Salvation Is By God's Sovereign Election And Good Pleasure

What we have learned so far is that salvation, far from being secured by the free will of men, is instead selectively given by the sovereign will of God. Romans 9:10-22 is an excellent passage that explains this in very clear terms. It is the very subject God is addressing here through the apostle Paul:

And not only this, but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac; (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 calls;) It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy. For the scripture says unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. Therefore he has mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardens. Thou wilt say then unto me, Why does he yet find fault? For who has resisted his will? No but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why have you made me thus? Has not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor? 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 before prepared unto glory....

You see, the Israelites of old believed that they were God’s people because they were physical descendants of Abraham. But God demonstrates here how Jacob and Esau were both descendants of Abraham (they were twin sons of Abraham, in fact) and yet one of them He loved and the other He hated - before they were even born! And this was according to His own good pleasure, glory and sovereign election. Thus, salvation does not come to someone simply because he is a physical descendant of Abraham, just as it did not come to Esau. Rather, it comes to those whom God has chosen, just as it came to Jacob, whether they are Jew or Gentile. Further, God is teaching here that those who are the true spiritual children of Abraham are his children because they possess the same faith in God which Abraham possessed by promise (or by grace, not by our works):

Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham....And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise. [Galatians 3:7, 29]

Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all. [Romans 4:16]

And the faith which is given to Abraham and to his seed are given by God's election, as it was given to Jacob but not to Esau. So when the Bible speaks of God having chosen Abraham and his seed (children), it is teaching that God is saving the elect and bringing them into the spiritual family of Abraham, not the physical family of Abraham, who are related through their common faith. Salvation is not by the free will of men, nor by some kind of physical association with Abraham (ie. as his Jewish decendant through the nation of Israel), nor by association to a specific church or demonimation in our day. God saves specifically through the proclamation of His Word, through the Gospel of Christ alone.

Incidentally, there were Gentile (non-Israelitish) people whom God saved in the Old Testament such as Ruth, Rahab the harlot and the Queen of Sheba. So again, this demonstrates that salvation has never come to someone just because he or she was a national Jew, but rather by the electing grace of God. As we read above, God says that he will have mercy on whom He will have mercy. That is, God will have mercy on whom He chooses. Parallel language is seen in Jeremiah 50:20, where God speaks of pardoning those who He reserves:

In those days, and in that time, saith the LORD, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found: for I will pardon them whom I reserve.

This is language of salvation. Salvation has to do with being forgiven (pardoned) of our sins through the atoning work of Christ. And it's given to those whom God has reserved. Again, in John 15:16, Jesus says:

You* have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, that you* should go and bring forth fruit...

This is parallel to what we saw in Psalm 65:4:

Blessed is the man whom thou choosest, and causest to approach unto thee, that he may dwell in thy courts....

And God’s election is entirely according to His good pleasure and glory, as Ephesians 1:4-6 declares,

According as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he has made us accepted in the beloved.

As this verse indicates, it is not that we accept Christ, rather He makes us accepted in the beloved according to the good pleasure of His sovereign will. This verse cannot be any more clear and direct, and yet, it shows just how readily men have distorted this Truth to claim that we must accept and choose for Christ in order to take some small measure of the glory in salvation. The Bible teaches the very *opposite* from this commonly-accepted false teaching. Indeed, not one of us will even seek after God of our own will because, as God says, we are all unrighteous before salvation. Romans 3:10-11 says:

As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understands, there is none that seeks after God.

So again, we will only seek God and believe in Jesus once God has drawn us and given us new life so that we are born again. Only God can create us anew and reconcile us to Himself by Christ:

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. And all things are of God, who has reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and has given to us the minstry of reconciliation [2 Corinthians 5:17-18]

This means that when God predestinated His people, it is NOT the case that He just looked down the corridors of time and predestinated those He saw would seek Him of their own free will. The Bible says the very opposite in Psalm 14:2-3 and Psalm 53:2-3:

The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that does good, no, not one. [Psalm 14:2-3]

God looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek God. Every one of them is gone back: they are altogether become filthy; there is none that does good, no, not one. [Psalm 53:2-3]

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