Chewing on the Truth Part 5

Part Four: The saved realizes that we are unconditionally elected by God

This whole idea of unconditonal, meaning that we didn't have a condition that had to be met to be saved is one with widespread controversy. As humans we can't seem to wrap our minds around the thoughts and ideas that the cross was only intended for the saved and even more that somehow we were chosen by God from before the foundation of time...I mean it must have been because He saw that we would choose Him right?? But think about it for a second, think about the pride in that statement...why were you good enough, or intelligent enough, or righteous enough to choose God on your own when the person next to you wasn't? If man is really dead in His sin and transgressions before a holy God then there is no life and therefore there cannot be any choosing to save oneself. Faith is not a condition for election rather election is a condition for faith. It is only by God's grace that you are awakened to new life and can exhibit faith; it is then that no man can boast and He alone receives all the glory.

I believe that the story of Esau and Jacob as repeated in Romans 9 is a great example of this unconditonal election; prior to their belief in anything, in fact prior to their birth God said, the elder will serve the younger and Jacob I have loved and Esau I have hated. In v 15-16 of Romans 9 we read that "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. So it depends not upon man's will or exertion but upon God's mercy". Many say this is not the God they believe in? But this is the God of the Bible, this is the Truth! It is humbling to say the least, but when you start to think of it...is this fair? No! In fact, if God were fair we would all be going to hell, that would be fair. It wasn't fair that He would give up His precious, perfect, only Son for you or for me, that wasn't fair...I am glad that we don't serve a fair God.

John Piper says, "God does not foreknow the free decisions of people to believe in him because there aren't any such free decisions to know. IF anyone comes to faith in Jesus, it is because they were quickened from the dead by the creative Spirit of God. So the foreknowledge of Romans 8:29 is not the mere awareness of something that will happen in the future apart from HIS predetermination. Rather it is the kind of knoweldge referred to in OT texts like Genesis 18:19 and Jeremiah 1:5. God really accomplishes the complete redemption of His peopel from start to finish. He foreknows, elects a people for himself before the foundation of the world, he predestines this people to be conformed to the image of His Son, He calls them to himself in faith, he justified them through that faith, and he finally glorifies them--and nothing can ever separate them from His love (Romans 8:39). And then to HIM ALONE be all the glory and praise!"