How can I know if I am one of the elect?

It is now made known that God by His word assures of His love all that believe, and He sets it forth in Christ incarnate, Christ dying in atonement, and Christ in glory, winding all up with the declaration that "even as He is, we also are in this world." For it is here only that His grace and truth are present; and as Christ was full of grace and truth, to receive Him is to receive of His fulness, as every Christian does. This then is the question for you, dear doubting fearing friend. Do you believe, as a poor guilty sinner, on Him? Do you believe that God out of His own boundless love gave Jesus His Son? Cast away the vain hope of any good thing of your own fit for God; receive on God's authority and in His grace Him who has all good not only for God but for you, and who was sent to be the propitiation for sins. Then, as receiving God's glad tidings, you are entitled to say, as you weigh it all before Him, "By grace I do believe that I have life, and peace, and am His child." Then you know that you are elect. Any other way of claiming to know it is human and dangerous, uncertain and evil, the devil cheating you to ruin. Christ is the truth to settle all election that is true and good. Believing on and confessing Him you are entitled without an atom of argument to say, God has chosen me: else, left to myself and my reason, I had never believed after a divine sort. Thus it is that "perfect love casteth out fear," and gives me by faith peace with God, instead of that punishment or torment which my spirit knows too well.

And is it not thus with thousands at this moment through the misapplication of the doctrine of election? We fully believe it is, and hence our anxiety to help our readers by setting the matter in what we judge to be the true light before their minds. We believe it to be of the utmost importance for the anxious inquirer to know that the standpoint from which he is called to view the cross of Christ is not the standpoint of election, but of conscious ruin. The grace of God meets him as a lost, dead, guilty sinner; not as an elect one. This is an unspeakable mercy, inasmuch as he knows he is the former, but cannot know that he is the latter until the gospel has come to him in power. "Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God." How did he know it? "Because our gospel came not to you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance." (1 Thess. 1:4-5) Paul preached to the Thessalonians as lost sinners; and when the gospel had laid hold of them as lost, he could write to them as elect.

It may be asked, How could the apostle thus give thanks for these Thessalonian believers? How did he know their election of God? He tells us "Knowing brethren, beloved, your election of God. For our gospel came not to you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance. And ye became followers of us, and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost." (1 Thess. 1:5-6.) Further marks of their election of God were found in that the word of the Lord was spread abroad by them, and they were turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true God; and to wait for His Son from heaven. Here were the proofs of their election of God. Beloved reader, can you say it is so with you? Has the gospel that Paul preached ever come with power to your soul? You will find the gospel that he preached to them in Acts 17:2-4. Has the Holy Ghost ever made known to you the deep need of the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus? The blessed news that through Him is preached to you the forgiveness of sins — that all who believe God are justified from all things? Have you received the word with joy of the Holy Ghost? Have you cast in your lot with the Lord's people, following the Lord as they did? Is that word of the Lord so precious to you, that it is your delight to be making it known all around? Have you been turned to God from all the idols to which your heart once clung, to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven? If you can say, through the amazing grace of God, and by the power of the Holy Ghost, all this is true of you, then these are the same marks as those by which Paul knew their election of God.

These things were clear and distinct in the Thessalonian believers, and led Paul to the confident conclusion that they were amongst the elect of God. It was not that, when he stood up in the synagogue at Thessalonica those three Sabbath days, he could have put a mark on the back of each who would believe before he began to preach, as having private access to the Lamb's book of life and knowing in advance the names of those who were chosen of God. Paul's knowledge was arrived at from the opposite direction. Knowing the powerful way in which the Gospel reached them and the results produced in them by the Spirit of God he had no doubt in his conclusion that they were chosen of God.

The blood of Jesus Christ is, in the knowledge of it, the proof of election. As it is written, "Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, unto … sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ." (1 Peter 1:2.) The knowledge of the blood, is the proof of election. Observe this, for many do not see that if I have come to the sprinkling of the blood, I am proved to be an elect one, and would set you to prove your election by other things; but this is THE first and the simplest proof of all … "Elect … unto sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ" … if I know the blood I am an elect one. Many say, you must prove you are one of the elect before you can say, "The blood is mine," but this is contrary to scripture altogether: for no one, in scripture, is even supposed to know anything about covenant, election, or counsel, until he has known the blood. And the whole benefits of the blood are yours, if you believe in God that raised Jesus from the dead. It proves our election, for this simple reason, that —

God has revealed Himself in the face of Jesus Christ, so that we may know Him and trust Him. Moreover, He has made full provision in the atonement of the cross for all our need and all our guilt. Hence, therefore instead of perplexing myself with the question, "Am I one of the elect?" it is my happy privilege to rest in the perfect love of God, the all-sufficiency of Christ, and the faithful record of the Holy Ghost.

But true-hearted believers are not unfrequently staggered and alarmed by the thorough statement of the doctrine of election. Satan is often busy with this truth in the hearts of God's children. By a sort of argument "ad verecundiam," the poor faint-hearted Christian, more versed in the sad experience of personal unworthiness than accustomed to the clear shining of the Sun of righteousness, is pricked and startled by an appeal to his own conscience as to whether such an one as he is can safely deem himself the object of the special choice of Divine love. Now, let a soul harassed by temptation through indistinct apprehension of the doctrine of election, question itself simply thus: Do I believe that I can save myself? But if not, do I believe that salvation is solely of God? And if so, does the doctrine of free mercy and declared grace through the blood of Jesus meet the conscious need of my soul as under sin? If there be life in the soul from God, the answer to the last two of these questions will be as certainly in the affirmative, as that to the first will be in the negative. But, if able thus far to confess the truth of God, the believer may rest safely assured that he is in very deed elect of God. For it is not in nature either to confess its own completed ruin, or to welcome God in Christ as a Saviour. Repentance and faith are alike gifts of God, and what He gives He gives not at random, but according to the perfect election of His will.

"Whosoever will" and "whosoever believeth" are the glorious terms of God's good news to all alike. But when we believe, we know that we are chosen and predestinated. Those who have believed on Christ are predestinated and they possess the Son-place. Then having believed, we know that we were chosen in Him before the foundation of the world.

But one cannot know that he is "elect" until, in true repentance and faith, he receives the Lord Jesus Christ as his Savior. This is a truth only to be realized by those who are brought by grace into His own presence. Then one realizes that his own choice was not the actual fact of the matter, but that the Lord Jesus had chosen him (Jn. 15:16), for man by nature is so sinful and rebellious that he will not of himself turn to God. It is God's goodness alone that leads one to repentance (Romans 2:4). Only after this does one realize that it was really God's work that had wrought repentance in his heart and drawn him to trust in Christ. What cause for deepest thanksgiving and humblest adoration!

Since this is true, a question then arises in many minds. Why did God not choose to so work in the hearts of all mankind to lead them to repentance? Is it fair that He should do this with some and not with others? In fact, it is argued, lf "election" is true as stated above, is not God unrighteous?

He speaks next of making our calling and election sure. But is this not sure already? As far as God, who has called and elected us, is concerned, it is sure. To have a consciousness of our calling and election, the sureness of it, requires diligence to walk in the path which the Holy Spirit through the pen of Peter has so beautifully described. Those who walk thus will not stumble, and, finally, "an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."