WWUTT 728 And Their Knowledge of the Truth?

The Apostle Paul said that his mission, as an apostle, was to preach the gospel for the sake of the faith of God's elect, whom he had predestined from before the foundation of the world for salvation in Christ, when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand the Text, a daily study of God's Word that we may be filled with the knowledge of His will. For questions and comments, send us an email to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.

Paul’s Introduction in Titus and the Mission of the Elect

Thank you, Becky. I want to come back again to the introduction at the start of Paul's letter to Titus. We'll be looking at chapter one, the first four verses. Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ for the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began and at the proper time manifested in his word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior to Titus, my true child in a common faith, grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.

And all of that was one sentence. Paul said something similar in the previous letter that we studied in Second Timothy. Second Timothy chapter two, verse 10,. Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.

So there, once again, Paul is saying that his mission as an apostle is to preach the gospel for the sake of the elect, that in hearing the gospel, they would turn from their sin and come to saving faith in Christ.

And so what God had predestined for them from before the foundation of the world would be actualized. What God had said was going to happen would happen through the preaching of the gospel, just as God had planned that it would be.

And we who are Christians, God has included in this eternal divine plan that he had set forth before any man was ever created. So you have you are part of this plan, not just in the sense that you have been saved and have been added to the number of the elect, but you're also part of this plan in the sense that God intends for you to go out preaching the gospel so that those whom he has elected would come to salvation through the means of grace, and that is by faith in Jesus Christ.

Election, Adoption, and God’s Particular Love in Ephesians 1

In Ephesians chapter one, beginning in verse three, Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.

In love, he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the beloved.

In him, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

Now having read that, let me ask you something. Maybe I should have asked this question first before I read Ephesians chapter one, but you've heard the scriptures. So now let me ask you a question. In hearing that, did you get any impression at all that God did not love you specifically?

Did he have just like this general love for people and like, hey, I'm going to, I'm going to put this love out there and anybody who wants it can come and get it. Or did it sound like Paul was saying that God specifically loved you before the foundation of the world, that he had placed his love and his affection on you before your parents even know, even knew that they were going to have you yet.

God's love was upon you. This is what David prayed in Psalm 139. Oh Lord, you have searched me and you have known me. You have searched me and you have known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up, you discern my thoughts from afar.

You search out my path and my lying down and you are acquainted with my ways, with all of my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, oh Lord, you know it all together. You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high. I cannot attain it. I want to come back to verse five there. You hem me in behind and before and lay your hand upon me. What David is saying there is God's love has been for David before and he has a love for David even going forward into the future.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me because all David has is this moment. That's all he's got. All we have right now, everything that we can perceive is only what is happening here in this moment. We may have some knowledge of the past and we may have some expectation of where the future is going.

Like your expectation right now is your podcast player is going to keep working and this podcast is going to keep playing. Okay, so you have some sense of how the future is going to play out. Maybe your phone will bust or your computer, however you're listening to this.

But for the most part, you have a general idea of what's coming in the near future and you have a pretty good idea of things that have happened in the past, most especially what's happened in your life.

But God has known even before any experiences that we have had the love he would have for us. And he knows the promises that he has for us that he is going to deliver us into in the future. Things that baffle our mind to ponder to think about.

So David says you him me in. You had me before this moment. You have me after this moment and you have laid your hand upon me and to contemplate these things, how far into the future and how far into the past.

This is gone. It's too wonderful to me. It baffles my mind. It is too high. I cannot attain it. Verse seven. Where shall I go from your spirit or well, where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there.

If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the utmost parts of the sea, even there, your hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me. This is David saying God has led me to him.

He has brought me to himself and he is keeping me fast to God. If I say surely the darkness shall cover me and the light about me be night. Even the darkness is not dark to you. The night is bright as day for darkness is as light with you.

For you formed my inward parts. You knitted me together in my mother's womb. Again, this was long before David could ever make any sort of cognitive decision to follow God. And doesn't it sound like here that David is saying God has a particular affection for him.

Not a general love that anybody can just walk into. But he is showing his love for David even before he was born. Verse 14. I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works.

My soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was being made in secret. Intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance. In your book were written every one of them.

The days that were formed for me when as yet there was none of them. God had written in his book every single one of your days before one of them came to be. So I ask you again does it sound like some sort of general abstract love.

Non-specific that God would just have kind of floating out there. That he would want to welcome anyone into who willingly would come to him. Or does it sound like he has a particular affection for specific people.

Which he's had for them before the substance of them was even formed. Verse 17. I'm just going to go ahead and read all of Psalm 139 here. How precious to me are your thoughts O God. How vast is the sum of them.

If I would count them they are more than the sand. I awake and I am still with you because of the grace of God. I wake up I'm still with you for God has held me fast. O that you would slay the wicked O God.

O men of blood depart from me. They speak against you with malicious intent. Your enemies take your name in vain. Do I not hate those who hate you O Lord. And do I not loathe those who rise up against you.

I hate them with complete hatred. I count them my enemies. Search me O God and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts. And see if there be any grievous way in me. And lead me in the way everlasting.

This is very specific. Very endearing. Very intimate this relationship that David has with God. It isn't abstract. It isn't some sort of thing that God just tosses out there and says. Hey take it if you want it.

God specifically sought after David. When David did not even know. He did not even have any cognition of a God to be sought after. And yet God was the one who was holding fast to him. And led David to him.

Objections to Predestination and the Fence Analogy

Why do I bring this up? Why am I asking this in the sense that. You know is God's love just sort of a thing that you can walk into. You can choose on your own. Or does it sound like God has a specific love and an affection for you.

Well I ask that question because. A very common response to this concept of election. That God has foreordained. He has predestined. Whom he has elected for salvation before the foundation of the world.

A common argument against this. Is that God did not specifically choose. The individuals whom he was going to save. Whenever we talk about predestination. It's not about predestining individual people.

It's about predestining a plan. And then those people decide whether or not they want to be a part of that plan. Those who walk into the plan. Who choose the plan that God has predestined. They're elect.

But those who have rejected the plan. They don't get to be elect. You're only elect at the moment that you choose that plan. Not from the foundation of the world. One of the most influential teachers behind this concept.

Was a guy by the name of Herschel Hobbes. Very influential in the Southern Baptist denomination. He drafted the 1963 version of the Baptist faith and message. And this is what Herschel Hobbes had to say about predestination.

He said it's like this. God made a fence. And that fence is Christ. And he said. I predestined that everyone who is within that fence. Who is in Christ is saved. And everybody that's not in that fence.

Is not saved. So the plan was predestined. But God did not say. Okay you get to be in. And you get to be in. But you don't get to be in it. And you don't get to be in it. Now what's the problem with that analogy?

Well the possibility is that no one gets saved at all. If God is just setting up a fence. And saying okay. Anybody who wants to be saved. Come in the fence. And it's up to us to decide to walk into that fence that God has predestined.

He didn't predestine anybody to be in the fence. He predestined the plan. And then offered it to anybody who wanted to be saved. Well then the possibility is that no one would choose it. No one would get saved at all.

That is a possibility. If God's plan of salvation is dependent upon us making the choice to go into a fence that God has set up for us. What if no one decides to do that? That means there's a possibility in God's predestined plan.

That no one would actually make the choice to accept it. And Jesus would have died for nothing. Not one drop of Christ's blood is wasted. It atones for the sins of every person that God meant for his blood to atone for.

God has predestined people. Not a plan. And we see that over and over again. Anytime we see any of these passages. Anytime we look at any of these verses that talk about predestination or election. It's talking about specific people.

Paul is saying here very clearly in Ephesians 1. That God loved you from before the foundation of the world. He chose you in him. Before time began. That you would be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined you.

In love he predestined you. Love is not an arbitrary thing. You don't just throw love out there and go okay anything that wanders into my love bubble I'm going to love. You love specific things. Specific people.

I love you. I'm not as crazy about that person. Okay. Now sure we as Christians are supposed to have a love for everybody. A certain amount of grace that we show to every single person. We love all people in the sense that we know that everybody has been made in the image of God.

Everybody who has been made in that image has also sinned against God and blasphemed him. And is therefore worthless. They've made themselves worthless according to Romans 3. And are worthy of being thrown into the fires of hell.

So out of love for those people who are heading toward destruction. We would preach the gospel to them. That they would turn around. They would repent of their sins and put faith in Jesus Christ and be saved.

So there is that sense in which we love all of mankind. Desiring all to hear the gospel and turn from sin and be saved. But there's also a love that we have for specific people that we don't have for everybody.

So I love my wife a certain way that I love no other person on earth the way that I love her. There's a love that I have for my kids that's not as great as the love that I have for my wife. But is still more particular than the love that I have for my neighbor across the street.

Or even the people in my own church. My children get my affections before any other person outside of my household gets those affections. So there are certain ways in which we love that we don't love others.

And here the love that we have from God that he would predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ. That's a particular love. That is very specific. And it is a love that he has for those who will become his adopted sons and daughters of God.

He loves them before they even get to that place. Because he is an all-knowing father. He is a benevolent father. And he loved us before we loved him. As it says in 1 John 4. We love God because he first loved us.

And sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. And that is not some sort of abstract non-specific love bubble that anybody can just kind of walk into. It is a specific love that he has for the people for whom Christ died.

Foreknowledge, Free Will, and the Doctrine of Irresistible Grace

Now a very common argument against the doctrine of election the way that I have explained it here is this. God foreknows the free will choice that we are going to make. But he doesn't predetermine that choice.

There's a couple of problems with this argument. Number one. If God knows the choice you're going to make but doesn't predetermine that choice. Then there's only one choice that you can make. And you've actually tied God's hands in the sense that he's not allowed to affect or change that choice that you're eventually going to make.

You can only make one choice. So you've actually argued against free will. When you say God foreknows the free will choice we're going to make but he doesn't predetermine that choice. There's no free will there.

Because there's only one choice you can make. And you've tied God's hands from being able to affect any other outcome. So God is bound by some kind of force that's more powerful than him in that particular argument.

Which is why it's nonsense. It's fatalism. And it is contrary to biblical doctrine. So here's the other problem with that particular argument. If our salvation is dependent on a decision we will eventually make.

And God elects us because he knows we make the right choice someday. Then we determine the future before we're born. And that's absurd. We determine our own future before we're even born. Which means our choices are even greater than God's choices.

Now somebody had to make a choice here. It just wasn't you. You weren't even around at the time that the choice had to be made. God made that choice from the foundation of the world. The scripture says it over and over again.

All the way into Revelation. Revelation chapter 13 verse 8. Those whose names have been written down in the Lamb's book of life from before the foundation of the world will not follow the beast. But those who did not have their names written in that book will follow after the beast.

So how is this choice made for us? Is God actually making a choice that is contrary to our wills? Yeah, absolutely he is. Because we have a will that is corrupted by a sin nature. And our desire is only to sin and to resist God.

We would constantly be making the decision that is contrary to God if we were left to our own devices. And it is by God's grace that he changes our heart from the sinful corruptible man. The sinful corrupted man.

To somebody who would seek after the Lord. And this is a doctrine that's referred to as irresistible grace. But as I've heard R .C. Sproul refer to it as effectual grace. He says I have a big problem with using the term irresistible grace.

Not because I don't believe this classical doctrine but because it is misleading to many people. Therefore I prefer the term effectual grace. Because the irresistible grace of God effects what God intended it to effect.

Let me read this paragraph here from Dr. Sproul on this doctrine. The idea of irresistibility conjures up the idea that one cannot possibly offer any resistance to the grace of God. However the history of the human race is the history of relentless resistance to the sweetness of the grace of God.

Irresistible grace does not mean that God's grace is incapable of being resisted. Indeed we are capable of resisting God's grace and we do resist it. The idea is that God's grace is so powerful that it has the capacity to overcome our natural resistance to it.

It is not that the Holy Spirit drags people kicking and screaming to Christ against their wills. The Holy Spirit changes the inclination and the disposition of our wills so that whereas we were previously unwilling to embrace Christ, now we are willing and more than willing.

Indeed we aren't dragged to Christ. We run to Christ and we embrace him joyfully because the Spirit has changed our hearts. They are no longer hearts of stone that are impervious to the commands of God and to the invitations of the gospel.

God melts the hardness of our hearts when he makes us new creatures. The Holy Spirit resurrects us from spiritual death so that we come to Christ because we want to come to Christ. The reason we want to come to Christ is because God has already done a work of grace in our souls.

Without that work we would never have any desire to come to Christ. That is why we say regeneration precedes faith. And that's a doctrine that's talked about here in the book of Titus. We get to it in Titus chapter 3, the regeneration of the Holy Spirit.

We'll continue our study of the book of Titus next week. Let us conclude with prayer. Our wonderful God and Savior, we thank you for the salvation that has been effected for us by grace through faith in Jesus Christ and his finished work on the cross, his resurrection from the grave, so that by faith in him we would have access now into this eternal promise that you predestined specifically for those sons and daughters that you had elected from before the foundation of the world for adoption into your family.

God, if there is any way in us that is resistant to your will, I pray that you would seek it out, that you would try us and you would know our thoughts, that we would be disciplined according to your will.

And if there is any sin in us, that we would be convicted of it so we might seek the face of God. We would be convicted by your Spirit and desire holiness, continuing to be shaped in the image of Christ.

God, if there is any grievous way in me, lead me in the way everlasting. We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

Gabriel Hughes is the pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas. Find out more online at www .utt .com.