Election (Draft)
October 1, 2024
This is a short examination of the doctrine of election with an examination of a excerpt from "Elected to Salvation" on the The Thinking Fellows podcast (https://www.1517.org/podcast-overview/elected-to-salvation). This essay will focus on the Lutheran doction of single predestination and whether election is sufficient for salvation.
Definitions
Start by defining the following two terms. First, a person is saved or has salvation means that at death the person will not receive the punishment for their sins but enter into heaven. Having faith at death is the requirement for salvation. Christians will often say that they are "saved" when what they should instead say that they "believe" or "have faith" so that they would be saved if they died at that moment. Second, a person has been elected or predestined means that God decided the person would exist and be saved, and He made this choice before He created the world.
Necessity of Election
The standard Lutheran position regarding election is summarized with two conditional statements concerning the necessity of election to salvation.
(1) If one will be saved, then one has been elected.
(2) If one has not been elected, then one will not be saved.(1) is used more often. It can be seen in the passage from the approximate 10-minute mark of the podcast:
If you are saved, it is wholly and completely that God in His love for you, chose you before the foundation of the world to be His own and then fulfilled that in real time and in real space by sending you a preacher to preach to you the Gospel, through the proclaimed Word and Sacraments, and the Holy Spirit worked through that to bring you to the faith and keep you in that faith, and that is why you are saved. And if you are not, it is because at some point you rejected that Gospel ... You are free to say no to God.
Sufficiency of Election
Now, consider the converse of (1) and (2):(3) If one has been elected, then one will be saved,which is equivalent to
(4) If one will not be saved, then one has not been elected.Consider the following passages in support of (3) and (4).
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Romans 8:28-30
And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.
According to Paul, the Christian knows that in the end God will save those who have faith in Him because He has done it before. The saints of old live on today in heaven. This was accomplished by following this sequence. They were first predestined. Then,
- All those predestined were called.
- All those called were justified.
- All those justified were glorified.
This sequence is important for two reasons. First, Christians can have confidence today because the sequence that led to salvation in the past is the same sequence that saves them today. Second, this sequence demonstrates that if someone is predestined, then that person will be glorified. Hence, election is sufficient for salvation.
- John 10
The sheep are those given to the Christ by the Father, and they receive eternal life (vv 28, 29). The sheep know the Shepherd (v 14), follow Him, and listen to His voice (v 27). This means that the sheep have faith. This faith is not temporary because the sheep will never perish (v 28). To identify who the sheep are, consider this verse:
And I have other sheep that are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will listen to My voice; and they will become one flock, with one shepherd. (v 16)
The sheep of verse 16 currently do not have faith, but are nonetheless sheep, so we know that they are given to Christ by the Father and will receive eternal life. They will also listen to His voice (have faith) and join the one flock (the Church). The fact that they are sheep precedes and is the reason for them joining the flock. It appears that the sheep are the elect and all of the benefits of being a sheep will follow.
Could the sheep not be the elect? Suppose instead that the sheep are those given to Christ because the Father sees that they will one come to the faith and persevere, thus gaining eternal life. If this was the case, when Jesus says that the sheep "will never perish" (v 28), the result is the tautology,
Those who will never perish will never perish.
Although this is true, it is trivially so. It does not provide us with any information. God choosing the sheep based on their future faith is ruled out.
- Ephesians
- Acts
Paul presents this in a most comforting manner when he points out that before the world began God ordained in his counsel through which specific cross and afflication he would conform each of his elect to "the image of his Son," and that in each case the afflictions should and must "work together for good" since they are "called according to his purpose." (Solid Declaration XI, 49)