Ephesians; 1:4 – Election of church age believer, part 8. Endurance for one anotherSunday November 18, 2018
3) Passages where election is applied to believers in this age:
3a. The elect are to reveal the emptiness of human desire for life without God, 1Co 1:27-29.
3b. Worldly status has no bearing on this position, Jam 2:5.
3c. Our election freely gives us all things. God will always be for us and His love will never separate from us, Rom 8:31-39.
3d. Election is to Christ’s love, Col 3:12-13.
Only the elect can love with Christ’s love.
3e. The elect endure all things for the sake of one another, which pleases God.
2Ti 2:1 You therefore [referring to Paul’s call to faithfulness in chapter 1], my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
Faithfulness is a result of really being sold-out for new nature and new position as God’s elected person in Christ.
2Ti 1:7 For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline.
Part of the package that you received at salvation was a new spirit. The old one was spoiled or stained by sin. The new spirit is of divine origin and one of the many spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ that we received. A divine spirit is not a timid one, but powerful, loving, and disciplined.
So why aren’t we always powerful, loving unconditionally, and self-controlled? Nothing functions through a person without his consent. We never become robots. We must always choose. Paul’s entreaty to Timothy shows this.
2Ti 1:6 And for this reason I remind you to kindle afresh [Vines: keep in full flame; Robertson: keep blazing] the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands.
“kindle afresh” – anazopureo = keep in full flame. It does not imply that Timothy’s spiritual life had grown cold. It does imply that God’s gift can die out through neglect.
Paul uses a very cool Greek word, anazopureo, which means to keep a fire going. A compound verb literally composed of ana (up or again), zoos (alive), and pureo (fire). It was commonly used in the vernacular of the time as fire was so very important – “Keep that fire going.” The implication is that the gift of God can die out like a fire through neglect.
God has given us a spirit of power, love, and discipline, but it can be neglected and “cool off” so to speak. It will not ever “die out” so as to be inoperable; the believer can always rekindle his spiritual life if he wakes up and gets with it.
2Ti 1:7 For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline.
2Ti 1:8 Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, or of me His prisoner; but join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God,
2Ti 1:9 who has saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity,
Eph 1:4-5 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will
In both passages, Paul uses the preposition kata plus the accusative, which means according to. He called us according to His own purpose in eternity. He elected us according to His will in all eternity. And yet, we believed upon Jesus Christ as our Savior, in time, when God the Holy Spirit revealed the gospel to us, by our own free-will.
2Ti 1:9 who has saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity,
2Ti 1:10 but now has been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel,
What is now revealed through the appearing of Christ is God’s purpose and grace.
2Ti 1:11 for which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle and a teacher.
2Ti 1:12 For this reason I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day.
2Ti 1:13 Retain the standard of sound words which you have heard from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus.
2Ti 1:14 Guard, through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you.
Now back to 2:1 and we see what the therefore is there for.
2Ti 2:1 You therefore [referring to Paul’s call to faithfulness in chapter 1], my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
2Ti 2:2 And the things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, these entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.
2Ti 2:3 Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. |