CHURCH OF ISRAEL, DIOCESE OF MANASSEH

UNCONDITIONAL ELECTION & LIMITED ATONEMENT

The following is a statement made by Herman Hanko, Pastor and teacher in the Protestant Reformed Churches of America on the doctrine of divine predestination:

"That GOD, by an eternal, unchangeable purpose in Jesus Christ His Son, before the foundation of the world, has deter­mined, out of a fallen race of men, to save in Christ, for Christ’s sake, and through Christ, those who, through the Grace of the Holy Spirit, shall believe on this, His Son Jesus, and shall persevere in this faith and obedience of faith, through His Grace, even to the end; and on the other hand, to leave the incorrigible and unbelieving in sin and under wrath, and to condemn them as alienate from Christ, according to the word of the Gospel in John 3:36: “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth in him.”

There are many in the church today who find absolutely no fault in the above statement, yet Mr Hanko when giving this statement in his writings reminds us that this is one point of doctrine submitted by the Arminians of the 17th century to the Reformed Churches of the low countries for con­sideration and approval. It is with much relief that I tell you that the statement was rejected as being emphatically heretical. Are you having a problem seeing the fallacy of the statement? Let’s read again the “Key” words of the statement: *“That God... has determined... to save in Christ, those who... shall believe on this His Son Jesus, and shall persevere in this faith and obedience of faith... to the end.”*   Even though it was well written and very much disguised in the use of the Reformed and Scriptural language, it is a sly attempt to introduce into the faith of the Reformed Churches a doc­trine of “Conditional Election.” It speaks of Election based upon "foreseen faith or God looked into the future and saw who would believe and then chose; and perseverence in faith by works of the individual, rather than an Election made by YAHWEH in eternity before the world was formed and the first member of the family of God, Adam, was placed in the Garden of God, with Dominion over all the earth".

We must with all haste, discuss three very important subjects: (1) What is meant by Unconditional Election? (2) What are the denials of this great truth? (3) What is its importance for the Church? We will now attempt to give the answers to these three questions in the order which they were asked:

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1): Before we attempt to explain what we mean by Unconditional Election it is important that we take a brief look at the history of this truth in the church. Most of us are satisfied to trace this truth of unconditional election back to Calvin (John); and yet it was not he who was the first to develop this great truth. Putting aside what we have read of this doctrine in the Epistles of Paul found in the Holy Bible, we can go back to the fifth century A.D. where we find that St. Augustine was probably the first to speak extensively about it. First, Augustine took the position that man is totally depraved, or incapable of doing any good. He also did most emphatically state that man is also incapable of contributing to his own salvation. Thus Augustine taught that the power of salvation is to be found only in the power of sovereign, un-merited grace coming from God.

Almost immediately the Arminians will ask, “If the power of salvation is the power of sovereign, unmerited grace and is not dependent in any respect upon man, how is it then that some men are saved and others are not?” The answer for these doubters, Augustine found in the decree of election and reprobation (Romans 9:6-14). In the many years between Augus­tine and John Calvin there will be found but a few who up-held this great truth of election with the degree of importance which Augustine had placed on it. That means that until the time of the Protestant Reformation, the truth of Sovereign Election or Predestination, lay almost dormant. Even then, luther though he believed it and taught it never made it an integral part of his theology as his chief concern was the truth of Justification by Faith. The work of developing the doctrine of Sovereign Election then was done mainly by John Calvin, and this is the one reason why he was such a hated man by so many.

The truth of Unconditional Election is incorporated into the Confession of Faith of all the Reformed and Calvinastic churches both in Europe and the United States of America today. From the Westminster Confession we read; “God from all eternity, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, did freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so, as there­by neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established. Although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass upon all supposed conditions; yet hath He not decreed any­thing because He foresaw it as future, or as that which would come to pass upon such conditions. By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting death. These angels and men, thus pre­destinated and foreordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed; and their number is so certain and definite, that it cannot be either in­creased or diminished. Those of man-kind that are predestinated unto 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 foresight of faith or good works, or perseverance in either of them, or any other thing in the creature, as conditions or ca­uses moving Him thereunto; and all to the praise of His glorious grace. As God has appointed the elect unto glory, so hath He, by the eternal and most free purpose of His will, foreordained all the means thereunto. Wherefore they who are elected being fallen in Adam, are redeemed by Christ and are effectually called unto faith in Christ by His Spirit working in due season; are justified, adopted, sanctified and kept by His power thru faith unto Salvation. Neither are any other redeemed by Christ, effectu­ally called, justified, adopted, sanctified and saved, but the Elect only. The rest of mankind, God was pleased, according to the unsearchable counsel of His own will, whereby He extendeth or with-holdeth mercy as He pleases, for the glory of His sovereign power over His creatures, to pass by, and to ordain them to dishonour and wrath for their sin, to the praise of His glorious justice. The doctrine of this high mystery of predestination is to be handled with special prudence and care, that men attending the will of God revealed in His word, and yielding obedience thereunto, may, from the certainty of their effectual vocation, be assured of their eternal election. So shall this doctrine afford matter of praise, reverence and admiration of God, and of humility, diligence and abundant consolation to all that sincerely obey the Gospel.” From Article XVI of the Belgic Confession of Faith and adopted for the Protestant Reformed Churches of America: “We believe that all the posterity of Adam being thus fallen into perdition and ruin, by the sin of our first parents, God did then manifest Himself such as He is; that is to say, merciful and just: Mer­ciful, since He delivers and preserves from this perdition, all. whom He, in His eternal and unchangeable counsel of mere goodness, hath Elected in Christ Jesus our LORD, without any respect to their works: Just, in leav­ing others in the fall and perdition wherein they have involved themselves. Also from the CANONS, ratified in the national Synod of the Reformed Church, held at Dodrecht in 1618 & 1619 we find the First Head of Doctrine is "OF DIVINE PREDESTINATION",  and contains 18-Articles,  followed by nine (9) Articles of rejection aimed at the Arminians, Pelagians and other heretics who would offer universal election and ultimate reconciliation to all.” The Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689, chapter 3, handles Sovereign Election in almost the exact wording as the Westminster Confes­sion of Faith; the Baptist Confession was adopted in 1689 by the ministers and messengers of the General Assembly meeting in London England.

I know that I have mentioned many times in this study and in past stu­dies also the term “Arminian” and have left you in the dark as to where it originated. One Jacobus Arminius was a professor of theology in the Re­formed University of Leyden, and what he wanted incorporated into the Re­formed Churches were changes in the Belgic Confession that proposed:

(1- God’s decree of Election and His decree of reprobation are conditional upon foreknown faith, or the lack of it.

(2-Christ died for all men and for every man, so that He merited reconciliation and forgiveness of sins for all.. .yet so that no one actually enjoys the forgiveness of sins except the believer (this makes God and His will subject to the whim of man and what man thinks is good for himself).

(3-Regeneration by the Holy Spirit is necessary to salvation.

(4-Grace is resistable (by man).

(5-The final perservance of believers can neither be denied nor positively asserted.  The early Church Fathers refused these declarations of Arminius and pointed out in no uncertain terms and language that the conditional election of the Arminians was not the truth of scripture nor was it the heritage of the Reformed Church.

The Arminians based their view on the fact that they did not believe in the total depravity of all men, thus preserving in man the freedom of his own will. They contended that God, on His part, loved all men and that hatred was foreign to His nature. They want to speak of election, but only after they have cut the heart out of it by insisting that it is conditional and that God elects those whom He knows will believe when the Gospel is offered to them. This is not scriptural and is a deep threat to the truth of the Bible. It is totally beyond any form of reason to think that man can will himself to salvation or that election is based upon the works of man. Romans 9:11 states with no compromise that election is in the purpose of God and works has no place in it. We also are shown in this one verse that election was made in eternity “For the children being not yet born.” In Romans 8:29 we read the two words “foreknow and predestinate” and we see that they have meaning only to those to whom Sovereign Election is applied..."For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be con­formed to the image of His Son, that He (Jesus) might be the firstborn among many brethern". If you are unable to see the truth and beauty of Sovereign Election in this passage of scripture, you either haven’t been called yet or you were not meant to be called. We are told here that “In eternity, before the foundation of the world was laid, God did know and choose those who were to be His family in the earth and they were chosen in Christ Jesus and would be made to become like unto Him.

It becomes quite evident to the called out believers in Christ that when the Bible speaks of Election it refers to the “Counsel of God”. We gather this from Eph 1:3, 4, 9 & 11; “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy (sanctified/seperated) and without blame before Him.. .having made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He hath purposed in Himself... in whom  also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will.” Therefore, If we are to understand the truth of Election we must look briefly at the truth of the counsel of Yahweh. The first thing we must recognize is that God’s counsel cannot be compared with a plan, as we so often do. God’s counsel is not like some architects plan for a build­ing that is drawn out on paper, and filed away in some secret place in heaven. Nor is it a plan which is for a proposed route of action which we might have in our minds. Rather, God’s counsel is His living will and it covers both heaven and earth, and this is a fundamental truth from which all the rest of the truth of God’s counsel necessairly follows. To deny this truth is to deny the counsel of God altogether.

The counsel of God is eternal, which is the same as saying “The will of God is the will of the eternal God.” Since God is eternal and his will is eternal, His counsel is also eternal. This is saying that God is never without His counsel. The world and creation have a beginning, God does not. He is above time, thus He is untouched by times passing moments, dwelling in the serenity of eternity. That which is true of God is also true of His counsel. Because God’s counsel is His living will, it is absolute and un­changeable.. .Malachi 3:6, “I Am Yahweh, I change not..”  The immutability of God’s own being is also the immutability of His eternal counsel. Christians have a saying, “Prayer changes things.” If by this we infer that in our prayers to Yahweh we may expect Him to change some part of His counsel or His will, and not do that which He originally determined to do, we are wrong and need to condemn the use of that phraseology. There is nothing that can or will change the counsel of God!

Because of the fact that the counsel of God is His living will, it is then sovereignly efficacious (efficient). All that God has determined to do in His counsel will be done. No power can frustrate it and no contingencies of life can prevent it from being realized. Everything that God has deter­mined to do in His eternal and unchangeable counsel will certainly come to pass with absolute precision as He has determined it before the foundation of the world. The purpose of God’s counsel, or the reason He made His coun­sel, is the glory of His own name. Yahweh-God determined to glorify Him­self, not because He needed this glory to make His life or Himself perfect or because His glory is incomplete. Nor is it in any respect, the things which He determined to do in His counsel will make His glory any richer or more full than it is. It is this, “God chose to reveal the glory of His own being in order that His glory might be acknowledged.” But, God, accord­ing to scripture, desires to glorify Himself in Christ and through Christ. This is what was brought out so clearly in that passage from Eph 1:3-11. God determines to make His glory known through Christ as He is born of a virgin and as the man who lived among us; through Christ as He suffers and dies on the Cross; through Christ as He rises in power and glory from the dead; through Christ as He is exalted in the highest heavens; through Christ as He shall come again to establish the everlasting kingdom of righteousness in the earth. Through Christ Jesus, God reveals all the glory of His own divine being, for Christ is the fulness of the revelation of the glory of God.

In saying all of this concerning the truth of God’s counsel we come to the heart of our subject and understand that when we say “Christ” we also say “the Elect.” There is no Christ apart from the elect and on elect apart from Christ. He was born of a virgin but in the same flesh as we. He died on the Cross in the place of His people to satisfy the justice of God which demanded punishment or payment for sin. He rose from the grave of His people to conquer death on their behalf. He is in heaven, seated at the right hand of God to mediate for His people and to prepare all things that we may come to Him in everlasting glory. All this is true because the elect are chosen in Him from before the foundation of the world. God, in as much as He determines to glorify Himself in Christ, determines to also glorify Himself in an elect/chosen people, a people whom He chose for Himself, in Christ, and who are predestined to dwell with Christ forever. This is the truth of God’s Counsel. All that we have said concerning God’s counsel, must be equally said concerning predestination, both election and reprobation.

Election is that decree of God which He eternally makes and by which, with Sovereign freedom, He chooses to Himself a people upon whom He deter­mines to set His love, a people whom He rescues from sin and death through Jesus Christ and unto Himself in everlasting glory. This election is God’s sovereign and free choice. It is eternal, as God is eternal. It is immutable even as God’s counsel is immutable/unchangeable. This election is efficacious so that the decree of election itself, through Christ Jesus, is the power by which the elect are actually saved. Therefore we must say that election is definite and particular, and being so it cannot be a general or random choice on the part of God. God, from all eternity did elect and choose a people as His own, and that election was not and is not found upon any basis of what man decides to do with the Gospel.

God knows His own by name, and writes their names in the Book of Life, so that each one stands before His mind and heart forever as the object of His love. This is unconditional election, and it is this truth which must be maintained for it is not a subtle distinstion between some men or a minor detail left to chance or choice. As we look at the world church today we can easily see the wreck and ruin caused by a universal atonement and conditional election. With conditional election the power of Sovereign Grace is denied as the power of God by which He saves those whom He has chosen to be His own. Conditional election brings forth unlimited entry into the realm of the atonement made on the Cross by Christ Jesus and man is given the ability to assist God in the work of his own salvation. When man’s choice is 50% of the work in salvation God’s choice is no longer sovereign. It rather becomes dependent upon what man will do with the sal­vation so lovingly offered by God, does he accept it or reject it.. .Get real! The stand of conditional election means; If God desires to save all men, yet all men are not saved, the purpose of God is frustrated, if not defeated. The almighty Sovereign God in Heaven is defeated by the puny strength and will of man. Shame on the Social World Church.

As Christians and Elect believers in Christ we must fight to maintain  the truth of Unconditional Election. This means that in the decree of Election, God chose not in anything good found in man. His choice was not based on works, holiness or intent. His choice was made with no consider­ation of man whatsoever.. Deut 7:7- and Romans 9:10-13. We need look no further than Ephesians 1:4 to see that election is based solely upon God’s good pleasure, and this is the only basis for election. God chose those whom He chose because it seemed good to Him to do it. It was His good pleasure which He expressed in His eternal and immutable will. We are to understand that all the blessings of salvation flow forth from the decree of God’s election, and we are not chosen because we believe, but rather because God is pleased to choose us. And we need to see that faith and perseverance in faith are blessings which come through election. In fact, election is the fountain of every good and perfect gift of God; The Canons of Dordrecht read, Article 6-That some receive the gift of faith from God, and others do not receive, it proceeds from God’s eternal decree, “For known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world”... Acts 15:18. And Article 9- This election was not founded upon forseen faith, and the obedience of faith, holiness, or any other good quality or disposition in man, as the pre-requisite cause or condition on which it depended, but men are chosen to faith and the obedience of faith   “he hath chosen us (not because we were, but) that we should be holy and with­out blame, before Him in love.. Eph 1:4.

One important thing which we must mention here is that the truth of Election and Reprobation stand or fall together, for to deny one is to deny the other thus to believe one is to believe the other. There can be no compromise here at all. In his books on the Institutes of the Christian Religion, Calvin writes “Many, as if they wished to avert odium (hatred) from God, admit election in such a way as to deny that any one is repro­bated. This is absurd, because election itself could not exist without being opposed to reprobation, God is said to seperate those whom He adopts to salvation. When God passes by, therefore, He reprobates and from no other cause than His determination to exclude them from the inheritance which He predestines for His children. Gods decree of reprobation is a decree of His eternal and unchangeable counsel. It does say in Romans 9:22 that God did reveal His wrath and hatred for sin in vessels of wrath fitted to destruction.

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2) What are the denials of this truth? It is not at all strange that this truth of predestination and unconditional election are denied almost universally, because too many feel that it insults the intelligence of man. The really sad part is that it is denied by many who are under the Refor­med Church flag and call themselves Calvinists.

We are aware that those who adopt the stance of Arminianism do not talk of Predestination at all anymore. Still there are many others who deny this great truth simply by being quiet about it. This is the most common type of denial in the Reformed Churches. They say that they believe it, yet they omit it from all of their preaching, teaching and writings. Their idea is to kill it with silence, and their justification for this silence is supposed to be on the grounds that predestination belongs to the hidden things of Yahweh. It just doesn’t make any sense, that those who make this claim still insist that they believe in it. Doesn’t that make them guilty of prying into those things which are secret to God, like they really could if it were God’s secret! Now, while God has in no wise revealed in specific terms or words who each one of His elect are, nevertheless the truth of election is found in the Bible from Genesis through Revelations like a scarlet thread of truth. Even where it is not stated in exact words and terms, it will be presupposed, and because this truth is revealed to us so clearly, it must become a part of the confession of the people who are the Church/Body of Christ.

 There are many who deny election forthrightly, both modernists and in the Reformed Church. What they will say is that sometimes Israels election was and is misunderstood by the people themselves, and what the term of election meant was that they as a nation were called into service by God to teach the other nations. Thus the others were not excluded forever, but that God was choosing/electing Israel while on His way to the others. Then they say, because the nation of Israel is chosen to be the vehicle by which God brings the Gospel to the whole world and that there is no such thing as reprobation or rejection, for the whole world is elect in Israel. In this way, they are able to lend support to universal atonement and the universal love of God.

There are others who deny the truth of election and predestination by bringing charges against God Himself. They say that predestination makes God a tyrant, the author of sin, a capricious dictator who rules or does choose arbitrarily, some, while rejecting others. This is similar with what Paul wrote in Romans 9:14 “What shall we say then, is there unright­eousness with God?” And vs 19, "Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet finf fault? For who hath resisted his will? The other class of objections to election and predestination come to the charge of fatalism. These objectors compare Election with the horrible doctrines of the Mohammedans and say that the doctrine of predestination destroys mans responsibility and accountability.

Some of the time these objections are raised by sincere people of God and not out of mockery of the truth. But most of the time they are raised by evil men who hate this truth. The arguments and objections are raised to slander the truth and to make the doctrine odious/offensive, to the minds of men, in an attempt to discard this doctrine. It is well for all to remember this,”Where evil is the motive, nothing that scripture says will alter these objections in any way.

We must be prepared to admit that this doctrinal truth is very profound. There will arise many questions which we will be unable to answer, even so Calvin reminds us to stay within the bounds of scripture and not permit ourselves to wander off on other paths. Where the Bible tells us to stop, we stop. And if we have left questions unanswered, so be it; we bow in humility before the truth in the word of God. When the holy scripture puts this confession on our lips, this confession must be ours. Every true child of God knows that these charges are not true, especially the one of fatalism. The history of the Christian Church is enough to tell you that it is not true, the blood of the many martyrs upholds this doctrine to be what scripture says it is. Those who loved not their lives unto death believed in the doctrine of Unconditional Election and Predestination. and they confessed it before God and man.

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3) What is its importance for the church? It is found first and fore­most in its theological significance, as it is the central truth of all scripture. While it is taught in many places in the Bible, it is also the underlying truth upon which the whole of scripture as the revelation of God in Christ is based. It is present in every passage, presupposed in every part and is an integral truth of the whole of God’s revelation. And this is because scripture is the revelation of Yahweh who saves. Yahweh our God is Sovereign; All glory belongs to Him. Revelations 4:11. This is that truth which raises our hearts to a contemplation of the adorable God of heaven and earth and prostrates us in admiration before Him. God is Sovereign in the choice of His people and He redeems in the Cross those whom He has chosen. As Sovereign, He places His love upon His people, and He hates the wicked all the day. As Sovereign He shows favor through the Cross to those who belong to Him; but pours out His wrath upon all the workers of iniquity. His Grace is never commom, and it is irresistable in its particular sense as it is bestowed upon the objects of His choice, and these shall be brought to Salvation and blessedness.

This doctrine of Unconditional Election affords the people of God "un­speakable consolation". We are only sinners who add daily to the burden of our guilt, and if salvation were in our hands, we would all end up on the stormy sea of doubt. By ourselves and of our own will, we can merit but nothing with God. But Sovereign election has been given as an immovable rock upon which we stand and are safe from all harm. II Tim 2:19 “Never the less the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, the Lord know­eth them that are His. And let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.”

Forwarded by:

Pastor Rick Giesenschlag

Christ’s  Church  Militant