Who are the elect of God?

(V. 2). Passing on to the second verse, we at once come to the blessings which are the result of God's sovereign electing grace, and in which there can be no failure. This it is that makes these introductory verses so exceedingly precious. Beginning with election in a past eternity we are carried on to glory in an eternity yet to come. Grace begun on earth ends in glory above.

However much we may fail, God has His elect. Election is not national or collective, but personal and individual. This verse gives a beautiful description of each individual believer. As such we were elected in eternity according to foreknowledge of God the Father.

Then we are told to what we have been elected. We are elected to the obedience of Jesus, and to the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus. Through sanctification of the Spirit, God has set us apart for these two things. We are set apart to express His life, and to come under the efficacy of His death.

They are described as "elect according to the fore-knowledge of God the Father." This is a far higher thing than Israel's national election by Jehovah. As a people they were chosen of God, in time, to inherit the promises concerning the land. They were to be His people, walking in separation from the nations around, maintaining His truth in the midst of universal idolatry. How deeply they have failed, we know; but God will yet make His intentions good, for His gifts and calling are without repentance (Rom. 11:29). But during their rejection, God is speaking of another election. Believers in Jesus were chosen in Him before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4). This, in contrast with Israel's election, is individual. It would not be correct to speak of the church, as such, as "elect," though it be true of all the members who compose it. Here some fail in their apprehension of the mind of God. They like to think of the church as a whole as elect, leaving it an open question as to individual believers, who may, in their judgment, be finally disowned after all. But scripture is decisive and clear. Election is a truth of God, but it concerns individual believers, and not the church as such. These Jewish brethren, if one may so say, were an election out of an election. They had stood in the old Jewish circle of outward privilege; they had now been called out of it to enjoy God's eternal counsel — relationship with the Father as His children through grace.

We are God’s elect people. Christian election is a personal matter. God has not elected the church but individual believers. Our election originates in eternity and has to do with eternity (Eph. 1:4–5). The fact that God has elected us shows clearly that we have great value in His eyes. We should deal with each other in that light, and not forget that we — and our brothers and sisters — have great value in His estimation.

Scripture says plainly and positively that believers are "elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father" (1 Pet, 1‑2) and that God has chosen them in Christ "before the foundation of the world" (Eph. 1:4). This is a truth of greatest comfort and rejoicing to the believer. lt is God who has taken the initiative in this. Salvation is therefore by His pure grace, not by works, nor by any question of human merit. That salvation is eternal: it cannot be changed because God has chosen us in Christ before history began, and He does not change His mind. All who are truly born of God are entitled to absolute certainty in this matter, on the authority of the truth of Scripture.

Here many lay great stress upon gathering His elect. But the "elect" do not necessarily mean Christians. If you speak of elect now, it is so; but had God no "elect" before there were Christians? There were elect Gentiles. Take Job for one, and his friends, probably, also the same; were they not elect men? Melchizedek and others, were not they elect? Need I enumerate the elect of Israel in the past? We find clearly elect Gentiles as well as Jews and Christians. When we read about Christians, then the elect must be so explained; if we read about Jews, then the phrase applies to a Jewish election; and so with the nations. We must be governed by the context. As the Lord here is clearly speaking about Israel, the sense should not be ambiguous. When we have "His elect" named, He means the elect of those described, that is, of Israel. This is not at all to bring in arbitrary rules, but in fact a very plain and necessary principle.

When God again restores Israel into blessing it will be a remnant that will be chosen, whom He calls His 'elect.' Isa. 65:9, 15, 22; Matt. 24:22, 24, 31; Rom. 11:28.

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.

The proper standpoint from which to get a saving view of the death of Christ is not election, but the consciousness of our ruin. This is an unspeakable mercy, inasmuch as I know I am a lost sinner; but I do not know that I am one of the elect until I have received, through the Spirit’s testimony and teaching, the glad tidings of salvation through the blood of the Lamb. Salvation — free as the sunbeams, full as the ocean, permanent as the throne of the eternal God — is preached to me, not as one of the elect, but as one utterly lost, guilty, and undone; and when I have received this salvation there is conclusive evidence of my election.

‘Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God. For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance’ (1 Thess. 1:4–5). Election is not my warrant for accepting salvation; but the reception of salvation is the proof of election. For how is any sinner to know that he is one of the elect? Where is he to find it? It must be a matter of divine revelation, else it cannot be a matter of faith. But where is it revealed? Where is the knowledge of election made an indispensable prerequisite, an essential preliminary, to the acceptance of salvation? Nowhere, in the Word of God. My only title to salvation is that I am a poor, guilty, hell-deserving sinner. If I wait for any other title, I am only removing a most valuable landmark from its proper place, and putting it as a stumblingblock in my way. This, to say the least of it, is very unwise.

This sovereign, gratuitous work in man, done in accordance with that eternal counsel which all things work out, defines clearly for us what is election. It means the gracious interference of divine love in behalf of those who, no different from others, dead in the same sins, instead of being given up to perish, are given to Christ to be the fruit of His blessed work, "that He might be the first-born among many brethren." It is love, and only love, righteously and in perfect goodness manifested in salvation only, and of those worthy of damnation. To charge upon it the damnation of the lost is blasphemy, however unconscious, of that in which the whole heart of God is pouring itself out. If others remain obdurate in pride and careless unbelief, and going on to destruction, while we, justified by faith, and having peace with God, rejoice in hope of the glory of God, is it because we are better than they? What Christian heart can believe this? No; it is because "God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ." No man has found his true level who has not come down there, and only there do we find the full and impregnable assurance of perfect and enduring peace. "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?" A love that found us with nothing, to indue us with all, is a love that has in it no element of change.

But there is one thing of which we may be sure: God's choice is always "the election of GRACE" (Rom. 11:5). That God elects to judgment is an idea reached as the fruit of human reasonings upon this matter, which so completely transcends our reason; it is never so stated in Scripture. The Scriptural presentation of the case is that all are totally ruined with no point of recovery in themselves, and that God chooses to have mercy on some and, consequently, in them to work with life-giving power.