The election of the Church-age believer includes foreseen free will; John 15:16.

Title: The election of the Church-age believer includes foreseen free will; John 15:16.

 

John 15:16 "You did not choose Me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask of the Father in My name, He may give to you.

 

Personal faith in Christ occurs in time and then the benefits of salvation, including election, are graciously given to the believer.

 

ROM 8:29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son [spiritual maturity], that He might be the first-born among many brethren;

 

ROM 8:30 and whom He predestined, these He also called; and whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.

 

These all occurred simultaneously in the mind of God. What did God foresee or foreknow about those who would become beneficiaries of election, predestination, justification, and glorification?

 

GEN 15:6

Then he believed in the Lord; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.

 

ROM 4:1 What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, has found?

 

ROM 4:2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about; but not before God.

 

ROM 4:3 For what does the Scripture say? "And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness."

 

ROM 4:4 Now to the one who works, his wage is not reckoned as a favor, but as what is due.

 

ROM 4:5 But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness,

 

 “believes” - present active participle of pisteu,w[pisteuo] = to believe, to think to be true, to be persuaded of, to place confidence in. Active voice - the creature does the believing.

 

Justification is very closely related to righteousness. The Greek words are from the same root.

 

Justification is the pronouncement of the Judge that a person possesses the perfect righteousness of God and is therefore vindicated under positional truth.

 

This is to the exclusion of the relative righteousness of man, which is only based on comparison of varying degrees of unrighteousness, as if there were such degrees. A person is either righteous or not in position or justified or not.

 

ROM 4:6 just as David also speaks of the blessing upon the man to whom God reckons righteousness apart from works:

 

ROM 4:7 "Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven,

And whose sins have been covered.

 

ROM 4:8 "Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account."

 

Personal faith in Christ = +R imputed by God. +R = sins covered. Sins covered = sharing the happiness of God.

 

Blessed refers to happiness that results from knowing the doctrine of redemption - I’m forgiven of all sin. But to whom is this blessing given? Verse 6 says that it is given to whom God reckons righteousness apart from works. To whom did God reckon this +R? Verse 5 says that this righteousness is given to the one who believes in Him who justifies the ungodly.

 

The whole world is ungodly, ROM 3:10-18, because they are unrighteous.

 

ROM 3:10 as it is written,

"There is none righteous, not even one;

 

ROM 3:11 There is none who understands,

There is none who seeks for God;

 

God seeks for us. How does God seek for us?

 

Eccl 3:11

He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end.

 

Corrected translation:

Eccl 3:11

He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, without which [the setting of the desire for eternal things] mankind will not find out [or perceive] the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end. (Pastor McLaughlin; The Eight Experiments of Man.)

 

The setting of eternity in the heart is really the self-consciousness. We recognize that we are persons, who remember the past, hope for tomorrow, and can comprehend abstract principles like what happens after physical death. This is why it is the fool who says in his heart that there is no God.

 

But a self-consciousness alone means nothing. If no one seeks for God [the true God] then how does God seek for man in order to fulfill the desire for eternal things?

 

ISA 55:10

"For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,

And do not return there without watering the earth,

And making it bear and sprout,

And furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater;

 

ISA 55:11

So shall My word be which goes forth from My mouth;

It shall not return to Me empty,

Without accomplishing what I desire,

And without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.

 

ROM 15:20-21

And thus I aspired to preach the gospel, not where Christ was already named, that I might not build upon another man's foundation; but as it is written [ISA 52:15],

"They who had no news of Him shall see,

And they who have not heard shall understand."

 

God seeks for unrighteous, all of whom have had the desire for eternity set in their heart, with the gospel, which the unrighteous can believe or reject.

 

ROM 3:12 All have turned aside, together they have become useless;

There is none who does good,

There is not even one."

 

ROM 3:13 "Their throat is an open grave,

With their tongues they keep deceiving,"

"The poison of asps is under their lips";

 

ROM 3:14 "Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness";

 

ROM 3:15 "Their feet are swift to shed blood,

 

ROM 3:16 Destruction and misery are in their paths,

 

ROM 3:17 And the path of peace have they not known."

 

ROM 3:18 "There is no fear of God before their eyes."

 

The Calvinist would like you to believe that God is the author of this. If God is the author of sin then how could He become a Judge of it as His Son is the substitute for it? Yet, ROM 3:10-18 is the result of being unrighteous and God is forever perfectly righteous.

 

ROM 3:5 But if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? The God who inflicts wrath is not unrighteous, is He? (I am speaking in human terms.)

 

ROM 3:6 May it never be! For otherwise how will God judge the world?

 

Go back to:

ROM 4:5 But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness,

 

Let’s return to election. You did not elect me but I have elected you. I would ask in addition, “Did you become righteous by your faith, or did God impute righteousness to you because of your faith?”

 

A big question comes in reference to this election, which is in our main verse in John 15:16, and other mentions of this word in other parts of the scripture. Are all elections the same?

 

If righteousness is imputed immediately after faith in Christ then so is election. God does not elect the unrighteous.

 

Nowhere in the scripture does it state that the unrighteous are elected or predestined, and when I say “elected” I mean election in Christ. One cannot just chose any verse that has the word chose, or chosen in it and assume that they all refer to election in Christ. There are elect angels and fallen angels and there are elected persons and fallen persons. The only difference is faith in Christ as Savior. The election of Israel, certain ones in the OT, the election of Christ, the election of the CA believer, and the election of angels each have their own uniqueness and nuances. And as such, they must be fully studied and understood.

 

For instance, Abraham is said to be elected.

 

NEH 9:7

Thou art the Lord God,

Who chose Abram

And brought him out from Ur of the Chaldees,

And gave him the name Abraham.

 

A Calvinist would most likely make the case that Abraham was chosen to leave Ur and he believed later (GEN 15:6), but my rebuttal would be, “Why would God chose someone who would not believe? So then, God foresees faith and He elects in eternity past based on that foreseen faith in time.”

 

We must build a case for the coexistence of the Sovereign will of God and the free will of mankind. This doctrine is being attacked vehemently in the US and Europe at this time. It’s only a matter of time before the attack gets to your doorstep or that of a loved one.

 

Another passage by way of introduction to our doctrine of election:

 

ISA 45:1 Thus says the Lord to Cyrus His anointed,

Whom I have taken by the right hand,

To subdue nations before him,

And to loose the loins of kings;

To open doors before him so that gates will not be shut:

 

 “anointed” - mashiach = messiah, anointed one. This is the exact Hebrew equivalent of the Greek Christos. Cyrus was an unbeliever who was anointed or chosen for a certain task.

 

Under the 5^th cycle of discipline Jerusalem was destroyed and the Jews were captured and led away as exile slaves in 586 B.C. by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar.

 

The Jews were in exile for 70 years. During this time Nebuchadnezzar died and the throne passed through several successors. During this time a man named Cyrus, king of Anshan, rose to power over the Lydians and the Medes began the Persian empire, and Cyrus set out to conquer Babylon.

 

Nabonidus [king of Babylon] Chronicle iii. - “the troops of Cyrus entered Babylon without a battle.”

 

ISA 45:1 Thus says the Lord to Cyrus His anointed,

Whom I have taken by the right hand,

To subdue nations before him,

And to loose the loins of kings;

To open doors before him so that gates will not be shut:

 

Does this mean that God made Cyrus an unbeliever or that God caused Cyrus to commit sin or evil, which he did? The answer is an emphatic negative.

 

In the nineteenth century, Hormuzd Rassam found at Babylon a nine-inch, baked clay cylinder. Its inscription gives Cyrus's account of how Marduk [the equivalent to Baal in the west] had blessed his efforts to capture Babylon. Then Cyrus tells how he had made it his policy to permit all former Babylonian captives to return to their homelands and restore the temples of their national deities.

 

Cyrus Cylinder it is said: ‘He (Marduk) sought out an upright prince, after his own heart, whom he took by his hand, Cyrus, king of the city … Marduk, the great Lord, the guardian of his people, joyfully beheld his good deeds and his upright heart. To his own city Babylon his march he com­manded, like a comrade and helper he marched at his side... .