You’re It!

The topic of the election of the saints is prickly to some people. As I have written previously, my view has evolved over the years. (See Related Posts.) Having been raised in the Restoration Movement and having attended one of their Bible colleges, I began my journey with an Arminian view, which is to say that human will plays a substantial role in salvation. Years of Bible study and exposure to other views caused me to gravitate toward a more Calvinistic understanding of election which elevates God’s sovereignty. (See Calvinist or Arminian)

I think part of the reason for people’s resistance to placing God’s will over human will is our innate desire for independence. Even though Paul makes it clear that salvation is a gift of God’s grace, through faith with no work on our own, some of us insist on taking credit. If the elect of God were chosen before the foundation of the world as Scripture declares, it is hard for me to see how my will had much to do with it. In addition, I think many Christians have a lopsided view of what salvation is. Salvation is not about going to Heaven when you die; it is all about bringing Heaven to earth while you live here.

I like the way Carmen Joy Imes put it in her book, Bearing God’s Name: Why Sinai Still Matters. “Too often we think of ‘election’ as a matter of ‘being picked to be saved.’ But in Scripture, election is more like a game of blob tag, where if I’m ‘it,’ and I tag you, then we’re both it. We run around together and try to tag as many others as we can, who join hands with us and continue tagging others until everyone has been tagged. In this game, the essence of ‘it-ness’ is to tag others. So, too, the essence of election, and therefore the essence of the believer’s vocation, is to represent God by mediating his blessing to others. Once we are ‘it’ we don’t lean back in our recliners, glad that someone picked us. No, to be ‘it’ is to tag others. And to be elect – to be His – is to bear His name among the nations, to demonstrate by our lives that He is king and to mediate His blessing to others. That is the whole point of being the elect.”

I said earlier that I have adopted a somewhat Calvinist view of election to salvation. The hardline view speaks of irresistible grace – I cannot not be saved if I am elect by God. I temper that thought with this: as God’s chosen one, I must surrender to His choosing. Like the game analogy Imes uses, many of us were running from God when He “tagged” us. I would like to say that once I was tagged, I joined hands with Jesus and ran with Him consistently. I cannot say that. I run; I fall; I get up to run again. Falling is okay in this analogy. If I trip involuntarily, God is there to give me a hand up.

If I purposely let go and run off on my own, a different set of rules apply. Either I was never really tagged in the first place, and I pretended to join the game. Or, and here is where I depart from pure Calvinism, I was tagged, but something caused me to tire of the game, or something bothered me so much that I rejected the whole idea of the game and walked away of my own “free will.” I don’t see a way to read the admonitions of Paul or Hebrews chapters six and ten without accepting that as a possibility. In the either scenario, going back to Bible language, I must assume that I was not “elect” at all. God will never lose one of His own.

I think the reason it is so hard for us to wrap our minds around this concept is because our minds are finite; God’s mind is infinite. I put “free will” in quotes before because I believe in a totally sovereign God: He numbers my days; He knit me together in my mother’s womb; He knows the end from the beginning. I only know what my five natural senses can tell me plus whatever the Holy Spirit shows me supernaturally. When I get up in the morning (if God grants me another day), I must decide what to wear, where to go, what to do, and that feels like I am exercising my “free will.”

But the Scripture says my steps are “ordered” by God. God allows me to make choices, but everything I “decide” is already programmed into His will for my life. This is how I can harmonize the total free will of humans with the total sovereignty of God. Back to the subject of election. The elect are revealed by their actions. “By their fruits you shall know them,” Jesus once said. The New Testament writers could speak to “the elect” because their fruit was obvious. In his first epistle, John said that some people had appeared to be elect, but their actions ultimately proved that they were not.

This makes being elect a matter of ethics; we reveal our ethos through our behavior. In his book, How Should I Live in This World?, R.C. Sproul reminds us that “The purpose of divine commandments is redemption. The law of the Old Testament and of the New Testament is fundamentally person-oriented. To isolate this law from its basic concern for people is to fall into the abyss of legalism. Christian ethics is built on the obedience of people to a personal God.” The elect will embrace that ethos and willingly choose to obey its demands. Those who are not among the elect will chafe at having anyone tell them what to do. This is how you can know whether or not you’re it.

Related Posts: Election: God’s Choice; God’s Choice or Man’s; More about Calvinism: Understanding the TULIP Doctrine; On sovereignty: Disrespecting God’s Sovereignty