Doctrine of election and its application to biblical studies - Essay Example

Table of Contents Page Thesis ment………………………………………………………………………………2 …………………………………………………………………………………….2 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………...3 Origin and Historical development of the doctrine of election………………………………..4 Nature of the doctrine of election……………………………………………………………...6 Biblical defense of doctrine of election and its application to biblical studies………………..9 Opposition to the doctrine of election…………………………………………………………12 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………..13 Works Cited……………………………………………………………………………………15 Thesis Statement The doctrine of election is a critical aspect in theology as it plays a vital role in the lives of many Christians. This doctrine has overwhelming biblical support and has extensive application in biblical studies. Abstract The doctrine of election is has been one of the most debated doctrines in theology. Those who support the doctrine, and who are the majority, claim that God predestined the fate of all humans. In this context, election means that from the beginning, God selected some people out of his sovereignty for salvation. On the other hand, opponents of the doctrine claim that there is no way that God can select or choose some individuals at the expense of others. They deem that is the doctrine of election was true, then there should no be evangelism and that God could not have wasted his time creating the individuals he did not select. However, there is considerable evidence in the scriptures that God has his chosen people both in the Old and New Testament. The doctrine of election rests in the premise that man does not have power to choose his fate, but God has the sovereign authority to predestine the fate of man. This paper will discuss in detail the doctrine of election. It will provide a historical overview of the doctrine, tracing its origin. It will also discuss the nature of the doctrine in terms of its validity, uniqueness and distinguishing features. In addition, this paper will seek to analyze the biblical defense of the doctrine and discuss its application in biblical studies. Finally, the paper will analyze some opposition to the doctrine and provide a conclusion based on the findings. Introduction The doctrine of election depicts that God singled certain persons in his mind from both angles and men and ordained them into the eternal life and blessedness. Prior to creating them, he decided their destiny just as a builder plans and determines every part of the building before laying the building materials for performing his design. Therefore, election may be the part of advice of God where He did it from all perpetuity purpose in Himself to show His grace upon His creatures. A definite decree about the creatures made the election effective (Pink, 2). The largest podium for discussions in the Christian community is the doctrine of unconditional election. Most opponents of the doctrine of election deem that God bestows the choice of each person’s salvation upon himself or herself. They assert that people are the one to choose whether they will believe in God or not. This means that the person has to decide upon his life and it applies even in the modern society. In support on the doctrine of election, Piper counters that God chooses whom to save, which is the meaning of election. He claims that man is dead in sins and therefore, no condition where man has to meet with God before He chooses to save him from his sinful actions (1). God chose some individuals before the foundation of the world. Such chosen people acquired their redemption at the cross and God fastens them with overwhelming grace that makes them to believe in Him (Trenery, 2). The divine election happens to be the source of every Christian’s salvation. The doctrine asserts that God elected us through Christ. In the evangelical churches, the word Christ is sometimes avoided since they argue that if God elected some then he chose not to elect others by logical implications. This means that God left some people to perish in their evil doings with his full knowledge. Since most of the Christians assume that such a view is unfair, they reverse this passage and teach that God chooses men who first choose Him (Schwertley, 5). God's action of saving specific people makes him to have a responsibility to save every person as well. Man, not God, should perform the aspects of salvation and this is according to the teachings of the doctrine of election. This means that God only saves and it is the duty of the man to sustain his salvation (Trenery, 3). According to the doctrine of election, the will of God is the beginning of decree. This happens to come from God’s sovereign determination. God’s will is the only absolute cause while determining the fate of His creatures. Since there is nothing beyond God to rule Him, there is nothing outside of Him, which can be in any wise or impetuous to cause Him to act in a certain way. God is much high above us, for not only are we subject to One above us, but external causes constantly moves our wills and disposes them. The will of God have no cause outside of itself, or if so, there would be something before itself and something excellent. Therefore, God would not be the independent Being, which He is now (Pink, 2). Origin and Historical Overview of the Doctrine of Election In Romans 9-11, the Pauline ideas mainly governs the development of the doctrine of election and predestination in Christian divinity by the open debate of the theme, than by the short but rich statement of God’s purpose of election in Romans 8:28-30. However, Paul taught about God’s plan of salvation in his actions in history, the plan that relate to Jesus Christ. The interest of later divinity moved primarily instead to the question of the elect individuals also mentioned in this association (Pannenberg, 439). The origin of the doctrine of election can date back to the days of creation. In this case, God created human beings and angels amongst all other creations and singled them out for a special purpose. In addition, God also singled out the man Jesus Christ amongst all humans and angels and appointed him as the second being in the trinity. This portrays that the idea of election was in the mind of God from the beginning. This was actually the highest and the original act of election by God. This election is very amazing and is full of the grace and love of God. This election was also amazing due to the fact that God predestined and selected the woman who was to bear Jesus Christ, also predestined by God. In the continuation of his divine election, God also predestined and elected the line of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob amongst the seeds of Adam. In addition, God selected the tribe of Judah amongst all the twelve tribes accruing from Jacob (Pink, 3). God also chose the man Christ Jesus unto the highest union and communion with God himself. Through Jesus, the love and grace of God shone forth in their superlative glory. The son of God, Jesus, offered subsistence and personality to his human nature in order to prove to people that the son of God and his human nature are not one flesh as it applies to man and wife, neither one spirit but one person. This creature advances to a union in the blessed Trinity and thus, to Him, God communicates himself without measure. This means that God used his Son Jesus as his chosen one to communicate His message to his people (Pink, 3). In Christian Gnosticism, the individualistic push of the doctrine of election played a significant role in its alien Hellenizing form. Paul tried to explain the distinction between the Sarkics’ and the Psychics and of the Pneumatics who gave the thought of election an ontological turn. In opposition, the Gnostic Fathers stressed the free decision of the will of the person as the derivation of the dissimilarity between the elect and the reprobate. This approach led to the systematic development and the structuring of the concepts of election, foreordination, calling and validation in Origen’s Romans comments (Pannenberg, 439). Origen defined election as an action of divine foreknowledge. God foresees our future conducts and behaviors and sets us according to the way of salvation or the path to perdition. Therefore, the predestination of the elect, as God’s love and care guides them to and on the way, rests on his knowledge of their future free decisions. On the contrary, Augustine took election to be an action of the will of God before any prevision of the future conduct of his creatures. He declared that the purpose of predestination is itself the basis of the electing of some out of the mass of the lost (Pannenberg, 440). The Nature of the Doctrine of Election It is evident that no person or situation can change the choice of God. Our God foreknows and He does not decree. He foreknows because He has already fixed it. This does not mean that if He foreknows, He guesses. Election, which is an action of God, is irreversible and unchanged. He makes it forever and He does it in a special way of grace. Men may choose some persons to be their friends but after sometimes they may alter their minds but this does not apply to God. God is of one mind and no one can change him; his objectives according to the election are firm, unchangeable, and sure (Pink, 6). Some individuals believe that it would be fair if God left all men in their evil doings and show mercy on none. According to the bible, God was under no obligation in providing salvation to anyone. This background in the Bible provides the doctrine of election. It was out of this depravity that God decided to choose some among them to show mercy, not that He chose them prior to creation of the world knowing that they would have chosen him. Man would not have sought God for forgiveness if God had not interjected or shown His mercy, grace and favor to some. This can be portrayed in the episode of Noah and the flood where God chose eight people to save from His anger and wrath as the rest of the world perished and died due to the floods. This means that God is a God of mercy and He is also quick to anger and He can punish His people due to their evil deeds (Hollander, 16). God does not rely on anyone to make a choice for Him and has nothing to do with anything outside Him. The predicted faith of those who would choose Christ has nothing to do with His decision. Additionally, the actions of man does not change His decision since man is dead in his evil actions and is not capable of choosing things spiritually. Therefore, God must take the initiative in saving people for him. This is what He does when He chooses people in Christ. The ground of election is not the will or choice of men who are spiritually dead and unable to believe in Christ, but it is God’s sovereign will. This means that it is the will of God to save His creatures and it does not depend on the will of men who are spiritually weak (Schwertley, 9). Hollander adds that God would have chosen to save all men from their sins or He would have chosen to save none, but He did neither of the two. Instead, God decided to save some and execute others from salvation. Predictable act or response on the part of those selected had nothing to do with His eternal choice of particular sinners unto salvation, but His own good pleasure and sovereign made Him to do so. Therefore, election occurred due to God’s self-determined aim and not anything that men could do. This means that not even the actions of men would convince God to change His decisions. God elected people according to His will but not according to the will of men (17). Elected persons happen to unite with the Savior who is the federal head and representative. Therefore, the elected people receive everything valued for them by their mediator. They receive the Holy Spirit, justification, perseverance, glorification and definitive sanctification. Therefore, faith in Jesus is not the eventual ground of our centralized union with Christ, but rather, our faith in the Savior is eventually embedded in our federal union with Christ (Schwertley, 6). This means that those that God elects or chooses has a destiny with Christ and shares in his suffering and grace. Election does not save anyone but it is part of the salvation process. Elections do mark out those persons that God wishes to save. God brings some of the individuals elected to the point of salvation. The main part of God’s salvation plan was not in the choosing of the vessels of mercy, but in choosing, what the Lamb would slaughter as validation and propitiation for these people, and the choosing before the creation of the world (Hollander, 19). By nature, all men are in a state of culpability and immorality from which they are incapable of saving themselves and have no claim on whatever God delivers. This means that if salvation occurs to any then God must choose out those who shall represent and symbolize His grace. His love for fallen men articulated itself in the choice of a countless mass of them for salvation, in the provision of a savior, who acted as their federal head and envoy, removed their guilt, paid their iniquity and offered them their salvation (Boettner, 27). The doctrine of election also deems that for those whom God did not select, he gave them the freewill to choose the destinies of their lives. It is not logical for the creature to have authority to question God for not choosing some of His creatures to salvation. It is enough to know and understand that the Judge of Heaven and Earth, who is the Creator, has done right. However, individuals should know that if God had not graciously chosen people for Himself and determined to offer salvation to them and apply it to them; none of the individuals would be ready to get salvation. This implies that the issue of God selecting people and predestining them for eternity makes such people to accept salvation since it is the grace of God (Hollander, 18). Apart from the common election of individuals to life, there exists national election, or a divine predestination of nations and communities to knowledge of true religion and to the external privileges of the Gospel. God chooses some countries to receive more spiritual and moral blessings than other nations. This kind of election occurred in the Jewish countries, in certain parts of European communities and nations and in America. The originality of this form of election accrues from the Bible, where God predestined and chose the nation if Israel for his own glory (Boettner, 13). Biblical defense of the doctrine of Election and its application to biblical studies Election seems to be a vital theme in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, there is the choice of Abraham and His decedents that in Him the nations of the world would receive blessings. In addition, there is also the choice of Israel, which is in Exodus 3:6-10 and Deuteronomy6:21-23 consequently. The Israel nation was a chosen and predestined nation by God as a nation that He would reveal all His plans and His will. Through this nation, God would exhibit and assert His aims and salvation. In addition, God made choices within the chosen nation for instance Aaron and David for special roles and functions (Hollander, 6). Regarding the nation of Israel the Bible records, "The Lord your God has chosen you to be a special people unto Himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth" (Deut. 7:6). These scriptures make it clear that Israel was the favored nation with the elected people of God. We do not have the right to question God as to why He chose Israelites or what His purpose in choosing them was, but we notice only the bare fact itself (Pink, 4). In order to accentuate God’s dominion over salvation, Paul chose the twin brothers, Jacob and Esau as a case study in divine election. Paul sets out to show that election to salvation flows solely from Gods will and aim and that one’s parentage, bloodline, actions, upbringing, or human choice does not contribute to election. Jacob and Esau were twins and they were born in only minutes apart. According to Paul, God chose one to salvation, who was Jacob, and the other, who was Esau to reprobation. God selected them to their different fates prior to their birth, before any of them committed good or evil (Schwertley, 46). According to this, we note the sovereign choice of Jacob and not of Esau prior to their birth and before both had done either good or bad (Boettner, 7). According to the scriptures of the New Testament, Jesus happens to be the elect one. In Luke 9:35, the election of Israel and of the church of God of the new covenant base their meaning. Jesus was the elect cornerstone of the building of God, which included both the Jewish and the Gentiles followers and believers. This is according to the scripture in 1 Peter 2:4-6. According to Ephesians 1:5, God ordained us in love to be His sons via Jesus Christ. Therefore, the church of God is an elect race. God’s election is not a cause of conjecture or controversy, but rather to commemorate the free grace of God that gives salvation and to move believers to constant worship and lives of holiness and goodness (Hollander, 7). According to Ephesians 1:4, which addresses the believers, we note that God chose us in Christ prior to the foundation of the world. This means that even before the creation of the world, God had already chosen in His own freedom and wisdom certain people in Christ. Verse six of the same chapter states that we are "chosen in Christ according to the good pleasure of His will, and to the praise of the glory of his grace." In the first chapter of Ephesians, teachings of the doctrine of elections are clear. In addition, since God had already chosen us before the foundation of the world, He did not base His choice on the things we did but it was according to His will (Trenery, 4). Acts 13:48, shows how the Gentiles responded to the teaching of the gospel in Antioch. “And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of God; and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.” Before election of God, some believed while others did not believe (Piper, 3). Additionally, in the book of John chapter one verse 13, we note that being born of God does not depend on the will of man, but it depends on the will of God. This means that God elects people according to His will and not the will of man. Even though man may do god things in the eyes of God, He cannot elect him due to his good acts but He elects according to His will and does not depend on any one. In addition, Romans chapter 8 states, "And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified." According to this scripture, all the glory of salvation belongs to God (Trenery, 6). Jesus Christ asserted to His disciples in John 15:16, “You did not choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that ye should go and bear fruit,” Through this, He made God’s choice major and the choice of man secondary and a consequence of the previous. There is no place in the scriptures for an election, adjusted to the predictable deeds of the creature. The divine will is not dependent on the individuals will for its determination (Boettner, 9). Correspondingly, in John 10:26, Jesus says to the Jews, “You do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep.” This means that even before we take a step of believing in God, he already he selects and singles us out. In addition, we believe in God since we are God’s chosen sheep, not vice versa (Piper, 4). The issue of unconditional election also occurs in the New Testament. This majorly occurs in the book of Romans chapter nine. For instance, verses 11 and 12 he demonstrates the principle God used in the selection of Jacob over Esau. This means that the unconditional election by God occurs because the selection happens even before the selected persons are born. This implies that human beings do not have any power to control the selection of God since they are often unborn when the selection occurs (Piper, 5). In the same book of Romans, the Bible portrays that the selection of God occurred when were still sinners. This therefore implies that man cannot control God’s selection in whatsoever means. This occurs in (Romans. 5:8), which states that Christ died for use while we re still sinners. Here, the Bible portrays that God did not extend his love to us because we were good, rather, he revealed his love to us despite us being bad (Boettner, 10) It is very clear that the Bible demonstrates and supports the doctrine of election in an extensive manner. For all Christians who believe in the truthfulness of the Bible, they should believe and embrace the doctrine of selection as an aspect of the mind of God. Despite some opposition, it is evident that there is election as portrayed in the Bible (Boettner, 8). It is also evident from the scriptures that God predestines the salvation of sinners before the existence of the world. This brings out the implication that the selection of some sinners for salvation by God does not have any inconveniencies or failures. This is because, according to the doctrine of election, the salvation of such sinners is certain and guaranteed. Eventually, Christians do not receive salvation due to their deeds or choices they make but because God selects them (Schwertley, 7). Opposition to the doctrine of Election Despite the expounded biblical support on the doctrine of election, there is some opposition to the doctrine from some Christians. Such Christians argue that election does not occur due to the free will of God. They rather assert that election occurs due to God foreknowing the fate and life of persons. This implies that God knew every person that will receive salvation and consequently chose them before creating the world. This assertion by opponents of the election doctrine, supposes that God does not have control over his creation. This also means that the will and pleasure of God does not have control on the fate of individuals in relation to their salvation. In addition, those opposed to the actual doctrine of election alters this doctrine to mean that people chooses their fate under their own free will (Schwertley, 11). There is another major opposition to the doctrine of election in relation to the nature of God. In this case, some people argue that since God is love, there is no way that he can predestine some people for eternal condemnation and others to eternal salvation. In addition, this assertion claims that if the doctrine of election was true, then God could not have created some people. They claim that when God created human beings, he was happy with what he had done. This therefore implies that God cannot predestine eternal condemnation to people he was happy creating (Trenery, 7). Despite opposition, the doctrine of election is useful in the teaching of biblical studies. This is because it becomes a central or key aspect of biblical foundation of salvation. In biblical studies, the doctrine of election is useful in studying the will and purpose of God with his creation. It helps to evaluate and critically analyze the reasons that God chose on one man to redeem men from their sins. This doctrine also helps students in biblical studies to understand the reason as to why some people have received salvation while others have not received. Moreover, this doctrine helps in establishing and realizing the sovereignty of God. Conclusion The doctrine of election is among the most debated doctrine in theology today. It asserts that God has singled out some people in his creation and bestowed upon them unending grace and love. The sole purpose of this selection by God is for displaying his grace upon his creation. The origin of the doctrine of election mainly stems from Pauline ideas recorded in the books of Romans and Ephesians in the Holy Bible. The Bible highly supports the doctrine with evidence from both the Old and New Testaments. This means that without any doubt, the doctrine of election has justification and defense from the Bible. The nature of the doctrine asserts that God’s election is not changeable and it does not have any fault. This means that when God selects some individuals and destines them for eternity, no man can change that. However, despite the biblical defense of the doctrine of election, it receives some opposition from particular group of Christians. These groups assert that since the nature of God is love, He cannot therefore selectively predestine the fate of his creation. In addition, some assert that the issue of election does not occur due to the sovereign will of God but through the free will of individuals. Works Cited Boettner, Loraine. Unconditional election. 2008. Web. Hollander, Scott. The Doctrine of Election: Election must be choice flowing only from God's own initiative. 2007. Web. Pannenberg, Wolfhart. Systematic Theology. London: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2004. Print. Pink, Arthur W. The Doctrine of Election. 2011. Web. Piper, John. John Piper on the Doctrine of Election. 2010. Web. Schwertley, Brian. Chosen by God: The Doctrine of Unconditional Election. 2005. Web. Trenery, Collin D. The Doctrine of Unconditional Election Explained and Justified. 2010. Web. Read More