DEWITT TABERNACLE TEACHING SERIES

 

ELECTION

VERSES

MAN’S RESPONSIBILITY

 

By C.W. Wood                May 2006

 

In the minds of many modern day Bible readers, as well as in the minds of many in the past, there has been an unresolved question concerning the fact that God ELECTED some to Salvation and some to condemnation before the creation of the world. The question mainly arises over the fact that we can clearly see in the Scriptures two major doctrines taught. One is the complete Sovereignty of God, which places Him in control of all things, at all times, in all places. Nothing happens in Heaven, Hell or on Earth without His permission. Many Scriptures could be given to prove this, but we will quote one that takes in all the rest. Isa. 45:5-7, “I am the Lord and there is none else (no one else giving orders), there is no God beside Me. I girded thee though thou hast not known Me. Verse 6, That they may know from the rising of the Sun, and from the west, that there is none beside Me. I am the Lord and there is none else. Verse 7, I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace and create evil; I the Lord do all these things.” (Can we believe this powerful statement?)

        If you will study the above Scripture carefully, you will have to conclude that nothing anywhere, at any time, nor in any place, is ever out of God’s control. Our prophet explained it like this, “There ain’t nothing out of cater.” Many other Scriptures teach this great truth! The second major doctrine teaches that man was made a free moral agent, with the ability to CHOOSE his own destiny. Again, many Scriptures could be given, but we will give one important one and move on. Deut. 30:15-19, “See, I have set before thee this day Life and Good, and Death and Evil; Verse 17, But if thine heart turn away, so that thou wilt not hear, but shall be drawn away, and worship other gods, and serve them; Verse 18, “I denounce unto you this day that ye shall surely perish, and that ye shall not prolong your days upon the land…..”Verse 19, “I call Heaven and Earth to record this against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; THEREFORE CHOOSE LIFE THAT BOTH THOU AND THY SEED SHALL LIVE.”

        Not only did God give us the ability to choose, but he also determined that we would HAVE TO CHOOSE EITHER GOOD OR EVIL, BLESSINGS OR CURSES. There is no way to escape our responsibility of having to CHOOSE.  God sees to that by setting both good and evil before us. So, now I pray that we can see the two major doctrines as set forth in the Scripture. As has been said, many more Scriptures could be given in support of each doctrine. The Bible is full of Word declaring both doctrines to be true!

        Now the great question that has confused our minds in times past is, “How can God predetermine, or Elect, certain persons to be saved, and certain others to be condemned, and do it before Creation? How could He make such determinations before we ever appeared on Earth, and do it without violating our free moral agency, which is our God-given right to choose? Rom. 9:11 declares that this is exactly what happened. “For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to Election might stand, not of works, but of Him that calleth; it was said unto her, the elder shall serve the younger.”

        Did God Elect one to be saved and one to be lost without rhyme or reason by passing man’s free-moral agency, which is His God given right to choose? No! He did not!

        There is a very simple answer that is if God will shine His light of revelation on the Word for us. We, who are in what we call “The End-Time Message”, have a very distinct advantage over those who do not believe in prophets for today! Since God’s Scriptural rule is that “Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but He (first) revealeth His secret unto His servants the prophets.” (Amos 3:7), then we who have accepted God’s Prophet of Mal. 4:5 can study what he taught on the subject and be informed.

        On what basis, or on what ground did God choose to love one and hate the other?

        First, we will give a Scripture that holds the explanation we are seeking, then we will look at the Prophet’s teaching on the same. Rom. 8:29, “FOR WHOM HE DID FOREKNOW, HE ALSO DID PREDESTINATE, to be conformed to the Image of His Son, that He might be the first born among many brethren.” I would call your attention to the word “FOREKNOW.” It means to “know before hand,” or to “have previous information about.” Now, to apply this meaning to our text, we have to conclude that the Scripture is saying that God was able to PREDESTINATE certain people to be saved, based on some information that He had about them, previous to His decision. The same with the condemned ones!

To those of us who believe the Scripture, we have no problem believing the part that says, “Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure.” (Isa. 46:9-10) These verses tell us HOW God came by the information He had pertaining to those He PREDESTINATED for Salvation. In simple language, He watched His Creation, from its beginning to its final end, BEFORE He ever created anything. In doing so, He saw the FINAL DECISION of every human being that would ever be on Earth. Then, with this information in His great mind, and based on that information, He chose some to be saved and some to be lost! In reality then, He was making place for man’s responsibility to be set forth. While at the same time, “no man can come to Him until he is called.” (John 6:44). Here we are looking at man’s side and also God’s side.

        God’s will was that “Not any should perish.” (II Peter 3:9) His sovereign will was exercised in that He has, and will, call every human to Salvation at one time or another, giving them a chance to be saved. He exercises His right to call ALL men to Salvation, no matter how evil we have been, and this is His sovereignty in action. There is no “Respect of person” with God as far as Salvation is concerned. “Many (all) are called, but few chosen.” (Mat. 20:16) All must be called and offered the remedy for their lost condition, because we had no say in the matter of being born lost! By this calling, God retains His righteousness toward all men. There will be no excuses at White Throne Judgment!

        Referring back to Rom. 9:11-14, where God’s choice was to love one and hate the other, the Holy Ghost then asked the very pointed question. Verse 14, “What shall we say then (About God’s decision to love one and hate the other), is there UNRIGHTEOUSNESS with God?” He answers his own question by saying, “God forbid.” In other words, we are to understand that God was completely righteous in His decision about the two men. He was righteous because His decisions were not made indiscriminately. That is to say, that they were not made at random, or without cause. They were made before Creation, based on the fact that He had seen their lives from start to finish, BEFORE they were ever placed on Earth. Jacob wanted the birthright (Salvation) at any cost, but Esau traded his for a bowl of beans. This is what we looked at in Rom. 8:29, “For whom He FOREKNEW, He also did PREDESTINATE.” His foreknowledge gave Him the basis for a righteous decision about the two men.

        God did not just out of thin air, so to speak, choose one man above the other. His decisions were based on His foreknowledge of their two lives! He knew their end from the beginning!

        QUOTE: C.O.D. BOOK, PAGE 225, “Jude Verse 4, ‘For there are certain man crept in unaware, who were before of old ordained to this condem-nation…(how?)…..turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness…’

        Ordained of old! Not that God set back on the throne, and said, “I’ll save this man, I’ll lose that man.” That wasn’t it! God died, and when Jesus died, the atonement covered the entire earth for every person. But God, by foreknowledge…Not that He will….He’s not willing that any should perish. He wanted everybody to be saved. That was His…that was His Eternal purpose. But if He was God, He knew who would and who would not be saved. If He didn’t know, then He wasn’t the infinite God. So the Bible teaches that.” (End quote)

        QUOTE: C.O.D. BOOK PAGE 225-226, “Do you know what the word infinite means? Look at…look in the dictionary and find out what the word infinite means. Why, He knowed every flea that would ever be on the earth, every fly, every gnat, every germ. He knew it before they ever come into existence, or He wasn’t God. Certainly, He knew it. All right.

        Then, in there, God could not—not say, “I’ll take you, and send you to Hell; and I’ll take you, and send you to Heaven.” God wanted you both to go to Heaven. But by foreknowledge He knew that one would be a shyster, and the other one would be a gentleman and a Christian. See? Therefore, He had to send Jesus to die, to save that man that He foreknew that wanted to be saved. Do you get it? (End quote)

        QUOTE: ADOPTION PAGE 30-31, “According as He has chosen us…

        Now, here is where the church stumbles so bad.

        According as He has chosen us in Him… (In Who?) Christ!

        We find out, now back in—in Genesis and in Revelation, Revelation 17:8, that He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. Now, the word…Let me read the next one. Eph. 1:4-5, “Foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him…Having predestinated us…

        Now I want to stop on that word of “predestinated.” Now, predestinated isn’t say, “I’ll choose Brother Neville, and I-I-I-I-I won’t choose Brother Beeler.” That isn’t it. It’s the foreknowledge of God that knowed which one would be right and which one wasn’t right. So, by foreknowledge, God knowing what He was going to do, he predestinated by His foreknowledge to make all things work together for the good to them that love God, that He might, in the age that is to come, call all things together in One, which is Christ Jesus.” (End quote)

        QUOTE: ADOPTION, PAGE 18, “Listen to this! Predestination looks back to foreknowledge....By foreknowledge He seen that I would love Him.

        What did He do? He, by foreknowledge, foresaw us, knowing that he was a Saviour, self-existent. There was no Angels, no nothing; just God, Elah, Elohim, the self-existent One, nothing but Him alone. But in Him was a Saviour. Well, what’s he going to save, there’s nothing lost? Knowing that, that He knowed that this great attribute in Him would project something out yonder that He could save. Then when it did that, by foreknowledge he looked down and He saw everyone that would accept It. And then by doing so, He said, “To save that, the only way I can do it, will be come down Myself and be made flesh and take the sin of a man upon Him, and die for him, that I might be the One that’s worshipped,” because He is God, the object of worship. (End quote)

        QUOTE: ADOPTION, PAGE 70-71, “And he made creatures, and creatures fell. And then God, by His infinite-cy, looked down through the stream of time and saw every man that would be saved. Every man, He knew it by fore-…..by foreknowledge. Therefore if He, by foreknowledge knew who would be saved and who would not be saved, He could predestinate. The word is not such a bad word after all, is it? He could predestinate, because He knew who would and who would not. Therefore, in order to catch those who would, He had to make a—a propitiation for their sin. Oh, if we can, we want to get to it, just a few verses below. He predestinated us to Eternal Life, knowing that those who would lay aside everything, and no matter how indifferent it would look towards the children of the world, it wouldn’t mean one thing to them, because they were children of God. And He called them.” (End quote)

        The purpose of our sermon is to merge man’s responsibility with God’s choice of some for Salvation and some for damnation, so that one doctrine does not contradict the other. For as we have before said, both doctrines are scriptural and the cogs of one will mesh with the others to keep God’s scriptural machinery running smoothly. May the Lord help us now as we try and bring the two together.

 

MAN’S PART

And

GOD’S PART

 

        First, we know that man’s Salvation started in the mind of God, not the mind of man. John 6:44, “No man can come to God, unless He be drawn by God’s spirit.” So then, man’s responsibility does not start until God has called him. We call that conviction, but even then some will not come and repent. Never-the-less, from that point on man is responsible! “Many are called but few are chosen.” (Mat. 20:16) Few are chosen because only a few answer the call of conviction. The simple truth is that God, who knows the end from the beginning, knew the final decision of us all, and therefore could righteously elect to Salvation, or commit to damnation, all based on man’s own choice! Man is responsible! God is responsible to call all men, which He has done, and will do. He would not that any be lost. He is no respecter of persons in the matter of Salvation. As the Prophet said, “He looked down and saw everyone that would accept it.” Then, is He unrighteous when He elects some and rejects others? Not at all! He receives those who receive Him and rejects those who reject Him, and from before Creation, He knew who was who. So, we see that God’s sovereign will is in force. Because He wanted all men to be saved, He calls all men. At the same time, He leaves man’s free-moral agency intact in that He abides by man’s own decision to accept or reject Salvation. In Rom. 9:16, when the Scripture says Election is, “not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth,” it is referring to the fact that man cannot come until God calls him! It is not saying that man has no say at all about His Salvation! Other Scriptures that say man must choose cannot be disregarded! In Rom. 9:21, where the question is asked, “Hath not the potter power over the clay to make one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor,” we must understand that the power to do one or the other is only exercised after God has watched man’s final decision. Then He exerts His power and sees that each person’s choice becomes a reality. There is a false understanding about predestination, which is to accuse God of ignoring man’s right to choose, and electing some for Heaven and some to Hell with out cause. Some have thought that, “God is God and He does whatever He wants to do!” This is true in one sense, but false in another, for “The Judge of all the earth never does anything but right.” (Gen. 18:25)

        QUOTE: JEHOVAH JIREH-PART II, PAGE 78-79, “Now, there’s a doctrine of predestination which is rotten, nonsense. But there really is a true predestination. God, by foreknowledge, could predestinate because He has foreknowledge. God is not willing that any should perish, but, being the infinite God, knew that who would perish and who would not.

        That’s the reason He said before Isaac or—or…before Jacob or Esau was born, He hated Esau and loved Jacob. His foreknowledge let Him know that Esau was a shyster, and He let Him know that Jacob respected that birthright; regardless of how he got it, he wanted it. Now, both boys, twins, born from the same holy mother and father, but one was a renegade and the other was a—a believer. Now God, by His foreknowledge, knew that.

Now, God, by foreknowledge, He—He doesn’t set His business like…You wouldn’t do your business that way, on a loose-leaf like that. God knew, by foreknowledge, who would be saved, so He sent Jesus to catch those who He foresaw would be saved. Read Ephesians, the 1st chapter, and you’ll see it. See? Now, there.” (End quote)

        And so, we conclude our case for God by saying that He is truly in control (sovereign) and also that man, in the final end, will have chosen his own destiny, Heaven or Hell! Rom. 14:12, “So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.” Mat. 13:15, “For this people’s heart is waxed gross and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed.” But, “He that commeth to Me I will in no wise cast out.” (John 6:37) Amen!