Towards the end of the blog titled “God’s Eternal Decree – Part 1”, I made the following assertion concerning the doctrine of election: “Once you see it in one text of Scripture, you begin to see it everywhere in the Old Testament as well as the New Testament.” Oh, how true is that statement! This was precisely my experience when I began to understand and fully embrace the Doctrines of Grace back in the mid 2010s, not long before I started attending Twin Cities Bible Church. As someone who began to see the truth and beauty of Romans 8 like never before, I began to see election not only in the pages of Romans 8, but also in Ephesians 1. But wait…there’s more! That text I used to use to vehemently defend my Arminian understanding of salvation, John 15…sure enough, I began to see election taught there as well. More and more passages followed. Before I knew it, I was seeing it all over the New Testament. I started to think about how God specifically chose the nation Israel out of all the other nations of the world, and voilà…it was all over the Old Testament as well!
To understand election in the Old Testament is to understand the Old Testament itself. When Adam and Eve disobeyed God and the entire human race was consequently plunged into sin and death, God promised that a future Seed would come who would crush the serpent’s head. The Old Testament is the story of God’s electing purposes in the people whom He set apart to be in the very lineage of the promised Seed Himself. Shortly before the time of the Flood, the entire world was full of wickedness and violence, yet it was Noah who “found favor in the eyes of the Lord” (Genesis 6:8). Noah and his family were chosen by God to be spared from the judgment that came upon the whole world. As mankind began to multiply after the Flood and the events of the Tower of Babel, a man from an idolatrous land known as Ur of the Chaldeans was chosen by God to be made a great nation from whom all the nations of the earth will be blessed, and was promised a land that will be given to his descendants, no longer to be called Abram but Abraham. Abraham had two sons, Ishmael and Isaac; yet God chose not Ishmael, but Isaac – his only begotten son – to receive the blessing. Isaac likewise had two sons, Jacob and Esau; yet God loved Jacob and hated Esau, and changed Jacob’s name to Israel after he wrestled with God and prevailed.
Think about that. The nation Israel, who is described over and over again as God’s chosen, came from the loins of the one whose very name means “one who takes by the heel”. Jacob certainly lived up to that name when he tricked his father Isaac into thinking that he was Esau so that he could receive the blessing. This was not a man worthy to be elected by God for anything, yet he found favor in God, just as we have found favor in Him despite our unworthiness. Jacob and his family settled in Egypt towards the end of his life because of widespread famine, and his descendants would remain in Egypt for four hundred years. Yet, God never forgot His electing purposes with the children of Israel, and they continued to grow in number. God chose a deliverer by the name of Moses, whom He would use to lead His people out of Egypt, through the Red Sea, through the forty years of wandering in the wilderness, and into the Promised Land. During the times of the judges, God showed His mercy over and over again towards the nation Israel despite repeatedly falling back into idolatry. When the Israelites wanted a king to rule over them, God demonstrated great forbearance and allowed them to choose a king by the name of Saul. But Saul was not a man of righteousness and was rejected by the Lord. God had chosen for Himself another king by the name of David, with whom He made a covenant, promising that his kingdom would never end.
Yet Israel would continue to worship the Baals instead of the Lord their God, and consequently their kingdom was split into two, and the Lord eventually brought judgment on them by the hands of the Assyrians and Babylonians. Even during these dark days in Israel’s history, God graciously spared His people from total destruction, because He did not forget His electing purposes with them and promised that He will one day “heal their apostasy” (Hosea 14:4). As Israel continued to be under subjection to Gentile rulers in the post-exilic era, just as the prophet Daniel foretold in his vision of the four beasts, God continued His work of preserving them as a people, out of whom the Messiah would come.
Finally, after four hundred years of silence that ensued following the death of the last prophet Malachi, God was speaking to His people once again through John the Baptist. Once more, He had not forgotten His electing purposes with Israel! The very people whom God chose to be set apart from the rest of the world all those centuries ago, unlike the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, were still around. It was out of these kinsmen that the Seed promised to mankind right after the Fall finally arrived. His name is Jesus of Nazareth, and He lived as the true and perfect Israelite. On our behalf He kept the Law perfectly, and “fulfilled all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15). As the better Adam, the better Melchizedek, the better Moses, and the better David, He is our faithful High Priest, our Prophet, and our King, who alone is worthy to open the scroll (Revelation 5:5). He is the offspring of Abraham in whom “…the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith” (Galatians 3:14).
Rather than embrace their long-awaited Messiah, the Jews rejected Him, for “He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him” (John 1:11). Why? Because they “loved darkness rather than the light, for their deeds were evil” (John 3:19). In what is undoubtedly the greatest evil deed ever perpetrated by man, the Jews had their King humiliatingly nailed to a cross by the hands of wicked Gentiles. Yet even in the midst of this heinous act, God had an ultimate purpose, for according to God’s predetermined plan, “The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief corner stone” (Psalm 118:22). Indeed, the kingdom of God was taken away from the Jews and given to a different nation according to Matthew 21:43, but does that mean that God is finished with the Jews? By no means, for as Paul wrote, “From the standpoint of the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but from the standpoint of God’s choice they are beloved for the sake of the fathers; for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable” (Romans 11:28-29).
A future time is coming when Israel will receive their Messiah, a time when “all Israel will be saved” according to Romans 11:26. But in this present time, we as the Church are the truth bearers in this world. We are the called-out ones, chosen by God before the foundation of the world, set apart to shine the light of the gospel so that others may see and glorify our Father in heaven. Next time, we will wrap up our series on election by discussing why this doctrine matters to us today, and why we should take comfort knowing that in the same way that God remembers Israel His elect, we too who have been chosen by God are firmly in His sovereign grip.