Election
and Assurance
Why
we believe what we believe
(The
Baptist Faith and Message)
(Message
8)
John
10:27-29
Introduction: (Illustration) Seems a biker is riding by
the zoo, when he sees a little girl leaning into the lion’s cage. Suddenly the
lion grabs her by the cuff of her jacket and tries to pull her inside his cage,
all the while her parents are screaming in terror. The biker jumps off his
bike, runs to the cage and hits the lion square on the nose with a powerful
punch. Whimpering from the pain the lion jumps back for a brief minute, letting
go of the little girl. The biker grabs her, pulling her to safety and brings
her back to her parents. The scene is emotional, as the parents hug their child
and thank the biker for his heroic actions which saved their daughter’s life.
A reporter has seen the whole scene, and while
speaking with the biker says, “Sir, this was the most gallant and brave thing I
have ever witnessed. Where did you get such courage?” “Why it was nothing,” The
biker replied, “The lion was behind bars, after all, and I just saw the little
girl in danger and did what I felt anyone else would have done.”
To which the reporter replies, “This kind of
action will not go unnoticed. I’m a journalist and I promise you that this will
be on the front page of tomorrow’s newspaper. By the way, what kind of
motorcycle do you ride?” “A Harley Davidson,” says the biker.
The following morning the biker buys the
paper to see what the reporter had written. And there in large bold font, he
read the following headline, “Biker Gang
Member Assaults African Immigrant and Steals His Lunch.”
We can’t believe everything we hear or read,
can we. That’s why it is so very important for us to be certain about the
source of our doctrine. As Christians we hold to the inerrant and infallible
word of God as the sole source of doctrine. Our doctrinal statement, the
Baptist Faith and Message, is a summation of our understanding of what the Bible
teaches on specific doctrine.
Today we come to the doctrine of Election
and the assurance of our salvation.
Article five of the Baptist Faith and
Message reads:
“Election is the gracious purpose of God,
according to which He regenerates, justifies, sanctifies, and glorifies
sinners. It is consistent with the free agency of man, and comprehends all the
means in connection with the end. It is the glorious display of God’s sovereign
goodness, and is infinitely wise, holy, and unchangeable. It excludes boasting
and promotes humility.”
“All true believers endure to the end. Those
whom God has accepted in Christ, and sanctified by His Spirit, will never fall
away from the state of grace, but shall preserve to the end. Believers may fall
into sin through neglect and temptation, whereby they grieve the Spirit, impair
their graces and comforts, and bring reproach on the cause of Christ and
temporal judgments on themselves; yet they shall be kept by the power of God
through faith unto salvation.”
For the purpose of our study we will look at
our assurance in three sections. We will look at election, eternal security and
finally we will conclude with some practical suggestions for application.
First, the issue of election.
I. Election
The doctrine of election is, simply put, a
biblical doctrine which says that everyone who comes to faith in Christ, does
so because God, in His grace and mercy, chose them to be saved. There is no
denying that this is the clear teaching of the Bible. However it must be
properly understood in order to be properly applied.
Ephesians 1:3-5 says, “3
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed
us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4
just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before Him in love, 5 having predestined
us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good
pleasure of His will, …” (NKJV)
Jesus Himself speaks of the elect. In
Matthew 24:24 He says that in the last days false prophets will come who
will perform signs and wonders and will be so convincing that if it were
possible they would even lead the elect astray. And in Matthew 24:31 He says
that the Son of Man will, “Send out His angels with a loud trumpet, and they
will gather His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the
other.”
While there is no question about what the
Bible teaches, there are many questions about what it really means. There are
many things within this doctrine where Baptists do not agree.
Baptist’s have never been able to agree on
the basis and nature of election. Election is one of the things upon which we
will only find total agreement in heaven, speaking of election there are some points
which God will have to settle for us and there are some points upon which we will
seem to agree.
At the heart of the disagreement over this
doctrine is the tension between God’s election and the free moral agency of
man. Libraries have been written about this subject and no one has ever been
able to settle the questions surrounding this tension. Simply put there are two
schools of thought free moral agency or Arminianism which teaches God
graciously enables every sinner to repent and believe, but He does not
interfere with man's freedom. Then there is Calvinism which teaches in general
that because of the fall, man is unable of himself to savingly believe the
gospel. The sinner is dead, blind, and deaf to the things of God; his heart is
deceitful and desperately corrupt. His will is not free, it is in bondage to
his evil nature, therefore, he will not - indeed he cannot - choose good over
evil in the spiritual realm.
Those who follow the reformed tradition
would say it is the tension between God’s sovereignty and human responsibility,
while those who follow Arminianism would say that it is the question between God’s
sovereignty and man’s free will.
Lets look at Calvinism…
I have found it difficult to identify a
universal definition of Calvinism because everyone I have met who claims to be
a Calvinist wants to define exactly what they mean by that. Needless to say, we
cannot be exhaustive in our treatment of this topic. So for the sake of our
study we will simply overview the basics.
For the sake of our series, Calvinism stems
from the teachings of the great reformer, John Calvin, who lived between 1509
and 1564. Calvin emphasized the sovereignty of God, the sinfulness of man and
the necessity of grace for salvation, things which are foundational to our
theology as Christians. Some years after he died, his followers systemized his
theology and went beyond what Calvin himself taught. This system, is recognized
with the now famous acronym TULIP. I want us to understand a little about
Calvinism and Arminianism first lets look at TULIP and Calvinism.
The ‘T’ in Tulip stands for Total Depravity. Since the fall, man is
born with a sin nature. Every part of his being has been infected with this
disease so that he cannot save himself, nor can he seek God without the
prompting of the Holy Spirit through God’s grace. The Bible clearly teaches
that we cannot come to God on our own. It takes God drawing us to Him. John
6:44 says, “No man can come to me, except the Father which
hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.”
The “U” in Tulip stands for Unconditional Election – This says that
God, in His grace and mercy, without any conditions, by His own sovereign
desire, chose some for salvation and left others to suffer hell. The controversy
arises from the two truths which state that no one is saved apart from God’s
plan and yet, anyone who repents and trusts Jesus Christ can and will be
saved. The Bible teaches both that God chooses us and that we must choose
God. It teaches that God will hold us responsible for our decision to accept or
reject Jesus, and yet it says that we cannot come to Him unless He enables us.
It says that God has His elect but it also says that He is not willing that any
should perish but that all should come to repentance. This is one of the great disputes
over scripture. Calvinists insist, and rightfully so, that since salvation
begins and ends with God and that it is by His grace and His mercy, man can
have nothing to do with it. Those who do not hold to reformed theology,
however, quote verses like 1 Peter 1:2 (2Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father,
through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the
blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied.) which says that we are the elect, according
to the foreknowledge of God. In other words, they say that God saves everyone
without them having to do anything.
Through His wisdom God did not give us
insight into the nature or basis of that election, He simply tells us that He
chose us and that all who will receive Him are chosen. I sometimes get amused
at the degree to which some people are preoccupied by the doctrine of election
and how it affects salvation. Folks, I understand Unconditional election to be
the work of Christ on the cross as the final sacrifice for sin and our
responsibility to accept it for application to our heart for the forgiveness of
sin.
The “L” in Tulip stands for Limited Atonement –That is to say they
believe that Jesus died only for the sins of the elect. Historically this meant
only those pre chosen from the beginning of time. At the end of the day,
however, unless we believe everyone will ultimately be saved, which would make
us Universalists, we have to admit that the benefit of the work of Christ (salvation)
will be limited to those who trust Him. That is to say, that Jesus died on the
cross for the whole world but the only ones to benefit from His atonement are
those who receive, by their personal faith in Christ, the free gift of
salvation offered to them.
The “I” in Tulip stands for Irresistible Grace – Calvinists prefer
the term “effectual calling.” This says that those who are predestined (chosen)
to be saved will ultimately be saved. Calvinists teach that the elect will not
be forced to be saved against their will, but that they will come to Christ, of
their own choosing because God’s call on their life will be so strong they
cannot resist it. Critics of Calvinism, however, say that choices which are
predetermined for humanity are not choices of free will but are nothing more
than fatalism. They would point to passages like Acts 7:51 where Stephen,
before he is martyred accuses his executioners of resisting the grace of God.
And Matthew 23:37 where Jesus says, “O,
The “P” in Tulip stands for Perseverance of the Saints – which
simply means that those who God saves He saves eternally and they cannot lose
their salvation. This is a point upon which nearly all Baptists agree. Often
referred to as “eternal security,” or “once saved always saved,” this doctrine
is often misunderstood. You see, the perseverance of the saints is not a
license to live however you want, to the contrary, it says that if you are
truly saved you will display actions which give evidence to the fact that you
have truly been saved.
Now lets look at Arminianism…
Free-Will or Human
Ability
Although human nature was seriously affected
by the fall, man has not been left in a state of total spiritual helplessness.
God graciously enables every sinner to repent and believe, but He does not
interfere with man's freedom. Each sinner possesses a free will, and his
eternal destiny depends on how he uses it. Man's freedom consists of his
ability to choose good over evil in spiritual matters; his will is not enslaved
to his sinful nature. The sinner has the power to either cooperate with God's
Spirit and be regenerated or resist God's grace and perish. The lost sinner
needs the Spirit's assistance, but he does not have to be regenerated by the
Spirit before he can believe, for faith is man's act and precedes the new
birth. Faith is the sinner's gift to God; it is man's contribution to
salvation.
Conditional Election
God's choice of certain individuals unto
salvation before the foundation of the world was based upon His foreseeing that
they would respond to His call. He selected only those whom He knew would of
themselves freely believe the gospel. Election therefore was determined by or
conditioned upon what man would do. The faith which God foresaw and upon which
He based His choice was not given to the sinner by God (it was not created by
the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit) but resulted solely from man's will.
It was left entirely up to man as to who would believe and therefore as to who
would be elected unto salvation. God chose those whom He knew would, of their
own free will, choose Christ. Thus the sinner's choice of Christ, not God's
choice of the sinner, is the ultimate cause of salvation.
Universal Redemption or
General Atonement
Christ's redeeming work made it
possible for everyone to be saved but did not actually secure the salvation of
anyone. Although Christ died for all men and for every man, only those who
believe on Him are saved. His death enabled God to pardon sinners on the
condition that they believe, but it did not actually put away anyone's sins.
Christ's redemption becomes effective only if man chooses to accept it.
The Holy Spirit Can Be
Effectually Resisted
The Spirit calls inwardly all those who are called outwardly by the gospel
invitation; He does all that He can to bring every sinner to salvation. But
inasmuch as man is free, he can successfully resist the Spirit's call. The
Spirit cannot regenerate the sinner until he believes; faith (which is man's
contribution) precedes and makes possible the new birth. Thus, man's free will
limits the Spirit in the application of Christ's saving work. The Holy Spirit
can only draw to Christ those who allow Him to have His way with them. Until
the sinner responds, the Spirit cannot give life. God's grace, therefore, is
not invincible; it can be, and often is, resisted and thwarted by man.
Falling from Grace
Those who believe and are truly saved can
lose their salvation by failing to keep up their faith, etc. All Arminians have
not agreed on this point; some have held that believers are eternally secure in
Christ - that once a sinner is regenerated, he can never be lost.
This brings us to our second point in this
message, the doctrine of Assurance.
II. The Assurance of Salvation
This doctrine is founded on the scriptural
teaching which says that God saves us and that He can keep us. It is founded on
the scripture truth which teaches us that God gives us eternal life. It is not
life till we sin again, it is not life till we feel unsaved, it is not life
till times get tough and our faith grows weak, it is eternal life which will
never end.
There are a number of scriptures which give
us assurance of our salvation and affirm this doctrine of the perseverance of
the saints.
John 10:27-30
“27My
sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: 28And
I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any
man pluck them out of my hand. 29My Father, which gave them me, is
greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. 30I
and my Father are one.”
Romans 8:38-39
“38For I am persuaded, that
neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things
present, nor things to come, 39Nor height, nor depth, nor any other
creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ
Jesus our Lord.”
Philippians 1:6
“6Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:”
John
3:16
“ 16For God so loved
the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
You see scripture is filled with the
assurance that our salvation is secure.
Let me give you five reasons why people
doubt their salvation. Im sure there are more but here are five.
1. They don’t understand how they are
saved
You see, if you think you were saved by good
works, then it stands to reason that you would believe your salvation could be
lost by bad works. This is the problem with many of our dear charismatic
brethren. They feel that they can lose their salvation. If you could earn it,
you could lose it. If you could deserve it, you could desert it. But since you
cannot earn it, since it is a gift of God not of works, lest anyone should
boast, then you didn’t deserve it in the first place. How could you lose it
because you committed a sin? What sin is bad enough? How often must you sin?
How many times can you lose salvation and regain it? There are many questions
that come from this ideology.
This is why a proper understanding of
salvation is important. God chose to save us not based on our merits or what we
deserved, in fact, He chose to save us in spite of who we are and contrary to
what we deserve. Salvation is based on His goodness and grace and not on our
merit. When you get a proper understanding of that; when you get a clear
picture of how bad your sins were and how great God’s grace is, it will give
you a new and deeper appreciation for your salvation.
2. They do not have a biblical
understanding of perseverance
Instead of realizing what God has said and
that He will be faithful to His word, they have based their beliefs on what
someone has told them, what they feel, on faulty interpretation or something
other than the revelation in God’s word. This is the fundamental problem with
all doctrinal error, that people so not rightly divide the word of God and have
based their belief on a view which is man made.
Many have based their beliefs on experience.
You’ve probably heard them say something like this: I knew a person who was a
great Christian for years and years, and then one day they decided to walk away
from the faith and leave God behind. They just laid down their salvation and
abandoned God.
The scripture gives us insight into such
cases. In 1 John 2:19 it says, “They went out from us, but they did not belong
to us; for if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us.
However, they went out so that it might be made clear that none of them belongs
to us.” They didn’t lay down their salvation; they simply showed their true
colors. God will let them play church until He is ready to reveal their heart;
at that point they must make a decision, get right or get out. Salvation isn’t
lost it is revealed, or not.
3. They are ignorant of God’s promises
in His word
The level of biblical illiteracy today is
astonishing. Many professing Christians today know more about their favorite
sports teams than they do the doctrine of their faith. It is no wonder that so
many people are so easily led astray by every wind of doctrine which blows
across the religious landscape.
The antidote for this is simple: get
grounded in the word of God and learn what it says about who God is. God’s word
tells us that He gives us eternal life. 1 John 5:11-13
“ 11And this is the record,
that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12He
that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.
13These things have I written unto you that believe on the
name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye
may believe on the name of the Son of God.”
4. They are out of fellowship with God
and do not sense His presence
There are many Christians today who doubt
about their salvation for no other reason than they are out of fellowship with
God. Folks, our salvation is all about relationship. It is about walking and
talking, breathing and being; it is about experiencing the presence of God in
our lives. But many Christians have allowed sin to remain in their lives,
unconfessed and unrepentant. They have grieved the Holy Spirit of God and thus
they are no longer sensitive to His presence in their lives nor are they aware
of His movement around them. In such a state is it little wonder that people
begin to doubt their salvation.
The solution for this is simple: Get right
with God. 1 John 2:1 says, “ 1My little children, these
things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an
advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:”
5. They are not saved and sense they
are lost because they are
One of the reasons people doubt their
salvation is simply because they are not saved. They may have a knowledge of
the church. They may have a knowledge of the scripture. They may have grown up
in a Christian home, surrounded by Christian friends and have all the trappings
of religion, but at the end of the day they cannot say that they have ever
experienced a transformation of their life, the kind of transformation which
only Jesus can bring when He gives a person a new heart and a new mind.
It is to this end that Paul tells the
Christians at
The reason many people will go to hell from
a church pew is because they never gave themselves a spiritual examination.
They never stopped to consider whether or not they were really saved.
If you are truly saved, you should know it.
God does not want you to be paralyzed by fear or doubts which is ungrounded or
unfounded.
The solution is clear – Know what God’s word
says about your salvation. Stand on the truth that it is the Blood of Jesus
that saves you and not anything you have done. Ground yourself in good
doctrine. Remember that your salvation is a reflection and an extension of
God’s character. He is faithful. Let Him show you if there is any sin in your
life and stop for a moment to examine yourself spiritually to see if you are in
the faith.
Which brings me to my conclusion.
III. Conclusion
I want to make three practical suggestions
as to how we can put Assurance into practice.