Election: An arbitrary choice?

Unconditional Election as set forward in the Reformed Tradition states that the elect are those whom God has sovereignly chosen to receive His mercy through faith in Christ Jesus, not because of anything they have done, would do, or even a predisposition of who they would be. It is His unconditional setting of His affections on a people for the purpose of "making a people eager to do good".

"But then, if it doesn't depend on what a person does, or who they are, then whether or not they are elect is completely arbitrary. God just chooses this one and doesn't choose that one!" the struggling mind quickly surmises. This objection is as easily heard in the Armenian camp as it is felt in the Reformed. It is a scary thought that if true, would leave to an unshakable sense of purposelessness.

But this objection is the child of several fatal misconceptions.

1. What we do is more meaningful than what God decides

We subtly place our actions and decisions above God's decisions in the worth scale when we object that God's decisions are arbitrary. We think that in order for God to choose someone it must be based on what we have done. That He would have to look forward and see our actions in order to validate the decision. We think that He owes us a look at our resumes before choosing us, or casting us aside. If He is left to His own choice without seeing or knowing our actions we feel that the decision is unfounded and thus arbitrary. But how prideful are we? Are the creatures' actions necessary for the creator's decisions. Does a potter need to see how a pot will behave before he designs it with a purpose? By no means! In fact it is exactly the opposite. Because the potter designs the pot in a certain determines that it will be used in that way.

The problem is that we feel like our actions are the ultimate determiners of meaning. We feel like if we do something wrong then we deserve punishment, and if we do something right we deserve praise. It is our actions that determine meaning. Thus if God was free from our actions in choosing, then He was free from meaning, and thus, we conclude, His decision was arbitrary. But it is God's decisions that are the definitions of meaning. Because He has determined them, they therefore have meaning, just as with the potter above.

This discussion of cause and effect leads to the following misconception.

2. God is bound by time and knowledge that is revealed at some other time

Because we can only perceive the world through time and space we have an extremely difficult time forgetting that God is not bound by such material things. We place Him at a time before there was time and forget that He exists out of time. Therefore, we actually enable the discussion at all! Confining God by time allows us to talk about a time when God didn't know what we would do and what we would be like. We talk as if when He made the decision to choose us as if it was distinct from His eternally separate and always existing state.

The truth of the matter is that God is not bound by time, and therefore to even talk about God choosing us in a way that is dependent on future knowledge is ridiculous. Yes the Scripture speaks of God's choosing us before the beginning of the world, but this is merely a reduction of the Truth for our minds, because it is near impossible for us to grasp the fact that God's choosing us before the beginning of the world is His choosing us now!

3. God makes decisions like we make decisions

This is why Isaiah had to remind us that God's thoughts are so much higher than our thoughts. We think of God as making decisions without full knowledge of their outcome, because that is, after all, how we make ours. We live in shades of probability, while He lives in perfect light. His decisions are all together different from ours.

We also mistakenly think of God as making decisions in reaction to other things, again because this is our experience. We decide to do something because something else happens. But God is completely proactive in all of His decisions. There is no other motivator, no other cause, no other reason. He is the Motivation. He is the Cause. He is the Reason. It is completely within Himself that decisions are made. Not out of necessity from some outside pressure, but out of will of His own heart.

4. Love has to be motivated by some desirable quality in the object

Finally, our last misconception lends itself most readily to the heartache of the accusation of God's arbitrary choice. To image a husband who simply chose us by pinning the tail on the donkey, or drawing the name out of the hat, is of utmost detestation in our minds! We couldn't bear to think that someone would chose us just because, but that is because we still think of love as being motivated primarily by the desirability of the object.

Our error is this: forgetting we, in our fallen sinful state, stand as completely detestable creatures worthy of the utmost wrath and immediate death. We forget and gloss over the fact that there is NOTHING within us of our own, that is desirable to God. There is nothing that we have that is not already His. There is nothing that we could offer Him that would add to His collection or increase His standing, or help Him in any way.

So what then does it mean that He loves us? If there is nothing in us that is pleasing to Him, and everything within us is detestable before Him, what does it mean that He sets His affection on us?

This is a profound and fundamental reworking of our definition of love. His love for us, is His own decision. He loves us because He does. It is circular reasoning because the reason is God. He is His own reason. This truth, however, is not without its shadow in human experience. Eventually in the relationship between a man and a woman (if it is in the pattern of Scripture) will come to a place of covenant. And at some point either the man or the woman is bound to ask, "Why do you love me?" Whether out loud or in his/her heart one of them will ask that question. But if the lover is asked, only one answer is the ultimate response, "Because I love you." That is to say he loves her, because he loves her. His affections are spent on her because he decided to spend his affections on her. So it is with God. He loves us, because He loves us. The decision is not arbitrary in the sense that we mean it. It is full of passion and joy, if only we would be willing to admit that we are not worth the time of day that He gives us.

God's choices are not arbitrary simply because they are God's choices.

Election: A Doctrine of the Future, Not the Past

Debates rage on even today as to the nature of our salvation. How are we saved? By the unrestrained sovereign and therefore arbitrary choice of God which we have no way to resist, or by the free will of rational modern man willing and able to either receive God's free and gracious gift or reject it out of hardness of heart.

Both answers to the question of the reason for our salvation (both the Reformed and Armenian) place the dominant emphasis of the question on the reason for our salvation. What are we saved by? Which leads us to say things like we are saved because [insert opinion here]. This focus leads us to look backward. Whether to our conversion experience when we first received Christ or all the way back to eternity past when the Spirit of God purposed to set His affections on a limited number of people. Either way, we walk backwards. Proceeding forward through time but constantly fixed on the events of the past.

Instead, I believe the purpose of the New Testament (and even the Old) in revealing the mystery of God's predestining a people, was not for us to look back but for us to look forward. He tells us that He has chosen us in order that we might live in a certain way. He is looking for a response.

To walk facing forward in this truth is to stop asking "By what was I saved?" and start asking "For what am I saved?" Instead of saying, "We are saved because...," we need to start saying, "We are saved so that...". After all it is for works, not by them that we are saved. To focus on the method or the how behind our salvation is very much like a junior high kid retelling his friends how he got on the basketball team. Depending on his mood it was because he had such a stellar tryout, or because the coach had already decided who he was going to pick. Either way for this kid to continue bragging about his position without any action is ridiculous. Why then do we suppose we can stop and argue about how we got here? The focus, now that the kid is on the team, should be asking the coach what his role is on the team. "Why [as in for what purpose] am I here?" he should ask the coach. The training and practice, and game time starts now.

The Bible teaches us that we are blessed to be a blessing. Like wise I believe that we need to start believing and walking out the fact that we are chosen in order to be choosers. God chose us (the outcast, socially awkward losers who had no chance of saving themselves from the perils of an eternal Hell) so that we might go to the outcasts, the socially awkward losers around us to save them from the same perils. We are redeemed that we might be redeemers. We are healed, that we might be healers. We are forgiven, that we might be forgivers. We are loved, that we might be lovers. We are freed, that we might be freedom-fighters. We are blessed, that we might be a blessing.

So why are you saved? Not by what, but for what. What is the destiny that God has chosen for you? What are the good works that He has set out before the creation of the world for you to walk in? How will you be conformed to the image of the Son that He has chosen for you to be conformed to? For what have you been saved?

What You Say Is What You Get

But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice...Watch out for those dogs, those men who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh. For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh— (Phil 1:18, 3:2-3)

With Paul, what you say is what truly matters. Though bound in prison for preaching the True Gospel full of integrity, while others where masquerading around pretentiously presenting the Gospel for their own gain, he rejoiced! He was delighted, that even in treacherous motives, they were preaching the True Gospel.

Later in the book, however, he calls some others dogs, men who do evil, mutilators of the flesh. Why the sudden change Paul? Because, whether from false motives or true, they were preaching a different gospel! Which is actually no gospel at all.

We so often worry about our motives, or the motives of other in preaching. What did they intend? What are they thinking? Why did they say that? But this is not for us to judge. If they preach Christ, rejoice! Delight in the proclamation of the truth! If they don't, even if they are well-meaning, do not budge. Don't relent stand firm until the clarity and truth of the Gospel has been recovered.

Church History Timeline

This is a pretty sweet summary of the major events in church history based off one of the easiest to read histories ever.

Church History Timeline