Understanding and Appreciating Election and Predestination
We
should by now be seeing why it must be true of necessity that God works all
things together for good to them who love Him, and who are “the called.” And the answer is provided in the great statement
at the end of verse 28 that says “according to His purpose.”
God’s
purpose will be fulfilled to the “called”, because we are “called according to
His purpose.” God’s purpose is going
to be fulfilled. There are times I might
not love the Lord as I should, forbid that I do. But all things must work
together for me because I love God and I love God because I am “called” of God,
and because I am included in God’s purpose of salvation.
THE
DOCTRINE of FINAL PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS.
While
this is true, we do have security in our hope of everlasting life with Christ
in Heaven, it’s not of itself the `main reason for our salvation’. We must also say that to say “all things work
out for our good” is not the primary reason for our thinking. It is God’s purpose and our good, and anything
that comes to us, is nothing but a part of the carrying out of that great
purpose of God.
The
guarantee that all things work together for our good, lies in the fact that it
is all a part of God’s great purpose with respect to us.
The assurance of our
salvation rests in the fact that it’s a part of the purpose of God.
THE
DOCTRINE OF ELECTION IS NOT FOR THE UNBELIEVER
Look, the doctrine of
election is for the children of God and for their comfort, it’s not for others.
The
Bible itself is for Christians, the
children of God. Look -- the unbeliever is not going to understand the Bible,
you know. They cannot understand the Bible unless they are born-again, the way
God wants them to understand Him.
THE
RIGHT APPROACH TO THE DOCTRINE OF ELECTION
Here is the right approach to this doctrine set before us:
You are going to find in them the greatest urge and desire to holiness
and sanctification.. If your belief of
these doctrines have not driven you to holiness, you are in a dangerous
condition.
Lloyd
Jones continues:
The
man whose interest is purely philosophical and whose life is not turned towards
godliness, is a believer in philosophic determinism, not the truth of God.” He
continues “That is counterfeit, and entirely spurious.” He says also “If you are filled with a spirit
of militant partisanship, again you are probably arguing philosophically.”
I
have learned that this being the truth of God, always humbles, without a doubt,
because it is the highest, it is the most humbling of all truths.
The
higher the truth the more it should humble us; the more glorious the truth, the
more ought we to be amazed and astonished at it.
THE
QUESTION TO BE ASKED: WHAT IS YOUR REACTION TO THESE TRUTHS?
Is
it a slogan that you wave on a banner?
Are
you waiting patiently for a discussion of election and predestination? If so,
beware? We are at the foot of a very
holy mountain, and if you imagine that you can run up this mountain you are
deceiving yourself.
Can
I say that this doctrine is not for argument or a banner, it’s pastoral; it is
comfort for the children of God, for believers faced with trials and
tribulations, who do not know what to pray for as they ought.
Now
as we have and are looking at these verses one step at a time, we must not
forget they are part of a whole theme and must never be isolated alone. We need
to see this doctrine in their setting.
The
terms “all things,” “predestinate,” “called,” “justified,” and glorified”
should always be seen as a whole.
As
you take the whole doctrine in its setting, take every particular statement in
its complete surroundings.
They are but individual links in
a chain and they can only be understood in their relationship to other links
and to the whole chain.
THE KEY OF
UNDERSTANDING THIS TRUTH OF ROMANS 8:28-30
The
way to move toward it is to ask the question, why did Paul add verse 29 and 30
after saying, “We know that all things work together for good to them that love
God, to them who are the called according to His purpose”? That is a complete statement in and of
itself; why did Paul add this exposition, this explanation which we have in
verses 29 and 30?
As
I have already said, vs. 28 is not merely intended to give us comfort in
trouble, but to give us the ultimate comfort of knowing that our final
salvation is sure, and that everything that happens to us is but a part of that
salvation.
As
each step of our salvation is ‘predetermined’ and already sure – that is what
Paul is saying – we can be sure that ‘God is overruling everything for our
good’.
HERE
IS THE POINT: If we are in God’s plan and purpose, then nothing can be against
us, as we see Paul saying in the last verses of this chapter.
WHICH IS BIGGER IN LENGTH, THE UNIVERSE OR THE BRAIN IF LAID OUT STRAIGHT GOD’S CREATION DAY FOUR GENESIS 1:14-19 CHARLES E. WHISNANT RIVE...