Elect – Chosen

    During childhood activities one important phase in team play was establishing sides or teams. The team leaders would alternately select (choose) players in an order that represented skills required to perform the game. Following this practice usually made teams more equal and insured a modicum of fairness. Had there been another procedure that arbitrarily gave one team first choice for all the players on that team and left the other team with "leftovers” the resulting inequality would have caused serious problems. We are taught that fairness and playing by the rules is the preferred way of life. When in the course of events, choices do not follow rules that promote logical equality, our sense of fairness is offended. The exception, of course, is acceptable when the resulting advantage is in our favor. Such is the case in decisions God makes. Some appear “unfair” despite God’s immeasurable love for us as manifested in His management of all things, the supreme example is salvation through Jesus.

    Of the more than 100 times the word “chosen” occurs in the NIV, nearly half refer to choices God makes at His discretion. Many choices were not dependent upon the chosen person’s merits but only by God’s preference. Many choices were contrary to established traditions or standards set by God himself.  The following are examples of God’s choices.

For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, His treasured possession. Deu 7:6

If the Lord had not cut short those days, no one would survive. But for the sake of the elect, whom he has chosen, He has shortened them. Mk 13:20

He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen-by us who ate and drank with Him after he rose from the dead. Acts 10:41

Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? Ro 6:33

In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of Him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will, in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of His glory. EPH 1:11,12

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To God's elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood: 1PE 1:1-2

And God made decisions in eternity past, a concept difficult for man to comprehend, and the decisions are all on man’s behalf. Notice that God’s decisions were made before man had occasion to obey or disobey God’s will. Man had no influence upon God’s decision (will).

He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. Through Him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God. 1 Pet 1:20-21

Religions of the world are centered on man’s effort to reach God, but Christianity is God reaching down to man. Man does not choose God, God chooses man. So what explains God’s authority to make choices that sometimes seem unfair, contrary to logic, or simply wrong in man’s view?

God is Sovereign

    “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” GE 1:1

    Scriptures begin by a factual statement and the reader’s regard for biblical integrity sets the stage for the entire writing. No effort is made to authenticate God or prove His attributes. That is left to God’s accomplishments recorded in the narrative that follows. Notes for the NIV Study make the following statement. “The book of Genesis is foundational to the understanding of the rest of the Bible. Its message is rich and complex, and listing its main elements gives a succinct outline of the Biblical message as a whole. It is supremely a book of relationships, highlighting those between God and nature, God and man, and man and man. It is thoroughly monotheistic, taking for granted that there is only one God worthy of the name and opposing the ideas that there are many gods (polytheism), that there is no god at all (atheism), or that everything is divine (pantheism). It clearly teaches that the one true God is sovereign over all that exists (i.e., his entire creation), and that by divine election he often exercises his unlimited freedom (one definition of sovereignty-my comment) to overturn human customs, traditions and plans. It introduces us to the way in which God initiates and makes covenants with his chosen people, pledging his love and faithfulness to them and calling them to promise theirs to him. It establishes sacrifice as the substitution of life for life (ch. 22). It gives us the first hint of God's provision for redemption from the forces of evil (compare 3:15 with Ro 16:17-20) and contains the oldest and most profound definition of faith (15:6). More than half of Heb 11--the NT roll of the faithful--refers to characters in Genesis.”

Scriptures only state that “God is sovereign” in Daniel.

"O king, the Most High God gave your father Nebuchadnezzar sovereignty and greatness and glory and splendor. Because of the high position he gave him, all the peoples and nations and men of every language dreaded and feared him. Those the king wanted to put to death, he put to death; those he wanted to spare, he spared; those he wanted to promote, he promoted; and those he wanted to humble, he humbled. But when his heart became arrogant and hardened with pride, he was deposed from his royal throne and stripped of his glory. He was driven away from people and given the mind of an animal; he lived with the wild donkeys and ate grass like cattle; and his body was drenched with the dew of heaven, until he acknowledged that the Most High God is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and sets over them anyone he wishes. DA 5:18-21

This passage also gives us an example or definition of sovereignty. God’s sovereignty is demonstrated from cover to cover in His word.

      When one searches scriptures to establish the basis for a doctrine it is difficult to ferret out relevant passages without bias or to include all pertinent verses that will permit balanced hermeneutics. A search of web sites that present most subjects on Christian doctrines have convincing arguments, depending upon your side of the argument, in favor of or critical of, the subject thesis. And these arguments are usually always based on scripture quotations and their interpretations. It is human nature for those espousing a cause or belief to err on the side that makes their case. This is an admission of the aforementioned on thoughts of God’s difficult, sometimes confusing, and seemingly conflicting displays of grace and provisions for His children. It is not in God’s providence for us to know or understand His limitless attributes. God uses Isaiah the prophet to explain:

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,"  declares the LORD.

"As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your
thoughts. ISA 55:8 & 9

       This being said, the reconciliation of man with God, the supreme concern for God and man, must be ever before the reader. Oswald Chambers says it like this: “The Christian servant must never forget that salvation is God’s idea, …Salvation is the great thought of God,….” And GRACE is the prologue and epilogue of any doctrine or consideration of God and His provisions for man. So criticism of conclusions may be a sinful violation of judgment as Paul explains regarding the value of man’s unique personal relationship with his maker in Romans 14. Paul addresses food is this passage, but the application is valid for many things except for adding to or deleting parts of God’s word.

       “Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters. One man's faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. The man who eats everything must not look down on him who does not, and the man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him. Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.  One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.

       For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God's judgment seat. It is written:

       " `As surely as I live,' says the Lord, `every knee will bow before me; every tongue will confess to God.' "

       So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God.

       Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother's way. As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced that no food is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean. If your brother is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy your brother for whom Christ died. Do not allow what you consider good to be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men. Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a man to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother to fall.  So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves. But the man who has doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin. RO 14:1-23

       Scripture clearly states that God knows the future (Matthew 6:8; Psalm 139:1-4) and controls all things at His unquestionable pleasure (Colossians 1:16-17; Daniel 4:35). God’s sovereignty is demonstrated from Genesis through The Revelation. For example, the law of primogeniture provided that, the younger of two sons would serve the older. But God's election of the younger son demonstrates the fact that God's sovereign management of people and not the product not of natural or worldly development is the order of men. Genesis shows that God selects a younger son rather that the firstborn (Seth over Cain, Jacob over Esau, Isaac over Ishmael). This is sovereignty and God answers to no one for any of His decisions. This is a little understood, seldom preached doctrine even though it is the underpinning of any theological understanding. Imagine how capricious, random happenstance, or evil life would be if sinful man was the determining factor in life events. The order, beauty, magnificence and perfection of creation screams in defiance of this notion.

      It may be that God’s sovereign intervention in man’s life does not give man’s ego control and hence he is subject to one other than himself. "C. H. Spurgeon says “I have known men bite and grind their teeth in rage when I have been preaching the sovereignty of God… The doctrinaires of today will allow a God, but He must not be a King: that is to say, they choose a god who is no god, and rather the servant than the ruler of men." (C.H. Spurgeon MTP 36:416)

It is fitting to consider the follow excerpt:

                                       Do You Rejoice In God's Sovereignty?

Horatius Bonar

    If I admit that God's Will regulates the great movements of the universe I must admit that it equally regulates the small. It must do this, for the great depend upon the small. The minutest movement of my will is regulated by the will of God. And in this I rejoice. Woe is me if it be not so. If I shrink from so unlimited control and guidance, it is plain that I dislike the idea of being wholly at the disposal of God. I am wishing to be in part at my own disposal. I am ambitious of regulating the lesser movements of my will, while I give up the greater to His control. And thus it comes out that I wish to be a god to myself. I do not like the thought of God having all the disposal of my destiny. If He gets His will, I am afraid that I shall not get mine. It comes out, moreover, that the God about whose love I was so fond of speaking, is a God to whom I cannot trust myself implicitly for eternity.

    Yes, this is the real truth. Man's dislike at God's sovereignty arises from his suspicion of God's heart. And yet the men in our day, who deny this absolute sovereignty, are the very men who profess to rejoice in the love of God, - who speak of that love as if there were nothing else in God but love. The more I understand of the character of God, as revealed in Scripture, the more shall I see that He must be sovereign, and the more shall I rejoice from my inmost heart that He is so.

    Cork Free Presbyterian Church, 10 Briarscourt (Annex) Shanakiel, Cork, Ireland Pastor: Colin Maxwell.  [Note: This is a non-Preterist ministry].

                  
As sovereign, God chose to love Jacob and hate Esau;

Our God is in heaven; he does whatever pleases him PS 115:3;

What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." RO 9:14; the pot is subject to the potter’s desires; “It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden. RO 9:16-18; and there are many more examples.

      Man’s very entry into life on this planet is described by Rick Warren in “The Purpose Driven Life” like this: