Project Description

2016/01

Chosen Not for Good

A simple search of words like ‘elect’ or ‘chosen’ in an appropriate programme will show you how prevalent the concept is in the Bible. One writer states: ‘No other doctrine has been so central in theology and so ignored in the pulpit.’  It is looked upon with fear and suspicion, a doctrine that might belong in a Bible college but not in the mind of the regular Christian.  

Such thinking doesn’t equate with an honest reading of the Scriptures. The Lord Himself spoke on the topic to His hearers: “For many are called, but few are chosen.” (Matthew 22:14)  Paul deals with the matter many times: “According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world” (Ephesians 1:4).

The issue at stake is not ‘if’ there is election, but rather ‘why?’  Why did God choose to save some out of humanity – all of whom deserved His wrath and condemnation?  In the simplest terms, the God of heaven chose to save some because He chose to save them.  Paul says it was out of God’s “good pleasure” (Ephesians 1:5). Christ revealed to us that it was because it was “good” in God’s sight (Matthew 11:26).  The election of sinners to salvation occurs before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4), before men did ‘good or evil’ (Romans 9:11), in the free and unconstrained will of God, and all for His glory (Ephesians 1:6, 11). In view of the depth of our sin and the evil of our rebellion, it is not a marvel that God chose some, but that He chose any!  

Some may wonder, ‘Am I elect?’ Paul shows us that this can be discerned.  Yet none knows his election until he responds to the Gospel, for Paul knew this of the Thessalonians only because the “gospel came not unto [them] in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance” (1Thessalonians 1:4-5).  Young person, it is not your duty to figure out if you are elect or not: your duty is to rwepent and believe the gospel.  Such faith arises in those chosen of God.  Our election is not earned.  God does not choose us because we were lovely but because He loved us.  In humility and gratitude, we sing with the hymn writer: “ ‘Tis not that I did choose Thee, For, Lord, that could not be; This heart would still refuse Thee, hadst Thou not chosen me.”

From the Young to the Old

How sweet and awful is the place
With Christ within the doors,
While everlasting love displays
The choicest of her stores.

While all our hearts and all our songs
Join to admire the feast,
Each of us cries, with thankful tongues,
“Lord, why was I a guest?”

“Why was I made to hear Thy voice,
And enter while there’s room,
When thousands make a wretched choice,
And rather starve than come?”

‘Twas the same love that spread the feast
That sweetly forced us in;
Else we had still refused to taste,
And perished in our sin.”
– Isaac Watts

Dr Stephen Pollock