O Lord, save the elect – plus some more!

I was once influenced by Calvinism though I never subscribed 100% to its system.  Its advocates are persuasive and its theology, so it seems, holds sway over much of the English speaking world, the US not the least.  Not so much in Europe though.

We just had the joy of having as our guest the son of an ardent Calvinistic leader last week, a brilliant young man (24), loyal, of course, to his good dad, and yet he felt the need for some open-minded discussions.  “Election” was one of our topics.

“How do you interpret Romans 9?” he asked.  Other scriptures came up too.  I don´t know how well it all went.  I felt that this honest and upright young man deserved more than just some superficial routine answers.  But one early morning, in the presence of God,  some whispering answers came to my own heart,  which I dared share with our friend at the breakfast table:

On Eph. 1 :1-5, v.13. – Are we believers, because God chose us to believe the gospel – or are we chosen because we believed “the gospel of your salvation”? (v.13)

On John 6:37. – Did we come to Jesus because we were given to Him by the Father – or are we given to Him by the Father because we came to Him?

On 2 Thess. 2:13. -  Did we believe the truth for salvation because God chose to let us do so – or did He choose us for salvation because we believed the truth?

On Acts 13:48  - Did the gentiles believe because they had been appointed (ordained) to eternal life – or were they appointed to eternal life because they believed?

On Romans 9 and 5 – Did the gentiles automatically get “the gift of righteousness” (Rom. 5:17) because Christ became “a stumbling stone and a rock of offense” to Israel – or did Christ become a stumbling stone because Israel rejected Him by unbelief (Rom. 9:32) while the saved gentiles received Him by faith as “the gift of righteousness”?

On Romans 9:13 – Were Jacob and Esau as individuals loved and hated, respectively, because they were predestined to be loved and hated – or were they loved and hated because they either trusted God  as in the case of Jacob (Gen. 49:18)  or deliberately chose to be an unholy person as in the case of Esau?  (Hebr. 12:16).  *)

On John 1:12  -  Did they receive Him and believe in His name because God had already given them the chosen right to become His children – or did they get that right because they received Him and believed in His name?

Now, the Calvinists may say I´m twisting God´s word.  God forbid.   I´m not hunting them.  They are often good people.  I need only mention the famous Calvinist C.H. Spurgeon, whose writings are so helpful.  But I´m committed to John 3:16, and I don´t believe that “the world” there is “the world of the elect” – or that “the whole world” in 1 John 2:2 is subject to the same rigid limitation.

There are secret things in the counsel of God which I should leave with Him, because they belong to Him.  “But those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever…”  (Deut. 29:29).  Among those revealed things, the preaching of the  “whosoever” gospel is to my evangelistic heart the most precious thing in the whole world.

July 22, 2012 – jn

*) Apart from that,  God´s sovereign election of grace in Rom. 9 has to do with Israel as God´s chosen people, but as individuals
Esau had the same access to the grace of God for salvation as Jacob had.