J.Q. Depoyster
Election
Reproduced from Twelve
Baskets of Fragments by
J.Q.Depoyster.
The type of election discussed in this work will primarily be
that election
which
means
the selection or choice
by
divine
sovereignty of certain
individuals to eternal life. More
than one type of election is
taught in the
scriptures,
but we
are especially
interested in that which pertains to us
as
individuals.
The meaning given
here is that God
did
select, or
choose, part of
the human race for
His own
peculiar possession. These chosen individuals
are
people
from every nation,
kindred,
tongue and people. Some people of every
nationality are
a part of God's
chosen people. God purposed to save every one of His chosen people. Election
is absolutely
God's
doing, and man has
nothing whatsoever to do
with
it.
This is one
election in
which men
do not vote. God
chose His people before He
ever
created
man, and even
before
He created the world.
Blessed
be the God and Father
of our
Lord Jesus Christ, who hath
blessed us with all
spiritual blessings in
heavenly
places in Christ:
According as he
hath chosen us in him
before the
foundation of the
world, that we should be holy and
without blame before
him
in love: Having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ
to
himself,
according to the good
pleasure of his will - Eph
1:3-5.
Nothing can be
found in
these passages to
indicate that
a sinner has
anything
at all to do with his
being chosen
of God. But the text
does prove without a
shadow of
doubt that God did
choose a people
for Himself from among the human
race.
According to 1 Peter 1:2,
God made
His choice
according
to
His
foreknowledge. In this time
world, all
of the elect of God will be called and
saved. None
except the elect will
ever be called and saved. Salvation of sinners is not according to a chance system.
There was a
definite number of the
human race of people
elected, or
chosen, and God has
promised to
save all of them with
an
everlasting salvation,
according to His
own purpose and
grace, which
was given us in
Christ Jesus before the
world
began
(2 Tim 1:9). His elect people were not saved
before the foundation of
the
world, except in the mind
and
purpose of God, but they
did receive this
grace, in
Christ,
before the world began.
But is now made manifest by
the
appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ who hath
abolished
death, and hath
brought life and
immortality to
light
through the gospel - 2 Tim
1:10.
When Jesus came
into the
world, the grace did
appear and was manifest. It is
the
purpose of the gospel to bring this life and
immortality
to light. It's
purpose is not to bring life
and
immortality, because Jesus did that. There are those who insist that man does his own electing by
accepting
Jesus Christ as his Saviour, and that God
wants to save
the whole human race
of people. If
God desires to
save
everybody,
then all will be
saved,
because
God does His
will. What He
desires to do, He
does. Job 23:13, But he is in
one
mind, and who can turn him?
and
what his soul
desireth,
even
that he
doeth. Again, He has
said in
Daniel 4:35, And all the inhabitants of
the earth
are reputed as nothing:
and he doeth according to his will in the
army of
heaven, and among the
inhabitants of the earth:
and none
can stay his
hand, or say unto
him, What doest
thou?
According to the above
scriptures, God does
His will and
none can hinder Him;
thus if He wills to
save
every human being and
does
not do
it, something has
hindered Him,
and
stayed His hand.
But, in the face of all this, some still insist that God is
pleading with
sinners, wanting to
save them - has a
desire to save
them - and they won't let
Him. Are
you satisfied to
worship a God who
can do only that
which men will
allow
Him to do,
even if it is His
desire and will
to do more? Are you willing
to worship a
God whose hands are tied, as some men tell
us, and can
do no more
unless He
has the
sinner's
consent? Yes, there are
those who teach
that God's
hands
are tied, but
those who really
believe that God is sovereign and does
all His pleasure do not believe
this. We believe that
God is
sovereign -
omnipotent and
supreme, and had
the
right to choose all of the human
race to
salvation, or
choose none
if it be His pleasure.
We are glad that He saw fit to choose some. He did not
predestinate all the
others to go to hell,
but He left them in their
sins,
and could have left all
in
their sins and still be a
just
God. He was obligated to
none. We do not
question
His
motive or His actions, because
we are the clay and He is
the
potter, and the Bible teaches that He chose a part
of
the human race and
predestinated
them to eternal
glory.
None were better than others -
all
were
under sin -
Wherefore, as by one man sin
entered into the world,
and death
by sin; and so death passed upon
all men, for
that all
have
sinned - Rom
5:12. All are under sin because
Adam, the one man, our federal
head sinned,
and we
remain in that
condition
unless God delivers us from our state of death
in sin.
All are born in sin
for we
are just Adam
multiplied.
All
were
by
nature the children of wrath
(Eph 2:3). One theory is that God looked down through time and saw those
who would
accept Him and elected
them, but if this be
the case,
then grace is no more
grace.
Grace, by which we are
saved, is
an unmerited favor
bestowed upon
individuals
who are
not worthy of it. The only
answer
as to why God chose some
and left others in their
sins is that God is the one who
created us and has
a
right to do
as He pleases, and
since He saw fit to choose only a
part of the
people, we
accept and
believe it. We should
admit that
it is the truth of
God's
word, humbly confessing that
He does all things
well according to His
own will and
purpose. Surely none who have had an experience of grace in the heart,
and have been
made to
feel the Holy Spirit
of God witnessing to
their
spirit
that they are
His
children, would
say, as some
do, that God would be
unjust by
choosing whom
He willed
to
choose. There are those who
say, "If that is God's
way, then I
will just live a
godless life, because I
might not be
one of the chosen,"
but
one whom God chooses and causes
to
approach unto Him (Psalms 65:4)
will not
have that
kind of
attitude. Believing in election and teaching the same according to the
plain word of
God is not to say
that we understand the
mind of God,
but rejoice in the fact
that it is
an eternal truth. In
fact, it
would appear that a poor
in spirit
soul, who
has learned
about this truth and
has
experienced the grace of God in
his life, has
unspeakable joy in his heart. When we can
see ourselves
as God
sees us;
corruptible,
sinful,
rebellious creatures, yea
worms of
the dust, we
are made
to wonder
why God would choose and
save anyone. We are amazed and
stand in awe and wonder that
He
would save a wretch like
me. "Amazing grace
how sweet
the
sound that saved a
wretch like
me." The Apostle Paul was
made to
cry out,
"O wretched man
that I am, less
than the least of
the saints and
chief
of sinners."
There are no spiritual blessings apart from election. Eph
1:3-4,
Blessed be the God and
Father of our Lord
Jesus
Christ,
who hath blessed
us
with
all SPIRITUAL BLESSINGS
in
heavenly places in Christ:
ACCORDING AS HE
HATH
CHOSEN US in
him before the
foundation of the world, that we should
be
holy and without blame before him in love. To
deny
election is to deny
spiritual
blessings,
predestination,
calling,
justification and
glorification.
They are
inseparable. Those who are uninformed in the word say that the doctrine of
election
means that only a few - a
handful will be
saved, but
this is
not the case. The
Bible
teaches
that the chosen
of God are an innumerable
number,
as the sand of
the
sea,
etc. They are many, not a few. Some will admit that the Bible does teach election, but that
it means when
and if a sinner
accepts Christ as His
Saviour, he then
becomes an elect. This
might, by
human reasoning, sound
good, but
human reasoning cannot
annul or
take the place
of "Thus
saith the Lord." The
scriptures
say that God did the
choosing, and that before
the
world began; yes, even
before
we were born into
this
world.
(For the
children being not yet born, neither
having done any
good or
evil, that
the purpose of God
according to
election might stand,
not
of works, but of him that
calleth) It was said unto her, The
elder shall serve
the
younger. As
it is written,
Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I
hated
- Rom
9:11-13. Now the
scriptures here
plainly teach
that God
chose and
loved
Jacob before he
was born and
before he had done any good or evil, so God
did
not
choose and love him
because he
had done good to merit it. It also teaches
that He
neither chose, nor did He
love, Esau, but hated
him
before
he was born
also; and he had no evil. If you
wonder as to why God did this, the answer is
given here,
that the purpose
of God according to election might
stand. This indicates that
God's purpose would be
thwarted
and mean
nothing if Jacob and Esau
could have
had anything at all to do with their
destiny. If God had
loved Esau as
He did Jacob, or if He had hated Jacob as He
did Esau,
it would annul His
purposes, and would prove
Him to
be
mutable. It
is up to us to
either
accept what
God says about
it, or use our own
reasonings, rejecting
the truth.
The next verse, Rom 9:14, asks a very interesting question,
namely,
What shall we say
then? Is there
unrighteousness
with God? God
forbid. It
surely was
anticipated
that some would say this, and
there are
multitudes who
say this
very thing. In the verse
following, God explains why
He
is
not unrighteous just because He
loved Jacob and
hated
Esau. The
reason
is that it seemed
good in
His
sight, and no one is to question His
sovereignty. Romans
9:15 says,
For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on
whom I
will have mercy, and I will
have compassion on
whom I
will
have
compassion. You see, He does as He
pleases and whether it suits our ego
or not, He does
just as He
pleases, yet He doesn't change, it being His
eternal purpose. To those who say that election depends upon the will of the
individual, we
would cite the next
verse, Rom 9:16,
So then it is
not of him that
WILLETH, nor of
him that runneth,
but of
God that sheweth mercy.
Some
will say, why does
he yet
find fault? for who has
resisted
his will?
God's answer in Rom 9:20
should
seal their lips, Nay
but, 0 man, who art
thou that
repliest against God?
Shall the
thing formed say
to him that formed
it, Why
hast
thou made me
thus? This
amounts to clay assuming authority
over
the potter. Who dares reply
against God, the Potter
-
the dust
of the
earth questioning the authority of the
creator of the universe. Romans 9:21-24
speaks of the
sovereignty of God,
Hath not the potter power over the clay,
of the same
lump to make one
vessel unto honour, and
another
unto
dishonour?
What if God,
willing to
shew his
wrath, and to
make his power known, endured
with much
long-suffering the
vessels of
wrath fitted to destruction: And that
he
might make know the riches of
his
glory on the
vessels
of mercy,
which he
had afore prepared unto
glory, Even us, whom lie hath
called, not of the Jews
only, but also of the
Gentiles? God's elect people are safe for all eternity. None of those
elected shall
ever be impeached.
If any of them should
ever be lost,
it would prove that
God's eternal
purposes are
ineffective and that
He cannot do His will.
Nothing
shall ever separate
God's
elect people from Him. Rom
8:37-39, Nay, in all
these
things we are more than
conquerors
through him that
loved us. For I am
persuaded,
that neither death, nor
life, nor
angels, nor
principalities, nor
powers, nor
things present, nor
things to
come, Nor height,
nor depth, nor any
other
creature,
shall be able to
separate us from
the love of God, which is in
Christ
Jesus our lord.