Email exchange

In Sunday's sermon I spoke about the doctrine of election. It generated the following email exchange with one of the members of our church. If you did not hear Sunday's messages, Sunday morning and Sunday night, you may need to go to the website www.bbcva.org and listen in order to have context. I have removed certain parts of the email exchange that could give the identity of the person away. I think it is an example of how two brothers can be on different sides of an issue and have a God honoring discussion about it. I also wanted to put it here to help clarify my position. The sender of this email was unclear where I stood after listening to the sermons. I hope my responses to the emails at least clarifies where I stand whether you agree with my thoughts or not.

Pastor Reggie,

As far as Sunday's sermon I love that you will be doing verse by verse in 1 Peter. I certainly struggle with election and did not envy your efforts to define the ground between free will and predestination.  Heady stuff.  I ended the night still not quite sure where you plant your flag - although it is clear that you're not on either extreme.  Here are some of my thoughts on the doctrine of election; how does this align with your thinking?

a.       Definition: God’s decision to choose us to be saved which was made before the foundations of the world (Eph 1:4,5).  This act is compatible with all of His attributes and demonstrates His matchless grace (Eph 2:7,8) and displays His glory (Eph 1:6, 12, 14).  Considered the first step in the process of God bringing us to individual salvation and its cause lies completely in God and is grounded in His grace.  Election is necessary because man is totally depraved, hopelessly lost in sin, and so God makes election a prerequisite for faith and salvation and, thus, receives all of the glory for salvation.

b.      Election is unconditional – God chose us because He decided to bestow His love upon us, not because of any good, faith or merit on our part (Rom 9:16,18,22-24).  It is not a matter of fairness – God would be perfectly fair to save no one.

c.       God’s choice of people to salvation was made freely and for His own purposes before the foundation of the world (1 Cor. 1:27,28; Eph 1:4).  Election may assure that those chosen will be saved, but it does not alone save them. People are saved by faith in the substitutionary death of Christ on the cross.  Election is not based on foresight or foreknowledge.

d.       Reprobation – sometimes referred to as “double predestination” - a very difficult doctrine whereby the condemnation of sinners lies within themselves and is the sovereign decision of God, grounded in His justice (2 Thess. 2:13; 1 Peter 2:8; Jude 4; Rom 9:21-23).  The Bible does not present the idea of reprobation and God must not be accused of tempting with evil (James 1:13).  Some Christians follow Augustine’s teaching that God is only active in the salvation of the elect and He is passive with regard to the non-elect.  At the end of this difficult and challenging road, however, we must affirm that God’s sovereignty must reign over all of creation, and yet He is in no way culpable for evil or predestination to hell.

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My response:


Thanks for sharing your thoughts on election. I will try to clarify where I stand. I can not affirm most what you have shared with me, even though none of what you have shared would be a "test of fellowship" in my thinking. However, I will say that I am not a reformed theologian, and most of what you have shared is right out of the reformed theology hand book. Reformed theology sounds too close to the "double predestination" line for my taste. Points "a" and "d" seem to be in contradiction. As I said in the message, "Any theology that makes God responsible for sending someone to hell is a bad theology in my view." God deciding ahead of time who goes to heaven and who goes to hell, makes Him responsible for condemning someone to hell. The bible says that "whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16) Scripture also says that it is not God's will that any should perish but that all would get saved. (2 Peter 3:9) So it is not God's choice before the foundation of the earth that condemns them, it is their rejection of Christ that condemns them. If election is prerequisite to salvation, then there is no opportunity for salvation for those who are not "elect" in that sense, which seems contradictory to John 3:16. If God is responsible for condemning someone to hell because He did not "elect" them, that to me seems to contradict 2 Peter 3:9. So I look for a different definition of election. Election in scripture is presented as being tied up in foreknowledge: Romans 8:29  "For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren." God knows who will be saved ahead of time, and they are elect from God's point of view before the earth was formed, because He knew that they would choose Christ before the earth was ever formed. Anything less than that means man does not have a choice. I reject the notion that man is "totally depraved" and has no ability therefore to choose God. Joshua said, "Choose this day whom you will serve......as for me and my house we will serve the Lord." (Joshua 24). Peter called his listeners to faith and repentance in Acts 3 because He knew they had the ability to make a choice. He pleaded with them to repent and turn to God. Paul said, we "persuade men" in 2 Cor. 5:11 because he knew they had the ability to choose Christ.

Isaiah 56:3 Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the LORD say, "The LORD will surely separate me from His people." Nor let the eunuch say, "Behold, I am a dry tree." 4 For thus says the LORD, "To the eunuchs who keep My sabbaths, And choose what pleases Me, And hold fast My covenant, 5 To them I will give in My house and within My walls a memorial, And a name better than that of sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name which will not be cut off.

To me this passage helps illustrate the point I am trying to make. These people described were not part of the chosen people in Isaiah 56. They were foreigners who chose to join themselves to the Lord. They had the ability to choose to put their faith in, and to follow God. Their election was based on their choice to follow God, not a predetermination. The foreigner described here becomes part of the elect in the sense that God knew ahead of time that he would exercise his "free will" by choosing to "join himself to the Lord."

Agreed on one point.....it is a very difficult issue. And one that takes great maturity to engage without deteriorating into attacks.....and I hope and pray that nothing that I have said, even though I did refute some of your thoughts, is taken as an an attack. I love you and respect your perspective, even when it does not mirror my own.

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Response I received:

I just LOVE this kind of discussion and your email is a real blessing. However, the engineer in me always wants to figure "it" out.  I have learned that the more I move down that path, the longer the road gets... The pragmatist in me also screams that in light of eternity it doesn't really matter whether we understand it or not, just be obedient and get out and spread the Good News and God will do what God will do.

Your points are good and I find myself nodding as I read and wrestle with this.  But I can't leave just yet (smile) as I have 2 more thoughts/questions: if God's foreknowledge of who will choose Christ and who will reject Him is the basis for their election, does that not place salvation totally in human hands?  In that case, the omni-everything God acts based upon the actions of sinful man...  That makes me uncomfortable.

Second thought is more fundamental and has to do with the starting point - If all mankind deserves damnation then we'd agree, I suppose, that God would be Righteous and Holy and Just even if no one was saved.  Starting from that presupposition then, the free gift of salvation is based upon God's grace and mercy and He may, therefore, chose those whom he chooses.  After all, His will may be that none will perish but has He not chosen them to do so (or allowed them to) when He has the power to have all come to Christ?

I am not set in my ways or my thinking and I truly enjoy the discussion as it causes me to study, reflect and consider alternative views.  Thanks Pastor for the exchange.  And I have never looked at Isaiah 56 and so especially appreciate that perspective.
 

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My response: 

As I read your thoughts I love what you have to say "In that case, the omni-everything God acts based upon the actions of sinful man...That makes me uncomfortable." I must tell you brother that is a compelling notion. It is a breeze that sways me. And in the spirit of Agrippa's conversation with Paul in Acts 26 let me say, "Thou almost persuadest me"...but I have to say, it doesn't totally blow me over there. Let me see if I can articulate why. That line of thinking starts with a base line and works from that place. Here is the base line: if man makes a choice in the salvation equation, then that diminishes the sovereignty of God. For me, I see no conflict between God giving man a free will whereby he can choose God, and the concept of His sovereignty. In fact I would argue that He has such a comfort level with His own sovereignty, that He chose to create beings with free moral choice. They could choose to follow Him, they could choose to reject Him. For me, to limit man as simply acting out in a cosmic play, some script written in heaven before time began, seems to limit omni-everything God to an insecure control freak that is uncomfortable with any beings in the universe making choices other than Himself. That somehow seems to limit God to me. Actually, I think that giving humans the ability to choose or reject Him, strengthens the notion of His sovereignty as opposed to detracting from it.

You make the statement: "If God's foreknowledge of who will choose Christ and who will reject Him is the basis for their election, does that not place salvation totally in human hands?" I want to respond to that part of what you say. I do not see it that way. The fact that the Father wanted to redeem man kind is the basis for salvation / election. And yes God would have been totally Righteous, Just, and Holy if it had been His choice to redeem no one and cast us all into hell. But His desire was to redeem man. So He made a way. It is the Father's desire to save man, followed up by the sending of His only begotten Son, the sinless life, the substitutionary death, bodily resurrection of Christ....it is these things that that provide the basis for salvation. And that was all in God's hands. He did not have to do any of it. All you and I had to do to get saved was believe it. That is why the bible says "It is by grace we are saved". Grace is the Father's desire to save us, and the Son's obedience in allowing Himself to be the propitiation. So grace as displayed in these things provides the basis. Oh, there is more to that thought...it goes like this: "through faith. It is the gift of God not of works lest any man should boast." Eph 2:8-9. In this passage the bible teaches us that "faith" is that "through" which we are saved. There was God's part, that was "grace" because He did not have to allow a way, and then there is our part "faith". The spirit of the passage compares His part and our part, presenting the idea that a healthy understanding of salvation is going to always place way more emphasis in the equation on God's part than man's part. God did all the work, really. Man just simply believed that Jesus is who He says He is, and that He did the necessary work as our propitiation. That is why salvation is called a gift. All we really did to get saved was accept the gift. In this sense, believing, or exercising faith is not really a "work". The first century Jew would have the back drop of the law in his thinking, and following the law as a means to salvation. By comparison, having to follow the law to get saved with all its stringent requirements, or having faith in Jesus....having faith in Jesus as a means to salvation and not having to follow the law...now that is a gift.