many sheep uncalled?
How do men answer the question, Why do so many not believe? Here are some of the answers: Poor preaching, inconsistent church members, Christians do not pray enough, preachers do not pray enough, cold churches, not enough personal workers.
What is the answer of Jesus? "Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my Father’s name, they bear witness of me. But ye believe not, BECAUSE YE ARE NOT OF MY SHEEP, AS I SAID UNTO YOU." Can anything be plainer? Jesus’ sheep believe: others do not. Can all the preaching in the world make someone else’s sheep into Jesus’ sheep?
Then our Lord sweeps into the positive presentation of the truth of Election: "My sheep hear my voice." Bear in mind, he was speaking to unbelievers who, a few moments later, would pick up stones to stone him. To the men of Capernaum he had said, "All that the Father giveth me shall come unto me:" to the men of Jerusalem he says, "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life: and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand. I and my Father are one." (John 10:27-31)
Again he refers to believers as the Father’s gift to his Son. The eternal security of the believer rests not on perseverance but. on the doctrine of Election: God gives believers to his Son for all eternity. A REAL ATTRACTION In Luke 16:19-31, we have the story of the rich man in Hades. Many are so curious about Hades that they miss much that our Lord taught. The rich man in Hades had a brilliant idea for keeping his five brothers out of torment. He asked Abraham to send Lazarus to his father’s house that he might testify unto them lest they also come to this place of torment. And Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.
What! Moses and the prophets! The Old Testament’s enough! Merely a book! No need of a preacher! No need of a personal worker! No need of tracts! No need of solos! Didn’t Abraham believe in soul winning? The rich man would not be diverted so easily. He had an idea with possibilities. "And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one weft unto them from the dead, they will repent."
Think of the attractions used to win souls! Musical vaudeville! Sensational advertising! High pressure methods! Crowds! Would any of them or all of them equal in drawing power LAZARUS FROM HADES?
"And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead." We gather from what Jesus taught that no one has been brought to repentance by solos, trombones, cartoons, lurid death-bed scenes, or sensational preaching; who would not have repented by the simple proclamation of Moses and the prophets.
Personal workers can be the most dangerous people in the world. A personal worker may lead you into the camp of Jehovah’s Witnesses; or into the legalism of the Adventists; or the furor of the tongues movement; or the devil’s brew of spiritualism; or the Oxford movement; or into Anglo-Israelism; or into one of a thousand immature, disorderly enterprises fostered by true believers. God has something better than sincere but often deluded personal workers for bringing men to repentance: They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them. "For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me." (John 5:46) We caution those who honor the New Testament to the extent of dishonoring the Old Testament. The only personal work and the only preaching that does not go beyond God’s order is that which so completely hides itself behind the written word of God as to be practically invisible. That a true personal work! THE PARABLES
Many think of Jesus as though he went about seeking the ears of men; striving desperately to make them understand truth; and failing because of human stupidity and sinfulness. We call attention to Jesus sitting in a boat and preaching in parables to the multitude on shore. Today there is much disagreement as to the meaning of these parables; although all agree that they seem as simple as Aesop’s fables. Evidently there was more disagreement at the time they were spoken than there is today. The disciples came and said unto him,—Why speakest thou unto them in parables? (Mathew 13:10) "He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, BUT TO THEM IT IS NOT GIVEN." To them it is not given! To them it is not given! "Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not: and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand." "But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear." Then he explained in private to his disciples the meaning of the parable. Is this the picture of Jesus, the preacher, that you carry in your heart and mind? THE LORD PRAYS A great evangelist died and his wife was quoted by the press as saying, "He saved a million souls." Similar statements are so common that they scarcely attract attention. The prayer of our Lord in the seventeenth chapter of John uses no such language in describing his own labors. Six times he refers to believers as the Father’s gift to him. Is salvation the gift of God? Believers also are the gift of God. Is salvation not of works, lest any man should boast? Believers also are not of works lest any man should boast. From his prayer, we quote:
"As thou hast given him power over all flesh that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him."
"I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were and thou gavest them me."
"I pray not for the world but for them which thou hast given me: for they are thine."
"Keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me."
"Those that thou gavest me I have kept." THE DAY OF PENTECOST As we leave the gospels and sweep into the world wide horizons of the great commission, we see the gospel preached to Jew and Gentile as Jesus preached it at Capernaum with God’s electing purposes laid before men as frankly and as clearly as they are set forth in John 6 and John 10. On the day of Pentecost Peter proclaimed,—The promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even AS MANY AS THE LORD OUR GOD SHALL CALL. Here we see emphasized the CALL of the Living God, "Whom he did predestinate them he also CALLED"; "for ye see your CALLING brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are CALLED: but GOD HATH CHOSEN." What happened at Capernaum happened on Pentecost. "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me."
Peter urged, "Save yourselves FROM this untoward generation." Instead of urging, "Win your pal": he testified, "Save yourself from your pal." There is a world of difference between the two ideas.
Today men, who do not know a single chapter of the Word, are prodded into raising their hands for prayer; then into coming forward; then into some sort of profession; and then into baptism. How different from those who GLADLY RECEIVED HIS WORD and were baptized? In the parable of the sheep fold, the shepherd does not push the sheep: he goes before and they follow him. Are we afraid to trust God to do such a work or do we not believe in it? On Pentecost, the Lord of the sheepfold was SOVEREIGN and added to the church daily such as should be saved.
SAUL OF TARSUS AND ELECTION
There is some tendency to magnify Election for service; and to minimize Election for salvation. In Saul of Tarsus, we see both tied in one bundle. The Lord himself blinded a blaspheming murderer and said, "Go into tire city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do." To Ananias the Lord said, "He is a CHOSEN VESSEL unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel," Behold in Saul, the doctrine of Election in flesh and blood! Called from breathing out threatenings and slaughter to be an apostle, "not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ!" (Gal. 1:1). So amazing was this act of Election that, "When Saul was come to Jerusalem he assayed to join himself to the disciples: but they were all afraid of him, and believed not that he was a disciple," (Acts 9:26). In our day, service is put on the basis of a vague term called "consecration;" and education in the New Testament it is on the basis of the Lord’s Election.
Before this writer knew much about Election or anything about predestination, one verse flashed across the skies with dazzling brilliance. It is found in Acts 13:48. "And as many as were ordained to eternal life believed." Little did he realize that the truth of that verse underlay the whole Bible.
JACOB AND ESAU The doctrine of Election is mentioned many times; and flies up and hits one in the face from almost any page of the Bible; but is quite fully set forth in Romans 9:10-24.
Rebecca, with child, was having a terrible time: two infants fought like desperados in her womb. In answer to her inquiry the Lord said unto her, "Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels: and the one people shall be stronger than the other people: and the elder shall serve the younger." (Gen. 25:23)
There may be in our country some thirty million children and perhaps not one of them will ever found a new nation; but in one womb there were two nations; one, predestined to be the greatest nation in history, the chosen people; and the other, under the judgment of God. To you who read this, it is simple prophecy, an example of the foreknowledge of God: to Jacob and Esau, it was for each of them and their descendants, PREDESTINATION: inasmuch as one is chosen for glory and honor; and the other for judgment; it is an example of ELECTION. We elect men to honor and think nothing of it. Is God Almighty forbidden to elect?
Paul says of this act of Election; For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of him that calleth; it was said unto her,—The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. (Rom. 9:11-13) God elects! God calls! God elects before birth! God elects, not of works! The record is before you!
Paul asks, Is there unrighteousness with God? God elected!
Paul answers his own question, God forbid! God elects, not of works, before birth, and calls, and his Election is righteous. That is the gist of the doctrine of Election.
Election irritates some people like a gadfly and chiefly because it blesses or judges a man before he is born. Men see no wrong in hanging a man after be has cruelly murdered his wife; but they object to God condemning him while an infant in arms. They forget that God sees the future more clearly than we see the past. For God to wait until a man has done evil; and then condemn him; when God for ages past has known that he was going to do it, is nonsense. God sees the future as man sees the past. There is no other way for the God of foreknowledge to act. And then Paul quotes from the Old Testament, for Election was old in the days of Moses,—For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
Paul comments on this,—So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth but of God that showeth mercy. For the scripture with unto Pharaoh,—Even for this purpose have I raised thee up, that I might show my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy sad whom he will he hardeneth. Do you believe that God hardens men as he hardened Pharaoh? Do you believe that God has mercy on whom he will have mercy? Do you believe that God hardens whom he will?
If you believe these things, you believe in Election. If you do not believe these things, you do not believe in Election.
Paul concludes by applying these truths to our own day,—"And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy which he had afore prepared unto glory. Even us whom he hath called not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?"
Paul was a Hebrew of the Hebrews; and could have wished himself accursed for his brethren’s sake: from a heart of love he teaches of Election as applied to Israel "What then? Israel hath not obtained that for which he seeketh; but the Election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded according as it is written God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear; unto this day." (Rom. 11:1-10)
We have heard Gentile Christians blamed for Israel’s condition; but the Bible says that an Elect remnant has obtained salvation by grace and that God hath blinded the rest.
ELECTION AND THE NEW BIRTH
Few Bible teachers deny that ye must be born again but the subject is mired down in soft and mushy thinking as to the condition or cause of the new birth. The idea seems to prevail that a man decides to be born again: or that he believes himself into the new birth. Men who believe Jesus when he said, "No man can come unto me except it were given unto him of my Father:" or who believe Paul, "Not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy;" (Rom. 9:16) will not have any trouble in understanding the new birth, "Which were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." (John 1:13) No one need lose any sleep over John 3:16 upsetting Election. Paul says that the preaching of Christ crucified is a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Greeks but unto them that are called, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Those words, "unto them that are called," explain why John 3:16 means so much to some people and so little to others. "Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again."