Election is an integral part of the gospel when we begin to grasp what it means we will begin to grasp just how great is the grace of God that saves us. Far from being a subject for contentious argument it becomes a motor driving:

a. Worship

b. Assurance/security

c. Holy living/holiness

When this aspect of the Bible’s teaching is properly understood it makes Christians:

i. Humble

ii. Confident

iii. Joyful

iv. Active

However if this doctrine is twisted and deformed it can lead to totally inappropriate attitudes in Christians such as:

1. Pride

2. Presumption

3. Complacency

4. Laziness

Bible truth is there for us to grasp and understand – we must not allow wrong interpretations to rob us of the comfort and encouragement of some of the strong meat of the Word.

We’re looking at some of the words that are used in the Scriptures to describe the Christian. We’re doing this so we can appreciate the blessings we have in belonging to Jesus Christ. This morning we’re taking a quick look at the words “elect” or “chosen” and related words. May the Lord Himself make His word to enter our hearts that we might have greater light! We must be careful not to approach this subject with a mere idle curiosity when Paul raises the subject (and it’s Paul who deals most with this subject) he does so to help the believer appreciate the greatness of God’s grace and to encourage appropriate responses in life and worship! Eg. Eph.1:1-14; Rom.8:28ff; 1Cor.1:26-31; 2Tim.1:9-10.

Now while I’ve begun by stating election to be an integral part of the gospel that does not mean that it is a truth with which we begin in speaking to friends who have no knowledge of Christ. However a clearer understanding of election will greatly help us.

Election (or choosing) simply expresses the idea of selection – some are taken from a number of alternatives.

Election of grace: The Divine choice of sinners for a preordained destiny is presented to us as an act of grace – the unmerited and undeserved favour of God. All merit is excluded when we speak of grace – and that means both past and future merit! Cf. Rom.11:6 “But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.”

God owes nothing to sinful men and women, boys and girls, who have forfeited any claim they might have upon Him by their sinful rebellion against Him. Nevertheless God freely chooses to save some and does all that is necessary to secure them in the Saviour of the World, even His Son, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

That means for us this morning that if we are Christians at bottom it is because He chose us! That doesn’t mean in the slightest that our responses are unimportant – no WE must repent of our sin, WE must call upon the Lord placing OUR faith and trust in Him only for our salvation. However if we trace back to the beginning just why we have done this the only answer that the Scripture gives us is that He choose us. And we really can get no further than that – the only answer as to why He choose is us that was His purpose or good pleasure to do so!

Natural man doesn’t like such ideas because man likes to imagine that he is the one who sits of the throne and rules but in the Bible it is the Lord God Almighty who reigns and He reigns over all!

Eph.1:7-12 “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.”

It is inappropriate for us to seek to go any further than this trying as it were to get behind God’s sovereign purpose to find out some other reason – no the appropriate thing for us to do is to stop and WORSHIP.

The fact that God chooses or elects is declared clearly in both the OT and the NT.

In the OT election was usually to a position of privilege and opportunity. The NT takes this further and election is not simply to privilege and opportunity but to salvation and eternal life.

Let’s look more closely at this.

1. Abraham and his descendants were chosen by the Lord God. When the Lord was about to destroy Sodom because of it’s wickedness he decides to explain His intentions to Abraham and the reason for this is given in Gen.18:19 “For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice, so that the LORD may bring to Abraham what he has promised him.”

Now by no means all of the descendants of Abraham were saved but they certainly had great privileges in receiving the instructions of the Lord.

Moses reasoned with the people in Deut. 4:37 concerning how they should live – they were chosen because of God’s love for them: in ch.7:6-8 the reasons given for the choice of this particular people is attributed uniquely to the love of God – their personal qualities are deliberately excluded: “For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.”

They were chosen not because of particular value but in order to become a people of particular value – his treasured possession (cf.Deut.14:2)

Great indeed were the privileges of ethic Israel – God made Himself known to this people, giving them His laws, instructing them about Himself, sending them His prophets and sending through this people the Messiah, His own Son. However with all these privileges and opportunities which the interventions of God afforded them by no means all the people believed and were saved. As the OT progresses the idea of a remnant people emerges more and more clearly – an Israel of Israel.

2. We notice too in the OT how the Lord elected certain people and certain groups of people to particular offices. Kings and priests are specifically mentioned in this respect. He chose the Levites to serve Him in the exercise of the priesthood – none could respond that this wasn’t fair and none could volunteer or take upon themselves priestly functions. When others who were unauthorised acted in this way the Scriptures make it very clear that the Lord disapproved. Cf. for example the sins of Jeroboam as he led the northern tribes into revolt – he not only set up idols in Dan and Beersheba for the people to worship but he integrated into his priesthood non-Levites 1Ki.12:31 “He also made temples on high places and appointed priests from among all the people, who were not of the Levites.” The Lord’s disapproval and judgment fell even on those whom He had chosen for other roles: eg. Saul – chosen to be King 1Sam.10:24 “And Samuel said to all the people, “Do you see him whom the LORD has chosen? There is none like him among all the people.” And all the people shouted, “Long live the king!” Yet this man when he offers sacrifices he learns that the Kingdom will be taken from his descendants because he has disobeyed the Lord.

King Uzziah reigned a long time (52 years) and prospered as long as he paid careful attention to the Lord. However he became proud and offered sacrifices despite the warnings he received from the priests around him – struck down with leprosy for the rest of his days with all the stigma and exclusion that accompanied this disease. (2Chr.26)

3. In the NT the idea of choice and election is clearly found:

1) Firstly Jesus Christ is described as being God’s chosen servant with the task of accomplishing the salvation of His people.

2) Jesus specifically states that He has chosen His disciples

Jn.13:18 “I am not speaking of all of you; I know whom I have chosen.”

Jn.15:16;19 “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you… If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”

Cf. also Jn.6:39 “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.”

Jn.17: 11-12; 24 “And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.

“Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.”

Then further in the NT Paul describes Christians as being “chosen ones”

Eph.1:4 “even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world,”

Col.3:12-13 “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.”

2Tim.1:8-9 “Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began,”

Peter uses similar language: 1Pe.1:1-2 “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To the pilgrims of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace be multiplied.”

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