The election of Jesus Christ, part 8; Election benefits to the bride of Christ; John 15:16

Title: The election of Jesus Christ, part 8; Election benefits to the bride of Christ; John 15:16.

 

9. Christ has completely fulfilled His own election and therefore the election of Israel and the individual Church-age believer are completely fulfilled since they depend on His election alone.

 

Therefore, there is nothing to add to your election in Christ. The benefits, privileges, and blessings of election in Christ are yours to maintain through positive volition or lose through negative volition.

 

The great benefits and blessings of an election realized reside in the mental attitude of the believer. The soul becomes the true battleground of PV and NV.

 

ROM 8:29-39.

 

Election benefits: predestination, justification, glorification, God always for us, intercessory ministry of Christ, uninterrupted love of Christ, all problems conquered, uninterrupted love of the Father, and the potential to have the mind of Christ.

 

COL 3:12-17.

 

Election benefits: a heart at peace and not at war, a life of grace orientation, thankfulness instead of complaint, and the production of divine good.

 

2 Thess 2:13-17

 

Election benefits: sanctification, the truth behind all things, living the super-grace life, confidence in future deliverance by God’s grace, comfort of heart instead of stress, and strength instead of fear.

 

2 Tim 2:10 For this reason I endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen, that they also may obtain the salvation [deliverance from all things] which is in Christ Jesus and with it eternal glory.

 

2 Tim 2:11 It is a trustworthy statement [faithful is the word of God]:

For if we died with Him [RPT], we shall also live with Him [CPT];

 

 “faithful is the word of God,” RPT and CPT.

 

The word of God faithfully teaches positional truth. Those who reject positional truth buy the lie offered by satan and the KOD.

 

If positional truth is not true then the work is not finished. If the work is not finished then something must be added to faith in Christ for a fulfilled salvation and something must be added to faith in the word of God for a fulfilled election. Since neither of these are true, and since salvation and election depend on the foundation of the positional truth in Christ, it is easiest to attack positional truth than to attack all the doctrines of God simultaneously. It’s like bombing an army’s fuel supply rather than facing the full and strong army on the front lines [Barbarossa and Tidal Wave]. Attack logistics and the enemy cannot fight at full capacity.

 

If satan and the KOD have you running around thinking that you have to be good to be saved and that you don’t have logistical grace so you worry about details and that you have to earn God’s favor for blessing, then he’s got you spinning your wheels over things that have already been accomplished and you are not able to focus on super-grace spiritual life. The wheel of the plan of God spins on the axle of divine righteousness.

 

2 Tim 2:12 If we endure, we shall also reign with Him;

If we deny Him, He also will deny us [secondary blessings of election];

 

 “endure” - u`pomenw[hupomeno] = to endure, to remain under, to be under pressure and to stay there.

 

The protasis is a first class condition, meaning that if the believer remains under pressure, and does not attempt to escape, but rather waits for God to deliver, then the apodosis is a definite conclusion: that believer will reign with Christ. The construction of this conditional clause makes it a dogmatic fact.

 

 “reign with Him” = super-grace blessings in eternity after the experience of dying grace. Realized election of God’s highest in eternity.

 

 “if we deny or refuse Him [by denying His word], He will also deny us [secondary blessings of election].”

 

2 Tim 2:13 If we are faithless, He remains faithful; for He cannot deny Himself [positional truth; primary blessings of election].

 

If we are without faith, He abides in faithfulness; for He cannot deny the believer in union with Him [positional truth] the primary blessings.

 

Election benefits: guarantee of primary blessings and the potential for endurance in the spiritual life with secondary blessings for time and eternity as a result.

 

You are in union with Christ forever. He is in you forever. Positional truth can never be denied, not even by God.

 

James 2:5

Listen, my beloved brethren: did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him?

 

James draws a contrast here between those who are poor, meaning literally without possessions, but at the same time they can be wealthy in all categories of doctrine. So although riches may never be accumulated in time the inheritance of eternity is the election of the believer, which will be realized by the rich in faith or rich in doctrine for all eternity.

 

Better to be poor and have God’s happiness than to be rich and have man’s stress.

 

1 Peter 2:9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;

 

Election benefits: the privilege of representing the excellencies of Christ in the world while walking in clarity of truth, confidence, and love.

 

All of these election benefits are from the source of God and therefore they cannot exist where His divine righteousness does not exist. All of these blessings are imputed to the indwelling righteousness of God in every believer and excludes all human merit, human power, or human work.

 

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.

 

 “appointed” - aorist active indicative of ti,qhmi(teeth-ay-mee)[tithemi] = to lay down, to put, to place, to set, to lay out. God has laid out for you a plan or an appointed way, your introduction to predestination.

 

The aorist tense refers to God’s decree in EP based on foreseen faith of any person in the CA in the Lord Jesus Christ to appoint them to a place in the body of Christ with a specific, tailor fit plan just for them.

 

As we share in Christ’s election we also share His predestination. Christ was the first to have such a plan and to test it under maximum pressure and so we call His plan the prototype.

 

Christ graciously received the prototype plan of God, which He then asked the Father to share with the Church under the title of predestination, or predetermined plan of God.

 

If prayer is ineffective then this is just stated by our Lord for posterity and simply repetition of what the Father would have done anyway. If prayer is effective and God’s decree can be influenced by legitimate prayer then this prayer has the impact of establishing the Church.

 

John 17:15 "I do not ask Thee to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one.

 

“One” is not in the original language. The request is to keep them from evil, which refers to false doctrines, legalism, antinomianism, lasciviousness, or anything in the thinking of cosmic 1 or cosmic 2. Guarding them and us from evil is the work of God amounting to predestination, the word, the Spirit, the plan that opens our eyes to the falseness of all evil that is propagated by the enemies of God.

 

Does this imply that Christ could have asked for those who believed by this time to be taken out of the world in a sort of minor Rapture, ending the Hypostatic union with a resurrection of the current believers with no intercalation age of the Church? One must wonder at the impact of this prayer, which is truly the Lord ’s Prayer.

 

The request to “keep them from evil” results in the work of the Father in predestination for each Church-age believer.

 

John 17:16 "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

 

John 17:17 "Sanctify them in the truth; Thy word is truth.

 

John 17:18 "As Thou didst send Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.

 

This has no precedent in the OT. There is no where prophesized that 12 men would be commissioned to evangelize the world and write the completed canon of Scripture. The Lord makes an executive decision to send them as He was sent. Praying to the Father that it should be sanctioned and knowing that His request would be honored based on His own work and sacrifice.

 

John 17:19 "And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth.

 

John 17:20 "I do not ask in behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word [that’s you!!];