Election: God's Unconditional Way of Saving Mankind

Alpha and Omega Ministries presents the Dividing Line radio broadcast. The Apostle Peter commanded all Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give this answer with gentleness and reverence.

The Dividing Line is brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries, Calvary Press Publishers, the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church, and Bethany House Publishers. Your host is Dr. James White, Director of Alpha and Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now by dialing 1 -888-TALK -960. That's 1 -888-TALK -960. And now, with today's topic, here is James White.

The Nature of the Biblical Gospel Versus a Man-Centered Substitute

And welcome to the Dividing Line. My name is James White. I'll be with you for the next hour talking to you about issues that are important to all Christians, I believe, because they are based upon the Word of God.

Today we're going to be looking at the nature of the Gospel itself and God's electing grace. There is no doubt that evangelicalism today is in a state of perplexity and unsettlement. In such matters as the practice of evangelism, the teaching of holiness, the building up of local church life, the pastors dealing with souls and the exercise of discipline, there is evidence of widespread dissatisfaction with things as they are and of equally widespread uncertainty as to the road ahead.

This is a complex phenomenon to which many factors have contributed. But if we go to the root of the matter, we shall find that these perplexities are all ultimately due to our having lost our grip on the biblical Gospel.

Without realizing it, we have, during the past century, bartered that Gospel for a substitute product, which, though it looks similar enough in points of detail, is as a whole a decidedly different thing.

Hence our troubles, for the substitute product does not answer the ends for which the authentic Gospel has in past days proved itself so mighty. The new Gospel conspicuously fails to produce deep reverence, deep repentance, deep humility, a spirit of worship, and a concern for the Church.

Why? Well, we would suggest that the reason lies in its own character and content. It fails to make men God-centered in their thoughts, God-fearing in their hearts, because this is not primarily what it is trying to do in the first place.

One way of stating the difference between it and the old Gospel is to say that it is too exclusively concerned to be helpful to man, to bring peace, comfort, happiness, satisfaction, and too little concern to glorify God.

The old Gospel was helpful too, more so indeed than is the new, but so to speak incidentally, for its first concern was always to give glory to God. It was always and essentially a proclamation of divine sovereignty and mercy and judgment, a summons to bow down and worship the mighty Lord on whom man depends for all good, both in nature and in grace.

Its center of reference was unambiguously God, but in the new Gospel the center of reference is man. This is just to say that the old Gospel was religious in a way that the new Gospel is not. Whereas the chief aim of the old was to teach men to worship God, the concern of the new seems limited to making them feel better.

The subject of the old Gospel was God and his ways with men. The subject of the new is man and the help that God gives him. There is a world of difference. The whole perspective and emphasis of Gospel preaching has changed.

From this change of interest has sprung a change of content, for the new Gospel has in effect reformulated the biblical message in the supposed interest of helpfulness. Accordingly, the themes of man's natural inability to believe, of God's free election being the ultimate cause of salvation, and of Christ dying specifically for his sheep are not preached.

These doctrines, it would be said, are not helpful. They would drive sinners to despair by suggesting to them that it is not in their own power to be saved through Christ. The possibility that such despair might be salutary is not considered.

It is taken for granted that it cannot be, because it is so shattering to our self-esteem. However this may be, the result of these omissions is that part of the biblical Gospel is now preached as if it were the whole of that Gospel, and a half-truth masquerading as the whole truth becomes a complete untruth.

Thus we appeal to men as if they all had the ability to receive Christ at any time. We speak of his redeeming work as if he had done no more by dying than make it possible for us to save ourselves by believing.

We speak of God's love as if it were no more than a general willingness to receive any who will turn in trust, and we depict the Father and the Son not as sovereignly active in drawing sinners to themselves, but as waiting in quiet impotence at the door of our hearts for us to let them in.

But it needs to be said with emphasis that this set of twisted half-truths is something other than the biblical Gospel. Those preaching today will not say that God's saving purpose in the death of his Son was a mere ineffectual wish, depending for its fulfillment on man's willingness to believe, so that for all God could do, Christ might have died and none been saved at all.

He insists that the Bible sees the cross as revealing God's power to save, not his impotence, that is, the one who is firm in his biblical beliefs. And we assert that Christ did not win a hypothetical salvation for hypothetical believers, a mere possibility of salvation for any who might possibly believe, but a real salvation for his own chosen people.

God's Electing Grace and Human Inability

The idea of God's electing grace. You could probably listen for a long time today to television and radio and tapes, and you could probably pick up a lot of books today, and very few of them are going to talk to you about God's electing grace.

They will speak much of grace, they'll talk about grace, and they'll talk about the absolute necessity of grace, but most of the time the emphasis will always be upon the fact that grace is dependent upon some addition on the part of man to be effective.

That while God is very gracious, God is not really very powerful to save because in reality he requires the assistance of man. There are many who will say, grace alone saves. But then when you start digging down and you start listening closely and you start asking difficult questions, in reality what they mean is that we could not be saved without grace, but that grace alone is not sufficient to save us without certain human additions, whatever those additions might be.

This issue fundamentally separates those who trace themselves back to the Reformation and, of course, who would say, trace themselves back to a firmly biblical position and those who do not. There are many Protestants today who, while not even using the term, would say that if it's the choice between Protestant and Catholic, I'm a Protestant, who in reality do not agree with the Protestant Reformers on this very issue.

They would, in fact, agree with those who opposed the Protestant Reformation, those who opposed the preaching of free grace. And yet, as we read our Bibles, as we work through the text of Scripture and we listen carefully to what it says, those topics we've covered over the past couple of weeks, God's sovereignty, man's deadness in sin, his rebellion against God, come through over and over again.

And as we think very carefully about those subjects, we go, well, if man is dead in sin and if God is sovereign over all things, then the only logical conclusion, having believed those two truths, is that God, in His grace, elects a people unto Himself.

Otherwise, no one could possibly be saved. I mean, if God is sovereign over all things, then obviously those who are saved are part of His plan. And if man is dead in sin and cannot save himself, cannot even do as the old songs would speak about casting about in the water trying to grab the lifeline, he's actually dead at the bottom of the ocean, then obviously God must be the one who raises him up.

God must be the one who saves. And as we look through the Scriptures, we discover that that's exactly what the Bible teaches. There are entire passages of Scripture. I could just simply sit here today and read them, and I will read a number of them because I'll never, ever forget a discussion I had a number of years ago at a church where I am no longer serving.

And I had just given a Bible study on this particular issue, and I was talking with a person afterwards, and he made reference to one of those passages, Romans chapter 9. And he said, you know, I had read that passage before, and when I did, I thought, you know, that sounds like it's teaching predestination, but I know we don't believe that, so it can't possibly be that, and I just ignored it.

Well, I'm afraid that it is my task today to ask you to believe all of Scripture. Not just Scripture alone, but all of Scripture. And to ask you to look at some passages in the Bible that, quite honestly, are uncomfortable to some people.

Uncomfortable because they present issues and topics that many of us have not struggled through. Many of us know we need to, we just haven't taken the time to do it. But the reward is truly great. Obviously, the reward of simply believing all that God has to say is the greatest.

But the reward is truly great for it will reveal to us who we really are. The Scriptures will show us who we are, who God is, and how great a salvation it is that we have to proclaim. But I'm not going to go to Romans 9 first, I'm not going to go to Ephesians 1 first.

I'm going to let the Lord Jesus explain what He believed and taught on this issue. You see, I have a confidence. In John 10, the Lord Jesus said, My sheep hear my voice. And that's the wonderful confidence of a person who believes in all the Scripture and the sovereignty of God, is that you can preach what the Scriptures teach and you don't have to worry about offending anybody.

Well, I'm not deceiving myself. I know there are many who are offended by the proclamation of God's sovereign grace. But my point is that Christ's sheep hear His voice. Christ's sheep will not be offended by Christ's teaching, or at least they won't be for very long before He brings them to repentance for being in that way.

And so I'd like to go to John 6, and I'd just like you to think with me for a moment about what the Lord Jesus teaches here. These are His words. He taught them to the people. Yes, at the end of this chapter, all but the disciples walked away.

They were offensive words. They were words that caused people to stumble. Jesus did not go chasing after them and saying, oh, oh, please, I didn't mean to offend you. Please stay. No, He didn't do that.

He taught these words. He taught them plainly. And when the disciples walked away, and I'm not talking about the 12, but those thousands who had heard Him preaching, those thousands who had eaten at the table that He provided when He fed the 5 ,000, He didn't stop them from walking away.

He let them go because He knew it was in the heart of man, and He knew that in reality, they did not believe in Him. John 6, verse 35. Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.

But I said to you that you have seen Me, and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out. For I have come down from heaven not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.

This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me, I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.

Therefore the Jews were grumbling about Him, because He said, I am the bread that came down out of heaven. They were saying, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does He now say, I have come down out of heaven?

Jesus answered and said to them, Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, And they shall all be taught of God.

Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me. Those are His words. His words are very straightforward. Let's consider them together just for a moment. Jesus says, All that the Father gives Me will come to Me.

Do we believe that? I certainly do. I believe every word of it.

First of all,.

The Father is sovereign over all men. The Father therefore has the right to give men to the Son. We cannot argue that. We cannot question God's ability and His sovereignty to give men to His Son. He has that perfect right.

We established that right a few weeks ago when we looked at the sovereignty of God. The Father gives a certain people to the Son. Here in verse 37, He is giving them to the Son, present tense, but then in verse 39, it's viewed as a past tense.

All that He has given to Me, I lose nothing but raise it on the last day. The Father gives a people to the Son. He entrusts His people to the Savior, to Jesus Christ. And then He says, All that the Father gives Me will come to Me.

Not some, not most, not a minority.

All.

Do we believe Him? Do we believe that all that the Father gives to the Son will come to the Son? That's Jesus' teaching. Everyone that the Father sovereignly gives to the Son as a result of being given will come to Christ.

There's the human element. We come to Christ. But who is it that comes to Christ? Those who are given by the Father to the Son. Do you hear what the Lord Jesus is saying?

You see,.

To the believer in the audience today, I say to you that the only reason you bow the knee before the Lord Jesus Christ is because before you ever had a thought in your mind about Him, before in fact you ever existed, the Father had entrusted you to the Son.

In His divine electing grace, He gave you over to His Son and entrusted your salvation to Him. That is the only reason that you confess His name truly this day. The reason that we come to Christ is because we've been given by the Father to the Son.

And the reverse of that is likewise true. The reason that people don't come to Christ and ultimately reject Him, even when they've heard the Gospel clearly proclaimed, even when they've had every argument that could possibly be given to them, the reason they don't come is because they hate God, they're dead in their sins, and they have not been given by the Father to the Son.

You see, it's an act of grace for the Father to give anyone to the Son. He doesn't have to. He didn't have to. He could simply be just and allow the punishment of sin to fall upon everybody, but He doesn't.

In His grace, He gives a certain people unto the Son, and all who are so given come to Christ. Verse 37 concludes by saying,. And I hear so many people preach on this passage who say, Eternal security!

The perseverance of the saints! Yeah, that's true. That's exactly what it is. There's no question of that. But this is the flip side of divine sovereignty. And there is no reason for anyone to believe in the perseverance of the saints or eternal security who does not believe in the absolute sovereignty of God in giving a people unto His Son.

The reason that the Son will not cast out any that comes to Him is because these are the ones who have been entrusted to Him for salvation by the Father. Verse 37 is a whole thought. The Father in His sovereignty and grace gives a people unto the Son.

As a result, those people come to Christ. Not to anyone else. Not to Buddha. Not to Islam. Not to Hinduism or anything else. They come to Christ, and such a person who comes to Christ will not ever be cast out by Him.

Yes, true salvation is perfect because it has a perfect Savior. Because God is sovereign. Yes, it's perfect. But you cannot take a section of this truth without taking all of this truth. And that is the reason that a believer is secure in Christ is because God is sovereign in giving a people unto the Son and because the Son is a perfect Savior in saving all of those who are given to Him.

He even expands on this in verses 38 and 39. He says, For I have come down from heaven not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. The Lord Jesus says, I have come to do the Father's will.

What is the Father's will? This is the will of Him who sent Me. You want to know what the Father's will for the Son is? Here it is. In His own words, that of all that He has given Me, I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day.

Think for just a moment what that means. The Father's will for the Son is that of all that the Father entrusts into His hands, He lose nothing. Nothing. But raise it up on the last day. That is, give those people eternal life.

That is, save them perfectly. Be the perfect Savior. It is the Father's will that the Son be a perfect and powerful Savior. So what are people actually saying? When they say that Christ does His best, Christ tries to save, but in many instances fails.

What are people actually saying when they say that you can actually be truly saved, but then lost? Does that not mean that Christ has failed? You see, if you are given by the Father to the Son, then the promise of Scripture is, is that it is the Father's will, the Son, save all those that are given to Him.

You either have to suppose that the Son fails to do the will of the Father or accept the truth that He will always do the will of the Father. Will anyone dare say that the Son is impotent to do the Father's will?

That He lacks the power to do the Father's will? We would hope not. Would anyone dare say that He would disobey the Father's will? We hope not. No one would ever say that who believes the Bible. So if you believe that Jesus Christ is who the Bible says He is, the very Son of God, God in human flesh, then obviously He will perfectly obey the Father's will for Him, and that is He will raise up all that the Father gives Him.

That is perfect salvation. Verse 40, For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I myself will raise Him up on the last day. Who is it who, upon looking upon Christ and believing in Him, will have eternal life?

Who are these people? They are the ones given by the Father to the Son. Why is it that the Jews could look upon the Lord Jesus in the Gospel accounts and reject Him? They could see Him raise the dead.

They could watch Lazarus come forth from the grave and the result of their seeing that miracle is we need to kill this man. And yet others seeing the exact same thing, having the exact same religious background, being of equal intelligence, embrace Christ as Savior.

What's the difference? The difference lies in the grace and will of God. Some are given. Some are not. That's what Jesus says in verse 44. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day.

No one can come to Christ unless the Father who sent me draws him. Do you believe those words? Do you believe that man naturally lacks the ability to come to Christ unless the Father first acts and draws that person?

Now, someone might immediately say, oh, but He draws everyone. Look closely at the verse, John 6, 44. Those who are drawn by the Father to the Son, the Son raises up on the last day. Who are those the Son raises up on the last day?

Those who are given to Him by the Father. The Father draws those He gives to the Son to Christ. And as a result, the Lord Jesus saves them perfectly and raises them up on the last day. Listen to those words of the Lord Jesus.

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day. That's divine sovereignty. That's divine election. And it isn't just found in Paul. It's not just found in Peter.

It's right there in the words of the Lord Jesus Christ. And if we do not preach a gospel that takes these words seriously, then we are not preaching the gospel that the Lord Jesus entrusted to us. And such a gospel will not answer to the needs of our day, for it's not a true gospel.

It's not the gospel in its fullness. It's not the gospel as it's been entrusted to the Church and that is our entire purpose. The Church is the pillar and foundation of the truth. We are to be holding up and presenting that truth to the world.

It is not our right to edit that truth. We have to present that truth as it has been given to us. Those are the words of the Lord Jesus. John 6. These are the words of the Apostle Paul in Romans 8. 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 brethren. And these whom He predestined, He also called, and these whom He called, He also justified, and these whom He justified, He also glorified.

There's that word, that word predestined. Yes, it is in the Bible. I can't believe how many times I've had individuals tell me that that word is nowhere to be found in Scripture. And all I've done is open up my Bible to Ephesians 1 or to Romans 8 and said, well, there it is.

Well, but it doesn't mean that. Well, whatever it means, in Romans 8, it's God who does it. Because everything in Romans 8, God does. He foreknows, and that doesn't mean He simply looks into the future.

And sees what we're going to do.

He predestines. He calls. He justifies. He glorifies. Do you understand why it is that we need to emphasize the fact that it is God who is the Savior? It is God who saves, and He does so perfectly. He does so completely.

What a gospel we have to proclaim because it is good news. It's not a probability. It's not merely a possibility. It is a perfect work accomplished by God. What do you think?

I'd like to hear from you.

1 -888-TALK -960. 1 -888-TALK -960 is the phone number. I'd like to hear from you what you think about what the Bible teaches on this. I know that I'm in the minority. That means there's folks who disagree.

I'd like to know why you disagree, how you respond to John 6, Romans 8, Romans 9, Ephesians 1. Whatever it might be, we'd like to hear from you at 1 -888-TALK -960.

We'll be right back.

Human Responsibility, False Gospels, and the Means God Uses

We're discussing the sovereignty of God and salvation, the fact that the Lord Jesus teaches in John 6 that no man is able to come unto Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.

And it seems like some of our listeners have some questions, maybe some comments, maybe even some objections. Maybe we can have some interesting dialogue and discussion here today on The Dividing Line, and you're invited to participate as well.

We're at 1 -888-TALK -960. That's 1 -888-TALK -960. And I think there's probably not a phone made anymore. It doesn't have all the letters on it, so you can figure it out from there. But we've got callers on the line, so let's get started and talk with Steve in Phoenix.

Hello, Steve.

Hello.

How are you doing today?

Great, thanks.

What's your comment?

Well, I guess I have, there's two different things I'm wondering about as I think about predestination. Number one is usually people put on a hat, if someone were a believer and then chose to walk away, does that mean they were never really?

Yes, I would certainly agree with that. In fact, I would refer to John's statement that those who went out from the church did so because they were not truly of us. And when you talk about the asterisk, I would not put that asterisk there.

The asterisk that I would put on, quote-unquote, eternal security, first of all I'd call it perseverance of the saints, would not be that a true believer can decide to walk away because of what I believe about a true believer.

In other words, when Christ changes a person, when a person is regenerated, when they are born again, when they are brought from spiritual death to spiritual life, that is a life-changing occurrence.

When Christ saves someone, he does it right. And therefore, they are made a new creature in Christ Jesus and it would be in opposition to the nature of that new creation to simply say, well, I just don't believe this anymore, I don't believe in Christ anymore.

A person who could say, I don't believe in Christ anymore, I reject him, was not a person who had ever received his grace in the first place. We need to recognize that just because someone attends a church and sits in a pew, that is not an indication necessarily in of itself of a changed life.

We need to recognize that when, I certainly recognize that when I stand to preach the word of God to the people, I as an elder in the congregation cannot look within the hearts of the people in the congregation.

And therefore, I need to keep in mind the fact that there are numerous warnings throughout scripture addressed to the church in general to test yourselves to see whether you're in the faith. So obviously, there are those within the church today who are not true believers.

They are religious hypocrites. There were religious hypocrites in Jesus' day. The disciples who followed Jesus into the synagogue in Capernaum, 5 ,000 of them or so, obviously not 5 ,000 could have fit in the synagogue, but all of them that journeyed to find him and were all excited about him, they were all religious hypocrites.

When Jesus preached a straightforward gospel that emphasized a relationship with him to them, they all walked away. And Jesus didn't stop them from walking away. Go ahead.

Let me just add the second part of that then. I notice you've got a commercial brother. There are certainly revival in a lot of ways. Do you believe people would have been saved?

Most definitely. Now, there is the fact of deception. There are people who have been deceived into joining these groups without actually knowing what those groups fully teach. But setting them off to the side, the New Testament is very, very plain that a false Christ cannot save.

There are many warnings in the Scriptures about false Jesuses. There would be no reason to warn someone about a false Christ. There is no danger from a false Christ. As long as all you have to say is Jesus three times to be saved, who needs to worry about who he is or what he did?

But instead you have the entire New Testament lays out for us who Jesus Christ was and what he accomplished upon the cross, and therefore those things are extremely important. That's why we're warned against false doctrines, false gospels, false Jesuses, because this is a chief way of deceiving people and leading them away from eternal life.

And as far as individuals involved with those groups, that's why every six months we go up to the General Conference, the Mormon Church in Salt Lake City, and pass out tracts of witness to people. It's because we believe they've been given a false gospel and a false Christ, and we care enough to proclaim his truth to them, and then trust God with the results, that he can break through any type of bondage or wall that would keep them from hearing that gospel.

So what do you understand of the gospel then?

The gospel is the power of God and salvation, but a false gospel cannot save. I'd really highly recommend to you reading Paul's epistle to the Galatians, especially the first chapter, simply to hear the apostle saying, look, if anyone comes to you and preaches a gospel other than that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema, which means under the curse of God.

Now those are strong words, but the reason that Paul said that was because he loved people so much and he loved God so much that he wanted the truth about God to be known. The worst thing that any person can do to someone else is to allow them to remain enslaved to a false gospel.

I mean, if you want to show disrespect and a lack of love for someone, leave them in a false gospel. It's the best way you can do it. People say, well, I can't believe you all go up to Salt Lake City and stand outside the gates, and isn't that hateful?

And I say, no, the worst thing I could do, knowing Mormonism as I do, having studied it for years as I do, the worst thing I could do to Mormons would be to stay at home and do nothing. I show love for them when I go out and share with them.

How do you reconcile the idea that you find those people? What is our role as a believer in this process?

Excellent question, because he will find them out, but it's the means that he uses to find them out. God has predestined both the ends and the means. The means that God uses is the proclamation of the gospel, the foolishness of preaching.

And I, as a Christian, have the wonderful privilege, and it is a privilege, to be used of God to preach his gospel to other people. I can't change hearts, I can't argue somebody in the kingdom of God, but I can preach his gospel, preach it in its fullness, preach it boldly, and trust him to draw his people unto himself.

And that's the great promise that I have, that when I do so, he will honor his word.

So you see, our role strictly is being plant seeds to be a good witness, as I like to use that term.

And to honor and glorify God by consistently proclaiming his truth. God is glorified, God is worshiped when we speak his truth in its fullness. Most definitely. Hey Steve, thank you very much for your call.

Hey, God bless.

Thanks very much.

Bye-bye.

The Holy Spirit, Assurance, and the Holiness of God

Well, we have some good calls on the air today. I'm going to try to sneak another one in here. This is Brian in Phoenix.

Hi Brian.

Yeah, how are you doing?

I'm doing pretty good.

I've got a question. You know, I listened to Hank Hanegraaff and John MacArthur.

Yes, uh-huh.

Anyways, they really make me question my salvation, because here's a situation. I mean, I've been born again. I know I've been born again. I've got down on my knees, prayed, confessed my sins. But my lifestyle has been like in and out of mediocrity, Christianity.

I mean, some phases in my life, I'm going to church and praise God. I'm just really into it. Parts of my life, I stray away. I go out to the bar scene and this and that. And then I'll come home and I'll confess my sins and pray.

And it's not like I'm trying to be a hypocrite. I'm totally flat out honest with the Lord, saying, Lord, forgive me of my sins. I believe in what your son Jesus Christ did. How much leeway, I mean, it kind of confuses me if my salvation is even real.

And I'm as true and as honest as I can be when I pray and confess my sins.

Well, let me tell you something, Brian. I think that there's a lot of people who can understand exactly what you're saying. And I would first of all say, without knowing you personally, without being able to observe your life, without being able to observe your walk, etc., etc.

In my experience anyways, the vast majority of the time, when Christians find it difficult to walk in a consistent manner that is worthy of the Lord, honoring to Him, it's because they have not truly grasped as yet a couple of things.

First of all, the holiness of God. In fact, I would like to suggest a book to you. If you've got something to write with, I think this book would be very helpful to you. A number of years ago, R .C. Sproul wrote a book called The Holiness of God.

And when I bought that book, I remember when I first purchased it, when I started reading it, I could not stop reading it. I stayed up until like 1 o 'clock in the morning to finish reading it because I couldn't put it down.