₦airaland Forum

@Italo
Alright, your position is clear. Maybe I am wary of skating on thin ice!
And now, to your favourite passage, James 2:14-20, what we have to understand in giving meaning to this passage, if not all scripture is that, SALVATION IS BY GRACE. A lot of people don't get this , so I will say it again, SALVATION IS NOT DESERVED. This is the theme of the whole Bible , not just the new testament. If we take this as a premise, the whole Bible opens up to us.
Now James was speaking to one of these persons:
a . A person who thought that salvation was by works
b. A person who thought that salvation was of grace
c. A person who thought that salvation was of grace and works
d. A person who thought that since salvation was of grace, there was no need for them to do good works , being already saved .
Now sincerely , who amongst those above, could he have been saying those words to?
It cannot be the first man, because he was not speaking on how to get saved in this passage. It cannot be the second , remember our premise, SALVATION IS BY GRACE ! SALVATION IS, NOT DESERVED !
It cannot be the third, because such a man would have been applauded by him, on the contrary, the man was chided.
This leaves the fourth man and it is clear this is the man being addressed. And the whole substance of his upbraiding of this man is that the man should see that he was saved for a purpose, saved for some responsibility. Not by these responsibilities to be saved but by these responsibilities to be confirmed he is truly in faith.
You cannot interprete this scripture in such a way that, it not only contradicts other scriptures, but goes against the whole tenor of scripture.
You cannot of course agree with the other verses I have adduced (borrowed from Wordtalk!) and those from Wordtalk which clearly teach that FAITH ALONE justifies (saves).
If the Bible teaches we are saved, 'not by works','not by the law', 'not by works of righteousness', what is left but FAITH ALONE, which yet is not 'of ourselves' , so that we cannot boast. Is it not clear that by these alone, that, that idol of the Catholic church, 'freewill' (by which not a few protestants have been hood-winked) is shown to be a myth?
Will the glory of a man's salvation be shared between him and the Lord on the last day?
You have said salvation is of faith and works, would you also say it is of GRACE and WORKS? For that is what your disputation amount to, but Romans 11:6 would have none of that, for it says:
''And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace.
But if it be of works, then is it no more of grace: otherwise work is no more work'' - KJV
'' And if it is by God's kindness, then it is not by their being good enough. For in that case the free gift would no longer be free - it isn't free when it is earned.''- TLB

So inspiring !

@Italo
I will answer your post. While I am at it, please state your position as to how a man becomes saved.

[Quote]tell nuclearboy to hussle, too.
its high time he became nuclearman.[/Quote]
Lol.

Bravo, Wordtalk.
I enjoyed your handling of faith and works. I didn't have the pleasure of joining as I came in too late. I am inviting you to this thread on the same issue: www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-754485.32.html#msg9166333.

@ Italo
Let me start by stating my position about faith and works  and it is this:
Faith and faith alone justifies (saves) and this is testified to by innumerable scriptures (Eph.2:8,9;Rom. 11:5,6,Titus 3:3-5,Gal.2:16 e.t.c) . On believing in Jesus , the sinner is justified of all their sins , the law is fulfilled and they are translated from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of God. At this point the believer has done no good work either towards his believing or in the act of believing itself. This is why salvation is said to be by grace.
On being saved, the sinner (now believer)  is enjoined to do good works. These  good works do not add a thing to their salvation, it is pleasurable to the Lord  for it shows love for Him and it is a confirmation to the believer (and to others) that they are in faith. And the Lord of course,  is pleased by these  good works of the believer, if they do them in love for Him; but if they do them with the hope of gaining eternal life by them, these same works He abhors.
To  sum up, the saved man (the believer) has faith and does good works and it is this faith that spurs him up to good works and the good works contributing nothing to this salvation as manifest by the fact that they come AFTER, NOT BEFORE, the  salvation.

@Italo
I wasn't particularly chanced and had wanted to join you and Wordtalk on that thread. However because of your comments, I will strive to do both. Expect my posts later.

@Italo
Wordtalk has expressed my opinion about Faith and Works to you on this thread, www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-756426.0.html. I could not have said it better than that.

Thought-provoking !

@ Chukwudi
So nice of you to bring up the predestination bit, do you not see how well it accords with Christ telling His disciples, 'you have not chosen me but I have chosen you' . Those who are saved where chosen before the foundation of the world, period.

@ Chukwudi
[Quote]
@5 solas
I dont beleive in predestination as obviously it
has no scriptural basis neither was it taught by
the church fathers.
The people mentoned in the passage I quoted
were obviously 'beleiovers' as they refered to Jesus as Lord .You r merely playing 2 d gallery [/Quote]
I am not playing to the gallery. You cannot use Matthew 25 to support Pelagianism. This is where all Catholics and Muslims miss it . Grace doesn't sound sweet to you ! At the end of the day, you will be judged according to your works and be found wanting !!

@Frosbel
[Quote] what do you understand by works ??
Works of faith include :
Living a sin-free life by the power of the Holy
Spirit
Visiting the widows and orphans and helping
them Helping the poor especially those of the
household of GOD
Praying for the sick
Preaching to the lost
Works are not :
Praying to Mary Penance
confessing sins to a priest
bowing before statues of dead saints
holy water sprinkling
abstaining from meats
forbidding to marry praying with the rosary These are all dead works.
@Frosbel
[Quotewhat] do you understand by works ??
Works of faith include :
Living a sin-free life by the power of the Holy
Spirit
Visiting the widows and orphans and helping
them Helping the poor especially those of the
household of GOD
Praying for the sick
Preaching to the lost
Works are not :
Praying to Mary Penance
confessing sins to a priest
bowing before statues of dead saints
holy water sprinkling
abstaining from meats
forbidding to marry praying with the rosary These are all dead works. [/Quote]
What do you think Paul was driving out when he said salvation was not by the observance of the law, was not of works, was by grace through faith? Simply this , 'SALVATION IS NOT DESERVED' !!! And suppose Paul were to prove his point by arguing that one does not get saved by the DEAD works you enumerated, would it be anything to the purpose? To understand Paul, you have to understand that even the 'LIVING' works do not save (or justify, as he puts it).
@ Italo
The need to distinguish the role played by faith and that by works. If we fail here , we fail in our understanding of the justification of the sinner. Faith and faith ALONE justifies(saves). Works are commanded of the justified man (not the sinner or unbeliever) as obedience to the Lord and it is a natural consequence or proof of justification. It does not justify, but it's presence in a person tells the person and others that they(the person) are justified (saved).

@ Chukwudi
[Quote]
the necessity of works 4 salvation was
underscored by Jesus in matt 25:31-46 when
on judgement day he rewarded some people 4
works of charity.I was hungry n u fed me,
Likewise some people were condenmed for not
observing works of charity
[/Quote]
See how you misunderstand the scripture! Did you notice, in this passage,  that the kingdom was prepared for those who would have eternal life , 'before the foundation of the world' ? Did you also notice that these persons are called, 'the righteous'? Read through the whole of the new testament , you will find that the basis of going to heaven is , 'belief' while that of going to hell is, 'unbelief'. The Lord Jesus did not change it in this passage. The people who did those good works were believers and it is their nature to do good works. It is not what saves them, but it shows to them they have the belief or faith, that saves.

@HISchild
I would be very delighted if it were so, unfortunately the Bible does not so say. It speaks of a lake of fire for those who die as unbelievers, and that, for the manifestation of His JUSTICE.

@Wayjulia
It would astound you, wouldn't it, to find out that this 'sticker' for the word of God is actually an atheist. Wonders indeed shall never cease.
In another thread I 'saw' muslims defending the doctrine of original sin against , professing christians !

No freewill ! Enough of the lies !

Great post, Frosbel.
@Italo
All I see, is that, like millions before you, you are unable to distinguish the roles of faith and that of works in the justified man.

[Quote]
if a person dies in his / her sins without GOD's
mercy and justification by The Lord JESUS CHRIST,
they will perish and cease to be.
“And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment”:-Heb 9:27 “For the wages of sin [is] death; but the gift of GOD [is] eternal life through JESUS CHRIST our
Lord.” - Rom 6:23 "The dead praise not the LORD, neither any that go down into silence." - Psalm 115:17
[/Quote]
Haba , HISchild , if a person ceases to exists when they die in their sins , what judgement would they be waiting for?

God justifies the ungodly, saves the undeserving who work not but believes in Him, counting their faith for righteousness. This pretty much sums up the gospel.
Newmi, please more of this.

@Frosbel
Great post.
But, just a minute! Did you notice most of your ''remarkable MOG '' are Calvinists? The 'group' you accuse of ''mumbo jumbo'' ? Also very remarkable is that virtually all you have said concerning the Catholic Church can be said against Arminianism.
Again I say , great post.

No . The sacrifice of Christ was once and for all and by this sacrifice He saves completely all that come to Him.

@Wordtalk
Welcome back Viaro. I hope you are fully recovered.

Who Saves Whom? - Michael S. Horton

"God casts His vote; Satan casts his, but you must cast the deciding ballot"?

The touchstone question in the running debate between Jesus and the Pharisees, Paul and the Judaizers, Augustine and Pelagius, the Dominicans and the Franciscans, the Reformers and the medieval Roman Catholic church, and the Calvinists and Arminians is this: Who saves whom?

In this article I want to offer some brief scriptural responses to the common objections concerning the doctrine of election. If one does not believe in the doctrine of unconditional election, it is impossible to have a high doctrine of grace. As Luther told Erasmus, ignorance of this great truth is in a real sense ignorance of the Christian gospel. "For when the works and power of God are unknown in this way, I cannot worship, praise, thank, and serve God, since I do not know how much I ought to attribute to myself and how much to God." This distinction is essential, he added, "if we want to live a godly life." Further, "If we do not know these things, we shall know nothing at all of things Christian and shall be worse than any heathen."1 As Luther pointed out in his debate with Erasmus, this issue of free will and election is essential in maintaining the doctrine of justification by eliminating any element of human decision or effort as a foothold for merit. Therefore, let's take a brief survey of the biblical support for this important doctrine by considering one of the principal passages: Romans chapter nine.

The Covenant

Running throughout the Old Testament and into the Gospels is the concept of covenant. Although God is the sovereign ruler of all creation and, therefore, quite capable of ruling merely as a dictator, he nevertheless condescends to enter into a covenant with fallen creatures, binding us to him, and himself to us.

This is the background of Paul's letter to the Romans in general, and chapter nine in particular. Paul has raised the issue of faithfulness. Because we are, individually and corporately, foreknown, predestined, called, justified, and anticipate glorification, nothing "shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Ro.8:39). But that raises an important question, especially for the Jewish believers reading this letter: If God has failed in his promise to save Israel, as many thought Paul was implying in his ministry to the Gentiles, why should we have confidence in his determination to save us?

The apostle then launches into his discussion of the "true Israel." Even in the Old Testament, not every fleshly descendent was a child of God (Is.6:9-13, etc.). At one time, even Esau was a part of God's covenant people, as he grew up beside his brother Jacob. In fact, Esau, according to fleshly descent, was first in line to carry on the Abrahamic inheritance, but God chose to bless Jacob and curse Esau, "before the twins before, having done nothing either good or bad, in order that God's purpose according to election might stand, not because of the one who works, but because of the one who calls" (v.11). This is the most obvious demonstration that God's gift of grace depends on his own generosity in election rather than on natural descent, racial privilege, or moral righteousness (see Dt. 9:4-6; 29:2-4). "As it is written, 'Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated'" (v.13).

Objections Answered

Paul realizes that he isn't going to get away with this so easily. It is a declaration from the mouth of God himself, but it is going to take some explaining: "What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not! For He says to Moses, 'I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion'" (vv.14-15). Salvation in general and election in particular are due to something in God, not in us. There is a pernicious idea floating around the evangelical world these days, owing more to pop-psychology than to religion, that if we want a basis for self-esteem we ought to remember that Jesus Christ thought we were worth his death. According to Scripture, however, Jesus Christ died for us because "God so loved, " (Jn.3:16). In other words, there was something in God--an inherent compassion, mercy, and love, which moved him to save us while there was absolutely nothing in us that attracted him. Even conservative evangelicals sometimes sound as though God is compelled to show mercy, as though love were his only attribute, but this passage reminds us that God is free to show mercy or withhold it according to his own good pleasure, since mercy, by definition, is not deserved.

After explaining how God is not dependent on his creatures in any sense, Paul concludes, "So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy" (v.16). There are few clearer declarations of monergism (i.e., the idea that God alone saves) than this. In one sentence the apostle excludes any human activity, either volitional or physical. There is absolutely nothing our decisions or actions contribute to our own salvation. So much for the popular Arminian maxim, "God casts his vote for your soul, Satan casts his, but you must cast the deciding ballot." Gone is the decisional regeneration that makes the new birth dependent on an exercise of the human will: "You did not choose Me; I chose you and appointed you to bear fruit that would last," Jesus told his disciples (Jn.15:16). We "were born not of the will of the flesh or the will of man, but of God" (Jn.1:13), ", having been predestined according to the plan of him who works all things after the counsel of his own will" (Eph.1:11).

Notice, too, that this exclusion of "willing and running" takes into its scope not only real, but foreseen decisions and actions on our part. Many will concede that God chose people, but based on his foreknowledge of their own choice. However, this is excluded in the sweep of Paul's statement in verse 13, as in verse 11: "for the children not yet being born, nor having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, " If God's election depended on our foreseen decision, this not only raises a question concerning God's grace (i.e., foreseen merit is merit nonetheless), but also concerning human sinfulness. After all, if God looked down the corridor of time what would he have seen in us besides sin and resistance? How could he foresee an exercise of the will that he himself did not grant, since "no one can come to the Father unless the one who sent me draws him" (Jn.6:44)?

Of course, this raises three principal objections. The first and most obvious one is the issue of fairness.

It is a measure of our sinfulness and pride that we would use God's gracious initiative in election as an occasion for placing his righteousness and justice in question. If we are, as a race, in as serious shape as Paul has been telling us, especially in the first three chapters, there should not be one reader who would seek God's justice in his or her own case. God's justice--giving us what we deserve--demands our execution. God's mercy, therefore, is owed to none. Paul refers God's mercy to his freedom. Since all deserve judgment, the mere fact that many will be spared is cause for astonishment rather than for wondering why God did not elect everyone.

To illustrate this freedom, Paul recalls Pharaoh to the witness stand: "For this very purpose," God declares, "I raised you [Pharaoh] up, that I might show my power in you and that my name might be declared in all the earth" (v.17). No Jewish reader needed to be reminded how negatively Pharaoh figured in Israelite history. While it might be excessive to compare him to Hitler, there is no doubt that the Egyptian ruler who had held Israel captive for slave labor was the last person first-century Jewish Christians would have wanted Paul to use as an example of God's freedom. Nevertheless, the apostle reminds them of the words of Exodus 9:16, that God had raised him up. Later, he will also recall to their attention the fact that "There is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God" (13:1).

Amos called upon a forgetful and apathetic generation to realize God's sovereignty over history: "If there is a calamity in a city, will not the Lord have done it?, A lion has roared! Who will not fear?" (Am.3:6). In Daniel four we have Nebuchadnezzar's dream, interpreted by Daniel. The proud king was humiliated by God until, in the ruler's own words, "I lifted my eyes to heaven, and my understanding returned to me." He realizes for the first time that "All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing; he does according to his will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. No one can restrain his hand or say to him, 'What have you done?'" His conclusion? "His ways are just and those who walk in pride he is able to humble" (Dan.4:34-37). Isaiah 45:1-7 points up God's use of yet another pagan ruler, Cyrus, "that they may know from the rising to the setting of the sun that there is none besides me. I am the Lord, and there is no other; I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create calamity; I, the Lord, do all these things." In short, the telos or design of history is the glory of God. Each of us exists because it happens to serve God's design for glorifying himself. He saves us because the exercise of his love and mercy brings him honor, not because there is anything in us that moves him to respond.

Another reason Paul brings up the example of Pharaoh is the circumstances surrounding God's instructions to Moses in the first place. In Exodus 4:18-23, we read that God commanded Moses to return to Egypt. "And the Lord said to Moses, 'When you go back to Egypt, see that you do all those wonders before Pharaoh which I have put in your hand. But I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go.'" In other words, God is going to hold Pharaoh accountable for his hardness of heart even in the face of Moses's signs and wonders, and yet God intended to harden Pharaoh's heart all along. It's a tough passage, but there it is.

The second objection picks up where the first leaves off: How can God blame us for what he determined? After all, "Who can resist his will?" (v.19). How could God blame Esau, Pharaoh, or my unbelieving neighbor if they were only fulfilling his plan? This is the essence of the objection Paul anticipates. The belief that God's will "cannot be thwarted" (Dan.4) is not a peculiarity of Reformation thought, nor indeed of Christian thought. It is a basic declaration of theism! If one believes that God is dependent on human beings in any sense (either their willing or running), they are not merely Christians of a different color; they are following an essentially non-Christian and non-theistic interpretation of God's nature. Contemporary evangelical scholars such as Clark Pinnock and Richard Rice realize this and call for a rejection of classical theism for just that reason.

But this idea that God's ultimate intentions and designs cannot be frustrated or overturned creates tension. Paul does not resolve it, as God does not care to reveal it even to an apostle. Calvin warned, "The curiosity of man is such that the more dangerous the subject, the more willing he is to rush boldly into it, Let this, therefore, be our sacred rule, not to seek to know anything about predestination except what the Scripture teaches us. Where the Lord closes his holy mouth, let us also stop our minds from going on further."2 Paul does not reply with a sophisticated line of metaphysical reasoning. He simply says, "Who are you, a mere human, to answer back to God?" In other words, to demand that God defend himself in our presence on this matter is the height of arrogance. Is there any reverence for God anymore? Is the Sovereign God allowed no secrets, no privacy in his heavenly chambers? Must every corner of his rooms be ravaged by our naive and fallen speculations? No, here, to switch metaphors, we come to the end of the precipice and to take a single step farther is to fall hopelessly into despair and confusion.

Next, Paul appeals to another Old Testament allusion: the potter and the clay. In Isaiah 29:15-16, the prophet declares, "Surely you have things turned around! Shall the potter be esteemed as the clay; for shall the thing made say of him who made it, 'He did not make me'?" But Paul changes the last question to read, "Why did you make me thus?" Out of the same lump (i.e., the same mass of fallen humanity), God chooses to make vessels of wrath and vessels of mercy, one to bring him glory by demonstrating his justice, the other to glorify him for his compassion and mercy. There is no distinction, as all are taken from the same group. Therefore, the elect cannot be proud.

Notice that this will of God is not capricious or arbitrary, a view that many Arminians suppose and hyper-Calvinists encourage. This, it must be said, is a view of God that has more in common with Greek philosophy than with Christianity. It is fatalistic and hopelessly at odds with the biblical picture. Rather, God's will is connected to his nature and attributes. In this sense, as Jonathan Edwards pointed out, no being (including God) has a free will. The will serves the nature and God is moved to elect, redeem, justify, and save not because of an arbitrary decision or whimsical display of power, but in order to show mercy and compassion. Remember, these are "vessels of mercy." He "will have mercy on whomever he will have mercy." In other words, God is presented in this passage as electing men, women, and children out of an already condemned and ruined race. Their condemnation is just, so God is not responsible for the resistance, disobedience, and hatred of those who are rejected, but only for the salvation of those who do embrace the forgiving grace of God.

Finally, it is essential that we point out what Paul labors to make clear elsewhere, especially in Ephesians chapter one: All of this is "in Christ." We are chosen, predestined, redeemed, justified, called, sealed, and so on, "in him." One of the great New Testament emphases, recovered so clearly by the Reformers, was that election should only be taught and understood in the context of one's relation to Christ. In other words, we cannot search for our election in an abstract philosophical manner. To be chosen is to be "in Christ" and to be in Christ is to be united to him through faith. We find our election not in our performance, race, success, or outward signs--for this was Israel's folly, but in Christ's cross and resurrection.

If these answers are not good enough for the reader, Paul concludes, the alternative to election is immediate judgment for all human beings (vv. 22-23).

The final question that is likely to be asked is this: Aren't we really talking about the nation Israel? Many of us were raised with the explanation that Romans nine was dealing with Israel's election, and not ours. This meant that Romans nine could be ruled inadmissible for use in the debate. But as Paul made clear here as elsewhere, the true Israel is created by grace, not by human descent, decision, or duties. Thus, there is no true Israel apart from faith in Christ. Only those who cling to him in faith are chosen; the rest are judged along with the Gentiles (Ro.11:5-10). "Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham," Paul instructed the Galatians (Gal.3:7). There are no Jews who ever have been saved, are now saved, or who ever will be saved who were not chosen members of the church in both testaments--the ancient (Old Testament) church looking forward to Christ and the modern church looking back to Christ and forward to his return.

Nevertheless, to emphasize that he is not speaking merely of the nation of Israel, Paul adds, "even us whom he called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles," (v.24) drawing on Old Testament prophecies pointing to the ingathering of the elect Gentiles together with the Jewish remnant in the formation of one body.

The Basis of Reprobation

Much could be said about the other side of the coin. As there are vessels of mercy that are chosen, so there are the vessels of wrath that are rejected. All Paul the apostle wishes to say about this matter is this: No one is reprobated by God without just cause. "What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness of faith; but Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness. Why?" Does Paul answer, "Because they weren't chosen"? No, the blame is squarely on their shoulders: "Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law" (vv.30-33).

One of the surest ways to be confident that you are not one of the elect is to pursue a righteousness that you have created by your willpower and effort. The elect are simply those who have put down their swords of war, their shovels for digging out their own righteousness, and have placed themselves at the mercy of this God who has promised to have compassion on all who seek him. They are to be comforted by the fact that if they are seeking him it is because he himself has first loved and drawn them to himself. However, unbelievers are not to look to their election, but to Christ, whose offer of forgiveness extends to all people everywhere: "Come unto me, all you who work and are loaded down and I will give you rest."

Thus, this doctrine is calculated to drive home the idea that God saves us by grace alone because of Christ alone. Many are willing to accept that they were justified freely, but their resistance to this doctrine reveals an unwillingness to fully accept the idea that their salvation is not conditioned on anything in them. May we all, regardless of our traditional perspective, take this passage from Paul's Magna Charta seriously and employ this doctrine of election not merely in the service of theological debate, but in grateful appreciation and thanksgiving.§

Notes

1. Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1975, p. 117.
2. John Calvin, NT Commentary on Romans Nine.

Author

Dr. Michael Horton is the vice chairman of the Council of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, and is associate professor of historical theology at Westminster Theological Seminary in California. Dr. Horton is a graduate of Biola University (B.A.), Westminster Theological Seminary in California (M.A.R.) and Wycliffe Hall, Oxford (Ph.D.). Some of the books he has written or edited include Putting Amazing Back Into Grace, Beyond Culture Wars, Power Religion, In the Face of God, and most recently, We Believe.



[quote][/Quote]

http://glenwoodhills.org/etc/printer-friendly.asp?ID=512

I am challenged, more please.

A lot of lies have been written about John Calvin and many credit him as the originator of the doctrine of predestination. Predestination is of course two fold-predestination to life (election) and predestination to damnation (reprobation).
Some have asserted that Martin Luther and other reformers believed in election only. Brian G Mattson gives Luther’s position on the subject.

[Quote]
Double Or Nothing: Martin Luther's Doctrine of Predestination
1997 | Brian G. Mattson
"All things whatever arise from, and depend on, the divine appointment; whereby it was foreordained who should receive the word of life, and who should disbelieve it; who should be delivered from their sins, and who should be hardened in them; and who should be justified and who should be condemned." - Martin Luther


INTRODUCTION:

Commonly remembered as an age of great upheaval and enlightenment, the Protestant Reformation was one of the most significant events in the development of the Western World. The Reformation was more than a simple rebellion against teachings of the Roman Catholic Church; it was truly a rediscovery of biblical doctrines that had gradually been lost due to mishandling and negligent teaching.


When Martin Luther sparked the Reformation on October 31, 1517, he had no notion of beginning a fresh, new movement with no ties to the past, as many religious movements often do. On the contrary, he and every other Reformer affirmed that the doctrines they proclaimed had always been the true historic doctrines of the church.


It is for this reason that the Reformation followed on the heels of the Renaissance and the rise of intellectual humanism. With renewing interest in the discipline of exploring ancient writings in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, came the renewing and uncovering of the doctrines the ancient texts had so carefully preserved. As Luther and many others intensely studied the saints of old, they saw their own place in history in a very new light: the light of the past.


Of the many great doctrines rediscovered and revived during the Protestant Reformation, one in particular has and continues to be one of heated debate and discussion: the doctrine of predestination. This doctrine, perhaps more than any other, has caused division and strife within the Christian Church, and in particular, has historically been a dividing line between the traditions of Calvinism and Lutheranism. Why is this? What significant differences between Lutheran and Calvinist thought concerning predestination cause such a division?


Nearly all Modern Lutheran scholars insist that while John Calvin and his followers (Beza, Bucer, Knox, etc.) affirm the doctrine of double predestination, Martin Luther and his followers affirm the doctrine of single predestination.


Double predestination affirms that in eternity past, prior to the creation of the universe, God chose and elected a people for himself whom he would actively save in the outworking of history, but at the same time, chose to pass over the remaining number of mankind, thus handing them over to their sinful state, and reprobating them to the consequences of their sin: eternal hell. Double predestination affirms both God's election and His reprobation of certain men in eternity past. That is, God decreed that some would be saved, and others would be lost. Calvinist theologian Louis Berkhof defines reprobation as "[T]hat eternal decree of God whereby He has determined to pass some men by with the operations of His special grace, and to punish them for their sins, to the manifestation of His justice." [1]


Lutherans, on the other hand, teach single predestination; that while God in eternity past did indeed elect a people for himself whom he would actively save in the outworking of history, he did not decree that the rest of mankind would absolutely be lost and reprobate them to eternal hell. That is, while affirming election, Lutherans reject reprobation. God refrained from electing some men to salvation, but at the same time did not actively decree their continuation in sin, and ultimate suffering as a consequence. Robert G. Hoerber writes,


"According to Ephesians 1, our salvation is the result of our election by God from eternity, which is a gospel message. To deduce by logical reasoning that therefore some people must be predestined to damnation is law - a clear instance of mingling law and gospel. On the other hand, the "unreasonable" doctrine of election to salvation (but not to damnation) is a particularly comforting part of the gospel message."[2]


It is clear that the motive of Lutheran theology at this point is to preserve the goodness of God and to refrain from making God the author of evil and sin. Lutherans see the reprobate as being eternally punished on their own merit, not because of God's eternal decree that they should be punished. Thus, the sinner is the author of his own sin, not God.


It is clear that the Calvinist as well wishes to make man the author of his own sin, not God, but the approaches in which this question is answered take two very different paths.


The purpose of this paper is to answer the question: Did Martin Luther himself teach the doctrine of single predestination, or did he fully affirm the election and reprobation of God in eternity past?


If the former, then the division between the Lutherans and Calvinists remains a legitimate outworking of their respective theological traditions. However, if the latter is indeed the case, then the Lutheran tradition finds itself in the uncomfortable as well as compromising position of proclaiming a doctrine their father in the faith rejected.


The importance of the question cannot be under-emphasized.


The Reformation, as previously mentioned, consisted of the recovery of ancient doctrines, especially those of St. Augustine of Hippo. Augustine wrote extensively on the issue of predestination, and has thus been the object of both admiration and scorn. The vigorous debate that reappeared on the subject during the Reformation makes this a perennial subject very relevant to today's disciples of the Reformation.


In fact, while many students of the Reformation today focus their attention to the obvious differences between Protestantism and Romanism, such as the Papacy, mass, indulgences, et cetera, Luther himself recognizes those issues to be entirely peripheral to the conflict. He wrote in 1525 to Erasmus of Rotterdam, with whom he had been debating the Sovereignty of God's grace (in election and salvation) and the freedom of man's will:


"I give you hearty praise and commendation on this further account - that you alone, in contrast with all others, have attacked the real thing, that is, the essential issue. You have not wearied me with those extraneous issues about the Papacy, purgatory, indulgences and such like - trifles, rather than issues - in respect of which almost all to date have sought my blood (though without success); you, and you alone, have seen _____THE HINGE ON WHICH ALL TURNS____, and aimed for the vital spot.[3]


With this admission by the Father of the Protestant Reformation, the present study becomes highly important in understanding the Reformation.


The debate over single versus double predestination has certainly been an issue throughout church history, but was it an issue among the Reformers? Specifically, were Luther and Calvin at odds on this issue? 19th Century Scottish theologian William Cunningham asserts,


"When Luther's followers, in a subsequent generation, openly deviated from scriptural orthodoxy on these points, they set themselves to prove that Luther had never held Calvinistic principles. . . But we have no hesitation in saying, that it can be established beyond all reasonable question, that Luther held the doctrines which are commonly regarded as most peculiarly Calvinistic, though he was never led to explain and apply, to illustrate and defend some of them, so fully as Calvin did."[4]


Though Cunningham is confident enough to make this claim, his reader may be disappointed that he fails to make a comprehensive case for his assertion (though his claim is not entirely without defense).


Another Reformed[5] theologian, Loraine Boettner, in his work The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination claims that "Luther. . .went into the doctrine [of predestination] as heartily as did Calvin himself. He even asserted it with more warmth and proceeded to much harsher lengths in defending it than Calvin ever did."[6] Boettner's work displays a far better defense of his claim than Cunningham's, but both fail to fully analyze Luther's position.


What Cunningham and Boettner both fail to support, the present work intends to prove. Where their assertions fall short, this work will provide ample evidence to support their claims. The Modern Lutheran church does not stand with Martin Luther on the issue of predestination, and thus suffers from an internal contradiction. It's efforts to modify Luther's views and to present a more moderate case for predestination ultimately end in conflict with Luther's uncompromising doctrine of God's Sovereignty. However, before critically analyzing the writings of Luther, an examination must be made of the various presuppositions possible in approaching Luther's writings.


PARADIGMS:


Any astute reader of Reformation history must note the great discrepancies among analysts of Martin Luther. Lutherans read him and conclude that he taught single predestination. Calvinists read him and conclude that he taught double predestination. Certainly, the overall perspective with which one approaches the Reformer has great impact on the conclusions reached. This is indeed unavoidable. Every reader approaches a subject matter within a given framework, or paradigm, by which he interprets given data. Thus, when two parties disagree upon an interpretation, the debate must proceed to a level beyond the respective interpretations of the facts, but to the philosophy of interpretation employed in reaching conclusions.


Therefore, in considering the subject of Martin Luther's view of predestination, two different paradigms appear in analyses of his works. One we shall call the Concord Paradigm, the other, the Augustinian Paradigm.


The Concord Paradigm is the mainstream conservative Lutheran viewpoint, which views Luther through the eyes of the Book of Concord, the standard book of Lutheran confession, which was compiled thirty-four years after Luther's death in 1546. In other words, the Concord Paradigm looks at more recent developments of Lutheran theology and reads Luther in that light.


The Augustinian Paradigm, on the other hand, is a framework of analyzing Luther's views not in light of more recent statements of theology, but in terms of Luther's own theological background. That is, what were the theological traditions and doctrines closest to his own upbringing and training in theology? Thus, it is the older statements of Luther's theological tradition through which one views his writings.


At first glance it may seem as though the Concord Paradigm ought to be the interpretive framework by which one analyzes Luther, in that, after all, it takes into account the doctrines and statements of the later Lutheran tradition. It would seem that those best suited to systematize Martin Luther's doctrines would be the second generation Lutherans. Furthermore, Luther's own colleague, Philip Melancthon, was influential in propagating the doctrines reflected in the Book of Concord. Cannot even Luther's closest colleague be trusted to give an accurate account of Luther's beliefs?


Historians viewing Luther through the Concord Paradigm (unaware though they may be) have their perception of him colored, so to speak, by the Book of Concord. The book clearly spells out a scheme for single predestination, therefore the historian expects to find single predestination in Luther's writings. So when one encounters a passage in Luther that may be questionable, on account of this paradigmatic coloring they must err on the side of single predestination. The expectation that the Book of Concord accurately reflects Luther's own theology is largely an assumption made by the adherents of the Concord Paradigm.


However, upon analysis, it becomes clear that the best framework through which to analyze the great Reformer is the Augustinian framework. St. Augustine taught the doctrine of double predestination. That he believed God predestined not only the salvation of His elect, but also the reprobation of the wicked is clear:


"Therefore the mercy is past finding out by which He has mercy on whom He will, no merits of his own preceding; and the truth is unsearchable by which He hardeneth whom He will, even although his merits may have preceded, but merits for the most part common to him with the man on whom He has mercy. As of two twins, of which one is taken and the other left, the end is unequal, while the deserts are common, yet in these the one is in such wise delivered by God's great goodness, that the other is condemned by no injustice of God's. For is there unrighteousness with God? Away with the thought!"[7]


Augustine clearly taught that from eternity God predestined those whom He would save and those whom He would not. In writing against the Pelagian heretics of his day, Augustine was prolific in his treatment of divine predestination. He taught that the Sovereignty of God was so great that even the hearts and wills of wicked men are directly controlled by God Himself.


He wrote, "It is, therefore, in the power of the wicked to sin; but that in sinning they should do this or that by that wickedness is not in their power, but in God's, who divides the darkness and regulates it; so that hence even what they do contrary to God's will is not fulfilled except it be God's will."[8]


In his Treatise on Grace & Free Will, the title of Chapter 41 reads, "The wills of men are so much in the power of God, that he can turn them whithersoever it pleases him."[9] And again, chapter 42 reads, "God does whatsoever he wills in the hearts of even wicked men."


He begins the chapter, "Who can help trembling at those judgments of God by which He does in the hearts of even wicked men whatsoever He wills, at the same time rendering to them according to their deeds?"[10] Thus, it is clear that Augustine's doctrine is centered around the Sovereignty of God.


The significance of Augustinian doctrine in the present study becomes more apparent when one takes into account that Martin Luther, in July of 1505, entered the Augustinian Monastery at Erfurt. The monks of this order were known as the "Black Augustinians" (due to the color of their garb), and were known for their intense, rigorous pursuit of spirituality.[11] Luther studied at Erfurt and was mentored under an Augustinian monk named Johann von Staupitz, a man from whom Luther would eventually say "I received everything."[12]


Staupitz himself was not ignorant of the Augustinian position on predestination. He himself emphasized the doctrines of "prevenience of grace, the bondage of the will, and predestination. . . ."[13] In his treatise Eternal Predestinatioin and its Execution in Time he wrote, "Because mercy and justice contribute equally to the praise of the Almighty it has been decreed that some should be elected and predestined to conformation with the image of the Son of God and to faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. But those who do not have faith are judged already."[14] Thus Staupitz affirms the double predestination of Augustine.


Interestingly, in his treatise, he uses the same basis as Augustine before him: the Sovereignty of God. "[I]t ought to be remembered that God is the universal, principal, and most immediate cause of each individual thing and the prime agent of all actions. Therefore, though there are different kinds of work, it is one God who works all in all."[15]


It seems that simply on the prima facie basis that Luther was an Augustinian monk and taught by a self-consciously double predestinarian Augustinian, Johann von Staupitz, one ought to assume that Luther was familiar with and schooled in traditional Augustinian doctrines. However, this simple assumption cannot be made, for it would be an entirely superficial analysis.


In the late medieval era the scholastic theologians began to modify and deviate from Augustine's views on man's will and predestination.


James Mackinnon writes that "this divergence is already discernible throughout the intervening seven centuries - from the fifth to the twelfth."[16] Among the schools of thought which deviated the most were the Scotus and Occamist. Mackinnon observes:


"At the same time, there was a tendency to tone down [Augustine's] doctrine of absolute predestination by emphasizing God's foreknowledge and to make the most of his idea of freedom of choice. This divergence shows itself in the Semi-Pelagian, or, as Loofs prefers to call it, Neo-Pelagian, trend of scholastic theology. . . .For the scholastic theologians, even those of them, like Scotus and Occam and his followers, who diverged farthest from Augustine's doctrine of salvation, professed to follow him before all other fathers as their master, and held the teaching of Pelagius to be heresy. Nevertheless, there is in the scholastic theologians, even the least divergent from Augustine, an element that does not entirely accord with his teaching on grace and free will, and this element becomes more marked in that of the later schoolmen, in whose teaching Luther was trained."[17]


It seems that here Mackinnon damages any "Augustinian Paradigm" one might wish to assert, because, apparently, Luther was not schooled in "Old School" Augustinianism, but rather "New School." If this is indeed true, then perhaps Luther's writings must be seen in light of a pervasive Semi-Pelagianism rather than Augustinianism. Another question arises from Mackinnon's assertion; was Staupitz himself affected by this New School deviation? If so, then any influence he had on Luther would not be the true representation of Augustine, but deviations from it.


It seems clear, first of all, that Staupitz remained always a staunch Old School Augustinian. While he certainly utilized and interacted with the late scholastics, his reliance upon them was minimal.


Steinmetz observes, "While Staupitz quotes Thomas Aquinas and a host of scholastic authorities, their comments appear subordinate to Scripture understood from a strongly Augustinian point of view."[18] He also comments, "The Bible and St. Augustine are all the school that Staupitz wants."[19] It seems that Staupitz maintained this unswerving commitment to the Augustinian doctrines of grace even among his own order, who were influenced by the late scholastics. That his own order maintained no Augustinian consensus is evident in the fact that Staupitz had to correct Luther in his doctrines of grace.[20]


While it seems safe to conclude, then, that Luther's close mentor and confidant had remained a faithful disciple of Augustine, the question still remains: was Luther mainly influenced in theology by Staupitz or other scholastics, as Mackinnon asserts?


Steinmetz writes, "The fact that Staupitz corrects Luther's theology and that Luther cites one of these corrections as fundamental to his new understanding of justification raises the interesting and important question whether for a period of time - at least, say, from 1509 to 1518 - Luther should be understood primarily as a disciple of John Staupitz."[21]


Heiko Oberman certainly concludes that this is indeed the case. According to Steinmetz, he views Staupitz as "[T]he mediator of a late Augustinian school tradition to Luther,"[22] and himself writes that "at least one aspect of Luther's thought. . . was radical Augustinianism."[23] Most persuasive of all, however, is Luther himself, when he rejects the late scholastics regarding his understanding of grace and free will. He wrote in 1519:


"It is certain that the so-called 'Modern Theologians,' in this point of grace and free will, agree with the Scotists and Thomists except for one whom all condemn, Gregory of Rimini. . . .Also these theologians made it absolutely and convincingly clear that they are worse than the Pelagians."[24]


This admission by Luther makes it plain that he is not influenced in the least by the scholastics, contrary to Mackinnon's thesis, especially in regard to the issues of grace and free will. It seems best, in light of this statement, as well as in Luther's overwhelming gratitude to Staupitz in his remark that he had received "everything" from him, that Luther is indeed primarily a disciple of Johann Staupitz, and therefore of the "authentic" Augustinian tradition.[25]


The implications of this fact upon the study of predestination are impressive. This demonstrates that first and foremost, the reader of Martin Luther must presuppose his adherence to the Augustinian doctrine of predestination, as promoted both by the great Saint, and later Johann Staupitz. In other words, the Augustinian Paradigm is clearly the more accurate picture of Luther the theologian.


For proponents of the Concord Paradigm, this proposition completely turns the tables.


While Lutheran scholars have contented themselves by insisting that Reformed theologians prove where Luther affirms double predestination, the situation is in reality reversed. The Reformed theologian, presupposing an Augustinian Paradigm, must insist that the Lutheran theologian prove where Luther self-consciously or otherwise parts ways from the teachings of St. Augustine.


While this perspective may be maintained so as to simply await a Lutheran response, the present work will now seek to answer Modern Lutheranism on its own (albeit illegitimate) terms.


That is, it shall now be demonstrated that not only did Martin Luther not depart from orthodox Augustinian teaching, he in actuality explicitly taught double predestination.


LUTHER'S "MAGNUM OPUS":


The most significant work of Martin Luther regarding the issues of God's sovereignty in grace is his 1525 work, The Bondage of the Will. Written in response to Erasmus of Rotterdam's Diatribe on Free Will, the book remains the greatest of Luther's works. When Luther contemplated answering Erasmus he was very aware that the issue centered around God's eternal predestination. In May of 1522 he wrote to an anonymous addressee,


"I knew before that Mosellanus agreed with Erasmus on predestination, for he is altogether an Erasmian. I, on the contrary, think that Erasmus know less, or seems to know less, about predestination than the schools of the sophists have known. There is no reason why I should fear my own downfall if I do not change my opinion. Erasmus is not to be feared either in this or in almost any other really important subject that pertains to Christian doctrine. Truth is mightier than eloquence, the Spirit stronger than genius, faith greater than learning. As Paul says: 'The foolishness of God is wiser than men.' The eloquence of Cicero was often beaten in court by less eloquent men; Julian was more eloquent than Augustine. In summary: Truth conquers lying eloquence, even though it only stammers, as it is written: 'Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou perfected strength to destroy the enemy and the avenger. . . .Yes, give my greetings to Mosellanus, for I don't hold it against him that he follows Erasmus rather than me. Indeed, tell him to be boldly Erasmian. The time will come when he will think differently. Meanwhile, we must bear with the poor understanding of matters held by an excellent friend."[26]


Luther at this time refused to write against Erasmus on his views, but rather decided to wait for Erasmus to initiate the debate. But from this it is clear that Luther understands the issues of disagreement between he and Erasmus as including the issue of predestination. He also here equates his position with those of Augustine, who was challenged by a more eloquent Julian.


Ultimately Erasmus did issue a challenge to Luther, under pressure from both his friends and enemies: A Diatribe on Free Will.[27]


Luther's response was his The Bondage of the Will, in which he argues against Erasmus' notion that the will of man must cooperate with the will of God in the reception of the gospel. As the title suggests, Luther responded that the will of man is bound in sin, and therefore __completely unable to cooperate__ with God. Therefore, the sovereign grace of God must be __the sole determining factor__ in the salvation of men.


Different opinions have been offered of this work, but it can hardly be denied that Luther's claims are very boldly stated, as well as very Augustinian. Nonetheless, regarding Luther's view of predestination, Lewis Spitz writes,


"St. Augustine was a high double predestinarian. . . .Luther found assurance in the belief that the faith of the elect was determined by God's eternal counsel and did not depend upon man's own weak will, but, except for some polemical passages in his treatise On the Bondage of the Will in which he overstated his own case, he left the question of why some were lost open. . . ."[28]


That Spitz makes this claim apart from any analysis of Luther is unfortunate, considering his good reputation as an historian. He here seems embarrassed for Luther by claiming he "overstated his own case." While this is quite an admission regarding the contents of Luther's work, Spitz's editorialism is simply untrue.


Did the great author himself believe he had "overstated" his case? On the contrary, in 1537, writing to Wolfgang Capito concerning a plan to publish his complete works, he states, "I would rather see them [his books] devoured. For I acknowledge none of them to be really a book of mine, except for perhaps the one On the Bound Will, and the Catechism."[29]


It is clear that twelve years following its publication, Luther claimed the book as his most important, hardly as an overstatement of his case for predestination.


Furthermore, it would seem as though Luther held his "overstated" double predestinarian views not simply at the time of, or after, the publication of The Bondage of the Will, but years prior as well. In his Commentary on Romans, written around 1515, he wrote,


"All things whatever arise from, and depend on, the divine appointment; whereby it was foreordained who should receive the word of life, and who should disbelieve it; who should be delivered from their sins, and who should be hardened in them; and who should be justified and who should be condemned.[30]


While Spitz thinks that Luther generally held a single predestinarian view, Oxford scholar Alister McGrath takes quite a different view. In fact, McGrath is a scholar who seriously disagrees with the thesis of this paper: namely, that Luther held a consistently Augustinian view of predestination and did not part from it. McGrath concludes that Luther did indeed part ways from Augustine. He writes,


"[Luther's] assertions that Wycliffe was correct to maintain that all things happen by absolute necessity, and that God is the author of all man's evil deeds, have proved serious obstacles to those who wish to suggest that Luther was merely restating an Augustinian or scriptural position, Luther explicitly teaches a doctrine of double predestination, whereas Augustine was reluctant to acknowledge such a doctrine, no matter how logically appropriate it might appear.[31] In light of this quote McGrath certainly disagrees that Luther was a consistent Augustinian. McGrath actually reverses here the positions most Lutherans assume: that Augustine was the double predestinarian, while Luther taught single. Not so, claims McGrath, it is actually the very opposite!


This author would certainly take issue with McGrath in that it is his reading of Augustine that is questionable, but not his reading of Luther. However, that issue is not critical to the thesis of the present work. McGrath is correct, as shall now be demonstrated, that Luther's work without question teaches double predestination.


Luther begins The Bondage of the Will, after addressing some introductory matters, with a most appropriate question: that is, the nature of the Sovereignty of God. Section IV of Chapter 2 is entitled, "Of the Necessitating Foreknowledge of God." In this chapter Luther sets out to demonstrate and prove that all things are controlled directly by the counsel and will of God: what he calls "necessitating foreknowledge." That is, "God foreknows nothing contingently, but. . .He foresees, purposes, and does all things according to His own immutable, eternal and infallible will."[32]


Not only is this the case, but Luther also says that it is "fundamentally necessary and wholesome for Christians" to know and trust this sovereignty,[33] and where it is not known, "There can be no faith, nor any worship of God. To lack this knowledge is really to be ignorant of God - and salvation is notoriously incompatible with such ignorance."[34]


His justification for saying this is quite simple: "If you hesitate to believe, or are too proud to acknowledge, that God foreknows and wills all things, not contingently, but necessarily and immutably, how can you believe, trust and rely on His promises?"[35] This logic is refreshingly carried through by Luther:


"If, then, we are taught and believe that we ought to be ignorant of the necessary foreknowledge of God and the necessity of events, Christian faith is utterly destroyed, and the promises of God and the whole gospel fall to the ground completely; for the Christian's chief and only comfort in every adversity lies in knowing that God does not lie, but brings all things to pass immutably, and that His will cannot be resisted, altered, or impeded."[36]


It is this foundational chapter in Luther's work that provides the basis for the rest of his conclusions.


While Luther analyzes many different arguments, and exegetes hundreds of passages of Scripture, the Sovereignty of God is the fundamental truth by which his conclusions are reached.


It is from this that he continues by asserting God's absolute control over man's salvation through the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit. It is from the Sovereignty of God that he also argues for God's control over the reprobation of the wicked by means of sovereign control, working evil through them, and handing them over to their sins.


Luther argues against the Erasmian thesis of the cooperative will on the grounds that the human will is bound by sin as a result of the fall of man.


Erasmus fully realized the implications of Luther's strong statement of God's sovereignty. He writes that if this teaching of God's sovereignty is proclaimed, "Who will try and reform his life?"[37]


Luther lashes back, "I reply, Nobody! Nobody can! God has no time for your practitioners of self-reformation, for they are hypocrites. The elect, who fear God, will be reformed by the Holy Spirit; the rest will perish unreformed."[38]


Erasmus pushes the point: "Who will believe that God loves him?"


Luther stands his ground: "I reply, Nobody! Nobody can! But the elect shall believe it; and the rest shall perish without believing it, raging and blaspheming, as you describe them. So there will be some who believe it."[39]


This is the central point Erasmus makes in his Diatribe, that God's sovereignty should not be emphasized to the point that the freedom of man's will is usurped.


Luther fires volley after volley, arguing that unless the sovereign God changes the heart of man, none shall accept the gospel. He writes:


"God has surely promised His grace to the humbled: that is, to those who mourn over and despair of themselves. But a man cannot be thoroughly humbled till he realises [sic] that his salvation is utterly beyond his own powers, counsels, efforts, will and works, and depends absolutely on the will, counsel, pleasure and work of Another - God alone."[40]


Thus Luther affirms the absolute sovereignty of God in salvation. In this same passage, Luther also goes on to speak of those who are not elect, that is, the reprobate. He realizes that his theology will not allow him to speak only of the elect, but of the non-elect as well. He writes:


"Thus God conceals His eternal mercy and loving kindness beneath eternal wrath, His righteousness beneath unrighteousness. Now, the highest degree of faith is to believe that He is merciful, though he saves so few and damns so many; to believe that He is just, though of His own will He makes us perforce proper subjects for damnation, and seems (in Erasmus' words) 'to delight in the torments of poor wretches and to be a fitter object for hate than for love.' If I could by any means understand how this same God, who makes such a show of wrath and unrighteousness, can yet be merciful and just, there would be no need for faith. But as it is, the impossibility of understanding makes room for the exercise of faith when these things are preached and published; just as, when God kills, faith in life is exercised in death."[41]


Thus Luther exhibits no qualms about following his theology to it's logical conclusion.


Time and time again he makes this known. He uses the specific examples of Pharoah, Judas, and Esau to prove his case that God sovereignly, in the counsel of His own will, determined to harden and reprobate them. At this point it is best to allow Luther to express his own views.


"Here, God Incarnate says: 'I would, and thou wouldst not.' God Incarnate, I repeat, was sent for this purpose, to will, say, do, suffer, and offer to all men, all that is necessary for salvation; albeit He offends many who, being abandoned or hardened by God's secret will of Majesty, do not receive Him thus willing, speaking, doing and offering. . . .It belongs to the same God Incarnate to weep, lament, and groan over the perdition of the ungodly, though that will of Majesty purposely leaves and reprobates some to perish. Nor is it for us to ask why He does so, but to stand in awe of God, Who can do, and wills to do such things."[42]


"On your view [Erasmus], God will elect nobody, and no place for election will be left; all that is left is freedom of will to heed or defy the long-suffering and wrath of God. But if God is thus robbed of His power and wisdom in election, what will He be but just that idol, Chance, under whose sway all things happen at random? Eventually, we shall come to this: that men may be saved and damned without God's knowledge! For He will not have marked out by sure election those that should be saved and those that should be damned; He will merely have set before all men His general long-suffering, which forbears and hardens, together with His chastening and punishing mercy, and left it to them to choose whether they would be saved or damned, while He Himself, perchance, goes off, as Homer says, to an Ethiopian banquet!"[43]


This passage remarkably demonstrates Luther's purpose in The Bondage of the Will. Here he states that the entire problem with the theology of Erasmus is that it makes its case for free will by robbing God of His sovereignty.


The entire problem with Erasmus is that on his terms God would not mark out, predestine, and know those among the elect and reprobate.


A single predestinarian may at this point claim that God marks out and knows those whom he elects, but not the remaining number.


The simple question is then how God elects any in an informed manner? How does God know He has elected all He wants to elect? This is to say, that unless God marks out and knows both the elect and reprobate, His sovereignty as well as omniscience suffers. Thus, Luther chastises Erasmus for promoting a relinquishing of God's sovereignty. He writes that Erasmus has been deceived by the "Mistress Reason"[44] and that


"Reason will insist that these are not the acts of a good and merciful God. They are too far beyond her grasp; and she cannot bring herself to believe that the God Who acts and judges thus is good; she wants to shut out faith, and to see, and feel, and understand, how it is that He is good and not cruel. She would certainly understand, were it said of God that He hardens none and damns none, but has mercy on all and saves all, so that hell is destroyed, and the fear of death may be put away, and no future punishment need be dreaded!"[45]


"[I]f God foreknew that Judas would be a traitor, Judas became a traitor of necessity, and it was not in the power of Judas or of any creature to act differently, or to change his will, from that which God had foreseen. It is true that Judas acted willingly, and not under compulsion, but his willing was the work of God, brought into being by His omnipotence, like everything else. . . .If you do not allow that the thing which God foreknows is necessarily brought to pass, you take away faith and the fear of God, you undermine all the Divine promises and threatenings, and so you deny Deity itself!"[46]


This is a strong statement in favor of maintaining God's sovereign will over even evil events and actions such as Judas Iscariot's betrayal of Jesus.


Luther understands the initial offensiveness of the doctrine he teaches, but holds that though it may be difficult, God must be reverenced and believed on the subject. He states, "Doubtless it gives the greatest possible offence [sic] to common sense or natural reason, that God. . .should of His own mere will abandon, harden and damn men."[47


After admitting this to be a great stumbling block, even for him, he states that "None the less, the arrow of conviction has remained, fastened deep in the hearts of learned and unlearned alike. . .that if the foreknowledge and omnipotence of God are admitted, then we must be under necessity."[48]


"You may be worried that it is hard to defend the mercy and equity of God in damning the undeserving, that is, ungodly persons, who, being born in ungodliness, can by no means avoid being ungodly, and staying so, and being damned, but are compelled by natural necessity to sin and perish; as Paul says: 'We were all the children of wrath, even as others' (Eph.2.3), created such by God Himself from a seed that had been corrupted by the sin of the one man, Adam. But here God must be reverenced and held in awe, as being most merciful to those whom He justifies and saves in their own utter unworthiness; and we must show some measure of deference to His Divine wisdom by believing Him just when to us He seems unjust."[49]


It is here that two very important considerations must be addressed. Opponents of the doctrine of double predestination often object on the grounds that the doctrine makes God into an "arbitrary" being - having no just reason to choose one over another. The other is an objection that the doctrine makes God to be the author of evil. These two objections Luther himself addresses quite adequately.


Is it true that upon the basis of double predestination God becomes a creature of arbitrariness, not having a just reason for choosing one man over another? Why did God choose to harden some in their sins and not alter their evil wills? "This question touches on the secrets of His Majesty, where 'His judgments are past finding out' (cf. Rom.11.33). It is not for us to inquire into these mysteries, but to adore them."[50] Luther surely recognizes an element of mystery in the doctrine of predestination, as did virtually all the Reformers. But Luther goes on to address the issue in a more satisfying manner.


The same reply should be given to those who ask: Why did God let Adam fall, and why did He create us all tainted with the same sin, when He might have kept Adam safe, and might have created us of other material, or of seed that had first been cleansed? God is He for Whose will no cause or ground may be laid down as its rule and standard; for nothing is on a level with it or above it, but it is itself the rule for all things. If any rule or standard, or cause or ground, existed for it, it could no longer be the will of God. What God wills is not right because He ought, or was bound, so to will; on the contrary, what takes place must be right, because He so wills it. Causes and grounds are laid down for the will of the creature, but not for the will of the Creator - unless you set another Creator over him![51]


Luther himself, in a skillful approach, answers the objection of arbitrariness. The ground upon which the objection must be brought is that God is bound to some greater rule of equity than His own infallible will. Luther articulates that the actual rule of equity God is bound to is His own will. That is, God does whatsoever pleases Him, and because it pleases Him, it is by definition equitable and right. While sometimes men may not understand fully the justice and righteousness of God's ways, Luther explains that God's ways are often mysterious to fallible and sinful men, and that He must be "reverenced and held in awe."[52]


The second objection regarding double predestination stems ultimately from a misunderstanding of it. Many caricatures of the doctrine see God as electing and reprobating men in eternity past, with no reference to man as sinner, but merely as creature. Thus, when God reprobated men from eternity, he had to then set His plan into action by then creating them sinful, (that is, create their sin afresh) and actively incline their hearts to wickedness so that he could punish them eternally. This particular doctrine is best called symmetrical predestination, in that God reprobated in the same active fashion as he elects. That is, as God must create a new, righteous, heart in the elect man, God must also create a new, wicked heart in the reprobate man. Very few theologians, especially Reformers, held this particular view.


The view that Luther maintains is also the view of the other major Reformers, including John Calvin, as well as earlier St. Augustine and Johann Staupitz. This view may be called asymmetrical predestination, as it pictures God electing and reprobating in eternity past with reference to man as sinner, not as creature.


Therefore, when God had before him the entire human race, he viewed mankind as fallen.


This is why Luther constantly writes that God "damns the undeserving" as well as "elects the undeserving."[53]


God, in His act of election and reprobation, saw both kinds of men as "undeserving."


The implications of this are such that God had no need to create the reprobate with fresh evil in them, as if it were possible for Him to be the author of evil, but rather, His decree of reprobation was passive. God simply "passed over" the reprobate in the exercise of His saving mercy.


One may wonder how this differs from "single" predestination. Quite simply, in single predestination there is no "decree of reprobation," while in asymmetrical double predestination there is, albeit a passive decree.[54]


It is the opinion of this paper that the positions of Martin Luther are in no way compatible with any scheme of "single" predestination.


Luther at every turn affirms the sovereignty of God in both election and reprobation, as well as in everything that comes to pass. That is, God's sovereignty is the foundation upon which all his argument flows.


If the very candid statements by Luther so far are not enough to convince the skeptic, nowhere does Luther so skillfully defend the doctrine of double predestination as in the following (lengthy) passage:


"The Diatribe gathers its second absurdity from Mistress Reason - 'human' reason, so-called: to wit, that on my view blame must attach, not to the vessel, but to the potter, especially in view of the fact that He is a potter who creates this clay as well as moulds it. 'Here (says the Diatribe) the vessel is cast into eternal fire, a fate which it in no way deserved, except that it was not under its own control.' Nowhere does the Diatribe more openly betray itself than here. You hear it saying (in different words, admittedly, but with identical meaning) just what Paul makes the ungodly say: 'Why doth He find fault? Who shall resist His will?' This is what Reason cannot receive nor bear. This is what offended so many men of outstanding ability, men who have won acceptance down so many ages."


"At this point, ___they demand that God should act according to man's idea of right___, and do what seems proper to themselves - or else that He should cease to be God! . . . .Flesh does not deign to give God glory to the extent of believing Him to be just and good when He speaks and acts above and beyond the definitions of Justinian's Code, or the fifth book of Aristotle's Ethics! No, let the Majesty that created all things give way before a worthless fragment of His own creation! Let the boot be on the other foot, and the Corycian cavern fear those that look into it! So it is 'absurd' to condemn one who cannot avoid deserving damnation. And because of this 'absurdity' it must be false that God has mercy on whom He will have mercy, and hardens whom He will. He must be brought to order! Rules must be laid down for Him, and ___He is not to damn any but those who have deserved it by our reckoning___! In this way, Paul and his simile are satisfactorily answered; so Paul must presumably recall it, and allow that it has no force, and remodel it; because the Potter in question (this is the Diatribe's explanation) makes the vessel unto dishonour on the grounds of merit preceding, just as He rejected some of the Jews by reason of unbelief, and received Gentiles by reason of their faith. But if God works in such a way as to regard merit, why do the objectors grumble and complain? Why do they say: 'Why doth He find fault? Who resists His will?' Why need Paul restrain them? For who is surprised, let alone shocked or inclined to object, if one is damned who deserved it? Moreover, what becomes of the power of the Potter to make what vessel He will, if He is controlled by merits and rules, and is not allowed to make as He would, but is required to make as He should?"


", Suppose we imagine that God ought to be a God who regards merit in those that are to be damned. Must we not equally maintain and allow that He should also regard merit in those that are to be saved? If we want to follow Reason, it is as unjust to reward the undeserving as to punish the undeserving. So let us conclude that God ought to justify on the grounds of merit preceding; or else we shall be declaring Him to be unjust. One who delights in evil and wicked men, and who invites and crowns their impiety with rewards!"


"But then woe to us poor wretches with such a God! For who shall be saved? Behold, therefore, the wickedness of the human heart! When God saves the undeserving without merit, yes, and justifies the ungodly, with all their great demerit, man's heart does not accuse God of iniquity, nor demand to know why He wills to do so, although by its own reckoning such action is most unprincipled; but because what God does is in its own interest, and welcome, it considers it just and good. But when He damns the undeserving, because this is against its interest, it finds the action iniquitous and intolerable; and here man's heart protests, and grumbles, blasphemes. So you see that the Diatribe and its friends do not judge in this matter according to equity, but according to their passionate regard for their own interest."


", [I]f God who crowns the undeserving pleases you, you ought not be displeased when He damns the undeserving! If He is just in the one case, He cannot but be just in the other. In the one case, He pours out grace and mercy upon the unworthy; in the other, He pours our wrath and severity upon the undeserving; in both He transgresses the bounds of equity in man's sight, yet is just and true in His own sight. How it is just for Him to crown the unworthy is incomprehensible now; but we shall see it when we reach the place where He will be no more an object of faith, but we shall with open face behold Him. So too, it is at present imcomprehensible how it is just for Him to damn the undeserving; yet faith will continue to believe that it is so, till the Son of Man shall be revealed."[55]


The author of these words might well have drafted the Articles of Dordt, the Westminster Confession of Faith, or any other historic Calvinist creed. In this quote are found a summary of all that has been said thus far. Luther addresses every element: election (active), reprobation (passive), God's justice (anti-arbitrariness), and God's sovereignty.


The Modern Lutheran statement on predestination states that, "[We] reject that God does not want everybody to be saved, but that merely by an arbitrary counsel, purpose, and will, without regard for their sin, God has predestined certain people to damnation so that they cannot be saved."[56]


Luther and every Calvinist would agree on at least one point: God's counsels nor purposes are never arbitrary. They are righteous and good because God Himself makes them, and God does not reprobate without regard for their sin. God's reprobation presupposes their sin.


Regarding God's desire for all men to be saved, Luther himself objects. In response to the claim that 'God desires all men to be saved,' and that 'Christ died for all men,' he writes that:


"These points and others like them can be refuted as easily as the first one. For these verses must always be understood as pertaining to the elect only, as the apostle says in 2 Tim. 2:10 'everything for the sake of the elect.' For in an absolute sense Christ did not die for all, because he says: 'This is my blood which is poured out for you' and 'for many' - He does not say: for all - 'for the forgiveness of sins' (Mark 14:24, Matt. 26:28)"[57]


CONCLUSION:

Something has gone wrong in Lutheranism. It has been more than adequately shown that regarding the doctrine of the eternal predestination of God Martin Luther taught things directly contrary to the standards of Modern Lutheranism. Something very clearly happened in Lutheran doctrine between 1546 and 1580. In the span between Luther's death and the Formula of Concord a radical shift came in "Lutheran" theology. While it is beyond the scope of this paper to examine exactly what did happen, enough has been said to demonstrate that something did indeed happen.


Luther never taught any such doctrine as "single" predestination. The concept was clearly very foreign to him, as it required the suspension of God's sovereignty over the reprobation of man. Such a suspension to Luther was the "denial of Deity itself."[58]


Luther understood that in terms of God's predestination, the principle is indeed "double or nothing." Either God is sovereign over all things which comes to pass, or He is not sovereign at all.


Modern Lutheranism, however, treats reprobation in an almost agnostic fashion. Recall the quote from Robert Hoerber: "[T]he 'unreasonable' doctrine of election to salvation (but not to damnation) is a particularly comforting part of the gospel message."[59]


No explanation is given by Hoerber as to how it is possible (indeed, he admits that it is "unreasonable" for God to maintain sovereignty over election yet not over reprobation.


One can almost anticipate Luther's response that "the Christian's chief and only comfort in every adversity lies in knowing that God does not lie, but brings all things to pass immutably, and that His will cannot be resisted, altered, or impeded."[60]


Hoerber's supposedly "comforting" single predestinarian view is thus rejected by Luther himself. Comfort is only drawn through faith in God's sovereignty, not faith in His relinquishing of it.


Though Martin Luther and other Reformers like Calvin and Zwingli may have differed over many issues, such as the regulating principle of worship, the nature of the sacraments, the use of law in civil government, and the like, they never had a public disagreement over their respective doctrines of predestination.


In an age of controversy, this fact is quite remarkable, especially as the doctrine remains the most controversial of all doctrines. If one reads the doctrine as presented by the Reformers, a single, uniform, voice will be found: God is sovereign over heaven and hell, salvation and damnation, life and death.


The health of the church today requires re-thinking on the issue of God's sovereignty. With semi-Pelagianism and Arminianism the norm rather than the exception in the modern church, the tough issues must once again be grappled with. There must be another reformation.


Perhaps this should start with a "rediscovery" of the doctrines of times long past. Perhaps there must be a revival of reading ancient documents and treatises to discover the secrets long obscured. The church must see its place in history through the light of the past. The author, however, does not speak now of that ancient light of St. Augustine, now dimmed and wearied with age. God continues to raise up new lights for the continual reformation of His church. The light now shining is not Augustine, but Martin Luther himself.

Double Or Nothing: Martin Luther's Doctrine of Predestination Brian G. Mattson
[/Quote]
http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/onsite/double_luther.html

@KDK

[Quote]

I am also in that school of thot just like the apostle paul. However, wat confuses me is since this is so, why does God want us to preach?

[/Quote]

He still wants us to preach because it it the means by which he saves. Paul apart from talking of the elects and election also said, ''Therefore I endure all things for the elect's sakes, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory'' 2Tim. 2:10.
Of course as you have implied, He still wants us to preach, to everyone, and to everyone we must preach, for we do not know who they (the elects)are.


Of course I am not the least surprised you are of that persuation, were you not very outstanding in this thread,

https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-24626.0.html?

More on election.

[Quote]


Election
by
C. H. Spurgeon
(1834-1892)

"But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth. He called you to this through our gospel, that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ" (2Thessalonians 2:13-14).

If there were no other text in the sacred word except this one, I think we should all be bound to receive and acknowledge the truthfulness of the great and glorious doctrine of God's ancient choice of His family. But there seems to be an ongoing prejudice in the human mind against this doctrine, and although most other doctrines will be received by professing Christians, some with caution, others with pleasure, yet this one seems to be most frequently disregarded and discarded. In many of our pulpits, it would be considered a great sin and treason to preach a sermon on "election," because they could not make "practical" application of the discussion. I believe that they have clearly misjudged the truth of this subject. Whatever God has revealed, He has revealed for a purpose.

There is nothing in Scripture which cannot, under the influence of God's Spirit, be turned into a practical lesson because, "All Scripture is God- breathed and is useful for teaching," some purpose of spiritual usefulness. It is true, that it cannot be turned into a lesson on the "freewill" of man, but it can be turned into a practical sermon on the "free grace" of God. And sermons on the "free grace" of God are the best, because they bring the true doctrines of God's unchanging love to bear upon the hearts of saints and sinners.

Now, I trust this morning some of you who are startled at the very sound of this word, will say, "I will give it a fair hearing, I will lay aside my prejudices; I will just hear what this man has to say." Do not shut your ears and say, "It is extreme doctrine." Who has authorized you to call it extreme or normal? Why should you oppose God's doctrine? Remember what became of the children who found fault with God's prophet, and exclaimed, "Go on up, you baldhead!; Go on up, you baldhead!" Say nothing against God's doctrines, or some evil beast might come out of the forest and devour you also.

There are other griefs besides the open judgment of heaven--be careful that these don't fall on your head. Lay aside your prejudices; listen calmly, listen objectively: hear what Scripture says; and when you receive the truth, if God would be pleased to reveal and manifest it to your souls, do not be ashamed to confess it. To confess you were wrong yesterday, is only to acknowledge that you are a little wiser today; and instead of being a reflection on yourself, it is an honor to your judgment, and shows that you are improving in the knowledge of the truth. Do not be ashamed to learn, and to throw aside your old doctrines and views, but take up that which you more plainly see to be in the Word of God.

But if you do not see it to be here in the Bible, whatever I may say, or whatever authorities I may plead, I beg you as you love your souls, reject it; and if from this pulpit you ever hear things contrary to this sacred word, remember that the Bible must be the first, and God's minister must be subject to it. We must not stand on the Bible to preach, but we must preach with the Bible above our heads. After all we have preached, we are well aware that the mountain of truth is higher than our eyes can discern; clouds and darkness are around its summit, and we cannot discern its topmost pinnacle; yet we will try to preach it as well as we can. But since we are mortal and liable to error, exercise your judgment; "Test the spirits to see whether they are from God;" and if on mature reflection on your bended knees, you are led to disregard election--a thing which I consider utterly impossible--then forsake it, don't listen to it preached, but believe and confess whatever you see to be God's word. I can say no more than that by way of introduction.

OUTLINE

I. The TRUTHFULNESS of Election - I will speak a little concerning the truthfulness of this doctrine: "From the beginning God chose you to be saved."

II. Election is UNCONDITIONAL - I will try to prove that this election is unconditional: "From the beginning God chose you to be saved," not "for" sanctification, but "through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth."

III. Election is ETERNAL - This election is eternal; because the text says, "'From the beginning' God chose you."

IV. Election is PERSONAL - It is personal: "God chose you."

V. The EFFECTS of Election - We will look at the effects of the doctrine--see what it does.

VI. The TENDENCIES of Election - We will look at its tendencies, and see whether it is indeed a terrible and licentious doctrine.

We will take the flower, and like true bees, see whether there be any honey in it; whether any good can come of it, or whether it is an unmixed, undiluted evil.

I. First, I must try and prove that the doctrine is TRUE.

And let me begin by using the very words and arguments of those opposed to election. I will speak to you according to your different beliefs and attitudes on the subject. There are some of you who belong to the Church of England, and I am happy to see so many of you here. Though now and then I certainly say some very firm things about the subject of church and state, yet I love the old church, for she has in her communion many godly ministers and outstanding saints. Now, I know you are great believers in what the Anglican Articles declare to be sound doctrine. I will give you a specimen of what they say concerning election, so that if you believe them, you cannot avoid receiving election. I will read a portion of the 17th article, upon Predestination and Election:

Predestination to life is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby (before the foundations of the world were laid) He had constantly decreed by His counsel secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those whom He had chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honor. Wherefore those which were endowed with so excellent a benefit of God would be called according to God's purpose by His Spirit working in due season: they will through grace obey the calling: they will be justified freely: they will be made sons of God by adoption: they will be made like the image of His only begotten Son Jesus Christ: they will walk religiously in good works, and at length, by God's mercy, they will attain everlasting happiness.

Now, I think any churchman, if he be a sincere and honest believer in mother church, must be a thorough believer in election. True, if he turns to certain other portions of the Anglican Prayer Book, he will find things contrary to the doctrines of free grace, and altogether apart from scriptural teaching; but if he looks at the Articles, he must see that God has chosen HIs people unto eternal life. I am not so desperately in love, however, with that book as you may be, and I have only used this article to show you, that if you belong to the Establishment of England, you should at least offer no objection to this doctrine of predestination.

Another human authority that confirms the doctrine of election, is, the old Waldensian creed. If you read the creed of the old Waldenses, emanating from them in the midst of the burning heat of persecution, you will see that these renowned professors and confessors of the Christian faith did most firmly receive and embrace this doctrine as being a portion of the truth of God. I have copied from an old book one of the articles of their faith:

That God saves from corruption and damnation those whom He has chosen from the foundations of the world, not for any attitude, faith, or holiness that He foresaw in them, but of His mere mercy in Christ Jesus His Son, passing by all the rest, according to the blameless reason of His own free will and justice.

It is no wonder, then, that I am not preaching a new doctrine. I love to proclaim these strong old doctrines, that are called by nickname "Calvinism," but which are surely the revealed truth of God as it is in Christ Jesus. By this truth I make a pilgrimage into the past, and as I go, I see Church Father after Church Father, confessor after confessor, martyr after martyr, standing up to shake hands with me. If I was a Pelagian, or a believer in the doctrine of man's freewill, I would have to walk for centuries all alone. Here and there I would find a heretic, of rather dishonorable character who might rise up and call me brother. But taking these things to be the standard of my faith, I see the land of the ancients populated with my brethren. I see multitudes who confess the same as I do, and acknowledge that this is the religion of God's own church.

I also give you an extract from the old Baptist confession. We are Baptist in this congregation--the greater part of us at any rate--and we like to see what our own forefathers wrote. Some two hundred years ago the Baptist assembled together, and published their articles of faith, to put an end to certain reports against their orthodoxy which had gone forth to the world. I turn to this old book--which I have just published, and which you will soon be able to have--and I find the following as the 3rd Article:

By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestinated, or foreordained to eternal life through Jesus Christ, to the praise of His glorious grace; others being left to act in their sins to their just condemnation, to the praise of His glorious justice. These angels and men thus predestinated and foreordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed, and their number so certain and definite, that it cannot be either increased nor decreased. Those of mankind that are predestinated to life, God, before the foundation of the world was laid, according to His eternal and unchangeable purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of His will, has chosen in Christ unto everlasting glory, out of His mere free grace and love, without any other thing in the creature as a condition or a cause moving Him to do so.

As for these human authorities, I don't care one bit for all three of them. I don't care what they say, pro or con, as to this doctrine. I have only used them as a kind of confirmation to your faith to show you that while I may be attacked as a heretic and as a hyper-Calvinist, I am after all backed up by antiquity. All the past stands by me. I don't care for the present. Give me the past and I will hope for the future. Let the present attack me to my face; I will not care. Though a multitude of the churches of London may have forsaken the great cardinal doctrines of God, it doesn't matter. If a handful of us stand alone in an unflinching defense of the sovereignty of our God, if we are assaulted by enemies, yes, and even by our own brethren, who ought to be our friends and helpers, it doesn't matter, if we can but count on the past; the noble army of martyrs, the glorious multitude of confessors, are our friends; the witnesses of truth stand by us. With these for us, we will not say that we stand alone; but we may cry out, "God has reserved seven thousand--all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal!" But the best of all is, God is with us.

The great truth is always the Bible, and the Bible alone. My dear listeners, you do not believe in any other book than the Bible, do you? If I could prove this from all the books in Christendom; if I could bring back the Alexandrian library, and prove it from that source, you would not believe it; but you surely will believe what is in God's Word.

I have selected a few texts to read to you. I love to give you a whole volley of texts when I am afraid you will doubt a truth, so that you may be too astonished to doubt, if you don't really believe. Just let me run through a list of passages where the people of God are called elect. Of course if the people are called ELECT, there must have been an ELECTION. If Jesus Christ and His apostles were accustomed to refer to believers by the title of elect, we must certainly believe that they were so, otherwise the term does not mean anything:

Jesus Christ says,

"If the Lord had not cut short those days, no one would survive. But for the sake of the elect, whom He has chosen, He has shorten them" (Mark 13:20).

"False Christs and false prophets will appear and perform signs and miracles to deceive the elect--if that were possible" (Mark 13:22).

"He will send His angels and gather His elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens" (Mark 13:27).

"And will not God bring about justice for His chosen [elect] ones, who cry out to Him day and night? Will He keep putting them off?" (Luke 18:7).

Together with many other passages which might be selected, in which either the word "elect," or "chosen," or "foreordained," or "appointed," is mentioned; or the phrase "my sheep," or some similar designation, showing that Christ's people are distinguished from the rest of mankind.

But you have concordances, and I will not trouble you with texts. Throughout the epistles, the saints are constantly called "the elect" or "the chosen." In the Book of Colossians we find Paul saying, "Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion." When he writes to Titus, he calls himself, "Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ for the faith of God's elect." Peter says, "To God's elect, strangers in the world . . . who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father." Then if you turn to John, you will find that he is very fond of the word. He says, "The elder, to the elect lady" (KJV), and he speaks of our "elect sister." And we know where it is written, "The church that is at Babylon, elected together with you" (KJV).

They were not ashamed of the word in those days; they were not afraid to talk about it. Nowadays the word has been dressed up with a variety of meanings, and persons have mutilated and marred the doctrine, so that they have made it a doctrine of devils. But, why should I be ashamed of it, even though men struggle with it. We love God's truth even when it is challenged and twisted by doubters--we don't call it false. We don't love to see it perverted and twisted, but we never stop loving the truth that is being abused, because we can discern what the truth really says despite the twisting and perversions by the cruelty and inventions of men. If you will read many of the epistles of the ancient Fathers, you will find them always writing to the people of God as "the elect." In fact, the common term used in conversation among many of the early Christians to one another, was that of the "elect." They would often use the term to one another, showing that it was generally believed that all God's people were unmistakably "elect."

But now for the verses that will positively prove the doctrine. Open your Bibles and turn to John 15:16, and there you will see that Jesus Christ has chosen His people; for He says, "You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit--fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name." Then in the 19th verse, "If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you."

Then in the 17th chapter and the 8th and 9th verses, "For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours." Turn to Acts 13:48, "When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and honored the word of the Lord; and all who were appointed for eternal life believed." They may try to split that passage into hairs if they like: but it says, "appointed to eternal life," as plainly as it possibly can; and we don't care about all the different commentaries that criticize election. You scarcely need to be reminded of Romans 8, because I trust you are well acquainted with that chapter, and understand it by this time. In the 29th, and following verses, it says,

For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies.

It would be unnecessary to repeat the whole of the 9th chapter of Romans. As long as that remains in the Bible no man shall be able to prove Arminianism; so long as that is written there, not the most violent contortions of the passage will ever be able to exterminate the doctrine of election from the Scriptures. Let us read such verses as these: "Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad--in order that God's purpose in election might stand: not by works but by him who calls--she was told, 'The older will serve the younger.'" Then read the 22nd verse: "What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath--prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory." Then go to Romans 11:7, "What then? What Israel sought so earnestly it did not obtain, but the elect did. The others were hardened." In the 5th verse of the same chapter: "So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace." You, no doubt, all remember the passage in 1 Corinthians 1:26-29:

Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things--and the things that are not--to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before Him.

Again, remember the passage in 1 Thessalonians 5:9, "God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ." And then you have my text, which I think would be quite enough. But if you need more, you can find them at your leisure, if we have not quite removed your suspicions as to the doctrine being true.

My friends, I think that this overwhelming mass of Scripture testimony must stagger those who dare to laugh at this doctrine. What shall we say of those who have so often despised it, and denied its divinity, who have mocked its justice and dared to defy God and call Him an Almighty tyrant, when they have heard of His having elected only so many to eternal life. Can you, O rejecter! tear it out of the Bible? Can you take the penknife of Jehudi and cut it out of the Word of God? Would you be like the woman at the feet of Solomon, and have the child cut in halves, that you might have your half? Is it not here in Scripture? And is it not your duty to bow before it? To receive it as the truth even though you can't understand its meaning?

I will not attempt to prove the justice of God in having thus elected some and left others. It is not for me to argue with my Master. He will speak for Himself, and He does so: "But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?' Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?" Who is he that shall say to his father, "What have you procreated?" Or to his mother, "What have you brought forth?" I am the Lord your God, I create light and I create darkness. I the Lord do all of these things. Who are you that answers back to God? Tremble and kiss His rod; bow down and submit to His scepter; do not challenge His justice, and do not accuse His actions before your bar, O man!

But there are some who say, "It is hard for God to choose some and leave others." Now, I will ask you one question. Is there any one of you here this morning who wishes to be holy, who wishes to be regenerate, to leave their life of sin and walk in holiness? "Yes, there is," says some one, "I do." Then God has elected you. But another says, "No: I don't want to be holy; I don't want to give up my lusts and my vices." Why should you grumble, then, that God has not elected you to it? For if you were elected you would not like it, according to your own confession. If God, this morning, had chosen you to holiness, you say you would not care for it. Do you not acknowledge that you prefer drunkenness to sobriety, dishonesty to honesty? You love this world's pleasure better than religion; then why should you grumble that God has not chosen you to religion? If you love religion, He has chosen you to it. If you desire it, He has chosen you to it. If you do not, what right have you to say that God ought to have given you what you do not wish for?

Supposing I had in my hand something which you do not value, and I said I shall give it to such-and-such a person: you would have no right to grumble that I did not give it to you. You could not be so foolish as to grumble that the other has got what you did not care about. According to your own confession, many of you do not want religion, do not want a new heart and a right spirit, do not want the forgiveness of sins, do not want to be holy, you do not want to be elected to these things: then why should you grumble? You count these things as worthless, and why should you complain of God who has given them to those whom He has chosen?

If you believe them to be good, and desire them, they are there for you. God gives liberally to all those who desire; and first of all, He makes them desire, otherwise they never would. If you love these things, he has elected you to them, and you may have them; but if you do not, who are you that you should find fault with God, when it is your own headstrong will that keeps you from loving these things--your own simple self that makes you hat them? Suppose a man in the street should say, "What a shame it is I cannot have a seat in the church to hear what the preacher has to say." And suppose he says, "I hate the preacher; I can't stand his doctrine; but still it's a shame I don't have a seat." Would you expect a may to say such a thing? No: you would quickly say, "That man doesn't care for it. Why should he trouble himself about other people having what they value and he despises?" You don't like holiness, you do not like righteousness: if God has elected me to these things, has He hurt you by it?

"Ah, but," some say, "I thought it meant that God elected some to heaven and some to hell." That 's a very different matter from the gospel doctrine. He has elected men to holiness and to righteousness, and through that to heaven. You must not say that He has elected them simply to heaven, and others only to hell. He has elected you to holiness, if you love holiness. If any of you love to be saved by Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ has elected you to be saved. If any of you desire to have salvation, you are elected to have it, if you sincerely and earnestly desire it. But, if you don't desire it, why on earth should you be so incredibly foolish as to complain because God gives that which you don't like to other people?

II. Thus I have tried to say something with regard to the truth of the doctrine of election. And now briefly let me say that election is UNCONDITIONAL; that is, it does not depend on what we are.

The text says, "From the beginning God chose you to be saved;" but our opponents say, that God chooses people because they are good; that He chooses them on account of the many works which they have done. Now, we ask, in reply to this, what works are those that the "chosen" did that caused God to elect His people? Are they what we commonly call "works of law"--works of obedience which the creature can do? If so, we reply to you, if men cannot be justified by the works of the law, it seems to us pretty clear that they cannot be elected by the works of the law; if they cannot be justified by their good works, they cannot be saved by them. Then the teaching of election could not have been formed on good works.

"But," others say, "God elected them on the foresight of their faith." Now, God gives faith therefore He could not have elected them on account of faith, which He foresaw. If there were twenty beggars in the street, and I determine to give one of them a dollar, will anyone say that I determined to give that one a dollar, that I elected him to have the dollar, because I foresaw that he would have it? That would be talking nonsense. Likewise, to say that God elected men because He foresaw they would have faith, would be too absurd for us to listen to for a moment. Faith is the gift of God. Every virtue comes from Him. Therefore it cannot have caused Him to elect men, because it is His gift. Election, we are sure, is unconditional, and altogether apart from the virtues which the saints acquire after salvation. What, though a saint should be as holy and devout as Paul, what though he should be as bold as Peter, or as loving as John, yet he would claim nothing form his Maker.

I never knew a saint from any denomination who thought that God saved him because he foresaw that he would have these virtues and merits. Now, my brethren, the best jewels that the saint ever wears, if they be jewels of his own fashioning, are not pure. There is something of earth mixed with them. The highest grace we ever possess has something of earthliness about it. We feel this when we are most refined, when we are most holy; and our language must always be like Paul's:

"I am the chief of sinners; Jesus died for me."

Our only hope, our only plea, still hangs on grace, as exhibited in the person of Jesus Christ. And I am sure we must utterly reject and disregard all thought that our graces which are gifts of our Lord, which are planted by His right-hand, could have ever caused His love. And we must forever sing:

"What was there in us that could merit esteem, Or give the Creator delight? Nothing was found Father, so we must forever sing, Because it seemed good in your sight."

"God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy:" He saves because He wants to save. And if you ask me why He saves me, I can only say, because He wants to do it. Was there anything in me that should cause God to want to chose me? No; I put everything aside. I have nothing to recommend me. When God saved me, I was the most despicable, lost, and destitute of the race. I lay before Him as an infant in my blood. Truly, I had no power to help myself. Oh how wretched did I feel and know myself to be! If you had something to recommend you to God, I never had. I will be content to be saved by GRACE, undiluted, pure grace. I can boast of no goodness. If you can, then do so, I cannot. I must sing:

"Free grace alone,
from the first to the last,
Has won my affection and held my soul firm."

III. Then, thirdly, this election is ETERNAL.

"From the beginning God chose you to be saved . . . All who were appointed (elected) for eternal life believed" (2Thess 2:13, Acts 13:48). Can any man tell me when the beginning was? Years ago, we thought the beginning of this world was when Adam came upon it. But that was not the beginning; for revelation points us to a period before this world was fashioned--to the days when the morning stars were created; when, like drops of dew from the fingers of the morning, stars and constellations fell trickling from the hand of God; when, by His own lips He launched forth massive, burning stars; when, with His own hand, He sent comets, like thunderbolts, wandering through the sky, to find one day their proper sphere. We go back to years gone by, when worlds were made and systems fashioned; but we have not even approached the beginning yet.

Until we go to the time when all the universe slept in the mind of God, as yet unborn, until we enter the eternity where God, the Creator, lived alone, everything sleeping within Him, all creation resting in His mighty gigantic thought, we have not found the beginning. We may go back, back, back, ages upon ages. We may go back, if we might use strange words, whole eternities, and yet never arrive at the beginning. Our wing might be tired, our imagination would die away. Even if it could move faster than the lighting's flashing in majesty, power, and speed, it would soon weary itself before it could get to the beginning.

But God from the beginning chose His people; when the unnavigated upper regions of space was yet unfanned by the wing of a single angel, when space was shoreless, or else unborn, when universal silence reigned, and not a voice or whisper shocked the solemnity of silence; when there was no being, and no motion, no time, and no one but God Himself, alone in His eternity; when without the song of an angel, without the attendance of even the cherubim; long before the living creatures were born, or the wheels of the chariot of Jehovah were fashioned; even then, "In the beginning was the Word," and in the beginning God's people were one with the Word, and in "the beginning God chose you to be saved." Our election, then, is eternal. I will not stop to prove it; I only just run over these thoughts for the benefit of young beginners, that they may understand what we mean by eternal, absolute election.

IV. And next, the election is PERSONAL.

Here, again, our opponents have tried to overthrow election by telling us that it is an election of nations, and not of people. But here the apostle says, "From the beginning God chose YOU." It is the most wretched lie on earth to make out that God has not chosen persons, but nations; because the very same objection that lies against the choice of persons lies against the choice of a nation. If it were not just to choose a person, it would be far more unjust to choose a nation; since nations are but the union of multitudes of persons; and to chose a nation seems to be a more gigantic crime--if election were a crime--than to choose one person. Surely, to choose ten thousand would be considered to be worse than choosing one; to distinguish a whole nation from the rest of mankind does seem to be a greater production in the acts of divine sovereignty than the election of one poor mortal, and leaving out another.

But what are nations but men? What are whole people but combinations of different units? A nation is made up of that individual, and that, and that. And if you tell me that God chose the Jews, I say, then, He chose that Jew, and that Jew, and that Jew. And if you say He chooses Britain, then I say he chooses that British man, and that British man, and that British man. So it is the same thing after all. Election, then, is personal: it must be so. Everyone who reads this verse, and others like it, will see that Scripture continually speaks of God's people, one by one; and speaks of them as having been the special subjects of election. "We are sons through God's election, Who by Jesus Christ believe; By eternal destination Sovereign grace is here received." We know it is a personal election.

V. The other thought is--for my time flies too swiftly to enable me to dwell too long on these points--that election produced GOOD RESULTS.

"From the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth." How many men completely misunderstand the doctrines of election! And how my soul burns and boils when I remember the terrible evils that have been accrued from all the abuses and the struggles over that glorious portion of God's glorious truth! Many have said to themselves, "I am elect," and then have sat down in laziness, and worse than that! They have said, "I am the elect of God," and with both hands they have done wickedness. They have quickly run to every unclean thing, because they have said, "I am the chosen child of God, irrespective of my works, therefore I may live as I want, and do what I like."

O, beloved! let me solemnly warn everyone of you not to carry the truth too far; or, rather not to turn the truth into error, for we cannot carry it too far. We may overstep the truth; we can make that which was meant to be sweet for our comfort, a terrible mixture for our destruction. I tell you there have been thousands of men who have been ruined by misunderstanding election; who have said, "God has elected me to heaven, and to eternal life;" but they have forgotten that it is written, God has elected them "through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth." This is God's election--election to holiness and to faith.

God chooses His people to be holy, and to be believers? How many of any congregation can say from their hearts, "I trust in God that I am sanctified?" Is there one of you who says, "I am elect"--I remind you of your sin of swearing last week. One of you says, "I believe I am elect"--but I jog your memory about some wicked act that you committed during the last six days. Another of you says, "I am elect"--but I would look you in the face and say, "Elect! you are a most cursed hypocrite! and that is all you are." Others would say, "I am elect"--but I would remind them that they neglect God's mercy and do not pray.

O beloved! never think you are elect unless you are holy. You may come to Christ as a sinner, but you may not come to Christ as an elect person until you can see your holiness. Do not misconstrue what I say--don't say, "I am elect," and yet think you can be living in sin. That is impossible. The elect of God are holy. They are not pure, they are not perfect, they are not spotless; but, taking their life as a whole, they are holy persons. They are marked, and distinct from others; and no man has the right to conclude himself elect except in his holiness. He may be elect, and yet lying in darkness, but he has no right to believe it; no one can see it, there is no evidence of it. The man may live one day, but he is dead at present. If you are walking in the fear of God, trying to please Him, and to obey His commandments, then don't doubt that you name has been written in the Lamb's Book of Life from before the foundation of the world.

And, lest this should be too high for you, note the other mark of election, which is faith, "belief in the truth." Whoever believes God's truth, and believes on Jesus Christ, is elect. I frequently meet with poor souls, who are fretting and worrying themselves about this thought--"What if I am not elect!" "Oh, sir," they say, "I know I put my trust in Jesus; I know I believe in His name and trust in His blood; but what if I am not elect?" Poor dear creature! you do not know much about the gospel, or you would not talk that way, for HE THAT BELIEVES IS ELECT. Those who are elect, are elect unto holiness and unto faith, and if you have faith you are one of God's elect; you may know it and ought to know it, for it is an absolute certainty. If you, as a sinner, look to Jesus Christ this morning, and say--

"Nothing in my hands I bring, Simply to your cross I cling,"

then, you are elect. I am not afraid of election frightening poor saints or sinners. There are many preachers who tell the those seeking salvation and are wondering about election, "election has nothing to do with salvation." That is very wrong, because the poor soul is not going to be satisfied like that. He will continue to think of the idea of election, he can't help it. Say to him then, If you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ you are elect. If you will surrender yourself to Jesus, you are elect. I tell you--the chief of sinners--this morning, I tell you in his name, if you will come to God without any works of your own; surrender yourself to the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ; if you will come now and trust in Him, you are elect--you were loved of God from before the foundation of the world, for you could not do that unless God had given you the power, and had chosen you to do it. Now you are safe and secure if you will just come and surrender yourself to Jesus Christ, and wish to be saved and to be loved by Him.

But don't think that any man will be saved without faith and without holiness. Do not conceive, my friends, that some decree, passed in the dark ages of eternity, will save your souls, unless you believe in Christ. Do not sit down and believe that you can be saved without faith and holiness. That is a most abominable and accursed heresy, and has ruined thousands. Do not use election as a pillow for you to sleep on, or you may be ruined. God forbid that I should be giving you pillows that you may rest comfortably in your sins. Sinner! there is nothing in the Bible to excuse your sins. But if you are condemned, O man! if you are lost, O woman! you will not find in this Bible one drop to cool your tongue, or one doctrine to excuse your guilt; your damnation will be entirely your own fault, and your sin will richly deserve it. You are condemned because you do not believe. "You do not believe because you are not my sheep, and you refuse to come to me to have life."

Don't think that election excuses sin--don't dream of it--don't rock yourself in sweet complacency in the thought of your irresponsibility. You are responsible. We must give you both things. We must have divine sovereignty, and we must have man's responsibility. We must have election, but we must work on your heart, we must send God's truth to you; we must speak to you, and remind you of this, that while it is written, "In me is your help;" yet it is also written, "O Israel, you have destroyed yourself."

VI. Now, lastly, what are the CHARACTERISTICS of a right understanding of the doctrine of election.

First, I will tell you what the doctrine of election will make saints do under the blessing of God; and, secondly, what it do for sinners if God blesses them with it.

First, I think election, to a saint, is one of the most stripping doctrines in all the world--to take away all trust in the flesh, or all reliance on anything except Jesus Christ. How often do we wrap ourselves up in our own righteousness, and dress ourselves with the false pearls and gems of our own works and doings. We begin to say, "Now I am saved, because I did this or that." Instead of that, it is faith and faith alone that saves; that faith and that alone unites to the Lamb, irrespective of works, although saving faith will produce works after salvation. How often do we lean on some work, other than that of our own beloved, and trust in some power, other than what comes from on high. Now if we would have this power taken from us, then we must consider election. Stop, my soul, and consider this. God loved you before you had a being. He loved you when you were dead in disobedience and sin, and sent His Son to die for you. He purchased you with His precious blood, before you could even pronounce His name. Can you then be proud?

I know nothing, nothing again, that is more humbling for us than this doctrine of election. I have sometimes fallen prostrate before it, when endeavoring to understand it. I have stretched my wings, and, eagle-like, I have soared toward the sun. Steady has been my eye, and true my wing, for a while; but when I came near it, only one thought possessed me--"From the beginning God chose you to be saved"--I was lost in its luster, I was staggered with the mighty thought; and from the dizzy elevation down came my soul, prostrate and broken, saying, "Lord, I am nothing, I am less than nothing. Why me? Why me?"

Friends, if you want to be humbled, study election, for it will make you humble under the influence of God's Spirit. He who is proud of his election is not elect; and he who is humbled under a sense of it may believe that he is. He has every reason to believe that he is, for it is one of the most blessed effects of election, that it helps us to humble ourselves before God.

Once again. Election in the Christians should make him very FEARLESS and BOLD. No man will be so bold as he who believes that he is elect of God. What worry does he have about man, if he is chosen of his Maker? What will he care for the pitiful chirpings of some tiny sparrows when he knows that he is an eagle of the royal race? Will he care when the beggar makes fun of him, when the royal blood of heaven runs in his veins? Will he fear if all the world stands against him? If all the earth is at war, he dwells in perfect peace, for he is in the secret place of the tabernacle of the Most High, in the great pavilion of the Almighty. "I am God's," says he, "I am distinct from other men. They are of an inferior race. Am I not noble? Am I not one of the aristocrats of heaven? Is not my name written in God's book?" Does he care for the world? No: like the lion that doesn't care for the barking of the dog, he smiles at all his enemies; and when they come too near him, he moves and cuts them to pieces.

What does He care about them? He walks about them like Colossus; while little men walk under Him and do not understand Him. His brow is made of iron, His heart of flint--what does he care for man? No: if one universal hiss came up from the wide world, He would smile at it, for He would say,

"He that has made his refuge God, Shall find a most secure home."

I am one of His elect. I am chosen of God and precious; and though the world throw me out, I am not afraid. Ah! you weak professing Christians, some of you bend like the willows. There are few oaken Christians, now-a-days, that can stand the storm; and I will tell you the reason. It is because you do not believe that you are elect. The man who knows he is elect will be too proud to sin; he will not humble himself to commit the acts of the common people. The believer in this truth will say, "What, me compromise my principles? What, me change my doctrines? What, me lay aside my views? What, me hide what I believe to be true? No! since I know I am one of God's elect, in the very face of all men I shall speak God's truth, whatever men may say." Nothing makes a man so truly bold as to feel that he is God's elect. The one who knows that God has chosen him, shall not quiver nor shake.

Moreover, election will make us HOLY. Nothing under the gracious influence of the Holy Spirit can make a Christian more holy than the thought that he is chosen. "Shall I sin," he says, "after God has chosen me?" Shall I be disobedient after such love? Shall I go astray after so much loving-kindness and tender mercy? No, my God; since you have chosen me, I will live to you--

"Since you, my everlasting God, My Father, are to come,"

I will give myself to You, to be Yours forever, by election, and by redemption, casting myself on You, and solemnly consecrating myself to Your service.

And now, lastly, to the ungodly. What does election say to you?

First, you ungodly ones, I will excuse you for a moment. There are many of you who do not like election, and I cannot blame you for it, for I have heard those preach election, who have sat down, and said, "I have not one word to say to the sinner." Now, I say you OUGHT to dislike such preaching as that, and I do not blame you for it. But, I say, take courage, take hope, O you sinner, that there is election! So far from discouraging you, it is a very hopeful and joyous thing that there is an election. What if I told you that none can be saved, none are ordained to eternal life, wouldn't you tremble, and fold your hands in hopelessness, and say, "then how can I be saved, since none are elect?" But I say, there is a multitude elect, beyond all counting--a host that no mortal can number. Therefore, take heart, you poor sinner! Throw away your despondency--don't you have the same chance as being elect as the other person? For there is an innumerable host chosen. There is joy and comfort for you! Then, not only take heart, but go and try the Master. Remember, if you are not elect, you will lose nothing by asking.

What did the four Syrians say? "If we stay here, we will die. So let's go over to the camp of the Arameans and surrender. If they spare us, we live; if they kill us, then we die." O sinner! come to the throne of electing mercy. You may die where you are. Go to God; and, even supposing He should reject you, suppose His uplifted hand should drive you away--a thing impossible--yet you, will not lose anything; you will not be more damned for that. Besides, supposing you are damned, you would have the satisfaction at least of being able to lift up your eyes in hell, and say, "God, I asked for mercy from You, and You would not grant it; I sought it, but You refused it." That you shall never say, O sinner!

If you go to Him, and ask Him, you shall receive; for He never has refused anyone yet! Isn't that hope for you? Even though there is an allotted number of elect, yet it is true that all who seek belong to that number. Go and seek; and if you should be the first one to go to hell, tell the devils why you are perishing--tell the demons that you are a castaway, after having come as a guilty sinner to Jesus. I tell you it would disgrace the Eternal--with reverence to His name--and He would not allow such a thing. He is jealous of His honor, and He would not allow a sinner to say that.

But, poor soul! know that you cannot lose anything by coming; there is yet one more thought--Do you love the thought of election this morning? Are you willing to admit its justice? Do you say, "I feel that I am lost; I deserve it; and that if my brother is saved I cannot complain. If God destroys me, I deserve it; but if He saves the person sitting beside me, He has a right to do what He will with His own, and I have lost nothing because of it." Can you honestly say that from your heart? If so, then the doctrine of election has had its right effect on your spirit, and you are not far from the kingdom of heaven. You are brought to where you ought to be, where the Spirit wants you to be; and being so this morning, depart in peace; God has forgiven you sins. You would not feel that, if you were not pardoned; you would not feel that, if the Spirit of God were not working in you. Rejoice, then, in this. Let your hope rest on the cross of Christ. Don't rest on election, but on Christ Jesus. Rest on Jesus--Jesus first, middle, and without end. Amen.

Transcribed, updated, and added to Bible Bulletin Board's "Spurgeon Collection" by:

Tony Capoccia
Websites: www.biblebb.com and www.gospelgems.com
Email: tony@biblebb.com

[/QUOTE]

http://www.biblebb.com/files/spurgeon/elect.htm

@Unphilaz

[Quote]
Amen my brother for this piece of work by ch, i do hope frosbel will read it and understand that Eternal Security is a blessing it gives hope and assurance that eternal unSecurity cant. Now should i sin because i am eternally secured? never bc sin is agnst my default nature in Christ which is righteo

[/Quote]

Thanks. Rather than it being a licence to sin, it releases  much energy we should have used to fear and fret and enables us to serve our God with all our mights.

A love story only a Calvinist could love
It all started in 1995 at a commons table in the education building at UCF. I was an Arminian who ate lunch three times a week with three hyper-Calvinists. I’m a glutton for punishment. The battle waged for months as they threw out their Calvinist verses and I retorted with my Arminian ones. I held my ground.

Then the day came that they told me that I wasn’t saved because I didn’t believe “the truth.” So, I agreed to go to a conference that they had urged me to attend—just to get more ammunition for my arsenal. It was the 1995 Defending the Faith conference sponsored by Ligonier Ministries. I signed up to volunteer in the bookstore so that I could attend for free. I wasn’t paying for this stuff.

I reported to my volunteer position as scheduled and quickly realized that this wasn’t going to be all bad. I was taking over the spot for a tall, dark, and handsome fellow. While I was in a room full of people with bad theology, at least one of them was graced with some good looks.

So, as he was leaving, I inquired, “Where are you off to?”

He replied, “RTS. I have a class in an hour.”

So I responded, “RTS? [Note: this stands for Reformed Theology Seminary.] That must mean you’re a Calvinist, which means you believe in Limited Atonement. How can you believe that stuff and call yourself a Christian?”

I’ve always preferred the subtle approach. Yet, this was the line that sealed my fate as the future Mrs. McGregor Scott. I highly recommend it if you are single. (Unless the guy is an Arminian.) The doctrine of Limited Atonement was  my last holdout (as I claimed to be a four-point Calvinist) but it was the means that got me my first lunch of many to follow with my future husband.

Over a meal the next day, he explained how Christ’s blood is effective for the elect. Another term to describe this is “particular redemption.” He communicated grace to me during that lunch, setting me free from the belief that all Calvinists forsook the Great Commission, lacked love, and emphasized divine sovereignty to the exclusion of human responsibility.

I suspect that the love part was easy to exude, as he confessed later that he knew that day that he would marry me.

Hyper-Calvinism is as much a threat to biblical theology as any other heretical doctrine. It is essentially a rejection of historical Calvinism. While I maintain that good theology is essential, Paul reminds us in First Corinthians 13 that without love we are “sounding brass” and “clanging cymbals.” My hope is that I may think rightly in order that I might live rightly before Him.

Good theology is crucial. And it doesn’t hurt the state of affairs of a single girl either.

http://humblemusings.com/?p=232

KDK:
So poster, wat is your position on predestination?

There's a predestination- a double predestination actually - to life (election) and to damnation - (reprobation).

A Defense Of Calvinism By C.H Spurgeon



"The old truth that Calvin preached, that Augustine preached, that Paul preached, is the truth that I must preach to-day, or else be false to my conscience and my God. I cannot shape the truth; I know of no such thing as paring off the rough edges of a doctrine. John Knox's gospel is my gospel. That which thundered through Scotland must thunder through England again."—C. H. Spurgeon
T IS A GREAT THING to begin the Christian life by believing good solid doctrine. Some people have received twenty different "gospels" in as many years; how many more they will accept before they get to their journey's end, it would be difficult to predict. I thank God that He early taught me the gospel, and I have been so perfectly satisfied with it, that I do not want to know any other. Constant change of creed is sure loss. If a tree has to be taken up two or three times a year, you will not need to build a very large loft in which to store the apples. When people are always shifting their doctrinal principles, they are not likely to bring forth much fruit to the glory of God. It is good for young believers to begin with a firm hold upon those great fundamental doctrines which the Lord has taught in His Word. Why, if I believed what some preach about the temporary, trumpery salvation which only lasts for a time, I would scarcely be at all grateful for it; but when I know that those whom God saves He saves with an everlasting salvation, when I know that He gives to them an everlasting righteousness, when I know that He settles them on an everlasting foundation of everlasting love, and that He will bring them to His everlasting kingdom, oh, then I do wonder, and I am astonished that such a blessing as this should ever have been given to me!


"Pause, my soul! adore, and wonder!
Ask, 'Oh, why such love to me?'
Grace hath put me in the number
Of the Saviour's family:
Hallelujah!
Thanks, eternal thanks, to Thee!"

I suppose there are some persons whose minds naturally incline towards the doctrine of free-will. I can only say that mine inclines as naturally towards the doctrines of sovereign grace. Sometimes, when I see some of the worst characters in the street, I feel as if my heart must burst forth in tears of gratitude that God has never let me act as they have done! I have thought, if God had left me alone, and had not touched me by His grace, what a great sinner I should have been! I should have run to the utmost lengths of sin, dived into the very depths of evil, nor should I have stopped at any vice or folly, if God had not restrained me. I feel that I should have been a very king of sinners, if God had let me alone. I cannot understand the reason why I am saved, except upon the ground that God would have it so. I cannot, if I look ever so earnestly, discover any kind of reason in myself why I should be a partaker of Divine grace. If I am not at this moment without Christ, it is only because Christ Jesus would have His will with me, and that will was that I should be with Him where He is, and should share His glory. I can put the crown nowhere but upon the head of Him whose mighty grace has saved me from going down into the pit. Looking back on my past life, I can see that the dawning of it all was of God; of God effectively. I took no torch with which to light the sun, but the sun enlightened me. I did not commence my spiritual life—no, I rather kicked, and struggled against the things of the Spirit: when He drew me, for a time I did not run after Him: there was a natural hatred in my soul of everything holy and good. Wooings were lost upon me—warnings were cast to the wind—thunders were despised; and as for the whispers of His love, they were rejected as being less than nothing and vanity. But, sure I am, I can say now, speaking on behalf of myself, "He only is my salvation." It was He who turned my heart, and brought me down on my knees before Him. I can in very deed, say with Doddridge and Toplady—

"Grace taught my soul to pray,
And made my eyes o'erflow;"

and coming to this moment, I can add—

"'Tis grace has kept me to this day,
And will not let me go."

Well can I remember the manner in which I learned the doctrines of grace in a single instant. Born, as all of us are by nature, an Arminian, I still believed the old things I had heard continually from the pulpit, and did not see the grace of God. When I was coming to Christ, I thought I was doing it all myself, and though I sought the Lord earnestly, I had no idea the Lord was seeking me. I do not think the young convert is at first aware of this. I can recall the very day and hour when first I received those truths in my own soul—when they were, as John Bunyan says, burnt into my heart as with a hot iron, and I can recollect how I felt that I had grown on a sudden from a babe into a man—that I had made progress in Scriptural knowledge, through having found, once for all, the clue to the truth of God. One week-night, when I was sitting in the house of God, I was not thinking much about the preacher's sermon, for I did not believe it. The thought struck me, How did you come to be a Christian? I sought the Lord. But how did you come to seek the Lord? The truth flashed across my mind in a moment—I should not have sought Him unless there had been some previous influence in my mind to make me seek Him. I prayed, thought I, but then I asked myself, How came I to pray? I was induced to pray by reading the Scriptures. How came I to read the Scriptures? I did read them, but what led me to do so? Then, in a moment, I saw that God was at the bottom of it all, and that He was the Author of my faith, and so the whole doctrine of grace opened up to me, and from that doctrine I have not departed to this day, and I desire to make this my constant confession, "I ascribe my change wholly to God."
I once attended a service where the text happened to be, "He shall choose our inheritance for us;" and the good man who occupied the pulpit was more than a little of an Arminian. Therefore, when he commenced, he said, "This passage refers entirely to our temporal inheritance, it has nothing whatever to do with our everlasting destiny, for," said he, "we do not want Christ to choose for us in the matter of Heaven or hell. It is so plain and easy, that every man who has a grain of common sense will choose Heaven, and any person would know better than to choose hell. We have no need of any superior intelligence, or any greater Being, to choose Heaven or hell for us. It is left to our own free-will, and we have enough wisdom given us, sufficiently correct means to judge for ourselves," and therefore, as he very logically inferred, there was no necessity for Jesus Christ, or anyone, to make a choice for us. We could choose the inheritance for ourselves without any assistance. "Ah!" I thought, "but, my good brother, it may be very true that we could, but I think we should want something more than common sense before we should choose aright."
First, let me ask, must we not all of us admit an over-ruling Providence, and the appointment of Jehovah's hand, as to the means whereby we came into this world? Those men who think that, afterwards, we are left to our own free-will to choose this one or the other to direct our steps, must admit that our entrance into the world was not of our own will, but that God had then to choose for us. What circumstances were those in our power which led us to elect certain persons to be our parents? Had we anything to do with it? Did not God Himself appoint our parents, native place, and friends? Could He not have caused me to be born with the skin of the Hottentot, brought forth by a filthy mother who would nurse me in her "kraal," and teach me to bow down to Pagan gods, quite as easily as to have given me a pious mother, who would each morning and night bend her knee in prayer on my behalf? Or, might He not, if He had pleased, have given me some profligate to have been my parent, from whose lips I might have early heard fearful, filthy, and obscene language? Might He not have placed me where I should have had a drunken father, who would have immured me in a very dungeon of ignorance, and brought me up in the chains of crime? Was it not God's Providence that I had so happy a lot, that both my parents were His children, and endeavoured to train me up in the fear of the Lord?
John Newton used to tell a whimsical story, and laugh at it, too, of a good woman who said, in order to prove the doctrine of election, "Ah! sir, the Lord must have loved me before I was born, or else He would not have seen anything in me to love afterwards." I am sure it is true in my case; I believe the doctrine of election, because I am quite certain that, if God had not chosen me, I should never have chosen Him; and I am sure He chose me before I was born, or else He never would have chosen me afterwards; and He must have elected me for reasons unknown to me, for I never could find any reason in myself why He should have looked upon me with special love. So I am forced to accept that great Biblical doctrine. I recollect an Arminian brother telling me that he had read the Scriptures through a score or more times, and could never find the doctrine of election in them. He added that he was sure he would have done so if it had been there, for he read the Word on his knees. I said to him, "I think you read the Bible in a very uncomfortable posture, and if you had read it in your easy chair, you would have been more likely to understand it. Pray, by all means, and the more, the better, but it is a piece of superstition to think there is anything in the posture in which a man puts himself for reading: and as to reading through the Bible twenty times without having found anything about the doctrine of election, the wonder is that you found anything at all: you must have galloped through it at such a rate that you were not likely to have any intelligible idea of the meaning of the Scriptures."
If it would be marvelous to see one river leap up from the earth full-grown, what would it be to gaze upon a vast spring from which all the rivers of the earth should at once come bubbling up, a million of them born at a birth? What a vision would it be! Who can conceive it. And yet the love of God is that fountain, from which all the rivers of mercy, which have ever gladdened our race—all the rivers of grace in time, and of glory hereafter—take their rise. My soul, stand thou at that sacred fountain-head, and adore and magnify, for ever and ever, God, even our Father, who hath loved us! In the very beginning, when this great universe lay in the mind of God, like unborn forests in the acorn cup; long ere the echoes awoke the solitudes; before the mountains were brought forth; and long ere the light flashed through the sky, God loved His chosen creatures. Before there was any created being—when the ether was not fanned by an angel's wing, when space itself had not an existence, when there was nothing save God alone—even then, in that loneliness of Deity, and in that deep quiet and profundity, His bowels moved with love for His chosen. Their names were written on His heart, and then were they dear to His soul. Jesus loved His people before the foundation of the world—even from eternity! and when He called me by His grace, He said to me, "I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee."
Then, in the fulness of time, He purchased me with His blood; He let His heart run out in one deep gaping wound for me long ere I loved Him. Yea, when He first came to me, did I not spurn Him? When He knocked at the door, and asked for entrance, did I not drive Him away, and do despite to His grace? Ah, I can remember that I full often did so until, at last, by the power of His effectual grace, He said, "I must, I will come in;" and then He turned my heart, and made me love Him. But even till now I should have resisted Him, had it not been for His grace. Well, then since He purchased me when I was dead in sins, does it not follow, as a consequence necessary and logical, that He must have loved me first? Did my Saviour die for me because I believed on Him? No; I was not then in existence; I had then no being. Could the Saviour, therefore, have died because I had faith, when I myself was not yet born? Could that have been possible? Could that have been the origin of the Saviour's love towards me? Oh! no; my Saviour died for me long before I believed. "But," says someone, "He foresaw that you would have faith; and, therefore, He loved you." What did He foresee about my faith? Did He foresee that I should get that faith myself, and that I should believe on Him of myself? No; Christ could not foresee that, because no Christian man will ever say that faith came of itself without the gift and without the working of the Holy Spirit. I have met with a great many believers, and talked with them about this matter; but I never knew one who could put his hand on his heart, and say, "I believed in Jesus without the assistance of the Holy Spirit."
I am bound to the doctrine of the depravity of the human heart, because I find myself depraved in heart, and have daily proofs that in my flesh there dwelleth no good thing. If God enters into covenant with unfallen man, man is so insignificant a creature that it must be an act of gracious condescension on the Lord's part; but if God enters into covenant with sinful man, he is then so offensive a creature that it must be, on God's part, an act of pure, free, rich, sovereign grace. When the Lord entered into covenant with me, I am sure that it was all of grace, nothing else but grace. When I remember what a den of unclean beasts and birds my heart was, and how strong was my unrenewed will, how obstinate and rebellious against the sovereignty of the Divine rule, I always feel inclined to take the very lowest room in my Father's house, and when I enter Heaven, it will be to go among the less than the least of all saints, and with the chief of sinners.
The late lamented Mr. Denham has put, at the foot of his portrait, a most admirable text, "Salvation is of the Lord." That is just an epitome of Calvinism; it is the sum and substance of it. If anyone should ask me what I mean by a Calvinist, I should reply, "He is one who says, Salvation is of the Lord." I cannot find in Scripture any other doctrine than this. It is the essence of the Bible. "He only is my rock and my salvation." Tell me anything contrary to this truth, and it will be a heresy; tell me a heresy, and I shall find its essence here, that it has departed from this great, this fundamental, this rock-truth, "God is my rock and my salvation." What is the heresy of Rome, but the addition of something to the perfect merits of Jesus Christ—the bringing in of the works of the flesh, to assist in our justification? And what is the heresy of Arminianism but the addition of something to the work of the Redeemer? Every heresy, if brought to the touchstone, will discover itself here. I have my own private opinion that there is no such thing as preaching Christ and Him crucified, unless we preach what nowadays is called Calvinism. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism; Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else. I do not believe we can preach the gospel, if we do not preach justification by faith, without works; nor unless we preach the sovereignty of God in His dispensation of grace; nor unless we exalt the electing, unchangeable, eternal, immutable, conquering love of Jehovah; nor do I think we can preach the gospel, unless we base it upon the special and particular redemption of His elect and chosen people which Christ wrought out upon the cross; nor can I comprehend a gospel which lets saints fall away after they are called, and suffers the children of God to be burned in the fires of damnation after having once believed in Jesus. Such a gospel I abhor.

"If ever it should come to pass,
That sheep of Christ might fall away,
My fickle, feeble soul, alas!
Would fall a thousand times a day."

If one dear saint of God had perished, so might all; if one of the covenant ones be lost, so may all be; and then there is no gospel promise true, but the Bible is a lie, and there is nothing in it worth my acceptance. I will be an infidel at once when I can believe that a saint of God can ever fall finally. If God hath loved me once, then He will love me for ever. God has a master-mind; He arranged everything in His gigantic intellect long before He did it; and once having settled it, He never alters it, "This shall be done," saith He, and the iron hand of destiny marks it down, and it is brought to pass. "This is My purpose," and it stands, nor can earth or hell alter it. "This is My decree," saith He, "promulgate it, ye holy angels; rend it down from the gate of Heaven, ye devils, if ye can; but ye cannot alter the decree, it shall stand for ever." God altereth not His plans; why should He? He is Almighty, and therefore can perform His pleasure. Why should He? He is the All-wise, and therefore cannot have planned wrongly. Why should He? He is the everlasting God, and therefore cannot die before His plan is accomplished. Why should He change? Ye worthless atoms of earth, ephemera of a day, ye creeping insects upon this bay-leaf of existence, ye may change your plans, but He shall never, never change His. Has He told me that His plan is to save me? If so, I am for ever safe.

"My name from the palms of His hands
Eternity will not erase;
Impress'd on His heart it remains,
In marks of indelible grace."

I do not know how some people, who believe that a Christian can fall from grace, manage to be happy. It must be a very commendable thing in them to be able to get through a day without despair. If I did not believe the doctrine of the final perseverance of the saints, I think I should be of all men the most miserable, because I should lack any ground of comfort. I could not say, whatever state of heart I came into, that I should be like a well-spring of water, whose stream fails not; I should rather have to take the comparison of an intermittent spring, that might stop on a sudden, or a reservoir, which I had no reason to expect would always be full. I believe that the happiest of Christians and the truest of Christians are those who never dare to doubt God, but who take His Word simply as it stands, and believe it, and ask no questions, just feeling assured that if God has said it, it will be so. I bear my willing testimony that I have no reason, nor even the shadow of a reason, to doubt my Lord, and I challenge Heaven, and earth, and hell, to bring any proof that God is untrue. From the depths of hell I call the fiends, and from this earth I call the tried and afflicted believers, and to Heaven I appeal, and challenge the long experience of the blood-washed host, and there is not to be found in the three realms a single person who can bear witness to one fact which can disprove the faithfulness of God, or weaken His claim to be trusted by His servants. There are many things that may or may not happen, but this I know shall happen—

"He shall present my soul,
Unblemish'd and complete,
Before the glory of His face,
With joys divinely great."

All the purposes of man have been defeated, but not the purposes of God. The promises of man may be broken—many of them are made to be broken—but the promises of God shall all be fulfilled. He is a promise-maker, but He never was a promise-breaker; He is a promise-keeping God, and every one of His people shall prove it to be so. This is my grateful, personal confidence, "The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me"—unworthy me, lost and ruined me. He will yet save me; and—

"I, among the blood-wash'd throng,
Shall wave the palm, and wear the crown,
And shout loud victory."

I go to a land which the plough of earth hath never upturned, where it is greener than earth's best pastures, and richer than her most abundant harvests ever saw. I go to a building of more gorgeous architecture than man hath ever builded; it is not of mortal design; it is "a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the Heavens." All I shall know and enjoy in Heaven, will be given to me by the Lord, and I shall say, when at last I appear before Him—

"Grace all the work shall crown
Through everlasting days;
It lays in Heaven the topmost stone,
And well deserves the praise."

I know there are some who think it necessary to their system of theology to limit the merit of the blood of Jesus: if my theological system needed such a limitation, I would cast it to the winds. I cannot, I dare not allow the thought to find a lodging in my mind, it seems so near akin to blasphemy. In Christ's finished work I see an ocean of merit; my plummet finds no bottom, my eye discovers no shore. There must be sufficient efficacy in the blood of Christ, if God had so willed it, to have saved not only all in this world, but all in ten thousand worlds, had they transgressed their Maker's law. Once admit infinity into the matter, and limit is out of the question. Having a Divine Person for an offering, it is not consistent to conceive of limited value; bound and measure are terms inapplicable to the Divine sacrifice. The intent of the Divine purpose fixes the application of the infinite offering, but does not change it into a finite work. Think of the numbers upon whom God has bestowed His grace already. Think of the countless hosts in Heaven: if thou wert introduced there to-day, thou wouldst find it as easy to tell the stars, or the sands of the sea, as to count the multitudes that are before the throne even now. They have come from the East, and from the West, from the North, and from the South, and they are sitting down with Abraham, and with Isaac, and with Jacob in the Kingdom of God; and beside those in Heaven, think of the saved ones on earth. Blessed be God, His elect on earth are to be counted by millions, I believe, and the days are coming, brighter days than these, when there shall be multitudes upon multitudes brought to know the Saviour, and to rejoice in Him. The Father's love is not for a few only, but for an exceeding great company. "A great multitude, which no man could number," will be found in Heaven. A man can reckon up to very high figures; set to work your Newtons, your mightiest calculators, and they can count great numbers, but God and God alone can tell the multitude of His redeemed. I believe there will be more in Heaven than in hell. If anyone asks me why I think so, I answer, because Christ, in everything, is to "have the pre-eminence," and I cannot conceive how He could have the pre-eminence if there are to be more in the dominions of Satan than in Paradise. Moreover, I have never read that there is to be in hell a great multitude, which no man could number. I rejoice to know that the souls of all infants, as soon as they die, speed their way to Paradise. Think what a multitude there is of them! Then there are already in Heaven unnumbered myriads of the spirits of just men made perfect—the redeemed of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues up till now; and there are better times coming, when the religion of Christ shall be universal; when—

"He shall reign from pole to pole,
With illimitable sway;"

when whole kingdoms shall bow down before Him, and nations shall be born in a day, and in the thousand years of the great millennial state there will be enough saved to make up all the deficiencies of the thousands of years that have gone before. Christ shall be Master everywhere, and His praise shall be sounded in every land. Christ shall have the pre-eminence at last; His train shall be far larger than that which shall attend the chariot of the grim monarch of hell.
Some persons love the doctrine of universal atonement because they say, "It is so beautiful. It is a lovely idea that Christ should have died for all men; it commends itself," they say, "to the instincts of humanity; there is something in it full of joy and beauty." I admit there is, but beauty may be often associated with falsehood. There is much which I might admire in the theory of universal redemption, but I will just show what the supposition necessarily involves. If Christ on His cross intended to save every man, then He intended to save those who were lost before He died. If the doctrine be true, that He died for all men, then He died for some who were in hell before He came into this world, for doubtless there were even then myriads there who had been cast away because of their sins. Once again, if it was Christ's intention to save all men, how deplorably has He been disappointed, for we have His own testimony that there is a lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, and into that pit of woe have been cast some of the very persons who, according to the theory of universal redemption, were bought with His blood. That seems to me a conception a thousand times more repulsive than any of those consequences which are said to be associated with the Calvinistic and Christian doctrine of special and particular redemption. To think that my Saviour died for men who were or are in hell, seems a supposition too horrible for me to entertain. To imagine for a moment that He was the Substitute for all the sons of men, and that God, having first punished the Substitute, afterwards punished the sinners themselves, seems to conflict with all my ideas of Divine justice. That Christ should offer an atonement and satisfaction for the sins of all men, and that afterwards some of those very men should be punished for the sins for which Christ had already atoned, appears to me to be the most monstrous iniquity that could ever have been imputed to Saturn, to Janus, to the goddess of the Thugs, or to the most diabolical heathen deities. God forbid that we should ever think thus of Jehovah, the just and wise and good!
There is no soul living who holds more firmly to the doctrines of grace than I do, and if any man asks me whether I am ashamed to be called a Calvinist, I answer—I wish to be called nothing but a Christian; but if you ask me, do I hold the doctrinal views which were held by John Calvin, I reply, I do in the main hold them, and rejoice to avow it. But far be it from me even to imagine that Zion contains none but Calvinistic Christians within her walls, or that there are none saved who do not hold our views. Most atrocious things have been spoken about the character and spiritual condition of John Wesley, the modern prince of Arminians. I can only say concerning him that, while I detest many of the doctrines which he preached, yet for the man himself I have a reverence second to no Wesleyan; and if there were wanted two apostles to be added to the number of the twelve, I do not believe that there could be found two men more fit to be so added than George Whitefield and John Wesley. The character of John Wesley stands beyond all imputation for self-sacrifice, zeal, holiness, and communion with God; he lived far above the ordinary level of common Christians, and was one "of whom the world was not worthy." I believe there are multitudes of men who cannot see these truths, or, at least, cannot see them in the way in which we put them, who nevertheless have received Christ as their Saviour, and are as dear to the heart of the God of grace as the soundest Calvinist in or out of Heaven.
I do not think I differ from any of my Hyper-Calvinistic brethren in what I do believe, but I differ from them in what they do not believe. I do not hold any less than they do, but I hold a little more, and, I think, a little more of the truth revealed in the Scriptures. Not only are there a few cardinal doctrines, by which we can steer our ship North, South, East, or West, but as we study the Word, we shall begin to learn something about the North-west and North-east, and all else that lies between the four cardinal points. The system of truth revealed in the Scriptures is not simply one straight line, but two; and no man will ever get a right view of the gospel until he knows how to look at the two lines at once. For instance, I read in one Book of the Bible, "The Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." Yet I am taught, in another part of the same inspired Word, that "it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy." I see, in one place, God in providence presiding over all, and yet I see, and I cannot help seeing, that man acts as he pleases, and that God has left his actions, in a great measure, to his own free-will. Now, if I were to declare that man was so free to act that there was no control of God over his actions, I should be driven very near to atheism; and if, on the other hand, I should declare that God so over-rules all things that man is not free enough to be responsible, I should be driven at once into Antinomianism or fatalism. That God predestines, and yet that man is responsible, are two facts that few can see clearly. They are believed to be inconsistent and contradictory to each other. If, then, I find taught in one part of the Bible that everything is fore-ordained, that is true; and if I find, in another Scripture, that man is responsible for all his actions, that is true; and it is only my folly that leads me to imagine that these two truths can ever contradict each other. I do not believe they can ever be welded into one upon any earthly anvil, but they certainly shall be one in eternity. They are two lines that are so nearly parallel, that the human mind which pursues them farthest will never discover that they converge, but they do converge, and they will meet somewhere in eternity, close to the throne of God, whence all truth doth spring.
It is often said that the doctrines we believe have a tendency to lead us to sin. I have heard it asserted most positively, that those high doctrines which we love, and which we find in the Scriptures, are licentious ones. I do not know who will have the hardihood to make that assertion, when they consider that the holiest of men have been believers in them. I ask the man who dares to say that Calvinism is a licentious religion, what he thinks of the character of Augustine, or Calvin, or Whitefield, who in successive ages were the great exponents of the system of grace; or what will he say of the Puritans, whose works are full of them? Had a man been an Arminian in those days, he would have been accounted the vilest heretic breathing, but now we are looked upon as the heretics, and they as the orthodox. We have gone back to the old school; we can trace our descent from the apostles. It is that vein of free-grace, running through the sermonizing of Baptists, which has saved us as a denomination. Were it not for that, we should not stand where we are today. We can run a golden line up to Jesus Christ Himself, through a holy succession of mighty fathers, who all held these glorious truths; and we can ask concerning them, "Where will you find holier and better men in the world?" No doctrine is so calculated to preserve a man from sin as the doctrine of the grace of God. Those who have called it "a licentious doctrine" did not know anything at all about it. Poor ignorant things, they little knew that their own vile stuff was the most licentious doctrine under Heaven. If they knew the grace of God in truth, they would soon see that there was no preservative from lying like a knowledge that we are elect of God from the foundation of the world. There is nothing like a belief in my eternal perseverance, and the immutability of my Father's affection, which can keep me near to Him from a motive of simple gratitude. Nothing makes a man so virtuous as belief of the truth. A lying doctrine will soon beget a lying practice. A man cannot have an erroneous belief without by-and-by having an erroneous life. I believe the one thing naturally begets the other. Of all men, those have the most disinterested piety, the sublimest reverence, the most ardent devotion, who believe that they are saved by grace, without works, through faith, and that not of themselves, it is the gift of God. Christians should take heed, and see that it always is so, lest by any means Christ should be crucified afresh, and put to an open shame.

   
.
Copyright © 2001 by Phillip R. Johnson. All rights reserved.








This is a better rendering of the five points of the Arminians:

[Quote]

1. election conditioned on foreseen faith;
2. universal atonement (that Christ died for all men and for every man, so that He merited reconciliation and forgiveness of sins for all through the death of the cross; yet so that no one actually enjoys this forgiveness of sins except the believer);
3. the need for regeneration if man is to be saved (here they seemed to be orthodox enough, but, as it later appeared, this was understood in such a way as seriously to underestimate the depravity of human nature);
4. the resistibility of grace ('but with respect to the mode of this grace, it is not irresistible'); and
5. the uncertainty of the perseverance of believers (in respect of this article the Arminians shortly came openly to deny such final perseverance) (deWitt 11; P.Y. deJong, Appendix C, 207 ff.).

[/Quote]


http://www.sovereignpotter.com/The_Arminian_Controversy_And_The_Synod_Of_Doredt.html

don33310:
It is very clear,once saved,is always saved.

So you be Calvinist too?