The doctrines of Election and Predestination are firmly rooted in Scripture, revealing God’s sovereign will in the salvation of His people. Ephesians 1:4-5 declares, “For 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 to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will.” This passage affirms that salvation is not based on human merit but on God’s divine choice, made before the world began. Similarly, Romans 8:29-30 teaches that those whom God foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, calling, justifying, and glorifying them according to His purpose. These verses emphasize that God’s election is an act of grace, ensuring that His redemptive plan is carried out perfectly, demonstrating His sovereignty, mercy, and faithfulness.
The Doctrine of Election, Part 1
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The below are just some excerpts from the message:
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. ~ Isaiah 55:8 ESV
God has ways and thoughts that are to us incomprehensible, unresolvable, inscrutable.
But we cannot be wrestling with these things intellectually as if there is going to be some answer in our reason. We must come to the Word of God and we must look at what the scripture says to reveal the truth of this doctrine. We must not let this doctrine become the victim of our corrupted sinful minds and our self-centered and proud reasonings.
And so, like every other biblical truth, we simply open the Bible and submit ourselves to what it says. And because it’s painful doesn’t change anything. Hell is a very painful doctrine, that doesn’t change anything. And while it may be hard for us to grasp this, it may be to our feeble and sin-stained minds less than what we might think is fair, we set all of that aside and submit ourselves to the Word of God.
Now, there’s no way that you can conclude from that that this is an ambiguous idea, right? This is not in doubt in the Bible. And I’ve often said – because I’ve answered this question myriad times in my life. I have discussed it. I have debated it. I have done so privately and even publicly. And I have often said, if you believe the Bible, you believe in predestination. If you believe the Bible, you believe in God choosing who would be saved. If you believe the Bible, you believe that God determined who would be saved and determined that that salvation would reach its final conclusion when they are glorified in heaven. If you believe the Bible, you believe that God effectually calls those that he chooses and grants them faith. And yet with all that clarity, people still resist this doctrine.
It never says God created vessels prepared for destruction, that’s double predestination, and the Bible doesn’t teach that. It says he “endured with much patience vessels of wrath – ” passive “ – prepared for destruction.” Not that he prepared for destruction. God doesn’t go down the list of humans to come and say, “Okay, you go to heaven, and you go to hell, and you three go to hell, and you go to heaven, and you ten go to hell, you go to heaven.”
John Murray said many years ago that in every major doctrine of the Bible there is an apparent paradox. There is an unresolved paradox that is transcendent. And this means God is God and the fact that there are so many of those in the scripture means the scripture was not written by men. I know editors, they fix things like that.
But this is like foresight, about what people will do. Now the problem with this is how are these dead sinners going to resurrect themselves to do this unaided by God? You answer that question. How are those who are totally depraved, totally blind, totally dead going to come to the place where they make the decision for salvation? How they going to do that?
The Doctrine of Election, Part 2
Click Here for the Audio and Transcript
Therefore, in order for reason, and emotion, and will to function as God wants them to function, they cannot be left to themselves because they’re fallen. They must be brought under the authority of – what? – scripture. What is truly reasonable is not what seems reasonable to us. What is truly satisfying may not be what is satisfying to us. What is truly an expression of our will may not be what our fallen will most longs for.
The only way we’ll ever get an uncorrupted view of God is to go to an uncorrupted source. And what is that? It’s the Word of God. And so in every issue that relates to God, we go to scripture. And I do understand that the idea that God chooses people for salvation is a hard thing to accept. I do understand that it’s hard reasonably because we’re so concerned with what is fair by our understanding. And I do understand that it’s a difficult thing emotionally, and certainly with regard to the freedom of the human will.
But denying the doctrine of election or denying the doctrine of predestination doesn’t change anything, because if I say that you’re able to go to heaven based on your choice, not God’s, that you’re the determiner of your destiny, your eternal destiny, that this is up to you to do, God leaves it completely to you, the next question would be, “Does God know what you’ll do?”
And the answer to that question has to be yes, he does know what you are going to do because he knows everything. And because he already has a book from eternity in which the names of all the people who will believe are already written down, so God already knows, so the question is if he knew you weren’t going to believe, then why did he go and create you anyway? I mean, you really never escape the dilemma.
The Doctrine of Election, Part 3
Romans 8:29-30: “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son… And those whom he predestined he also called…”
Ephesians 1:4-5: “Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world… he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ…”
2 Thessalonians 2:13: “But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation…”
1 Peter 1:2: “Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit…”
Chosen for Eternity
https://www.gty.org/library/topical-series-library/189/chosen-for-eternity
Election and Predestination: The Sovereignty of God in Salvation
https://www.gty.org/library/articles/BRG-90-20/election-and-predestination-the-sovereignty-of-god-in-salvation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PMsS4HPmJY&list=PL61DE08FFB97992D0
John MacArthur Q&A:What is predestination?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnGyHlczAT4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZ9KhUMYL2w
“Word Pictures” series, produced by Cross TV and hosted by Mark Kielar
Does God Predestine Men to Hell?
(Double Predestination Explained Correctly)
Word Pictures
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PMsS4HPmJY&list=PL61DE08FFB97992D0
See Election2.doc in C:\Users\David\1 – Know the Bible
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL09130E87A76F8B1C
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