Malachi 1:2-5 — Lord, How Have You Loved Us?

July 3, 2012

The opening line is simple, direct and profound: “I have loved you, says Yahweh.”

That should be good news, but there are times when it may be heard with a bit of skepticism or even bitterness. It is a difficult word to hear when someone has just told you in the previous breath that your wife is dead. It can be a bitter pill to swallow when you are crying at your son’s funeral.

Or, in the case of Judah at the time of Nehemiah, it is difficult to hear “God loves you” when you have just sold your child into economic servitude to pay Persian taxes. We might even envision some bitterness as Judah hears that word in the midst of oppression and famine.

Their response to that question may often be our own: “How have you loved us?”

This is an authentic question and it remains even still the dominant question on the lips of sufferers. Tragedy, death and disease generate the question and biblical poets have often expressed the same question from Job to the Psalmists (e.g., Psalms 44, 77, 88). In the midst of the exile, the Psalmist (89:49) asked: “Where is your steadfast love of old which by your faithfulness you swore to David?”

It is a good question and we hope for a good answer. But is Malachi’s response helpful? He speaks of Jacob and Esau, and then of Israel and Edom. What does one have to do with the other? Does it make any sense? How does Malachi’s response answer the heartfelt question?

I think the answer lies in covenantal identity.

“Love” is not, in this text, a sentimental notion of undying affection and feel-goodism. Rather, it is the language of covenant. God chose Israel because God loved Israel (Deuteronomy 7:7-11). It is a family word—a word that describes loyal relationships like parents and children (cf. Hosea 11:1; Jeremiah 31:1; Isaiah 63:7-9). To say that God “loves” Israel is to say that God lives in covenant with Israel.

Vice versa, to say that God hates Esau (Edom) is to say that God has no covenant with Esau like he does with Jacob (Israel). The language of “love” and “hate” here are not about feelings and emotions as much as commitment, loyalty and covenant. This is the language of identity. Israel is the people of God while Edom is not. God is committed to Israel as a people but has made no such commitment to Edom.

This is the language of identity and election. God elected (chose) Israel, not Edom. In this way God “loved” Jacob but “hated” Esau. Since there is no covenant with Edom, God raises up and destroys nations, and does not promise their continued existence.

Edom, at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, had aided the Babylonians and took advantage of Judah’s situation (cf. Obadiah; Jeremiah 49:7-22; Lamentations 4:21-22). They stabbed their own brothers in the back. For this wickedness, God wipes the nation from the map. During the 400s, Edom was supplanted by the Nabateans and Edom—as a nation—was lost to history. At the time of Malachi they may have still boasted that they would return to a former glory, but Malachi assures Judah that they will not return.

What is the evidence that God “loved” Israel? They are still there. They are still a people. Their eyes will yet see the difference between Jacob and Esau, between Israel and Edom, as history unfolds. Israel is yet a people of promise but Edom, as a people, has no hope.

Israel is loved because they are God’s chosen (elect) people. Why did God choose them? It was not because they were so righteous, strong or numerous. Jacob was chosen even before birth (Genesis 25:23; cf. Romans 9:11). God chose Jacob out his love rather than because of Jacob’s character, as is obvious from the Genesis story.

The evidence of God’s love in the life of Israel is their covenantal identity. They are God’s people and Yahweh is their God. This is a gracious gift. This is who Israel is, that is, they are God’s beloved.

Whatever else may be happening around them, this is their identity. They are loved. They are chosen. This is the foundation of their relationship with Yahweh. He first loved them before they loved him.

When we are surrounded by tragedy, death and disease, we are tempted to doubt the love of God. And we often do. I have. The word of Yahweh to such doubts is: remember who you are! Remember your identity. You are loved.

While Israel looked back to Abraham and the Exodus to remember that love, Christians look not only to Abraham and the Exodus but also to Jesus who demonstrated God’s love for us. He gives us our identity as God’s beloved.

While I may stand at the coffin of my first wife and doubt the love of God, it is impossible for me to do so when I’m kneeling at the foot of the cross.

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

Election: Before We Called God Answered (SBD 6)

May 14, 2009

[Note: I am attempting to keep these SBD installments under 2000 words each, but that is--of course--quite inadequate for the topics covered. Consequently, these contributions are more programmatic than they are explanatory or defenses of the positions stated. You may access the whole series at my Serial page.]

God elects us in Christ through faith and we know our election in Christ through faith.

As of Genesis 11 the human condition was filled with violence, power (Empire), and immorality. The seeming hopelessness of Genesis 11—though grace is present in scattering humanity rather than destroying it at the Tower of Babel—leaves us wondering whether humanity can ever escape the degenerative spiral of their own sinfulness.

But God’s intent is redemptive. The divine purpose in creation will not be frustrated. God pursues humanity in grace in order to dwell among a people who love and trust God. Grace initiates this pursuit, empowers faith and will complete the divine purpose. Before we called God answered (Isaiah 65:24). That is the doctrine of election.

The Call of Abraham

God called Abraham into a covenantal relationship. God blessed Abraham that all the nations might be blessed. Abraham did not initiate this relationship, but God chose Abraham as the means by which God would bless humanity. God decided to redeem humanity through the seed of Abraham.

There was nothing in Abraham that demanded that God choose him. God chooses whom God desires to accomplish the divine purpose. Divine election is by God’s own pleasure and will. God chooses whom God desires. No one makes a claim on God. “Who has ever given to God that God should repay him?” (Romans 11:35 quoting Job 41:11).

Abraham believed the promise of God (Genesis 15:6) and through faith received the promise (Galatians 3:6-9; Hebrews 11:8-19). God enacted the covenant of circumcision as the seal for Abraham’s faith guaranteeing the promise which he received through faith (Romans 4:9-12).

God kept his promise to Abraham when God chose Israel as a treasured possession. God redeemed them from Egyptian bondage. God did not love them because they were a numerous people, a great people or a righteous nation since they were few, stubborn and wicked. Rather, God chose them because God loved them (Deuteronomy 7:6-10; 9:4-6).

The covenant relationship, initiated by God’s love, is experienced in Israel through faith. The just shall live by faith (Habakkuk 2:4). Branches are broken off Israel because of unbelief but others stand by faith (Romans 11:20). Israel will be saved by faith as they pursue righteousness by faith (Romans 9:30-32; 10:4, 10-12).

God has determined to choose the elect through faith and it is through faith that the chosen know their election. God may have mercy on whom God desires and God has decided to have mercy on humanity through faith.

Jesus, the Elect One

In fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham, God has redeemed a people through Abraham’s seed. Jesus the Christ is the Elect One. The Father elects or chooses us in and through Christ. Consequently, Christ is the foundation of all election.

The doxology of Ephesians 1 teaches that the Father elects us in Christ through the power of the Spirit. The Father was moved by love (1:4), grace (1:6, 7), and God’s own good pleasure and will (1:5, 9). Divine action is highlighted: God blessed (1:3), chose (1:4, 11), predestined (1:5, 11), lavished grace (1:8), revealed (1:9), purposed (1:9), included (1:13) and marked (1:13) us. Divine purpose is stressed: to sanctify (1:4), to adopt (1:5), to redeem (1:7), to reorder (1:10), and to purpose toward the goal (1:11).

The Father’s movement, however, was Christocentric. The Father elects in and through Christ (1:3-5, 7, 9, 11-13) and toward the goal of reordering everything under the headship of Christ (1:10).

We are the object of this election. The Father elects those who are in Christ. Just as Christ is the first object of election, so those in Christ are the second object of election. We are elect through Christ’s own election and we are included when we hear and believe the gospel (1:13-14). The divinely appointed means of election is faith since by grace we are saved through faith (Ephesians 2:8).

God has determined to elect us in Christ Jesus and we know our election in Christ through faith.

Election: Arminianism vs. Calvinism?

Despite whatever differences exist between Arminianism and Calvinism—two historic ways of thinking about divine election (see the Serial Index for posts on these theological systems), they share some significant common ground on the doctrine of election.

Divine Initiative. Whatever the doctrine of election means, it at least insists that God took the initiative in the redemption. God made the first move. We love because God first loved. We believe because God first acted. This initiative involves not merely the first act (as if God acted first and then passively sits back to see how we respond) but that God continuously acts in unrelentingly pursuit of a people. God’s love pursues us, engages us and moves us. This excludes all boasting since election means that God has removed all grounds for human merit and has located the ground of salvation in his gracious and loving acts.

Christocentrism. Christ is the Elect One (Ephesians 1). Both Calvin and Arminius emphasized this point, and it has been powerfully renewed in the 20th century by Karl Barth. Election is Christocentric since Christ is God’s Elect One. We are elect because we are in Christ. Whatever else we may say about election, we should not lose sight of this foundational soteriological insight: God has chosen us in Christ because Christ has been chosen. We are only elect through Christ. His election is logically, ontologically and epistemologically prior to our own.

Economic Revelation. We only know that God has acted decisively in Jesus as the Elect One because God is revealed in history and God’s actions are interpreted in Scripture. We only know our election in Christ because God has revealed the Elect One (2 Timothy 1:8-11). Debates about the “secret” will of God are unprofitable exactly because that will is “secret.” We know our election through the revelation of God in Christ. God has revealed the divine election through Christ and we have no other access to it. Consequently, we ought to think about election within the salvation history (economy) of God’s story, that is, within the revealed history of God in Israel and Christ. Thinking about the election of God in terms of the “eternal” mind of God is speculative, but thinking about divine election in the light of Jesus Christ is rooted in God’s historical revelation. We perceive our own election only through the revelation of that election in Christ. When we step outside of or seek to go beyond this historic revelation, we enter worlds, which our minds have created rather than what God has revealed. Election and assurance are economically tied to Christ.

Means of Faith. Faith is the means of both justification and sanctification. When we make justification dependent upon sanctification, then we begin a never-ending journey since we will never be sure whether our sanctification is sufficient (in terms of its depth, amount, comprehensiveness and quality). When we sever the relationship between justification and sanctification, we become antinomian and discredit the role of sanctification as evidence of justification. The way to avoid legalism on the one hand and antinomianism on the other is to see faith as the principle that unites justification and sanctification. We are justified by faith and we are sanctified by faith. Faith is the means by which we are accounted righteous before God and faith is the means by which the Spirit transforms us. Faith is both the means of salvation and the means of assurance. We are elect, then, through faith in Christ. Faith functions as an instrument, not as a meritorious act. It is the means by which we come to know our own election.

So What?

Priority of God’s Act. God acted before we acted. Salvation, then, originates wholly out of grace and God’s movement toward us. The fundamental presupposition of election is God’s initiative. Confidence is rooted in this claim. It is not that we must win God’s favor or prove ourselves to him. Rather, God lovingly embraces us and seeks us. The picture of God is not the ogre or the tyrant, but the loving father.

Undeserved Salvation. Election emphasizes that nothing in us moved God to act for our sakes in Christ. Rather, God acted when we were unworthy. God loved us even when we were yet sinners. No human act merits or deserves God’s electing grace. Boasting is excluded on all counts. It was God who decided to save and not we who put God in our debt through our virtue or holiness.

Focus on Christology. Karl Barth is correct to focus the doctrine of election in Jesus Christ. He is the Elect One, and it is through him that we find hope and assurance. The doctrine of election, then, should not be about some eternal order of decrees or speculation concerning the hidden will of God. Rather it is the exposition of God’s choice of Jesus to save the world and God’s movement toward us in him. Election is a Christological teaching.

Election and Assurance. While some Augustinians (Calvinists) in the history of theology have focused the question in terms of “Am I elect?,” most have recognized that this is not the proper question. No one can see into the hidden will of God to discover in the abstract whether they are elect of not. Calvin believed that whoever tries this “Am I elect?” question “plunges headlong into an immense abyss, involves himself in numberless inextricable snares, and buries himself in the thickest darkness…Therefore, as we dread shipwreck, we must avoid this rock, which is fatal to everyone who strikes upon it” (Institutes 3.24.4). Assurance of election is rooted Christologically—I am elect when I trust in Christ as the Elect One. Election “from below” is mediated through faith in Christ. Here Augustinians and Arminians can agree. “If Pighius asks how I know I am elect, I answer that Christ is more than a thousand testimonies to me” (Institutes 3.24.4). It is only in Christ that we are elect and pleasing to God. He is the author of election and mediates election—the critical question is “do we trust Christ?” According to Calvin, Christ is the mirror of our election such that when we look in faith toward Jesus we see the reflection of our election in him.

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

The Love and Glory of God

May 8, 2008

In my first post in the series on Arminianism and Calvinism, I suggested that at the heart of Calvinist theology is the desire to preserve the glory of God as the sole cause of salvation and that the heart of Arminian theology is the desire to preserve the faithfulness of God to his own relentless love for every one of his creatures. I then raised the question of whether the priorty of God’s heart is his own glory or love? Or, do we have to choose?

I appreciate the Reformed emphasis on God as the sole cause of salvation–God alone initiates and grounds our salvation and we do not contribute one iota to the merit of redemption. I, too, want to preserve the glory of God in a way that excludes human boasting.  At the same time I appreciate the Arminian emphasis on the love of God that desires the salvation of every human being.  I think both of these emphases are on target.

The problem is the correlation of these two emphases. How do we conceive their relation?  With due respect to my Calvinist friends whose heritage I deeply appreciate, the fundamental problem with Calvinism is that it ultimately exalts the glory of God over the love of God.  God is ultimately more concerned about his glory than he is loving every human being.  To me that is an ego-centered God who is willing to leave some in damanation so that he might be glorified.  I know this needs explanation.  So here goes….

According to the Reformed understanding of election, God elects some out of his love to the praise of his glory and leaves the others to their own damnation.  The love of God serves the glory of God in such a way that only a few are loved while others are unloved since they are left in their sin.  To be sure their damnation is their own; they sinned.  But God choses not to save them. In other words, he chooses not to love them.  Why does he not love them?  Why does he not love all of them?  The fairly standard Calvinist response is that God shows his justice and holiness for the sake of his own glory.  God, then, is more concerned about his glory than he is their salvation.

This means–amazingly–that God is more ego-centered than he is other-centered.  He loves the world, but only in a limited way.  He must love the world in such a way that his glory has priority since his glory demands that he execute justice upon part of his creation.  He does not save all because he must display the glory of his holiness and justice.  He does not save all because he does not love all.

This is my fundamental problem with Calvinism.  It turns the gospel story on its head.  The gospel is other-centered rather than ego-centered.  The gospel story is about God’s love for his creation–all his creation.  It undermines what I take to be one of the fundamental truths of Scripture–God’s love for his creation, for all his creation. To be sure, Calvinists would argue that God does love; he loves his elect but only the elect.  [I am using "love" here in a salvific sense since it is difficult for me to think of God loving those whom he willingly allows to be damned when it would only take his own decision to save them.] Yet, his holiness and justice also means that he refuses to choose to elect all so that his glory might be displayed. He leaves many in damation because of his glory. That, to me, is an ego-centered God who exalts his own glory over the love of all his creation.

I know this characterization of Calvinism’s implicit theology is rather harsh.  I don’t intend it as such. As I have said, I think there is lots of common ground between Calvinism and Arminianism, there are emphases in Calvinism that I embrace and appreciate, and the hearts of my Calvinist friends are pious, loving and holy. But the system, I believe, leaves us with a God whose ego is greater than his love.

I would offer a different alternative.  I believe the glory of God is his delight in loving his people; the glory of God is the pursuit of a people for himself as he calls every human being into relationship with himself. The glory of God is the triune fellowship in relation with the human community.  God displays his glory by loving his creation–all his creation and seeking relation with every person in his creation.  He enjoys his glory by being in authentic relation with those who respond to his love.  The glory of God is loving community; it is other-centered and finds its joy (delight) as being-in-relation.  There certainly is a dimension of the glory of God that involves his holiness and justice.  God manifests this glory against sin but, I think, he would rather enjoy communion with his people in the relationship as the manifestation of his glory.  The Calvinist God willingly chooses in terms of his own will alone to allow his creatures to damn themselves for the sake of his glory rather than electing them to salvation out of his own will alone.

The joy of the triune community is, in part, that the Father loved the Son before the creation of the world.  This is the glory of the triune God.  It is being-in-relation.  This is now the glory of God in redemption.  It is being-in-community with his creation as he loves the world, pursues every human being, and pours his love into the hearts of those who believe. From the Arminian perspective, this being-in-relation is mutual and reciprocal though God takes the initiative and is the enabler of the relationality itself. Being-in-community is the relation of mutual enjoyment by mutual choice.

Much of that Calvinism could affirm as well, but the dividing point is that the Calvinistic God choses to damn some for the sake of his own glory by leaving much of his creation in their sin.  That is a different definition of glory than being-in-relation and the delight of community. And this is the crux of the difference between Arminianism and Calvinism.

 

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

The “P” in TULIP

May 6, 2008

All who persevere in faith are elect.

Both Calvinists and Arminians can agree with the above statement. For the Calvinist, those who do not persevere in faith, though they at one time seemingly had faith, never possessed authentic faith in the first place (e.g., Calvin’s own example is Simon Magus in Acts 8). For the Arminian, those who do not persevere in faith lost their faith as a result of trials and temptations (e.g., the weeds that choked new faith in the parable of the sower is a favorite Arminian example). Whatever the theoretical rationale for the lack of perseverance–for the Calvinist it is because they are not elect and for the Arminians it because they did not continue to cooperate with God’s enabling grace–the two theologies converge on the first sentence of this post. Only those who persevere in faith are elect and all the elect will persevere in faith.

What the Calvinist claims, seeking to trump the Arminian position, is that the Calvinist’s assurance is greater than the Arminian’s because their assurance is more certain. It is more certain because they are perservere since they are elect rather than merely elect through the perseverance of faith. For the Calvinist, the elect persevere because they are elect while for the Arminian faith is the means of election. Consequently, Calvinists tend to say that they have assurance (certainty) about the future while Arminians have only a weak hope (possibility) in the present.

But I don’t buy this. Calvinists know that many who seemed to have authentic faith did not persevere. Calvin spoke of those who had “temporary faith” (Institutes, 3.2.11). God indeed enlightened them for a moment but then withdrew his light because they were not elect (Institutes, 3.24.8). This creates the epistemological problem of how one knows whether they have authentic faith or only temporary faith since even those with temporary faith think they have authentic faith.

Calvin’s response was that those with authentic faith have “signs” that are “sure attestations” to saving faith (Institutes, 3.24.4). One of the “signs” is itself perseverance, according to Calvin, along with others. However, I find this deeply problematic. How does one read the signs and what are the indubitable signs? There must be indubitable signs if assurance is certain. How do I know that I don’t have a merely temporary faith? Calvin suggests that those who “investigate [the word] rightly, and in the order in which it is exhibited in the word, reap from it rich fruits of consolation” (Institutes, 3.24.4). Assurance, then, depends upon a correct reading of the word (recognizing the signs) and a honest application of those signs to individual believer (is there room for self-deception here?).  Assurance, then, in Calvin’s system depends upon a human understanding and application of the word to their own specific situation in order to discern whether they have saving faith. 

Paul Helm, a renowned Reformed philosophical theologian, illustrates the core problem, it seems to me. He writes: “So it would appear that a person may be a true believer and yet not be assured that he is one, because he has misunderstood the signs. Similarly, a person may not be a true believer, but may think that he is, because he has misread the signs.“  This seems to make assurance dependent upon correct (right) understanding. It becomes an intellectual assessment–it is a human act.  Misunderstanding can destroy assurance–even in a Calvinist theological system. So, even though Calvinists might suggest that they are elect by eternal decree,  the assurance of their election is dependent upon human epistemology. This seems ironic, does it not?  In other words, God elects people solely by his grace and irresistibly gives them faith, but believers can only be sure they have authentic faith by their own human assessment of the signs present in them.

My point is not that we cannot have assurance. To the contrary, I believe we are assured through faith.  Rather, my point is that the Calvinist has no more present or future assurance than does the Arminian because Calvinists cannot be certain that their faith is saving except in the same way that Arminians are certain that their faith is saving. 

I would agree with Calvin on the most significant point.  We are assured through faith–as we trust in Christ he mirrors our gracious election by the Father. Through the power of the Spirit we trust in Jesus as our redeemer and experience union with him. Faith is the means of assurance–upon this both Calvinist and Arminian can agree. We can know we are saved and we know this through faith, even a weak faith. Further, I would suggest it is not fundamentally a matter of human understanding but the experience of trust in the one who saves.

Here, then, is the practical common ground between Arminians and Calvinists–all who persevere in faith are elect.

In another post I will comment more another perspective that is dominant in many faith communities which is neither Arminian nor Calvinist–it is the view of “eternal secruity,” or “once saved, always saved,” or “if one has ever believed even though they no longer believe, they are yet saved.”  Both Calvinist and Arminian agree that all the elect will persevere in faith but this novel perspective (it is only 150 years old) does not believe perseverance is necessary or a means to salvation.  More to come on that perspective in the near future.

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

Election–Common Ground Between Arminians and Calvinists

May 5, 2008

The often acrimonious debates between contemporary Arminians and Calvinists are not new.  The history of this discussion dates back 1600 years and has been continuous within Christian circles.  It can be tracked, in part, with the following discussions:

  • Augustine vs. Pelagius (early 5th century)
  • Gottschalk vs. Rabanus (late 9th century)
  • Bradwardine vs. Ockham (mid 14th century)
  • Luther vs. Erasmus (early 16th century)
  • Calvinism vs. Arminianism (early 17th century)
  • Jansenism vs. Jesuits (mid 17th century)
  • Whitefield vs. Wesley (mid 18th century)
  • Hodge vs. Finney (mid 19th century)
  • Regular Baptists/Presbyterians vs. Stone-Campbell/Methodists (19th century)
  • Grudem/Piper/Hall vs. Pinnock/Cottrell/Piricilli (late 20th century)

This, of course, is not an exhaustive list and neither does it mean that each column would agree in all particulars with others listed in that column. In other words, not all the “Calvinists” would be uniform in their perspectives any more than all the “Arminians.”  Wesley, for example, is no Pelagian and neither is Luther an Augustinian in every respect.  The list does, however, represent the general tension with Christian history. More importantly, it represents the historic nature of the dispture.

Common Theological Ground

Despite the tension, I think there are fundamental areas of agreement between Calvinism and Arminianism within the current discussion, even on the doctrine of election. Several biblical themes provide a framework for articulating a common ground which could perhaps transcend the hostility between the two groups.  I make no claim to any theological ingenuity or originality here. Quite the contrary, these theological principles are common ground between believers.  It is precisely because this is true that they may provide a way to unpack a common theological framework.

1. Divine Initiative

Whatever the doctrine of election means, it at least insists that God took the initiative in redemption. God made the first move. We love because he first loved us.  We believe because he first acted. We are redeemed because he accomplished redemption for us. This initiative is not limited to the first act as if God first acted and then passively sits back to see how we respond.  Rather, God continuously acts as he unrelentingly pursues a people for himself. God’s love pursues, engages and moves us. This entails that all boasting is negated. We have nothing about which to boast except that God has elected us in Jesus. Election means that God has removed all grounds for human merit and has locatd the ground of salvation solely in his gracious and loving acts.

 2. Christocentrism

Christ is the Elect One–elected by the Father to the Father’s glory.  Christ is the Father’s chosen vessel for redemption. Both Calvin and Arminius emphasized this point, and it has been powerfully renewed in the 20th century by Karl Barth. Election is Christocentric since Christ is God’s Elect One.  This does not undermine the fundament theocentrism of Scripture because the Father elects Christ to the praise of his own glory (Ephesians 1).  Whatever election we have, we are elect because we are in Christ. Before we become steeped in the theoretical (even speculative) underpinnings of election, we must not lose sight of this fundamental soteriological insight. God has chosen us in Christ because he has chosen Christ. We are elect only through Christ. His election is logically and ontologically prior to our own. We cannot think biblically about election if we do not first acknowledge that our election depens on the election of Christ.

3. Economic Revelation

The election of Christ, of course, is a revealed point. We only know that God has acted decisively in Jesus as the Elect One because God has revealed himself in history and interpreted his actions in Scripture. We only know our election in Christ because God has revealed his Elect One.  Paul makes this point in 2 Timothy 1:8-11.  God “has saved us and called us to a holy life,” and the ground of this salvation and calling is not our works, but God’s “purpose and grace.” We know this grace by God’s decisive act in Jesus. Even though it was hidden before creation, “it has now been revealed through the appearing” of Jesus.  Debates about the “secret” or “hidden” will of God are unprofitable exactly because that will is unknown. We know our election through the revelation of God in Christ. God has revealed his election through Christ and we have no other access to it.  Consequently, we ought to think about election within the salvation history of God’s sotry, that is, within the revealed history of God in Israel and Jesus. Thinking about election in terms of the “eternal” mind of God is speculative, but thinking about divine election in the light of Jesus is rooted in God’s historic revelation.  We perceive our own election only through that revelation.  When we step outside of or seek to go beyond it, we enter worlds which our minds have created ratehr than what God has revealed. Election and assurance are economically (this world revelation) tied to Christ.  There the focus should begin and end.

4. Instrumentality of Faith

Faith is the means of both justification and sanctification. When we make justification dependent upon sanctifiation, then we begin a never-ending journey since we will never be sure whether our sanctification is sufficient (in terms of its depth, amount, comprehensiveness and quality). When we sever the relationship between justification and sanctification, we become antinomian and discredit the role of sanctification as evidence of justification.  The way to avoid legalism on the one hand and antinomianism on the other is to see faith as the principle that unites justification and sanctification. We are justified by faith and we are sanctified by faith. Fath is the means by which we accounted righteous (declared “not guilty”) before God and faith is the means by which the Spirit transforms us.  Faith is both the means of salvation and the means of assurance. We are elect, then, through faith in Christ.  Faith functions as an instrument, not as a meritorious act. It is the means by which we come to know our own election.

The Difference

For Arminians, election is the effect of faith.  There is an election independent of faith and this is God’s own election of Jesus Christ. God took the initiative to redeem and elected his Son to save the world. In that sense election is not the effect of faith. But in the application of redemption to believers, faith functions as a means by which election is known.  It is a cooperative, dynamic relationship between God and humanity. Faith is synergistic in the sense that God yearns for reciprocal and authentic relationship between himself and his people. In this sense election is the effet of faith where faith functions as a means to election. God has elected Christ and we are elect in Christ through faith.

For Calvinists, faith is the effect of election. People come to faith because they are elect and no else comes to authentic faith. Election decrees faith; or election appoints some to faith and God gives them faith by his own free grace and initiative.  God is the sole cause of faith and faith comes irresisitibly to those whom God has elected.

Economic (Practical) Common Ground

Practically, the key question for election is our historic relation to Jesus Christ–our relation to him within history. While some Augustinians in the history of theology have focused the question in terms of “Am I elect?” as if one could see into the eternal mind of God, most have recognized that this is not the proper question. No on can see into the hidden will of God to discover in the abstract whether they are elect or not. Calvin believed that one who tries this “Am I elect?” question “casts himself into the depths of a bottomless whirlpool to be swallowed up; then he tangles himself in innumerable and inextricable snares; then he buries himself in an abyss of sightless darkness…Consequently, if we fear shipwreck, we must carefully avoid this rock, against which no one is ever dashed without destruction” (Institutes, 3.24.5).

The key question is: do you trust the God who has revealed himself in Jesus? Calvin correctly says that the question is not “Am I elect?” but “Do I trust Christ?” Calvin spoke of Christ as “the mirror wherein we must, and without self-deception may, contemplate our own election” (Institutes, 3.24.5) Faith is the mans of election, and our only access into the electing decision of God is through faith. I see my election through faith–through trusting in Jesus as God’s Elect One.  Upon this both Calvinist and Arminian can agree.

Assurance, then is christological.  I am elect as I trust in the Elect One. Election “from below” (rooted in history rather than “from above” which is an attempt to peer into the eternal mind of God) is mediated through faith in Christ. Here Calvinists and Arminians can agree.  “If Pighius asks me how I know I am elect,” Calvin wrote, “my answer is that Christ is, to me, more than a thousand testimonies” (The Eternal Predestination of God, 137). Only in Christ are we elect and pleasing to God and so it is to him we must turn. He is the Elect One and mediates election.  The critical issue is “do we trust Christ?”  According to Calvin, Christ is the mirror of our election and when we look at Christ through faith we see our own election.

This point was illustrated for me in my “Doctrine of Christ” class taught by Dr. Robert Strimple at Westminister Theological Seminary.  One student raised his hand and asked Dr. Strimple if Arminians can be saved?  His response was direct and terse:  “Yes, if they trust in Christ.”

For a fuller discussion of this practical common ground, see my article entitled “Mediating the War Between Calvinists and Arminians on Election and Security: A Stone-Campbell Perspective” on my Academic page which was originally published in the Stone-Campbell Journal 6.2 (2003), 163-184.

 

 

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

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