Subject: What does Bible teach on election? |
Bible Note: Hi, You said: “I do believe your interpretation of Divine Predestination. I guess where I disagree is interpretation of Election. In the verse you listed (2 Thessalonians 2:13), I interpret this as follows: Paul is writing to a group of believers and when he refers to "God has chosen (elected) you from the beginning for salvation", he's not telling them that they are special because God had pre-chosen them individually, but God had made a provision for them to be saved and they are special (the "Elect" or in today's terms "the born-again" or "believers") because they accepted God's gift and chose to follow Christ.” My comments: You may wish to consider Acts 13:48 which “puts the horse before the cart and in doing so, totally reverses your idea that Election is the * result * or the effect of faith. Acts 13:48 - “And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.” Note the order in Acts 13:48n. It does NOT say “ . . . as many as believed were ordained to eternal life.” Instead, what Acts 13:48b DOES say is: “ . . . as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.” Thus believing on Christ unto salvation is the Effect – not the Cause – of God’s Election and Pre-destination. Christ’s statement in Gospel of John 10:26 is also very relevant to this issue because Christ Himself in His full Divine authority, makes it very clear that Faith and thus salvation is the effect of God’s Election, not the cause, as you’ve incorrectly assumed. Gospel of John 10:26 - “But you do not believe, because you are not of my sheep, as I said to you.” The Bible teaches that the good news that Salvation in all of its aspects, is always entirely by God’s grace. To put it another way, whether we know it or not and whether we accept it or not, we are always dependent upon God at every step. Personally, I wouldn’t want it any other way because although I know that GOD is always infinitely worthy of trust and altogether reliable in every way, I myself am not. So I'm most grateful that my salvation always depends, not on me, but only on Him; i.e. on GOD through Jesus Christ. The bad news is that if our salvation depended on us, then we’d all end up in Hell. Even though we may disagree, I'm willing to talk this topic through with you on a friendly basis if you wish. Michael |