Election — C.H. Spurgeon

The Prince of Preachers Charles Haddon Spurgeon has been called England's greatest contribution to the spread of the gospel in the 19th century. One of his contemporaries said that the chief secret of Spurgeon's attractiveness was the fact that in every sermon, no matter what the text or the occasion, he explained the way of salvation in simple terms.

Spurgeon's messages remain one of the great treasure houses of Christian literature, still bringing the light of the gospel and the comfort of the scriptures to hungry souls long after the preacher has passed into glory.

This is Charles Kelsch inviting you to listen to a message from the Prince of Preachers. C .H. Spurgeon preached this message on September 2nd, 1855 at the New Park Street Chapel. It is entitled Election.

The Text: God’s Choice of His People

The text is found in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 verses 13 and 14. But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth, whereunto He called you by our gospel to the obtaining of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.

If there were no other text in the sacred word except this one, I think we should all be bound to receive and acknowledge the truthfulness of the great and glorious doctrine of God's ancient choice of His family.

But there seems to be an inveterate prejudice in the human mind against this doctrine, and although most other doctrines will be received by professing Christians, some with caution, others with pleasure, yet this one seems to be most frequently disregarded and discarded.

In many of our pulpits it would be reckoned a high sin and treason to preach a sermon upon election, because they could not make it what they call a practical discourse. I believe they have erred from the truth therein.

Whatever God has revealed, He has revealed for a purpose. There is nothing in Scripture which may not, under the influence of God's Spirit, be turned into a practical discourse, for all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for some purpose of spiritual usefulness.

It is true it may not be turned into a free will discourse, that we know right well, but it can be turned into a practical free grace discourse, and free grace practice is the best practice when the true doctrines of God's immutable love are brought to bear upon the hearts of saints and sinners.

Now I trust this morning some of you who are startled at the very sound of this word will say, I will give it a fair hearing. I will lay aside my prejudices. I will just hear what this man has to say.

Do not shut your ears and say at once, it is high doctrine. Who has authorized you to call it high or low? Why should you oppose yourself to God's doctrine? Remember what became of the children who found fault with God's prophet, and exclaimed, Go up, thou bald head!

Go up, thou bald head! Say nothing against God's doctrines, lest happily some evil beast should come out of the forest and devour you also. There are other woes besides the open judgment of heaven. Take heed that these fall not on your head.

Lay aside your prejudices, listen calmly, listen dispassionately, hear what the scriptures say, and when you do receive the truth, if God should be pleased to reveal and manifest it to your souls, do not be ashamed to confess it.

To confess you were wrong yesterday is only to acknowledge that you are a little wiser today, and instead of being a reflection on yourself, it is an honor to your judgment, and shows that you are improving in the knowledge of the truth.

Do not be ashamed to learn and to cast aside your old doctrines and views, but to take up that which you may more plainly see to be in the word of God. But if you do not see it to be here in the Bible, whatever I may say, or whatever authorities I may plead, I beseech you, as you love your souls, reject it.

And if from this pulpit you ever hear things contrary to this sacred word, remember that the Bible must be the first, and God's minister must lie underneath it. We must not stand on the Bible to preach, but we must preach with the Bible above our heads.

After all we have preached, we are well aware that the mountain of truth is higher than our eyes can discern. Clouds and darkness are round about its summit, and we cannot discern its topmost pinnacle.

Yet we will try to preach it as well as we can. But since we are mortal and liable to err, exercise your judgment. Try the spirits, whether they be of God. And if on mature reflection on your bended knees you are led to discard election, a thing which I consider to be utterly impossible, then forsake it.

Do not hear it preached, but believe and confess whatever you see to be God's word. I can say no more than that by way of exhortation. Now first I shall speak a little concerning the truthfulness of this doctrine.

God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation. Secondly, I shall try to prove that this election is absolute. He hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation, not for sanctification, but through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth.

Thirdly, this election is eternal, because the text says, God hath from the beginning chosen you. Fourthly, it is personal. He hath chosen you. Then we will look at the effects of the doctrine, see what it does.

And lastly, as God may enable us, we will try and look at its tendencies, and see whether it is indeed a terrible and licentious doctrine. We will take the flower, and like true bees, see whether there be any honey whatever in it, whether any good can come of it, or whether it is an unmixed, undiluted evil.

Election Confirmed by Historic Confessions

First I must try and prove that the doctrine is true. And let me begin with an argumentum ad hominem. I will speak to you according to your different positions and stations. There are some of you who belong to the church of England, and I am happy to see so many of you here, though now and then I certainly say some very hard things about church and state.

Yet I love the old church, for she has in her communion many godly ministers and eminent saints. Now I know you are great believers in what the articles declare to be sound doctrine. I will give you a specimen of what they utter concerning election, so that if you believe them, you cannot avoid receiving election.

I will read a portion of the seventeenth article upon predestination and election. Predestination to life is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby, before the foundations of the world were laid, He hast continually decreed by His counsel secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those whom He hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honour.

Wherefore, they which be endued with so excellent a benefit of God, be called according to God's purpose by His Spirit, working in due season. They through grace obey the calling. They be justified freely.

They be made sons of God by adoption. They be made like the image of His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. They walk religiously in good works, and at length, by God's mercy, they attain to everlasting felicity.

Now I think any churchman, if he be a sincere and honest believer in mother church, must be a thorough believer in election. True, if he turns to certain other portions of the prayer book, he will find things contrary to the doctrines of free grace, and altogether apart from scriptural teaching.

But if he looks at the articles, he must see that God hath chosen His people unto eternal life. I am not so desperately enamoured, however, of that book as you may be, and I have only used this article to show you that if you belong to the establishment of England, you should at least offer no objection to this doctrine of predestination.

Another human authority whereby I would confirm the doctrine of election is the Old Waldensian Creed. If you read the Creed of the Old Waldensies, emanating from them in the midst of the burning heat of persecution, you will see that these renowned professors and confessors of the Christian faith did most firmly receive and embrace this doctrine as being a portion of the truth of God.

I have copied from an old book one of the articles of their faith. That God saves from corruption and damnation those whom He has chosen from the foundations of the world, not for any disposition, faith, or holiness that He foresaw in them, but of His mere mercy in Christ Jesus His Son, passing by all the rest according to the irreprehensible reason of His own free will and justice.

It is no novelty, then, that I am preaching, no new doctrine. I love to proclaim these strong old doctrines which are called by the nickname Calvinism, but which are surely and verily the revealed truth of God as it is in Christ Jesus.

By this truth I make a pilgrimage into the past, and as I go I see, father after father, confessor after confessor, martyr after martyr, stand up to shake hands with me. Were I a Pelagian or a believer in the doctrine of free will, I should have to walk for centuries all alone.

Here and there a heretic of no very honorable character might rise up and call me brother. But taking these things to be the standard of my faith, I see the land of the ancients peopled with my brethren.

I behold multitudes who confess the same as I do, and acknowledge that this is the religion of God's own church. I also give you an extract from the old Baptist confession. We are Baptists in this congregation, the greater part of us at any rate, and we like to see what our own forefathers wrote.

Some two hundred years ago the Baptists assembled together and published their articles of faith to put an end to certain reports against their orthodoxy which had gone forth into the world. I turn to this old book which I have just published, and I find the following as the third article.

By the decree of God for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestinated or foreordained to eternal life through Jesus Christ to the praise of His glorious grace, others being left to act in their sin to their just condemnation to the praise of His glorious justice.

These angels and men thus predestinated and foreordained are particularly and unchangeably designed, and their number so certain and definite that it cannot be either increased or diminished. Those of mankind that are predestinated to life, God before the foundation of the world was laid, according to His eternal and immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of His will hath chosen in Christ unto everlasting glory out of His mere free grace and love, without any other thing in the creature as a condition or cause moving Him thereunto.

As for these human authorities, I care not one rush for all three of them. I care not what they say, pro or con, as to this doctrine. I have only used them as a kind of confirmation to your faith, to show you that whilst I may be railed upon as a heretic and as a hyper-Calvinist, after all, I am backed up by antiquity.

All the past stands by me. I do not care for the present. Give me the past, and I will hope for the future. Let the present rise up in my teeth. I will not care. What though a host of churches of London may have forsaken the great cardinal doctrines of God, it matters not.

If a handful of us stand alone in an unflinching maintenance of the sovereignty of our God, if we are beset by enemies, I, and even by our own brethren, who ought to be our friends and helpers, it matters not.

If we can but count upon the past, the noble army of martyrs, the glorious host of confessors are our friends, the witnesses of truth stand by us. With these for us, we will not say that we stand alone.

But we may exclaim, Lo, God hath reserved unto Himself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee unto Baal. But the best of all is, God is with us. The great truth is always the Bible, and the Bible alone.

Scriptural Proof of Election

My hearers, you do not believe in any other book than the Bible, do you? If I could prove this from all the books in Christendom, if I could fetch back the Alexandrian library and prove it thence, you would not believe it any more.

But you will surely believe what is in God's word. I have selected a few texts to read to you. I love to give you a whole volley of texts when I am afraid you will distrust a truth, so that you may be too astonished to doubt if you do not in reality believe.

Just let me run through a catalogue of passages where the people of God are called elect. Of course, if the people are called elect, there must be election. If Jesus Christ and His apostles were accustomed to style believers by this title of elect, we must certainly believe that they were so, otherwise the term does not mean anything.

Jesus Christ says, Except that the Lord had shortened those days, no flesh should be saved. But for the elect's sake, whom He hath chosen, He hath shortened the days. False Christs and false prophets shall rise, and shall show signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect.

Then shall He send His angels, and shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from the uttermost parts of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven. Mark 13, 20, 22, 27. Shall not God avenge His own elect, who cry day and night unto Him, though He bear long with them?

Luke 18, 7. Together with many other passages which might be selected, wherein either the word elect, or chosen, or foreordained, or appointed is mentioned, or the phrase My sheep, or some similar designation, showing that Christ's people are distinguished from the rest of mankind.

But you have concordances, and I will not trouble you with texts. Throughout the epistles the saints are constantly called the elect. In the Colossians we find Paul saying, Put on, therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies.

When he writes to Titus, he calls himself Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect. Peter says, Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father.

Then, if you turn to John, you will find he is very fond of the word. He says, The elder to the elect lady, and he speaks of our elect sister. We know where it is written, The church that is at Babylon, elected together with you.

They were not ashamed of the word in those days. They were not afraid to talk about it. Nowadays the word has been dressed up with diversities of meaning, and persons have mutilated and marred the doctrine, so that they have made it a very doctrine of devils.

And many who call themselves believers have gone to rank antinomianism. But notwithstanding all this, why should I be ashamed of it if men do rest it? We love God's truth on the rack as well as when it is walking upright.

If there were a martyr whom we loved before he came on the rack, we should love him more still when he was stretched there. When God's truth is stretched on the rack, we do not call it falsehood. We love not to see it racked, but we love it even when racked, because we can discern what its proper proportions ought to have been if it had not been racked and tortured by the cruelty and inventions of men.

If you will read many of the epistles of the ancient fathers, you will find them always writing to the people of God as the elect. Indeed, the common conversational term used among many of the churches by the primitive Christians to one another was that of the elect.

They would often use the term to one another, showing that it was generally believed that all God's people were manifestly elect. But now for the verses that will positively prove the doctrine. Open your Bibles and turn to John 15 .16, and there you will see that Jesus Christ has chosen His people, for He says, Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you and ordained you, that you should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My name, He may give it you.

Then in the nineteenth verse, If ye were of the world, the world would love his own. But because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Then in the seventeenth chapter and the eighth and ninth verses, For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest Me, and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send Me.

I pray for them. I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given Me, for they are thine. Turn to Acts 13 .48. And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord, and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.

They may try to split that passage into hairs, if they like, but it says, Ordain to eternal life in the original, as plainly as possible, and we do not care about all the different commentaries thereupon.

You scarcely need to be reminded of Romans chapter eight, because I trust you are all well acquainted with that chapter, and understand it by this time. In the twenty-ninth and following verses it says, For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.

Moreover, whom He did predestinate, them He also called, and whom He called, them He also justified, and whom He justified, them He also glorified. What shall we say, then, to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?

He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It would also be unnecessary to repeat the whole of the ninth chapter of Romans, as long as that remains in the Bible, no man shall be able to prove Arminianism.

So long as that is written there, not the most violent contortions of the passage will ever be able to exterminate the doctrine of election from the Scriptures. Let us read such verses as these,. 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. Then read the twenty-second verse. What if God, willing to show His wrath, and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction, and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had aforeprepared unto glory?

Then go on to Romans 11, verse 7. What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for, but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded. In the fifth verse of the same chapter we read,.

Even so then at this present time also, there is a remnant according to the election of grace. You no doubt all recollect the passage in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verses 26 -29,. For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called.

But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty, and base things of the world, and things which are despised hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to naught things which are, that no flesh should glory in His presence.

Again remember the passage in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, verse 9. God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ. And then you have my text, which methinks would be quite enough.

But if you need any more, you can find them at your leisure, if we have not quite removed your suspicions as to the doctrine not being true. Methinks, my friends, that this overwhelming mass of Scripture testimony must stagger those who dare to laugh at this doctrine.

God’s Sovereignty, Justice, and the Call to Holiness

What shall we say of those who have so often despised it, and denied its divinity, who have railed at its justice, and dared to defy God, and call Him an almighty tyrant, when they have heard of His having elected so many unto eternal life?

Canst thou, O rejecter, cast it out of the Bible? Canst thou take the penknife of Jehudi, and cut it out of the word of God? Wouldst thou be like the woman at the feet of Solomon, and have the child rent in halves, that thou mightest have thy half?

Is it not here in the Scripture? And is it not thy duty to bow before it, and meekly acknowledge what thou understandest not, to receive it as the truth, even though thou canst not understand its meaning?

I will not attempt to prove the justice of God in having thus elected some, and left others. It is not for me to vindicate my Master. He will speak for Himself, and He does so. Nay, but, O man, who art thou that replyest against God?

Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? Who is he that shall say unto his father, What hast thou begotten?

Or unto his mother, What hast thou brought forth? I am the Lord. I form the light, and create darkness. I, the Lord, do all these things. Who art thou that replyest against God? Tremble, and kiss his rod.

Bow down, and submit to his scepter. Impune not his justice, and arraign not his acts before thy bar, O man. But there are some who say, It is hard for God to choose some, and leave others. Now I will ask you one question.

Is there any of you here this morning who wishes to be holy, who wishes to be regenerate, to leave off sin and walk in holiness? Yes, there is, says someone. I do. Then God has elected you. But another says, No, I don't want to be holy.

I don't want to give up my lusts and my vices. Why should you grumble, then, that God has not elected you to it? For if you were elected, you would not like it, according to your own confession. If God this morning had chosen you to holiness, you say you would not care for it.

Do you not acknowledge that you prefer drunkenness to sobriety, dishonesty to honesty? You love this world's pleasures better than religion. Then why should you grumble that God has not chosen you to religion?

If you love religion, He has chosen you to it. If you desire it, He has chosen you to it. If you do not, what right have you to say that God ought to have given you what you do not wish for? Supposing I had in my hand something which you do not value, and I said I will give it to such and such a person.

You would have no right to grumble that I did not give it to you. You could not be so foolish as to grumble that the other has got what you do not care about. According to your own confession, many of you do not want religion, do not want a new heart and a right spirit, do not want the forgiveness of sins, do not want sanctification.

You do not want to be elected to these things. Then why should you grumble? You count these things but as husks. And why should you complain of God who has given them to those whom He has chosen? If you believe them to be good and desire them, they are there for thee.

God gives liberally to all those who desire. First of all, He makes them desire, otherwise they never would. If you love these things, He has elected you to them, and you may have them. But if you do not, who are you that you should find fault with God when it is your desperate will that keeps you from loving these things, your own simple self that makes you hate them?

Suppose a man in the street should say, What a shame it is that I cannot have a seat in the chapel to hear what this man has to say. And suppose he says, I hate the preacher, I can't bear his doctrine, but still it is a shame that I have not a seat.

Would you expect a man to say so? No, you would at once say, That man does not care for it. Why should he trouble himself about other people having what they value and he despises? You do not like holiness, you do not like righteousness.

If God has elected me to these things, has He hurt you by it? Ah, but say some, I thought it meant that God elected some to heaven and some to hell. That is a very different matter from the gospel doctrine.

He has elected men to holiness and to righteousness, and through that to heaven. You must not say that He has elected them simply to heaven or others to hell. He has elected you to holiness if you love holiness.

If any of you love to be saved by Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ elected you to be saved. If any of you desire to have salvation, you are elected to have it if you desire it sincerely and earnestly. But if you don't desire it, why on earth should you be so preposterously foolish as to grumble because God gives that which you do not like to other people?

Thus I have tried to say something with regard to the truth of the doctrine of election. And now briefly, let me say that election is absolute, that is, it does not depend upon what we are. The text says, God hath from the beginning chosen us unto salvation.

Absolute and Eternal Election

But our opponents say that God chooses people because they are good, that He chooses them on account of sundry works which they have done. Now we ask in reply to this, what works are those on account of which God elects His people?

Are they what we commonly call works of the law, works of obedience which the creature can render? If so, we reply to you, if men cannot be justified by the works of the law, it seems to us pretty clear that they cannot be elected by the works of the law.

If they cannot be justified by their good deeds, they cannot be saved by them. Then the decree of election could not have been formed upon any good works. But, says others, God elected them on the foresight of their faith.

Now God gives faith, therefore He could not have elected them on account of faith which He foresaw. There shall be twenty beggars in the street, and I determined to give one of them a shilling. But will anyone say that I determined to give that one a shilling, that I elected him to have the shilling because I foresaw that he would have it?

That would be talking nonsense. In like manner, to say that God elected men because He foresaw they would have faith, which is salvation in the germ, would be too absurd for us to listen to for a moment.

Faith is the gift of God. Every virtue comes from Him. Therefore it cannot have caused Him to elect men because it is His gift. Election, we are sure, is absolute and altogether apart from the virtues which the saints have afterwards.

What though a saint should be as holy and devout as Paul? What though he should be as bold as Peter or as loving as John? Yet he would claim nothing from his Maker. I never knew a saint yet of any denomination who thought that God saved him because He foresaw that he would have these merits.

Now, my brethren, the best jewels that the saint ever wears, if they be jewels of his own fashioning, are not of the first water. There is something of earth mixed with them. The highest grace we ever possess has something of earthliness about it.

We feel this when we are most refined, when we are most sanctified, and our language must always be, I the chief of sinners am, Jesus died for me. Our only hope, our only plea still hangs on grace as exhibited in the person of Jesus Christ.

And I am sure we must utterly reject and disregard all thought that our graces, which are the gifts of our Lord, which are His right hand planting, could ever have caused His love. And we ever must sing, What was there in us that could merit esteem or give the Creator delight?

It was even so, Father, we ever must sing, Because it seemed good in Thy sight. He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy. He saves because He will save. And if any of you ask me why He saves me, I can only say, Because He would do it.

Was there anything in me that should recommend me to God? No. I lay aside everything. I had nothing to recommend me. When God saved me, I was the most abject, lost, and ruined of the race. I lay before Him as an infant in my blood.

Verily, I had no power to help myself. Oh, how wretched did I feel and know myself to be! If you had something to recommend you to God, I never had. I will be content to be saved by grace, unalloyed, pure grace.

I can boast of no merits. If you can do so, I cannot. I must sing, Free grace alone, from the first to the last, hath won my affection, and held my soul fast. Then thirdly, this election is eternal. God hath from the beginning chosen you unto eternal life.

Can any man tell me when the beginning was? Years ago we thought the beginning of this world was when Adam came upon it. But we have discovered that thousands of years before that, God was preparing chaotic matter to make it a fit abode for man, putting races of creatures upon it, who might die and leave behind the marks of His handiwork and marvelous skill, before He tried His hand on man.

But that was not the beginning, for revelation points us to a period long ere this world was fashioned, to the days when the morning stars were begotten, when, like drops of dew from the fingers of the morning, stars and constellations fell trickling from the hand of God, when by His own lips He launched forth ponderous orbs, when with His own hand He sent comets like thunderbolts wandering through the sky to find one day their proper sphere.

We go back to years gone by, when worlds were made and systems fashioned, but we have not even approached the beginning yet. Until we go to the time when all the universe slept in the mind of God as yet unborn, until we enter the eternity where God the Creator lived alone, everything sleeping within Him, all creation resting in His mighty, gigantic thought, we have not guessed the beginning.

We may go back, back, back, ages upon ages. We may go back, if we might use such strange words, whole eternities, and yet never arrive at the beginning. Our wing might be tired, our imagination would die away.

Could it outstrip the lightning's flashing in majesty, power, and rapidity? It would soon weary itself, ere it could get to the beginning. But God, from the beginning, chose His people. When the unnavigated ether was as yet unfanned by the wing of a single angel, when space was shoreless or else unborn, when universal silence reigned, and not a voice or whisper shocked the solemnity of silence, when there was no being, no motion, no time, and not but God Himself alone in His eternity, when without the song of an angel, without the attendance of even the cherubim, long ere the living creatures were born, or the wheels of the chariot of Jehovah were fashioned, even then in the beginning was the Word, and in the beginning God's people were one with the Word, and in the beginning He chose them into eternal life.

Our election, then, is eternal. I will not stop to prove it. I only just run over these thoughts for the benefit of young beginners, that they may understand what we mean by eternal, absolute election.

Personal Election and Its Holy Effects

And next. The election is personal. Here again our opponents have tried to overthrow election by telling us that it is an election of nations and not of people. But here the apostle says, God hath from the beginning chosen you.

It is the most miserable shift on earth to make out that God hath not chosen persons but nations, because the very same objection that lies against the choice of persons lies against the choice of a nation.

If it were not just to choose a person, it would be far more unjust to choose a nation, since nations are but the union of multitudes of persons, and to choose a nation seems to be a more gigantic crime, if election be a crime, than to choose one person.

Surely to choose ten thousand would be reckoned to be worse than choosing one. To distinguish a whole nation from the rest of mankind does seem to be a greater extravaganza in the acts of divine sovereignty than the election of one poor mortal and leaving out another.