Thoughts on Christian Election

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(1) Ephesians 1:4 “just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love”

(2) Ephesians 1:8 “also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will,”

I’m currently engaged in bible study on the book of Romans. The subject of election came up and the question arose that if God predestines those who will come to saving knowledge of Christ, why is there a need to evangelize? I mean if Christians do believe that God is sovereign over all then there really should not be a need for us to preach the gospel, is there?

This view is known as Hyper-Calvinism and the view in my opinion is unbiblical and I will work to expound why I think this is so.

I. As our two introductory verses show, God does predestine and elect his saints to salvation to a saving knowledge of his Son. This by implication means that he chooses some and passes over others. The Apostle Paul shows the folly of this view in Romans 10:14:

“How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?”

The fact of the matter is that even the elect in the visible church do not know who the elect are or will be. Sure there may be some strong evidences in the fruit that believers do and should produce, but only the Holy, Immutable will of God knows who in the end who will be elected.

II. God uses the means of human beings preaching the Gospel to other human beings to bring the elect into the sheepfold. I strongly this is why Paul warns about tolerating any other gospel than the one preached as he warned the Galatians who were already backsliding:

Galatians 1:8: “But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed!”

So in this verse we see a grave warning even to the situation with the gospel in America in the 21st century; To pervert the gospel of Christ in anyway is to join ranks with the devil to undermine and scatter the sowing of Christ into the hearts of men, woman, and children. To do this to bring the wrath of God down upon the souls engaged in a most abhorrent procedure.

Let the christian reader beware and guard the gospel of Christ with great care.