And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience– among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ–by grace you have been saved– and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:1-10)
Now we get to the most amazing and breath-taking part of this passage and the most awesome part of what it means to a child of God. The first part of this passage is all about our deadness and speaks of our inability to find salvation and the fact that in our natural state we cannot and would not even choose God since we loved our sin too much. In the middle of all this talk about our inability we are told that God, because He is merciful and because of his great love, calls some out of their deadness and makes them alive! They do not choose God, God chooses them and makes them alive!! Let the reader beware that Paul is talking to the church here and not to mankind in general.
“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.” (Ephesians 1:3-6)
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3)
In the acronym TULIP, this would be the “U” which stands for “Unconditional Election.” We do nothing to make ourselves alive, God does the whole work of salvation in the hearts of those that he elects. Jesus is the “founder and perfecter (completer) of our faith” it all begins with God through Christ Jesus and it is perfected (completed) through Jesus Christ! That is the heart of the message of the Gospel; God chooses us, we don’t choose Him, and if He chooses us, He will sustain and preserve us (more on that later). Why should this be so hard to grasp? Didn’t God choose Abraham out of all the pagan idol worshippers of his time? He chose one man in which to bless and told him:
“And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:2-3)
Didn’t God choose Isaac over firstborn Ishmael; Jacob over Esau; Joseph over his brothers? God has been choosing from the very beginning, why should we believe that He doesn’t choose today? All throughout the history of the world there have been God’s covenant people and those that God allows to stay in their sin and idolatry.
I think that the main reason that people have difficulty believing in the Doctrine of Predestination and Election is that man, in his pride, does not want God to have sovereignty over his (man’s) life. We want to believe that we are in control and that God responds to our sovereignty, thus making God our servant. I once heard a Pastor say “We don’t know how many women God had to ask to bear the Son of God before Mary said ‘yes’”!! Well, that is the most man-centered thing that I have heard; the God of the universe is not up for election; His plans are not thwarted by His minuscule and puny creations!! God only had to “Call” upon one woman to bear the Son of God because when God does the choosing it is an effectual calling and His purposes will come to pass according to God’s glorious will!!
In the next section I will elaborate further on this issue of Unconditional Election by exploring what Paul had to say in defense of God’s sovereignty.
Tags: Bible, Calvinism, Christianity, Election, God, Gospel, Jesus, Predestination, Religion
