Kootenai Church Morning Worship

Our text for this morning is 2 Peter 1:10–11: “Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to make your calling and choosing sure; for in doing these things, you will never stumble; for in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you.” This passage deals with the doctrine of assurance of our salvation. You'll notice in verse 10 there is reference to our calling and our election—that is, God's choosing of us. In fact, other translations render that word choosing as “election.” The ESV says, “Be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election.”
In verses 10–11, we have started noticing that there are three blessings that are associated with the spiritual diligence that the author mentions in verse 5 and then again in verse 10. He says in verses 5–7 that we are to apply all diligence to add to our faith moral excellence, to moral excellence, knowledge, to knowledge, self-control, to self-control, perseverance, to perseverance, godliness, and to godliness, brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness, love. Those virtues we are to be diligent to add to our faith. Then in verse 10 he says, “Be all the more diligent to make your calling and choosing sure.” And the way that we make our calling and our election sure is by supplying all of those virtues to our faith. These are connected. We are to apply this diligence in order to ensure, to make ourselves sure of, our calling and our choosing.
Now we started last time we were together in verse 10. We looked at the doctrine of assurance and what it means and kind of what it doesn't mean, why it is important, and how as Christians we should rest in the evidences of our salvation and the confidence that God gives us in that, and what it means to rest. And we kind of tried to balance these two truths that Scripture holds at the same time—one, that we are warned about the danger of false conversions and false confidence, of placing our faith, our confidence, in the wrong thing and not being saved and yet being confident that we actually belong to God when there is no evidence that we do. We're warned against that. Scripture says, “Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith . . . unless indeed you fail the test?” (2 Cor. 13:5) There's that truth. And then there is the other truth that correlates with that, and that is that as believers we can know and we should know that we are called to Christ and that we are chosen by Him for salvation. We can know our calling, and we can know with certainty that we are elect, and we ought to rest in that, be confident of that, and be comfortable with that, for that is a humbling certainty.
So these are the two truths: you shouldn't be certain if you have no grounds for assurance, and you should be certain if you have grounds for assurance. So what are the grounds of assurance? The grounds of assurance is that we would apply all diligence to make sure that these virtues are added to our faith. And in so doing, we make ourselves certain. Peter's point is not that we prove to other people that we are saved—that's not his point—nor that we prove to God that we are saved. He knows certainly whether we are or not. But Peter's point is that we assure ourselves, make ourselves certain of our calling and of our election.
And then last time we were together, we looked at that doctrine of calling, what it means to be the called. Christians are referred to in Scripture as the called. It is all over the New Testament. And therefore, we have to be all the more diligent to convince ourselves and to be sure of, for ourselves, for our own sake, our calling and our election.
Now, there is a connection between these two things. We are the called, and you see in 2 Peter 1:3 that Peter mentions that. He says that we have been granted “everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the full knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.” God has called us to Himself. We've seen the glories and the excellencies of Christ, and that is what the Father has used to draw us to the Son. Christ Himself has called us to Himself by opening our eyes so that we behold His glory and His excellence. We see something that is desirable in that. So the Christians then are called the called; that is what we are referred to.
And now we're looking at this doctrine of election. There are connections between the two of them. Now these, as I mentioned last time, are not chronological. Peter says you need to be sure of your calling and of your election. But that's not the chronological order in which they took place. Election came before calling. But Peter doesn't mention those in the order in which they happened. He mentions them in the order in which I can know them. I know them because in time I have been called to the Son in repentance and faith, and I believed upon the Son and received eternal life. So therefore I am the called, and it is in being called that I can be certain of my election, my salvation. I can't know of my election until I have been called.
All of the called were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, and all of those who are chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world will be called to the Son in time. So they are connected because all of the called are the chosen ones, and all of the chosen ones are eventually called. But they are in a particular order and it is important that we make sure that we understand what that order is. Those who are chosen were chosen before the foundation of the world. Those then who are chosen before the foundation of the world are in time called to the Son, drawn to the Son.
Both of these things are works of God. You didn't call yourself. It's not your responsibility to call yourself. This is the work of God. You didn't summon yourself and give yourself life. You didn't change your own heart from a heart of stone to a heart of flesh. You didn't give sight to your own blind eyes so that you could behold the glories of the gospel of Christ and be drawn to Him. You did not change your own will. You did not change your own affections. These are things that happened to you. You didn't change your heart and your eyes and your mind regarding the gospel. This is something that God affected in your life by His grace. This is all God's work. God elects and God calls His elect to Himself.
So today we're dealing with this issue of assurance of salvation and knowing for certain that we are not just called but also elect. So we're going to talk about the doctrine of divine election. Now, here's why we're doing this. Number one, because it is in the text.
And number two, it has been a while since we have addressed this in a head-on fashion to spell it out and to contrast it with some false views of election. And that is not because I don't like this doctrine or I try to avoid it. If you knew how often I wanted to jump onto this and ride this horse, you would be impressed by my self-control. So it's not because I'm trying to avoid it. I'm not at all. I love this doctrine. This is one of the most glorious and amazing doctrines in all of Scripture. I am absolutely enthralled with the doctrine of election because I love it so much. So I haven't avoided it for that reason. But it hasn't come up directly in any text. And so we're here.
A third reason we're going to address it is you may have noticed on Sunday mornings that we're kind of needing space and we need to clean out some room here. So before we talk about going to two services or using the overflow upstairs or building a new facility, I figured let's talk about the doctrine of election. If it's effective, we'll do it two, three, four weeks, however long until we have all the space that we need.
So here we go. This is the doctrine of divine election. By the way, Peter is not saying make sure that you chose Christ. He's not talking about your choice. Make your calling (that's God’s calling of you) and His choosing of you—make yourself certain of that. He's not saying make sure that you've made the right choice. He's saying you need to make yourself certain that you are indeed both called and elect.
So here is the doctrine of election. God, according to His own grace, according to His own purposes, for His own glory, before the foundation of the world, before He spoke an angel or an atom into existence, has chosen in Christ those whom He would save. God, before the foundation of the world, chose in Christ not just to save. He didn't just choose to save. He chose whom He would save and whom He would save effectually and perfectly and permanently. God in Christ, before the foundation of the world, chose all whom He would save.
Now that should probably immediately cause your mind to say, “That's not what you typically hear when people try to soft-pedal the doctrine of election.” You're absolutely right. And you might say, “That raises all kinds of questions about human free will, all kinds of objections that I might have to it.” You're absolutely right. It's going to raise all of those. I'm going to deal with some of them, not all of them, here this morning. Let me give you a few passages, and I could double the amount of passages I'm about to read to you. I could probably triple the number of passages I'm about to read to you, but I'm going to give you a sampling of passages where this doctrine is explained in plain English.
Second Thessalonians 2:13–14: “But we should always give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, [listen] because God has chosen you as the first fruits for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth. It was for this He called you through our gospel, that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Paul says to the Thessalonians, “We thank God for you because God chose you for salvation and then He called you to obtain that salvation and that glory.” God is to be praised for His election. For anybody who was chosen in Christ, God is to receive all the glory for that. Paul specifically thanks God for individual Thessalonians because God had chosen individual Thessalonians for salvation. That is what he just said.
In 1 Thessalonians 1:3–4, Paul says we remember “without ceasing your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ before our God and Father, knowing, brothers beloved by God, your election.” He mentions election just in passing. You've been chosen, he says.
Ephesians 1:4, which we read at the beginning: “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.” What did I say is the doctrine of election? That God in Christ before the foundation of the world chose not just to save, but He chose whom He would save. That's Ephesians 1:4. “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.”
Second Timothy 1:9: “[He] has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus from all eternity.” Paul says there was a grace that was given to you from eternity past. Grace was bestowed upon you who are in Christ.
In 1 Peter 1:1–2, Peter writes to those “who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to the obedience of Jesus Christ and the sprinkling of His blood.”
First Peter 2:9: “You are a chosen family, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” You'll notice the linking of calling and election in half of these passages that I'm reading to you.
Romans 8:29: “Because 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.” There the doctrine of election is described as predestination.
Ephesians 1:11: “In Him, we also have been made an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will.”
This doctrine of God's sovereignty and His free choice to do as He pleases with all His creatures is so plainly taught in Scripture as to be unavoidable. Election is not a doctrine that we piece together from a few unclear and obscure references in the corners of the New Testament somewhere. It is something that is woven through every book of the New Testament. It is the defining characteristic of God's people. If you are saved, you are the elect of God. That is not deep down in the recesses, in the cracks of the New Testament somewhere, like a coin you lose between the cushions of your couch. This is the plastic cover that your grandma put on the couch when you came over so you wouldn't spill and get crumbs all over it. It's on the surface. It's everywhere. It's the defining characteristic of the people of God in the New Testament, that you are the chosen ones.
In fact, Spurgeon says this:
However, without doubt, it is the doctrine of Scripture that those who are saved, are saved because God chose them to be saved, and are called as the effect of that first choice of God. If any of you dispute this, I stand upon the authority of Holy Scripture; . . . for I can trace this doctrine through the lips of a succession of holy men, from this present moment to the days of Calvin, thence to Augustine, and thence on to Paul himself, and even to the lips of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The doctrine is, without doubt, taught in Scripture, and were not men too proud to humble themselves to it, it would universally be believed and received as being no other than manifest truth.
If it weren't for our pride, we would gladly embrace this, is what Spurgeon's saying.
Now Spurgeon said he could trace this doctrine from himself through Calvin, to Augustine, to Paul, and to the lips of the Lord Jesus. Did Jesus really teach this? Yeah, John 6.
37 All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will never cast out.
38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. . . .
40 For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day. (John 6:37–38, 40 LSB)
Jesus spoke in John 6 of a people that the Father gave to Him. He spoke in John 10 of a people that the Father gave to Him. He describes them as His sheep. He said, “I come that I may give My sheep life. They will hear My voice. They will come to Me. I will give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of My hand ever.” And then in John 17, He prays for those very people. And in the high priestly prayer, He says to the Father that He is praying not on behalf of the world but on behalf of “those whom You have given Me” (v. 9).
There is a people whom the Father has given to the Son. The Son comes into the world to lay down His life and to pay the atonement price for the sins of those people to purchase and redeem that bride. And then the Spirit regenerates them in time and calls them to the Son. This is the sovereign work of salvation that our God has done. So it is on the lips of the Lord Jesus. Nobody who takes Scripture seriously can deny that the doctrine of election is taught in Scripture.
The controversy about this doctrine is regarding the basis upon which God chooses sinners, not that God chooses sinners; that's not up for debate. Calvinists and Arminians, Reformed people and non-Reformed people, they all agree that God chooses people for salvation. The question is on what basis does God make that choice? That is where the divide comes in.
So let me give you a couple of unbiblical answers to this question—on what basis does God make this choice? Number one, some people say that God's election is a non-personal election. In other words, God doesn't choose individual sinners, Jim over Joe or Jim over Bob, but God simply chooses to save. God simply chooses and elects to save a group of people, whichever group of people find themselves on their death day in Christ. So He hasn't chosen individual persons. It's not a personal election, it's sort of a group election. He just decides to save. And how do you get saved? Well, you have to repent of your sin and believe upon Christ, and then you get into that group, and if you're in that group, then God will save that group. So it's not individual people that He chooses.
To give you an illustration, it would be as if I were to have a bus out front here, and I said, “All right, anybody who gets on that bus I'm going to take to Disneyland for one week, all expenses paid. You get on the bus. The bus leaves at twelve o’clock. If you're on that bus, you get to go to Disneyland. If you're not on the bus, you lose out, you don't get to go to Disneyland.” And some of you will say, “Well, I had appointments this week. I can't move some of those. I guess I'll have to pass.” Others of you would say, like a sane human being, “No adult should ever go to Disneyland. Who wants to go to such a place? So I'm going to pass on that.” And some of you would jump on the bus and say, “All right, I'll take the free trip to Disneyland.” You get on the bus. At twelve o'clock, the bus leaves. I haven't necessarily picked who in the crowd I would take to Disneyland. I've simply made the offer available to everybody. Anybody on the bus gets to go to Disneyland. Anybody not on the bus doesn't go to Disneyland. So it's up to your free choice as to whether you get on the bus or don't get on the bus for whatever reasons you choose.
Some people say that's what election is. God's chosen to save everybody in Christ. How do you get in Christ? Exercise your free will, choose to trust Christ, and you're on the bus, you're in Him, and therefore God will save all of them. The problem with that is that Scripture does not define nor describe anywhere in the New Testament the doctrine of election as a non-personal thing. We give thanks for you because God chose you specifically (2 Thess. 2:13). Not we give thanks to God because He decided to choose an indiscriminate or nondescript group of people, but rather we give thanks for your election because you specifically were chosen. That's the language that is used.
God chose Abraham out of all of the other people on the planet at the time to reveal His grace. Abraham had two sons, Isaac and Ishmael. God chose Isaac over Ishmael. Isaac had two sons, Jacob and Esau. “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated” (Rom. 9:13). That's biblical. That's in the book of Malachi. That's in the book of Romans, chapter 9. And Paul makes the point in Romans 9, this God did and said, revealed, before either one of those boys were born because it did not depend on anything in Jacob and anything in Esau. It was God's choice. And He made that choice before either one of those boys was born so that, as God says in Romans 9, His grace in election might stand. And nobody could say, “Oh, you chose Jacob because he wasn't as hairy as Esau. Esau is just hairy. Of course, he didn't look good. He stunk all the time. No wonder God would choose Jacob over Esau.” You could never say that. Before either of them were born, God made His choice.
God doesn't choose just to save. God chooses whom He is going to save. Does this require that He passes over others? Yes, it necessarily does. Election is personal.
Now, second, there is the Arminian or non-Reformed view of election. This says that election is personal. God chooses people, but here's how He does it. God looks down through the corridors of time, and He sees that at this point in time, this person, if offered the gospel and if it’s explained to him, would of his own free will choose Me and come to Me and trust in My Son, and therefore I'll elect that person. The other guy who's sitting right next to him when he hears the gospel will not choose My Son, and therefore I will not elect him. So yes, God chose Jim instead of either of my two friends sitting on either side of me when the three of us heard the gospel together, but that is because God looked down through time and saw that in July of 1985 at Cocolalla Lake Bible Camp, I would hear the gospel and respond to that offer of the gospel. And since God foresaw that, He chose me based upon that. That is the Arminian view of election.
So God chooses personal people, individuals, but He chooses them based upon what He foresees that they will do. The problem with that is that that makes God out not to be a sovereign God who dispenses His grace to whom He wills, but it makes God out to be a really good prognosticator. He looks down through time and He learns, sees something about me, and on the basis of what He learns about me, makes His choice. And then it is not His choice that determines anything, it's my choice.
You see, if you have the Arminian view of election, then here's the problem. If God chooses not to elect—He looks down through time and He sees who would accept Him when offered the gospel and who would respond when offered the gospel, and if He chose not to elect them, would that person still be saved? In the Arminian view, you'd have to say, yes, he would still be saved, right? Because God's election in that view does absolutely nothing. It doesn't accomplish anything, doesn't secure anything, doesn't make anything guaranteed, doesn't purchase anybody, doesn't make anybody His own. God's simply just affirming your vote. You say, “Yeah, God, I'll choose You freely.” And God says, “OK, I think that's a good idea. I'll go ahead and agree with that choice that you just made.” That's the Arminian view of election.
That is unbiblical. In the Arminian view, election accomplishes nothing because what would happen without it? All the same stuff. In the Arminian view, we would all still be here even if God had not chosen any of us specifically. But if He had only elected to save, we would still all be saved, even if God had done no work of grace in our hearts.
Now, those who are saved are called the elect; they're called the chosen. We are chosen, we are elect by the triune God. In John 6, the Father gives a people to the Son. And He doesn't give all the people to the Son because Jesus said, “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me” (John 6:37). Not everybody comes to the Son, therefore not everybody has been given to the Son. A group of people has been given to the Son. Jesus says all who are given to the Son, to Him, will come to Him, and He will give them eternal life. He doesn't give all people eternal life, therefore all did not come to Him. And all did not come to Him because all were not given to Him. And He says that all those whom He gives eternal life He will raise up on the last day—that is, to a resurrection of life in His kingdom. And since some will be lost on that day, not all were given to Him. Not all believe upon Him because not all were given to Him by the Father. So there is a limit to the number of people whom God has chosen.
But here's something that all of us have in common with those who are not elect: We all deserve wrath. We all deserve His justice. There's not a person in this room who merits God's grace or God's choice, not a one of us. We have all violated His law. We are all hostile to God. We're all without the truth and we're all without Christ. Not a one of us desired righteousness or holiness apart from the work of God. Nobody here, apart from God's grace, ever wanted to be in His kingdom or in His presence. All of us loved sin and we drank it in like water. All of us were equally undeserving, and that is the natural condition of the lost and depraved human heart. It describes all of us.
But God by His grace chooses a people for Himself. God, before the foundation of the world, out of the mass of humanity, determines, decrees, not just that He will save, but He chooses whom He will save, and then He gives them to His Son as a love gift so that the Son will come and lay down His life to pay the price and to be a ransom for them, to redeem them out of the marketplace of sin. And that Son's perfect, obedient life is credited to the account of all of those whom the Father has given to the Son. And the Son purchases His bride.
That is not all people. That is a chosen people, a chosen race, an elect bride that the Father then, through the Spirit, draws to the Son. And we behold the glories of His excellencies, and we are drawn to it, and He removes the heart of stone, replaces it with a heart of flesh, gives us new affections, new desires, and causes us to be born again through a living hope and the resurrection from the dead in Jesus Christ. He does all of that work, and it is all by His sovereign grace.
And if you at this moment were thinking, “Yeah, I might have been chosen, but when I came to Christ, I freely came to Christ,” that is absolutely right. Nobody coerced you. Nobody put a gun to your head and said, “You come forward to that altar right now and ask Jesus into your heart.” Nobody did that. Did you come freely? Yeah, you came freely, uncoerced. But you were drawn by the Spirit of God. You were called to Him. So you came quite willingly, but who made you willing in the day of God's power? Yahweh did. He changed your heart. He drew you. He opened your eyes. He granted you repentance, and He granted you faith.
Election does not just make salvation possible. God's election secures your salvation before the foundation of the world. Spurgeon said this:
As without calling there is no salvation, so without election there is no calling. Holy Scripture teaches us that God has from the beginning chosen us who are saved unto holiness through Jesus Christ. We are told that as many as are ordained unto eternal life, believe and that their believing is the effect of their being ordained to eternal life from before all worlds.
Your belief happened because you were appointed to eternal life. This is the language that Luke uses in Acts 13:48 when those in Antioch responded to the preaching of the gospel. Luke says, “As many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.” You believed? It's because you were appointed to believe before the worlds began. Grace was granted to you in Christ Jesus from all eternity. That's 2 Timothy 1:9.
Now, if God chose none, none would be saved. Now there might be something in you that says, “Oh no, Jim, you don't understand. I would have chosen God even without His electing grace.” Yeah, your heart is that lily-white, is it? Your will is that unaffected by the fall? Your affections are that pristine? You're that noble? You're that able? You're that undepraved? And apart from the grace of God, you would have chosen Him and gladly come to the Son? No one seeks after God, Scripture says. We are the ones who have been sought. You didn't find Jesus. He’s not the one who was lost. He found you, He chose you, and He called you to Himself.
Now here’s a few objections to this doctrine. First—this is always the first one—that's not fair. And you are absolutely right. It's not. So? So what follows from that? You want fair? Anybody here sign up for fair? If you know fair, you go to Hell. That's fair. That's justice. I didn't get fairness, I got grace. I didn't get fairness, I got mercy. It's not fair. But you could go through a systematic theology—I don't have one on my shelf that lists fairness as one of God's attributes. Scripture doesn't describe God as a fair God. It describes Him as a loving God, a just God, a wise God, a merciful God, a good God. Fairness is not one of them because our idea of fairness always is a human virtue, a human standard.
And here's what the objector wants to do—the same thing that the imaginary objector wants to do in Romans 9, and that's to take God off His throne and bring Him before his own bar of justice and say, “Now You give an answer to me.” And Paul's answer to that man is, “Who are you, O man, to answer back to the Potter?” We don't even have a right to raise this objection. This is not an objection that makes sense. If we got fairness, we would all get damnation. None of us want fairness. Instead, we praise and glorify a gracious God who saves sinners.
And listen, if God had chosen to only save ten people out of the mass of all of human history for the last six thousand years, if God had chosen to just save ten, averaging just a little more than one every millennia, if He had just chosen to save ten sinners, rebels who hated Him and were hostile to Him and deserved eternal Hell, if He had chosen to save ten and let the rest of them perish, that would be an act of mercy and grace and undeserved kindness that should elicit our eternal praise for all of eternity, from the angels and all ten of the redeemed. But God hasn't chosen ten. He hasn't saved ten. He hasn't saved a hundred or a thousand or a hundred thousand or a million. He has saved a multitude that no man can number, from every tribe and kindred and group on the face of the planet. He has saved them by His grace and by only His grace, multiplied millions of people. If it were only ten, it is a grace unimaginable, a mercy immeasurable.
And so we want to drag God in and say, “You've chosen to save millions? Yeah, well, give an account for the other hundreds of millions.” Who are you, O man, to answer back to the Potter? I'm not trying to be abrasive or harsh. That's the answer that Scripture gives. We don't even have a right to raise that objection.
Second objection: so, Jim, you're saying that God just arbitrarily chooses some over others. Nope. I haven't used the word arbitrary up until this moment when I raised the objection. It is not an arbitrary election. Arbitrary suggests that God was standing with His back to a dartboard and He just threw darts backwards, and whoever's name got hit, those are the ones He chose. That's arbitrary, capricious. God just says, “Yeah, yeah, you and you, for no reason. I'm just going to choose a few.” That's arbitrary.
No, God is merciful. He is wise. He is benevolent. He is kind. And He has not revealed to us the basis of that choice. It is not arbitrary. We don't know why God chose Jim Osman instead of any of the other ten people in America named James Osman. We don't know why He chose this one and not them. He hasn't revealed the basis of that choice.
But I'll tell you something. I'm not going to drag God into my courtroom and say, “You give an account for this. You tell me why You chose me and not someone else.” I don't even care why He chose me over someone else. All I care about is that I know that I'm elect and I have Him to praise for it. I don't deserve this grace. I don't deserve this mercy. And I will thank Him for it, and I will not question His wisdom in giving it to us. It's not arbitrary at all. It's not capricious at all. It is three times mentioned in Ephesians 1 that it is according to His own grace and purposes. This is why He has done it. And if God should choose to not reveal to me the basis for my election over somebody else's for all of eternity, I can be happy with that. I'm happy with that mystery forever.
Now, a third objection: isn't this showing favoritism or partiality? Does the word partiality sound familiar? Because last week Justin got up here from behind this very pulpit, and he mentioned that God is not partial, and that God does not show partiality, and that partiality, in fact, is a horrible sin, and that God does not do this. In fact, one of God's most glorious attributes is that He is a God who does not show partiality. And now you're telling me, Jim, that God chose some and not others. Isn't that partiality? That's a very good question, and I told Justin, “I'm glad you raised that objection.” Let me answer it.
Partiality is showing favoritism to one person over another based upon something in the person—your skin color, your social status, what you can do for me, your economic abilities, your talents, your skills, your good looks, your intellect, whatever it is. Partiality is having two people and showing favoritism to one because of something in that person over the other person. That's partiality.
Election is not God showing partiality because out of the mass of humanity, there's not a one of us who had anything that could commend ourselves to Him on the basis of which He would make that choice. It is—listen to me carefully—it is the Arminian view of election that makes God partial. Because the Arminian says God looks down through history, He sees whose heart is inclined to Him and would choose Him when offered the gospel, and God elects them. That's partiality. That makes God out to be the committer of a moral evil of choosing a creature over another creature based on something in the creature, namely a heart that is more inclined to Him, a better willingness, less depravity, less sinfulness, a more worthiness to have election over the other person. That is partiality.
But the Reformed view, the Calvinist view of election, says God's election of us is unconditional. It's not based upon anything in the creature. It is based upon something in the nature and character and the wisdom of God, and therefore it is not partiality for God to choose one and to pass over another. That's not partiality. For God to choose one and not another based upon something He foresees in the person He chooses, that is partiality, and that makes God out to be the committer of that moral evil of showing partiality. It's the Arminian view that makes God guilty of partiality.
So now the question is, How then can I know that I am elect? Because Peter calls us to make our calling and election sure, to make ourselves sure of our election. You can only know that you are elect if you have been called. Have you come to faith in Jesus Christ? Have you repented of your sin and trusted in Him for salvation? If you have, then the evidence of that will be that you will add to your faith moral excellence, to that moral excellence, knowledge and self-control and perseverance and godliness and brotherly kindness and love. And when you make all diligence to pursue holiness and righteousness by adding those things to your faith, then you will make yourself certain of both your calling and your election.
If there is no pursuit in your life of holiness and righteousness, you have no reason to believe that you have been either chosen or called to holiness and righteousness. If you are pursuing unholiness and unrighteousness and sin, living and dwelling in it, and then you make a claim, “No, I've been chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, that He would present me holy and blameless before Him in love,” that doesn't compute. He chooses you to make you holy and blameless. And if you will not pursue holiness and blamelessness, you have no reason at all to think that you are either called or chosen.
I had somebody sit in my office one time and tell me that he was convinced he was elect, and because he was elect, he didn't have to worry about his eternity, and therefore he would continue in his sin. And I said to him, “The elect don't think like that.” In fact, those type of words, they don't ever roll off the tongue of those who are called to Christ. That is not how somebody who understands election and has been chosen—that's not how they think. The elect person says, “Because I have been chosen by God before the foundation of the world to be made holy and blameless, I will give all diligence to pursue holiness and blamelessness and thus give evidence to myself and to everybody else that I'm both called and that I am chosen.” That is how the elect think.
Now, if you are a believer here, I want to have a couple items of sort of comfort and encouragement for you here in a moment. If you are an unbeliever here, let me encourage you with this. You are not commanded to figure out if you are elect or not. That's not God's command to you. This command in this text is addressed to believers. God's command to you is to repent of your sin and believe upon the Savior. God commands “that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead” (Acts 17:30–31). If you're an unbeliever here and you're not in Christ, God's command to you is to recognize that you have violated His law and you have sinned against Him. Your lies, your blasphemy, your adultery, your fornication, your lust, your greed, your selfishness, your narcissism, your idolatry, all of those things, they have worked for you a punishment before the bar of God that your mind cannot even grasp and that you are not prepared to face in eternity.
You deserve His justice for that, but there is good news. There is a Savior who came to seek and to save that which was lost. He came to offer His life as a ransom for many. And His promise to you is if you will come to Him and you will look to Him and you will turn from your sin and trust in that Savior, He will give you eternal life. He will give you a life that nobody can ever take away, and He will adopt you into His family, give you His righteousness, and bring you to Heaven to be with Him on the last day. That is His promise to you.
So the command to the unbeliever—look to the Son and live. And if you will not have that Jesus in this life, you will not have Him in the next life. And the sin that you cling to, the sin that you love, it will damn you to Hell, and it will cling to you as it drags you down to eternal perdition. Cast it off, lay it aside, turn from it, and look to the Son and live. Look to the Son and have life. And if you will have life in Him, He will raise you up on the last day and give you the kingdom. It delights Him to do so. That is the command to the unbeliever.
Now to the believer, let me give you a couple of points of comfort. I told you at the start of this that this is a precious doctrine for me. I love this doctrine, and here's why—these two reasons. Number one, because it is a humbling doctrine. This leaves no room for boasting. You can't say, “Yeah, but I would have chosen Him anyway.” You can't say, “I was more deserving.” You can't say, “I was more inclined to Him.” You can't say, “He chose me because of something in me.” You can't say, “Yeah, I did this because this was my own free will and glorious praise be to my own free will to get me into eternal life.” You can't say any of that. There's no room for boasting, none. The only thing we brought into our salvation was the sin that made it necessary. And it is only the sovereign grace and unmerited mercy of an infinitely merciful and loving God that doesn't cast all of us into Hell at this very moment. And so all praise and all glory and all honor go to God for His merciful work of salvation, which began in eternity past with His decree of election. This is a humbling doctrine. There's no room for boasting for any of us.
Second, it is a comforting doctrine because we can know that we are elect. How do I know if I'm elect? Well, by pursuing these virtues, by pursuing the very thing that I have been called to, blamelessness and holiness and righteousness. And if I am doing that, then I can have confidence that I am elect. And I can also have the confidence that what Jesus said in John 6 is true, that all that the Father gives Him will come to Him, and the one who comes to Him, He will not cast out. I have come to Him, therefore He will never cast me off. That's comforting. And I've come to Him because the Father has given me to the Son, and the Son has died in order to give me life. And so I can be comforted by the reality that those who are in Christ Jesus are in Christ Jesus because of God's doing and that those who are in Christ Jesus will be saved everlastingly and that His sheep will never perish because no one will snatch them out of His hand. He promises to raise us up on the last day. We hear His voice, we follow Him, He gives us eternal life, and we never perish—period. Ever. That's a comforting doctrine.
But if my initial salvation comes down to my ability to make a choice, my willingness to make a decision, my ability to somehow please God in His foreknowledge as He looks down through time, if that's the basis of God's sovereign election, then there's no comfort in that, that I might be able to cling to Him. I'm only comforted with the realization that He, before time, chose me in Christ, and long after this time period has ended, I will still be in Christ. Through all of the toils and trials and tribulations that assault us in this life, the election of God stands. Through all of my failures and my foibles and my stupidity, the election of God stands. Before coming to Christ, through all of my rebellion, my hostility, my sin and my iniquity and my love for darkness, the election of God stands. And even as a believer, through all of the times that I fail Him and don't live up to even my own standard and I sin, the election of God stands. And long after I am in the grave and this body is consumed by worms, the election of God stands. And since He chose me before the foundation of the world, long after this world is consumed by fire and there is a new creation and a new heavens and a New Earth, the election of God stands. And we will stand with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David and Daniel and the rest of them, and say that the election of God stands.
Those who are saved are saved because God in Christ chose them before the foundation of the world, not based upon anything in them, not based upon anything that He sees, but based solely and only upon His good, gracious, and merciful electing choice. And so all praise and glory go to Him. It's a humbling doctrine, it's a comforting doctrine. No matter what this world throws at us, no matter what the world does to us, no matter what happens in this life, the election of God stands. And His gifts and His calling are irrevocable. And therefore we will stand with Him and we will see our Redeemer face-to-face.
That is the first—that was two sermons to get there—but that is the first blessing of spiritual diligence, that we have assurance of salvation. We’ll look at the second one next week, and that is that He will keep us from stumbling.