In this study we run smack dab into one of the most controversial doctrines in the Bible – the doctrine of divine sovereign election. Although this subject is very controversial, when rightly understood and applied to your life, it can be one of the most life changing truths you will ever grasp! For more on God’s sovereign grace in salvation, read the book Overwhelmed By Grace found under the Books section of the Resource Library.
Teaching Notes:
Chosen By The Father
Ephesians 1:4-6
Intro:
In this section we run smack dab into the doctrine of Election: God’s unconditional choice of particular persons to eternal life. This truth is very controversial! People will be sure to respond one way or the other! Either they will draw away in horror or they will embrace it passionately. For some, divine election is a devilish doctrine straight out of the pit of hell that must be rejected. For others, it is the most wonderful thing they’ve ever heard, and embracing it is like getting saved all over again. Please come with an open and honest heart. It is our duty to believe what the Bible teaches on any subject, not what we want it to teach.
One thing is for sure, we can’t avoid this subject. “Chosen” occurs 36 times in the NT. Elect – 8x. Predestine – 7x. These words occur over 50x in the NT alone. When you come to see this truth, you find it everywhere! It is in virtually every book of the NT.
I am one of those people who have been gripped by this truth. From the Summer of 1991 to the Summer of 1992 I studied this doctrine constantly. I studied it during the day, went to bed thinking about it, and woke up the next morning thinking about it. I read everything the Bible had to say about it, and then read scores of other books by other authors on it. I can truthfully say it has had a more powerful impact on my Christian life than anything else since I was saved. It was almost like being saved all over again. It is my desire that it would have the same effect in your life as well.
The word chosen = is the Greek word eklegomai. It is in the aorist tense, middle voice. Aorist means it is a once for all event in the past. Middle voice means He did it for Himself. Active voice (He hit the ball). Passive voice (He was hit by the ball). Middle voice (He hit the ball for Himself). God chose for Himself – for His own glory.
1. Why Does Paul Mention Election First? 1:4
Eph.1:3-14 is one giant run on sentence of 202 Greek words. 1:3 is the thesis statement: it sums up all Paul will say in 1:4-14. God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ. Now, beginning in 1:4 Paul begins to identify these spiritual blessings. But before mentioning adoption, redemption, forgiveness, enlightenment, inheritance or sealing, he mentions election. Why? Because every other blessing is dependent on this one. If God does not give you this blessing, you will not receive any others. Election is the fountainhead of every other spiritual blessing. It is the source of all the rest. The whole process of salvation is the unfolding of God’s electing grace. One old writer has said, “Election depends on God alone; all other blessings depend on election.”
Some say you should not teach this doctrine to new believers, because it is too deep for them to understand. Did Paul follow that advice? What about 1Thess.1:4-9. There he is writing to new believers, who couldn’t have been more than a year old in the Lord. Very first thing he tells them is that they were chosen by God! It’s the same in 1Peter1:1-2. The apostles don’t seem to show any hesitancy to teach this doctrine at all. Is it true that it is too difficult to grasp? Any child can understand it. Ask them if they would like an apple or a banana. They know exactly what it means to make a choice.
2. Who Did The Choosing? 1:4
The “He” in 1:4 refers back to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ in 1:3. The author of your election is God the Father, not Jesus or the Holy Spirit. 1Pet.1:1-2. Each member of the Trinity has a role to play in His eternal plan of salvation. The Father draws up the plan; the Son executes the plan; the Spirit applies the plan. The Father is the architect; the Son purchases the materials; the Spirit builds it. If you are a Christian you have God the Father to bless for it!
3. Who Did God Choose? 1:4
“Us”. There are 3 kinds of election in the Bible: 1) National: Deut.7:6. 2) Vocational: leaders called to a particular role or task. Examples: Levites, Aaron, apostles, Paul (Acts 9:15-16). 3) Salvational. This can’t be national, because Paul isn’t writing to a nation, but to certain inhabitants of Ephesus. It can’t be vocational, because all those he wrote to were not apostles, elders or deacons. He tells us what He chose us for in 1:5 – to be adopted as His sons. Clearly, the election Paul is describing is salvational! So the objects of election are all those whom God has chosen to eternal life scattered throughout the world.
4. How Did God Choose Them? 1:4
“In Christ”, by giving them to His Son. Before time began, God the Father gave Jesus a gift – an innumerable company of people from every tribe, tongue, people and nation. These people would become the Lamb’s Wife (Rev.21:9). This wife was the “joy set before Him” (Heb.12:2). When Jesus came into the world, He came as the Representative of these people. Just as Adam is the Representative of all mankind, so Jesus is the Representative of the Elect. He came to save them. They were His charge. Jn.17:9; 6:37-39; 10:27-29. If you have been born again, you were one of these people that God gave to Christ before He even created this world!
5. When Did God Choose Them? 1:4
“Before the foundation of the world.” Rev.17:8; 2Tim.1:9; Mt.25:34; 2Thess.2:13. C.H. Spurgeon once quipped: “I’m glad that God chose me before I was born, because I’m sure He wouldn’t have chosen me afterward.” If we were going to choose people to spend eternity with, we would watch them and see what they were like and how they would turn out. If they did something we didn’t like, we’d scratch them, and find somebody else. But God’s not like us! This shows that God does everything in time according to a preconceived plan, or as working all things after the counsel of His will. From eternity the whole plan of redemption with all its details and results was designed of God. Thus, all is certain. There is no possibility of failure or change in purpose. This also shows that God’s choice of us had nothing to do with us (foreseen faith, repentance, obedience, good works, etc.). This eliminates all boasting because the elect were chosen before they had don anything good or bad.
6. What Did God Have in Mind for them When He Chose Them? 1:4-5
A. “that we should be holy and blameless before Him.” This is God’s ultimate goal for His chosen ones. Begins with our justification, but won’t be completed until our glorification. He chose us in the beginning with the goal of making every one of His elect into sinless, righteous, spotless ones conformed to the image of Christ. Eph.5:25-27. Notice holiness is the result of election, not the cause of it. If we are not being made holy, we need to suspect whether we are His elect.
B. “Adoption as sons.” Adoption is the act of God where men from Adam’s ruined family are brought into His own family, made His children, with all the rights and privileges of His own sons. All men are born as children of Adam into family of Satan. No one has right to be in God’s family. But God decided when He made world, knowing man would fall, that He would not allow the whole world to perish in hell. He determined He would adopt a multitude of people into His family, conform them to the image of Christ, and bring them to glory. Rom.8:29. A man convicted of being traitor and summoned before the King. What will He do? God is the King. Instead of ordering his execution, He pardons him, puts His own royal robes on him, and then announces that He is going to adopt the young man so that all his riches become his! Absolutely astonishing!
Predestine: synonym for “chose”. Example of parallelism. This means God has determined our destination beforehand. Through Jesus Christ: the only way we can be adopted into God’s family is through the work of Christ at the cross. Gal.3:26; Jn.1:12.
7. What Motivated God To Choose Them? 1:5-6
A. His Love: “in love He predestined them…” This speaks of God’s foreknowledge. To foreknow is to forelove. Before time God, knowing of the existence of all His creatures, set His everlasting love upon certain ones. This love is eternal, unchanging, sovereign, and omnipotent. God loves everyone with a general love, but His elect with a special, discriminating love that much more intense. Col.3:12; 1Thess.1:4; 2Thess.2:13. Toplady: “God’s everlasting love, His decree of election, and the eternal covenant of redemption are the 3 hinges on which the door of man’s salvation turns.”
B. The Kind Intention of His Will: “good pleasure of His will”. Did God arbitrarily choose some and pass over others? Was He rolling the dice? “Eenie, meenie, miney, moe!” No. The good pleasure of God’s will had everything to do with it. God had a reason for choosing who He did. But He hasn’t told us what that reason is. The reason is in God, not in the recipients. Mt. 11:25-27. Good Pleasure: a person may fully intend to go to the dentist; and also to take a vacation. Both are decisions of his will. But the latter alone is a matter of delight. God delights in the salvation of sinners! Notice it was His will. Not ours. His choice is not conditioned on our will, our faith, our repentance, our good works. Rom.9:16.
8. What Did God Have in Mind for Himself in Choosing Them? 1:6
“To the praise of the glory of His grace.” This is God’s ultimate end in everything He does. Also 1:12,14. Paul is calling us here to bless God. What for? His glorious grace. This glorious grace shines most brightly when we understand the doctrine of election. He knew we all like sheep would go astray. Would become filthy and depraved before Him, steeped in sin. Yet He chose to have mercy upon us, adopt us into His own family, give us all the rights as legitimate sons, grant us an eternal inheritance, make us holy & blameless before Him forever! What glorious grace! God’s grace is truly amazing! It is freely bestowed on us in the Beloved (1:6). Christ is the Beloved. If we are in Him, we are His beloved. All we have is by His grace. By the grace of God I am what I am. John Calvin: “St. Paul couples glory and grace together so that we should be ravished when we see how God has drawn us out of the bottom of hell to open to us the gates of His kingdom and to cast us to the heritage of salvation.” What did God have in mind concerning Himself when He chose? His own glory!
Application:
1. Election Excludes All Possibility of Boasting: rather than to produce pride in us, it does the opposite. 1Cor.1:26-29. You might think, “Yes God offered salvation to all, but not everybody had the good sense to take Him up on it.” You realize you couldn’t boast of the production of salvation, but you could boast in the reception of salvation. You could stand in heaven and look down at the man in hell and say, “Look buddy, you are there because of what you didn’t do, and I’m here because of what I did do.” God set salvation up this way because He hates boasting – Eph.2:8-9.
2. Election Secures all the Glory for God: if our salvation was teamwork, where God did His part, and we did ours, then it’s only right that we get part of the glory. Ps.115:1-3. Paul is laboring here in Ephesians 1:3-14 that all of the glory is due to God alone!
3. Election Gives Hope In Evangelism: if not for election, heaven would be empty. Election populates heaven. Many people don’t believe that, because they really don’t believe men are as lost as the Bible says they are. If they did, they would understand that election is the only hope any man has got! We all have loved ones who are not saved. They have hard hearts and stubborn rebellious wills. If not for election we might utterly despair. But the God who could save Paul and change him from a Christian killer to a Christian lover can do the same for our loved ones!
4. Election Allows Us To Preach the Gospel Without Altering Its Contents: Let’s face it – the gospel is not appealing to lost sinners. Tells him he must repent, but he loves his sin. Tells him he must trust in Christ, but he trusts in himself. Tells him he must despair of self-righteousness, but he clings to his self-righteousness. Tells him he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow Jesus, but he loves his life and ease and pleasures too much to do that. The lost sinner doesn’t want the gospel! It is tempting to try to make the gospel a little more appealing – shave off the hard parts, compromise here, modify there. But we understand it is not our job to try to make the gospel more attractive. Our job is to lay out the truth just as clearly and Biblically as we possibly can. We are just the messenger boy! When a messenger comes with a telegram to your door and begins to read, do you want him to say, “Uh, I’m not sure you’re going to like this part – I’ll just change it a little bit!” The faithful minister is the one who gives the message straight from God, without changing it in the least.
5. Election Will Fill Us With Wonder and Gratitude: Imagine a couple who have just got married, pulling out of the church parking lot to go to their honeymoon. The husband turns to his wife and says, “Honey, I want to tell you something. The first time I ever set eyes on you I decided that one day you’d be mine. I loved you so much. Remember back there when you were just a child and had to have that operation, and they thought you were going to die? Your parents didn’t know where they were going to get the money, and all of a sudden a large check came in the mail? That was me. As you were growing up you kept getting cards and letters in the mail from “your secret admirer.” You never realized it, but that was me as well. I determined I loved you so much that I would woo you and I would sin you. I determined I would have you no matter what the cost.” Ladies, would you stamp your feet and say, “How dare you violate my free will!” Or would you say, “That’s the loveliest thing I’ve ever heard in all my life!” That is election!
6. Election Inspires Us To Holy Living: Col.3:12. Spurgeon: “Nothing under the gracious influence of the Holy Spirit can make a Christian more holy than the thought that he is chosen. Shall I sin after God has chosen me? Shall I transgress after such love? Shall I go astray after so much lovingkindness and tender mercy? No, my God, since Thou hast chosen me, I will love Thee, I will live to Thee, I will give myself to Thee to be Thine forever, solemnly consecrating myself to Thy service forever.”
7. Election Will Make Us Secure in His Love: Rom.8:33. The 17th article of the 39 Articles of the Church of England reads, “The godly consideration of Predestination and our Election in Christ is full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort.” What security can a person possess whose salvation is a result of his own initiative? If my free will got me in to a state of salvation, it can also get me out! I would have to trust in myself for my eternal security. Jer.32:40.
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