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Sovereign Grace from Eternity Past: The Bedrock of Unconditional Election · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to Reformed Thinking. Today we are taking a deep dive
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  into this staggering doctrine of unconditional election, and to
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  get us started, I want you to just imagine something with me.
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  OK, what are we imagining? Imagine walking into an
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  orphanage with a clipboard. A clipboard.
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  Yeah, you walk in, you sit down in front of a group of, I don't
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  know, toddlers, and you asked them for their resumes.
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  Wow. You look at them and ask for
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  their test scores, their future earning potential, and proof of
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  their good behavior before you decide which one you were going
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  to adopt. That sounds completely absurd.
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  It is absurd, but you know for centuries that is precisely how
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  many people have assumed God approaches humanity when it
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  comes to salvation. Yeah, they really have.
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  So today we are opening up a massive stack of theological
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  notes, historical documents, and sermon preparation materials
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  centered entirely on God's sovereign grace.
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  Our mission for this deep dive is to answer one of the most
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  searching questions in all of theology.
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  Which is a heavy one. It really is, yeah.
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  The question is this, why do some sinners come to Christ in
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  faith while others remain in hardness and unbelief?
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  We are going to look at the gritty historical context of the
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  1st century, the original Greek and Hebrew languages, the
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  historical witness of the Church, and the practical,
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  everyday application for the believer.
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  There is a lot of ground to cover.
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  Absolutely. Now I should clarify.
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  Both of us on this show approach the Scriptures from a Protestant
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  Christian perspective. We adhere strictly to the
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  Westminster Confession of Faith, and we believe that salvation is
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  a sovereign work of God from beginning to end.
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  Now, if you are listening to this on your commute right now,
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  or maybe you were doing chores around the house, your brain is
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  probably fighting this idea already.
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  We are wired to want control over our own destiny.
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  This topic often challenges human pride and pushes back
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  against modern assumptions about free will.
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  So I invite you to lay aside your everyday distractions.
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  Give this study your full attention.
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  I promise you that understanding this doctrine will bring immense
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  comfort and assurance to your life, far beyond what any human
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  centered theology could ever offer.
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  Well, what's fascinating here is that the source material insists
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  we must cross the doctrinal bridge of our radical inability
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  before we can understand anything else.
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  Radical inability. Let's talk about that.
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  Yeah, we have to look at the absolute ruin of humanity in
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  sin. If salvation were left to human
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  autonomy, you know, if it were left to our own free will or our
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  own internal compass, not one single soul would be ransomed.
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  Not one. Right, because the text we are
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  examining make a very specific claim.
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  They say the natural man is dead in trespasses and sins.
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  Dead, not sick. Spot on.
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  A dead person does not reach out for a life preserver.
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  A dead person does not collaborate in their own
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  resurrection. Yeah, that is a stark image.
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  It is, therefore the doctrine of unconditional election addresses
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  this very point by teaching that God, before the foundation of
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  the world, chose certain sinners to be saved in Christ.
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  He did not choose them because He saw faith, goodness or
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  spiritual willingness in them, but according to His own mercy
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  and good pleasure. This directs our attention away
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  from man's imagined autonomy and back to the freedom, holiness
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  and sovereignty of God. OK, let's unpack this
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  terminology before we go any further.
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  I feel like we cannot talk past each other on this.
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  I agree definitions are crucial here.
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  So let us start with the term unconditional election itself.
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  Based on the documents we are analyzing, election is defined
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  by three things. It is personal, gracious, and
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  purposeful, meaning God chose particular sinners from eternity
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  past. The word unconditional is the
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  part that usually causes the friction though.
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  Oh, almost always. It means the choice is not based
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  on anything God foresaw in the individual.
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  It is not based on foreseen faith, obedience, moral quality,
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  or spiritual willingness. This is the crucial distinction
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  we have to make. Faith is the fruit of election,
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  not the cause of it. That is a massive paradigm shift
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  for a lot of people. It really is.
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  We also need to differentiate election from predestination,
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  and we must differentiate it from effectual calling.
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  Let us set up some definitions. How do these three theological
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  categories differ from one another?
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  Well, that is a vital distinction to make.
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  Predestination is the broader category.
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  It refers to God's eternal decree regarding all things that
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  come to pass. OK, all things.
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  Yeah, it encompasses everything from the rising of the sun to
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  the fall of empires, and in theology it includes both the
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  election of angels and human beings to eternal life, as well
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  as the passing over of others, which is often termed
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  reprobation. So predestination is the huge
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  umbrella. Precisely.
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  Election, on the other hand, is a specific subset of
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  predestination. It refers strictly to God's
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  gracious choice of particular individuals out of fallen
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  humanity to receive eternal salvation in Jesus Christ.
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  It is a targeted redeeming choice.
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  Effectual calling then is the execution of that choice in
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  time. In time, OK.
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  Yes, because election happens in eternity past, right before the
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  universe was even created. Effectual calling happens on,
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  say, a random Tuesday. When a person hears the gospel
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  preached, the Holy Spirit sovereignly opens their
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  spiritually blind eyes and they believe.
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  That makes total sense. You can think of election as the
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  eternal blueprint and effectual calling as the actual
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  construction of the building in real time.
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  I like that. I think another analogy might
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  help clarify the incorrect view versus the biblical view.
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  Think about the incorrect view of election, the conditional
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  view like a college admissions process.
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  OK, how so? Well, a university looks ahead
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  at your high school transcript, they look at your test scores,
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  your extracurricular activities, and they see that you will be a
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  good student. Right.
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  They see the potential, yeah. They foresee your academic
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  success, and based on that foreseen merit, they send you an
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  acceptance letter that is conditional.
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  By contrast, the biblical view of unconditional election is
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  like the adoption scenario we discussed at the very beginning.
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  In an adoption, parents walk into an orphanage and choose a
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  child entirely based on their own mercy and good pleasure.
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  Absolutely. The child has nothing to offer.
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  The choice rests entirely in the loving will of the parents,
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  completely independent of the child's qualifications.
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  If we connect this to the bigger picture, your analogy highlights
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  a severe theological reality. If grace simply assists the
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  human will, it ceases to be grace in the biblical sense.
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  Oh OK, explain that a bit more. Well, imagine a man drowning in
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  the middle of the ocean. The conditional view of
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  salvation teaches that God throws a life preserver to the
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  man, but the man must use his own remaining strength to grab
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  the rope. Right, he has to do his part.
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  Exactly. I mean, that is what the
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  conditional view claims. In that scenario, God's grace
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  assists the man, but the deciding factor is the man's own
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  grip. But the text does not say we are
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  just drowning. It says we are at the bottom of
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  the ocean, lifeless. We are dead in trespasses and
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  sins. A corpse does not grab a rope.
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  A corpse does nothing at all. Right.
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  The explanation for salvation must lie in the Creator, not the
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  creature. Left to themselves, humans are
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  completely unable to submit to God's law.
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  They are hostile to God by nature.
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  Therefore, election must be unconditional because the Sinner
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  will never fulfill any condition that could move God to choose
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  them. The problem is not that mankind
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  is simply weak and needs a helping hand.
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  The problem is that mankind has fallen and needs sovereign
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  mercy. That distinction between grace
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  as a reaction versus grace as the sovereign cause changes
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  everything about how we read the Bible.
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  It really does. To see where the Apostle Paul
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  wrote so forcefully about this, we need to move from abstract
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  definitions into the gritty historical reality of the 1st
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  century. Let's.
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  Do it. We're looking specifically at
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  the mid 50s AD Paul is writing his magnum opus to the believers
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  in Rome. He's preparing for a mission to
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  Spain, and he needs to provide a systematic, unshakable defense
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  of the gospel of grace. We are looking at a unique,
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  redemptive historical pivot. This is the transition from the
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  Old Covenant administration to the New Covenant church age.
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  The wall of separation between Jew and Gentile is being torn
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  down. Which was a massive shift.
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  Huge. But this transition created a
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  massive tension in the early church.
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  Yeah, and this brings up a crucial question about the
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  crisis the early church is facing.
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  If the physical nation of Israel was the historically chosen
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  people of God, why were the majority of Jews rejecting their
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  own Messiah while the Gentiles, who are considered outsiders,
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  were being grafted in? Right, that is the big question.
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  Did God's promises fail? This was not an academic debate
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  for Paul. This was a heart wrenching
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  reality involving his own kinsmen according to the flesh.
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  Yeah, he was agonizing over this.
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  He had to explain the mechanics of sovereign election to prove
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  that the Word of God had not fallen.
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  Paul's defense is that God's promises did not fail because
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  his elective purposes were never based on biological dissent or
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  human effort. In the 1st place, Paul draws an
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  absolute distinction between the children of the flesh and the
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  children of the promise. So how does he prove that
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  historically, if I am a Jewish Christian in Rome reading this
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  letter, I would want some serious Old Testament proof that
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  biological dissent does not guarantee salvation.
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  Oh, and Paul uses undeniable historical precedents to prove
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  his point. He points out that Abraham had
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  two sons, Isaac and Ishmael. Both were biological descendants
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  of Abraham, but God chose Isaac as the child of promise.
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  If salvation were based purely on genetics, both should have
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  inherited the covenant. But Paul narrows it down even
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  further to eliminate any remaining arguments.
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  How so? Well, someone might argue that
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  Ishmael was the son of a servant woman, Hagar, while Isaac was
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  the son of Sarah, the free woman.
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  So Paul brings up Isaac's twin sons, Jacob and Esau.
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  They shared the same father, the same mother, and they were
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  conceived at the exact same time.
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  Yet before the twins were even born, before they had done any
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  good or evil, God declared that the older would be subordinate
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  to the younger. Before they were even born.
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  Yes, this was so that God's purpose according to election
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  might stand. It was not of works, but of Him
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  who calls. Paul deliberately excludes all
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  human distinctives as the basis for God's choice.
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  Wow. Even within the elect nation of
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  Israel, there was always an individual unconditional choice
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  by God unto eternal salvation. So what does this all mean for
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  the original audience living in the Roman Empire?
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  We are talking about a group of people living under the shadow
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  of the absolute sovereignty of the Roman Emperor, right?
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  They understood decrees, they understood authority.
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  But how did this specific doctrine land in a culture that
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  was so obsessed with status and achievement?
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  It had to be a shock to the system.
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  Oh completely. In Roman society, your worth was
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  entirely based on your merit, your birthright, or what they
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  call the curses honor room. A curse Honor room?
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  Yeah. For those unfamiliar, the Curses
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  Honor Room was the sequential order of public offices held by
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  aspiring politicians in the Roman Republic and the early
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  Empire. You started as a sequester,
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  moved U to ddial, then rater and finally console.
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  You had to climb the ladder. You.
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  Earned your way U You achieved your status through ruthless
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  competition, an moral grandstanding.
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  The Gospel completely shattered this merit based worldview by
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  showing that God chooses the weak and the foolish to shame
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  the wise. That cultural context is vital.
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  The doctrine of unconditional election demolished the
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  Pharisaical pride of works righteousness that viewed God's
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  favor as a debt owed to the circumcised.
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  Yes, absolutely. For the Jewish believers, it
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  meant their pedigree could not save them.
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  For the Roman believers, it meant their social achievements,
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  their wealth and their political offices were useless in the
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  sight of a holy God. Useless.
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  By grounding election in eternity past, Paul destroyed
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  all human boasting. It forced the original audience
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  to recognize that they were not the masters of their fate, they
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  were the objects of a love that preceded their very existence
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  that. Is a beautiful way to phrase it.
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  The Roman meritocracy told people they were the sum of
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  their achievements. The gospel told them they were
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  bankrupt sinners who could only be saved by the unmerited favor
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  of a sovereign king. OK, but if Paul is making this
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  massive offensive claim to a merit based Roman culture, he
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  cannot just imply it. He has to construct a
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  bulletproof argument. Oh, he does.
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  How does he actually write this down in the original languages?
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  To ensure no one can twist his words, we need to look at the
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  precise words he chose to use. Let us dig into the exegesis of
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  several key passages. For instance, Ephesians chapter
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  one verse 4 uses the Greek verb echolomi.
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  Echolomi, yeah. When we look at the verbal
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  aspect in the syntax of this word, the implications are
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  massive. The verb is in the middle voice.
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  OK, middle voice. In Greek grammar, the active
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  voice means the subject performs the action.
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  The passive voice means the subject receives the action, but
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  the middle always signifies that the subject is acting upon
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  itself or for its own benefit. Oh interesting.
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  It means God chose us for himself.
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  Furthermore, Paul specifically chose ekligomi to highlight a
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  specific picking out of individuals from a larger group.
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  Because there are other words for choosing right?
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  Right. Other Greek words like Harry omi
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  could imply a more general choosing or a preference based
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  on qualities, but echoligrami points to an autonomous
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  selection. Add to this that the verd is in
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  the aorist indicative tense. This points to an action that
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  was completely finished in the past.
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  It places the act of election in the realm of eternity past,
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  removed from any human action, decision, or foreseen merit.
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  Hold on, middle voice aorist indicative for those of us whose
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  Greek is a little rusty, what does that actually change about
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  the meaning? How does that hit the original
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  reader? It hits them by removing all
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  conditions. The ARS indicative means it is a
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  done deal. It is a historical fact that
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  occurred before history began. And the middle voice means God
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  did not look at a group of people, see how great they were,
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  and say I need them on my team. He acted entirely within himself
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  for His own glory. To secure a people is the
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  grammatical equivalent of a sovereign king drafting A treaty
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  that relies on no one but himself.
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  And the linguistic depth does not stop with the Greek.
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  Our notes also look at Romans Chapter 9 where Paul quotes
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  Exodus chapter after 33 verse 19.
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  The text says I will have mercy on whom I have mercy.
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  When you look at the Hebrew syntax of that original passage
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  in Exodus, there is a structural feature called the item per item
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  construction. Item per Edom.
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  Yeah, it is a grammatical formula where a verb is repeated
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  to show the absolute autonomy of the subject.
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  In English we use this sometimes when we say things like it is
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  what it is or I go where I go. It means the action is
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  completely self determined and does not depend on any outside
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  condition. God's mercy relies on nothing
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  outside Himself. It is a stunning declaration of
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  divine independence. This brings up an incredibly
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  relevant point about how we interpret ancient texts.
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  Paul goes on to quote Malachi chapter 1.
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  Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated. That verse always trips people
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  up. It does.
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  Modern readers look at those words love and hate, and they
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  immediately apply emotional sentimentality to them.
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  Yeah, they do. They think of human feelings of
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  affection or malice. They picture gods sitting in
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  heaven with a warm fuzzy feeling toward Jacob and a scowl of
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  bitter your hatred toward Esau. But in the context of ancient
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  Near Eastern treaty language, love and hate were technical
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  legal terms. They were terms for sovereign
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  choice and rejection. Oh wow.
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  When a suzerain king made a covenant with a vassal king, he
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  would say I love this vassal, meaning I choose to enter into a
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  binding covenant with him to hate meant to reject from that
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  covenantal relationship. Knowing these linguistic facts
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  really removes the temptation to twist the scriptures to fit
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  modern sensitivities. It clears up so much confusion
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  the. Original audience would have
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  understood the legal force of these treaty terms.
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  They would have recognized the absolute autonomy declared in
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  the Hebrew syntax. The text literally leaves no
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  room for human contribution. Not at all.
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  When we strip away the emotional modernism often applied to these
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  verses and restore the force of these words as a sovereign legal
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  decree, we see that God's electing love is a decisive
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  covenantal action. It is the uncaused cause of our
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  salvation. The human authors argument in
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  Romans 9 relies entirely on this linguistic foundation.
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  Paul employs a sharp contrast in the Greek syntax, not because of
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  works, but because of him who calls right.
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  This guards against the synergistic moralism that tries
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  to sneak human effort back into the equation.
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  Let's define that real quick. Synergism is the idea that God
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  and man work together to achieve salvation.
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  Monogism is the idea that God works alone to save.
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  No kidding. If election were conditional,
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  the syntax would reflect A transaction.
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  It would say because of foreseen faith, he calls instead.
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  The syntax reflects a sovereign monarchistic decree.
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  Now that the language confirms God makes the sovereign choice,
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  we have to address the massive pushback this doctrine receives.
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  And there is a lot of pushback. It is impossible to talk about
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  unconditional election without dealing with the natural human
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  objections. If I am sitting in the Pew
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  listening to this, I am going to have some serious questions.
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  Why must it be unconditional? And how do we answer the
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  critics? The logic presented in the text
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  is ironclad. We see the necessity of God's
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  sovereign choice in the golden Chain of Romans chapter 8,
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  verses 29 and 30. The Golden Chain.
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  Yeah, the text says those whom God foreknew he predestined.
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  Those he predestined he called. Those he called he justified,
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  and those he justified he glorified.
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  It is a progression. The chain is unbreakable because
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  it depends wholly upon God's purpose.
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  Everyone predestined is called, and everyone called is justified
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  and glorified. It is not a tentative
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  arrangement suspended on the instability of man's will.
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  We also see this in John chapter 6, verse 37, where Jesus says,
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  All that the Father gives me shall come to me.
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  The giving precedes the coming. You do not come to Christ and
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  then become given by the Father. You come because you have
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  already been given. Wow, that is a great
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  distinction. And Acts chapter 13, verse 48,
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  states plainly as many as were ordained to eternal life
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  believed the ordination comes before the belief.
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  Wait, but that flies in the face of everything we are taught
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  about fairness. If I am a 1st century Roman or a
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  21st century listener, my immediate thought is that is not
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  fair. God is playing favorites.
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  Sure, if God chooses some and not others, isn't he being
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  unjust? This raises a critical question
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  about our fundamental understanding of justice and
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  mercy. The objection assumes that
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  fallen mankind deserves salvation and that God is
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  somehow obligated to give equal saving grace to all people.
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  Right. We assume everyone gets a
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  baseline level of grace. But the biblical text
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  systematically dismantles this assumption.
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  Scripture teaches that all people are guilty in Adam and
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  guilty by their own transgressions.
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  No one deserves pardon, righteousness, or eternal life.
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  If God were to exercise pure justice, He would send everyone
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  to condemnation. Therefore, election does not
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  mean God is being unjust to the non elect.
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  Rather, it means he's being merciful to the elect.
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  That is a profound shift in perspective.
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  Mercy, by definition, is not owed.
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  If mercy were owed, it would be justice, not mercy.
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  The real wonder is not that God does not choose all people, but
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  that He chooses any at all. God is not withholding justice
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  from the innocent, He is granting mercy to the guilty.
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  That makes sense of the justice aspect, but what about the
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  foreknowledge argument? I hear this all the time.
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  Oh, the foreseen faith argument. Yeah.
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  People ask, what if God just looked down the corridors of
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  time? So who would choose him out of
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  their own free will and then elected them based on that
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  future decision, Right? It sounds nice on the surface
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  because it seems to preserve God's foreknowledge.
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  While protecting human autonomy, how does that hold up against
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  the text we are reviewing? If man is entirely dead in sin,
• 20:07
  as we established earlier, there is no faith for God to foresee
• 20:10
  unless God is the one who gives it.
• 20:12
  OK, yeah, if God chooses a person because he foresees their
• 20:16
  faith, then faith becomes the ultimate ground of election.
• 20:19
  The Sinner, not God, makes the final difference.
• 20:23
  This view quietly reintroduces human merit through the back
• 20:27
  door. It suggests that one person was
• 20:29
  just a little more spiritually sensitive, a little more humble,
• 20:32
  or a little smarter than their neighbor who rejected the
• 20:34
  gospel. Yeah, it turns faith into a good
• 20:35
  work. Precisely.
• 20:37
  Think about it logically. If two people hear the exact
• 20:40
  same gospel presentation and one believes while the other rejects
• 20:43
  it, what makes them? If you say it is their free
• 20:47
  will, then the person who believed has a reason to boast.
• 20:50
  They made the smarter choice, but Scripture consistently
• 20:53
  presents faith not as the cause of election, but as its fruit.
• 20:57
  Saving faith itself is a gift of sovereign grace.
• 21:00
  OK, that leads right into the third major objection.
• 21:02
  This is the one that really gets people riled up.
• 21:05
  If this doctrine is true, doesn't it destroy human
• 21:09
  responsibility? I hear that a lot.
• 21:11
  Doesn't it make evangelism pointless?
• 21:13
  People argue that if God has already decided who will be
• 21:16
  saved, there is no reason to preach, to pray, or to send
• 21:19
  missionaries. Why should we bother telling
• 21:21
  anyone about Jesus? If the list is already finalized
• 21:23
  in heaven, what is? Fascinating here is how the
• 21:25
  biblical authors anticipated this very objection.
• 21:29
  They counter this fear by pointing back to passages like
• 21:31
  Acts chapter 13, verse 48. God does not just ordain the
• 21:35
  ends, He ordains the means. He has chosen to save His people
• 21:39
  through the preaching of the Gospel, through the cross, and
• 21:41
  through the effectual work of the Holy Spirit attending the
• 21:44
  Word. So the preaching is the means to
• 21:46
  the end. Absolutely.
• 21:47
  This doctrine actually gives evangelism its only true hope.
• 21:51
  If salvation were left entirely to the autonomous will of dead,
• 21:55
  hardened sinners, evangelism would be an exercise in
• 21:58
  futility. No one would ever respond.
• 22:01
  You would be preaching to a graveyard, but because God has a
• 22:04
  chosen people, the church can preach with absolute boldness,
• 22:08
  knowing that Christ's sheep will hear His voice.
• 22:11
  The doctrine guarantees that gospel labor is not in vain.
• 22:15
  Here's where it gets really interesting.
• 22:17
  A common fear is that this doctrine portrays a cold,
• 22:20
  distant God making arbitrary choices on a cosmic spreadsheet.
• 22:24
  Right. Like picking lottery numbers.
• 22:26
  Yeah. People imagine a deity just
• 22:28
  flipping coins or picking numbers out of a hat.
• 22:30
  To correct this massive misunderstanding, we have to
• 22:32
  look at how election is permanently tied to the person
• 22:35
  of Jesus Christ. The text stresses that believers
• 22:38
  are chosen in Him or in Christo. Election is not a naked decree
• 22:42
  floating above the Gospel. The Father gave a specific
• 22:45
  people to the Son. Christ functions actively as
• 22:48
  prophet, priest and king and the execution of this decree.
• 22:51
  If we connect this to the bigger picture of Christ's offices, the
• 22:55
  beauty of this doctrine truly shines.
• 22:58
  As prophet, Christ is the one who effectually calls the elect
• 23:02
  through the proclamation of His Word, right?
• 23:04
  He opens blinded eyes to see the truth.
• 23:06
  He does not just offer information, He creates sight.
• 23:10
  Wow. As priest, He provides A
• 23:12
  definite redemption. His atoning death on the cross
• 23:16
  was not a general provision that made salvation a hypothetical
• 23:19
  possibility for an undefined mass of humanity.
• 23:22
  OK, that is a huge. Point.
• 23:23
  He actually purchased specific people.
• 23:25
  He laid down his life for the sheep.
• 23:28
  His intercession in heaven continues this priestly work,
• 23:31
  ensuring that not one of the elect is lost, right?
• 23:34
  And as King, he exercises authority over all flesh to give
• 23:38
  eternal life to as many as the Father has granted him.
• 23:41
  The decree of election would be an unfulfilled concept without
• 23:44
  the saving might and righteousness of Christ in him.
• 23:47
  It becomes a revealed and applied reality.
• 23:49
  Let us dig into the historical witness.
• 23:51
  This is not just some new theological invention.
• 23:53
  We are not looking at a novelty cooked up in a modern seminary.
• 23:56
  Definitely not. The historical lineage shows how
• 23:59
  the Church has historically defended the sovereignty of God
• 24:02
  against human centered views of salvation.
• 24:05
  It starts early on with Augustine of Hippo fighting
• 24:08
  against a monk named Pelagius. That debate in the early 5th
• 24:12
  century is incredibly revealing. Pelagius arrived in Rome and was
• 24:16
  horrified by the moral laxity of the Christians living there.
• 24:19
  Because they were using grace as an excuse to sin, right?
• 24:21
  Yes, they were using human weakness as an excuse for their
• 24:24
  sin. To combat this, Pelagius
• 24:27
  formulated a doctrine of absolute free will.
• 24:30
  He taught that human nature was fundamentally good, unaffected
• 24:33
  by Adam's original sin, and that any person had the inherent
• 24:36
  moral ability to obey God perfectly without the need for
• 24:39
  internal sovereign grace. Wow.
• 24:41
  He viewed grace simply as God's external instruction, giving us
• 24:45
  the law and the example of Christ.
• 24:47
  So Pelagius basically taught that we are born in a neutral
• 24:50
  state, just like Adam before the fall, and we can pull ourselves
• 24:54
  up by our own moral bootstraps. How did Augustine counter that?
• 24:57
  Augustine recognized that this entirely destroyed the Gospel.
• 25:02
  Augustine argued from Scripture that humanity fell in Adam.
• 25:05
  We are not born neutral. We are born with a corrupted
• 25:08
  nature. Our wills are bound by sin.
• 25:11
  We are free to choose according to our desires, but our desires
• 25:14
  are naturally hostile to God. Therefore, Augustine fought to
• 25:19
  prove that God's saving work must begin in His merciful
• 25:22
  purpose, not the sinners independent will.
• 25:25
  He championed the idea that God must grant the very faith He
• 25:29
  demands. Fast forward 1000 years and we
• 25:31
  see the exact same battle. During the Reformation, Martin
• 25:35
  Luther debated Erasmus of Rotterdam on this very issue.
• 25:38
  Yes, a classic debate. Erasmus wrote a treatise
• 25:41
  defending the freedom of the will, arguing the humans can
• 25:44
  cooperate with God's grace. Luther fired back with his
• 25:47
  famous work, The Bondage of the Will.
• 25:48
  Such a crucial book. Luther insisted that fallen
• 25:51
  mankind is like a beast of burden written by either God or
• 25:54
  Satan. We are not spiritually free to
• 25:56
  choose God unless liberated by sovereign grace.
• 25:59
  Then John Calvin later articulated this with even
• 26:02
  greater systematic fullness, tying election directly to our
• 26:04
  union with Christ. This historical lineage leads
• 26:07
  directly to the precise formulations of the Protestant
• 26:10
  Confessions the Synod of Dort convened in 1618 to explicitly
• 26:15
  answer the followers of Jacobus Arminius, known as the
• 26:19
  Remonstrance. Right, the Armenians.
• 26:20
  The Armenians were teaching conditional election based on
• 26:23
  foreseen faith. They argue that God looked into
• 26:26
  the future, saw who would believe and elected them on that
• 26:29
  basis. The Senator Dort forcefully
• 26:31
  denied this. Forcefully.
• 26:33
  They produced the Canons of Dort, affirming that God chose a
• 26:37
  definite number of persons for salvation out of mere grace, not
• 26:41
  because of anything foreseen in them.
• 26:44
  They recognize that to protect the biblical definition of
• 26:46
  grace, you must defend the absolute sovereignty of God and
• 26:49
  salvation. Finally, this culminates in the
• 26:51
  Westminster Confession of Faith, which perfectly balanced
• 26:54
  sovereign election with the absolute necessity of the means
• 26:57
  of grace. Right.
• 26:58
  The Westminster Confession teaches that election arises
• 27:01
  from God's free grace and love alone, but it also carefully
• 27:04
  preserves the necessity of preaching faith and
• 27:07
  sanctification. Those predestined to life are
• 27:10
  effectually called, justified, adopted and sanctified.
• 27:14
  This historical framework proves that whenever the grace of God
• 27:18
  has been threatened by human centered theology, the Church
• 27:21
  has repeatedly returned to the bedrock of unconditional
• 27:23
  election. What is fascinating here is how
• 27:26
  practical this historical theology actually is.
• 27:29
  We have seen the history, the Greek and Hebrew language, and
• 27:32
  the intricate theological frameworks.
• 27:35
  Now we must ask how this truth lands in daily life.
• 27:38
  Because it has to land somewhere.
• 27:40
  Right. The pastoral application is
• 27:42
  incredibly robust. The intended effects of this
• 27:45
  doctrine are highly specific. It humbles the Sinner,
• 27:48
  strengthens the Saint, provides ironclad assurance, and produces
• 27:52
  actual holiness. I want to address you, the
• 27:55
  listener right now. Think about your own assurance
• 27:58
  of salvation. Yeah, think about that.
• 28:00
  If your salvation rests even slightly on your own unstable
• 28:03
  will, your own ability to maintain enough faith, or your
• 28:06
  own spiritual performance, you can never have true, lasting
• 28:09
  assurance. You will always wonder if you
• 28:12
  have done enough or believed hard enough.
• 28:13
  It is exhausting. But if your salvation rests on
• 28:16
  God's eternal decree, your security is unbreakable.
• 28:20
  You are safe in Christ's grip, not your own grip on Him.
• 28:24
  The God who chose you before the foundation of the world will not
• 28:28
  abandon you in time. This raises a fantastic question
• 28:31
  about how we pursue holiness. If we are completely secure,
• 28:35
  does that mean we can live however we want?
• 28:38
  The theological texts address this by explaining the third use
• 28:42
  of the law. Wait, third use of the law?
• 28:45
  For someone who has never heard that terminology, what were the
• 28:47
  first 2 uses and why does the third one matter here?
• 28:49
  That is a great clarifying question.
• 28:52
  Historically Reformed theology identifies 3 uses for God's
• 28:55
  moral law. The first use is civil.
• 28:58
  The law restrains outward evil in society through the threat of
• 29:01
  punishment. OK, that makes sense.
• 29:02
  The second use is pedagogical. The law acts as a schoolmaster
• 29:05
  to show us our sin and drive us to Christ for salvation, right?
• 29:08
  But the third use, the normative use, is for the believer.
• 29:11
  Once a person is saved by grace, the law becomes a guide for
• 29:14
  Christians. Living a right understanding of
• 29:17
  election never leads a believer to say since I am elect, I can
• 29:20
  live in sin. Yeah, that would be completely
• 29:22
  backwards. Instead, the Christian looks at
• 29:24
  the third use of the law and pursues holiness not to earn
• 29:28
  God's favor, but out of immense gratitude because salvation has
• 29:32
  already been sovereignly secured.
• 29:34
  You obey not out of the fear of a tyrant, but out of love for a
• 29:38
  father who chose you before the stars were formed.
• 29:42
  This totally crushes the moralism of legalistic religion,
• 29:46
  which tries to earn grace. It shatters it.
• 29:49
  It removes the anxiety of performance and replaces it with
• 29:51
  a zeal for godliness born of thankfulness.
• 29:54
  The same grace that saves also also sanctifies.
• 29:58
  Election is not unto indifference, it is unto
• 30:00
  holiness. There is also a massive
• 30:03
  corporate effect that this doctrine has on the church.
• 30:06
  Election was not intended to create a group of isolated,
• 30:08
  arrogant individuals who think they are better than everyone
• 30:10
  else. Definitely not.
• 30:12
  When Jews and Gentiles in the early church realized that
• 30:14
  neither of them had earned their status, all the walls of
• 30:16
  hostility fell down. We all stand on the exact same
• 30:20
  ground of unmerited favor. No one can look at another
• 30:23
  believer and say, I am here because I made a smarter choice
• 30:25
  than you. That corporate humility binds
• 30:28
  the church together. It leads to mutual edification
• 30:31
  and collective worship that is focused entirely on God's glory
• 30:35
  rather than human achievement. The theological texts also tie
• 30:38
  this all together with an eschatological hope.
• 30:41
  They mentioned a very specific application.
• 30:44
  This doctrine strengthens believers as they await the
• 30:48
  premillennial pre tribulational return of the king, right?
• 30:51
  OK those are massive theological words.
• 30:54
  Breakdown premillennial and pre tribulational for someone who
• 30:57
  doesn't have a prophecy chart on their wall.
• 30:59
  Those terms refer to specific views of the end times.
• 31:03
  Premillennial means that Christ will return bodily to the earth
• 31:06
  before establishing A literal thousand year reign of peace and
• 31:09
  righteousness. OK Pre tribulational means that
• 31:12
  Christ will rescue his church, catching them up to be with him
• 31:15
  before a specific period of global tribulation and divine
• 31:18
  wrath falls upon the earth. The point the source material
• 31:21
  makes is this. When you know that the outcome
• 31:24
  of history is secure and that the King will return to gather
• 31:27
  the very people he purchased with his own blood, it steadies
• 31:31
  the heart in the midst of suffering.
• 31:33
  It means the sovereign God who chose his people before time
• 31:36
  began also sovereignly orchestrates history to preserve
• 31:41
  them at the end of time. It provides a foundation of hope
• 31:45
  that no earthly trial can shake. You live as a people
• 31:49
  strengthened, united and handled by the staggering reality of
• 31:52
  sovereign grace. Absolutely.
• 31:54
  It shows both the preacher and the congregation that the
• 31:56
  Kingdom of God is not sustained by human cleverness or worldly
• 31:59
  methods, but by the eternal decree of a sovereign God.
• 32:03
  We have covered a massive amount of ground in this deep dive.
• 32:06
  We really have. We started with the linguistic
• 32:08
  depths of the Greek middle voice and the Hebrew syntax of Exodus.
• 32:12
  We walked through the historical crisis of the Roman church,
• 32:15
  where Paul had to defend the promises of God against the
• 32:17
  reality of Jewish unbelief. We looked at the unbreakable
• 32:20
  comfort found in the theological formulations of the Westminster
• 32:24
  Standards and the historical battles fought by Augustine,
• 32:27
  Luther, and Calvin. We addressed the fierce
• 32:29
  objections regarding fairness, foreseen faith, and evangelism,
• 32:34
  proving that God's justice and mercy operate perfectly within
• 32:38
  His sovereign will. In the end, the core take away
• 32:41
  from all of this is singular. Salvation is of the Lord, from
• 32:46
  the eternal decree to your final glorification.
• 32:48
  It is God's work. This doctrine strips away every
• 32:52
  single ounce of human boasting. It leaves us with empty hands,
• 32:56
  giving God all the glory for our redemption.
• 32:59
  It proves that our faith is the result of His grace, not the
• 33:02
  cause of it. I want to leave you with a final
• 33:04
  thought to ponder. Building on a command found in
• 33:06
  the historical texts, the writers warn us not to search
• 33:09
  the hidden registers of heaven to try and find our names, but
• 33:12
  rather to look directly to Christ.
• 33:14
  So what does that practically mean for the listener?
• 33:17
  Consider this. What if our modern, exhausting
• 33:19
  anxiety about our spiritual standing is rooted entirely in
• 33:22
  the hidden arrogance that we have to maintain our own
• 33:25
  salvation? Think about how tiring it is to
• 33:27
  constantly measure your own spiritual performance.
• 33:31
  If you look inside at your own faith, trying to find the
• 33:34
  ultimate assurance of your salvation, you will inevitably
• 33:38
  drown in doubt because your faith waivers.
• 33:40
  Your emotions fluctuate constantly.
• 33:42
  Right. But if you realize that your
• 33:44
  faith is simply the visible echo of a choice God made before the
• 33:47
  stars were formed, you can finally stop striving.
• 33:51
  You can lay down the burden of self salvation and experience
• 33:54
  absolute, unshakable rest. You do not need to walk into the
• 33:58
  orphanage with a resume. You simply need to receive the
• 34:01
  adoption that was secured for you at the cost of the Sun's
• 34:03
  life spot. On.
• 34:05
  The human condition is entirely bankrupt, but the divine remedy
• 34:08
  is infinitely secure. Thank you for joining us for
• 34:11
  this deep dive on Reformed thinking.
• 34:13
  We encourage you to rest completely in the sovereign
• 34:15
  grace of Jesus Christ.