Election
Is Assurance of
Salvation
Up-Dated -
Friday, April 04, 2014
Table of Contents
* Election is very Assuring
* Already Elected to
Glorification
* Already Justified by God
* The
Interceder never Loses the Intercedee
* Inseparable
* Nothing
from Inside, Nothing from Outside
* Kept by the Spirit
* Holy and
Unblamable from the Beginning
* Already Conformed
* Assigned
to Good Works for Others
* Praisers, not Self-Savers
* Witnesses of
Christ, not Self-Keepers
* Put
on Humility, as the Elect
* Rejection of the World
* Election is not
of Works, Being Good
Election is very Assuring
1.
God has elected some for salvation. Those that realize:
* they are sinners
* they cannot
save themselves
* that Jesus Christ has already paid for their sins
* that they must call on Jesus Christ as their Savior
are the elected.
2.
God has not created anyone to go to
* Heaven
* or Hell
Everyone chooses to be
saved or not
saved.
3.
God has always been aware of the elect
4.
God's awareness is known as predestination. Of course, this does not
mean that God created some folks to be destined to the eternal bliss
of Heaven or the forever tormenting fires of Hell. It simply means
that God has always been aware of the choices each would make and
will accommodate them in their choices.
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Already elected to glorification
Rom 8:30 "Moreover whom he did predestinate,
them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and
whom he justified, them he also glorified."
In God's mind, we are not only presently chosen,
called and justified; but already in our future glorified body in
heaven.
Loss of salvation would mean loss of the already
owned glorified body. Then, would a person get it again, if so,
would it be the same one or different?
The Bible is completely silent on all of this talk
of losing and receiving other bodies.
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Already justified by God
Rom 8:33 "Who shall lay any thing to the
charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth."
God does the electing.
God does the justifying.
The devil, nor anyone else, can successfully challenge what God has
done.
The devil and everyone else, can
* accuse
* deride
* otherwise harass Christians
and place all kinds of doubts in their minds, about their salvation
and the security of it, but God has already cared for the situation.
Since man does not make himself part of the elect of
God, then how is man to keep himself elected? If being good did not
put you in the elect, why should being good be the criteria for
keeping you in the elect?
Election is all of God.
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The Interceder never loses the intercedee
Rom 8:34 "Who is he that condemneth? It is
Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at
the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us."
The One who will do the eternal condemning of the
lost is the One that is doing the present intercession for the
saved. Once we are
saved, He is ever interceding for us even when
we are at our worst. Actually there is no point in interceding,
unless we are doing our worst.
To be lost after one is
saved is to prove the
intercession of the Savior incapable of keeping the ones He is
watchful over. Jesus would then be unconvincing to the Father about
the
saved. Of course, the One who keeps: has died, was buried and
is risen to eternally maintain us.
Intercession is all of God
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Inseparable
Rom 8:35 "Who shall separate us from the love
of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or
famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?"
Rom 8:36 "As it is written, For thy sake we
are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the
slaughter."
The Word of God testifies that the elect are already
dead in Christ. No other death can touch them, because they are
already dead. One cannot kill the dead.
If they are already dead, then they cannot commit a
sin that would send them to eternal death. The occasion of dying
has already transpired.
Someone may say, "If you commit a sin before you die
that is offensive to God, He will send you to Hell." But our reply
would be, "I cannot commit a sin before I die, I am already dead. I
am dead in Christ." Or, "I cannot commit a sin unto death (in hell),
because I am already dead."
Rom 8:37 "Nay, in all these things we are more
than conquerors through him that loved us."
Powerfully victorious over this world.
Powerfully victorious over hell.
What kind of conquerors would we be, if we were powerfully
victorious over this world, through Christ, but not powerfully
victorious over hell.
The elect are assuredly victorious, not in their own
strength, but through the inexhaustible strength of Christ.
Some will say, "But what about when I am really
weak?" The sin of being really weak in our own strength has, also,
been paid for by Christ.
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Nothing from Inside. Nothing from Outside.
Rom 8:38 "For I am persuaded, that neither
death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor
things present, nor things to come,"
Rom 8:39 "Nor height, nor depth, nor any other
creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which
is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Once that a person enters the love of God,
because of having placed their faith at one time in Christ as
Savior, they cannot be removed from that position.
If nothing or nobody can remove us from the love of
God, one must assume that one will always be in that love.
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Kept by the Spirit
2 Th 2:13 "But we are bound to give thanks
alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath
from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of
the Spirit and belief of the truth:"
Once that a person places their trust in the
truth (Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life) they are made holy
(sanctified) by the Holy Spirit.
Notice that they are sanctified by the
Spirit, not their own sanctification (doing right after salvation in
the power of the Lord).
If sanctification at salvation is up to God the
Holy Ghost, then why would the keeping of it be left up to man? Of
course it is not left to man, sanctification is the job of the
Spirit from start to finish, from saving to keeping to taking home
to heaven.
We can be assured that if salvation or election
is not kept, it would be a failure of the Holy Ghost and He has
never failed and is not going to fail.
The reason there is so much controversy
about sanctification is that there are 2 of them.
One comes at salvation, by way of the Holy
Ghost, through the good work of Christ, in His own power.
The other comes after salvation, by way
of the Holy Ghost, through the good work that we do personally, in
the power of the Lord.
The confusion is when folks look at the
sanctification after salvation as the sanctification at salvation.
Then it will look like it is up to us to keep ourselves
saved.
Holy Ghost-kept-people are folks that are eternally
kept.
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Holy and Unblamable from the beginning
Eph 1:4 "According as he hath chosen us in him
before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and
without blame before him in love:"
"Should" does not take on the thought of
"maybe" or "might," but has the connotation of "must."
If the elect "should be" (must be) holy and
blameless "in Him", how could they ever become unholy and guilty "in
Him". God knew ahead of time the elect would be holy and blameless
"in Him", if they become less than that "in Him", then the "Him"
must have lost them. The "Him" is Christ and He never loses anyone. God does not make mistakes.
If folks are not holy and are guilty of sin, they
have never been
saved (made holy by the Holy Ghost and guiltless to
the condemnation of sin) to start with.
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Already Conformed
Rom 8:29 "For whom he did foreknow, he also
did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he
might be the firstborn among many brethren."
When
saved, you are "conformed"
to the image of Christ.
If "conformed" to the image of Christ,
you can never be guilty of sin again, because Christ was never
guilty of sin, and that person is in His image.
This does not mean that you will never sin. But
you are never guilty of it. Sin and its accompanying guilt has been
paid for by Christ.
Of course, when you sin, you will lose fellowship
with God, not salvation. Loss of fellowship is simply God not
having anything to do with you outside of personal repentance.
Once repentant, God resumes communication.
We can be assured of our election because in God's
mind we are the very image of the sinless and the guiltless Christ.
As each sin occurs in our lives we must repent
or turn from it. Not to remain merely amongst the "foreknown" but
to remain in fellowship with the Lord.
If repentance is not made, then the Bible
teaching on Chastisement takes effect.
God corrects us until we repent, as a Father to
His children, because our sinning after salvation never took us out
of His family.
We can easily see that if a person lost his
sonship, then there would be no chastisement, because only sons are
chastised.
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Assigned to good works for others, not self
John 15:16 "Ye have not chosen me, but I have
chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth
fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall
ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you."
Those that carry out this charge have their
prayers answered.
Notice that the elect are not charged
("ordained") to do good to stay the elect, but are ordained to bring
forth fruit (more elect) that remains.
If the God-appointed elect or chosen are to keep
and maintain their own election, then one would suppose that their
charge would be to do everything they can to keep themselves
elected.
But since we are divinely commissioned to spend our
time bringing others to Christ, then one would have to conclude that
our own eternal salvation is secure, or else we would have to spend
our time keeping ourselves
saved.
Someone will doubtless counter, then giving a
good witness must be the thing that saves, if this is how we are to
live our life. If that is true, why are the Scriptures completely
silent on the subject?
The whole tenor of the Word of God is towards
humility. Humility is not something that is done for self (like
saving our self), but for others. If we expend our time putting
others first, then when will we be able to do good (not sinning), to
keep ourselves
saved?
The truth of the matter is this, we are perfectly
secure in our own salvation, because it is not of us, but of Christ,
and we need to be witnessing to others about our good, forever-safe
position in Christ.
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Praisers, not self-savers
1 Pet 2:9 "But ye are a chosen generation, a
royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should
show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness
into his marvelous light:"
The job of the chosen is not to keep
themselves
saved or elected, but to praise the Lord for saving them.
The election of the saints must be secure, since
they are not to concentrate on keeping their election, but are to
concentrate on praising God for their salvation.
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Witnesses of Christ, not self-keepers
Acts 22:14 "And he said, The God of our
fathers hath chosen thee, that thou shouldest know his will, and see
that Just One, and shouldest hear the voice of his mouth."
Acts 22:15 "For thou shalt be his witness unto
all men of what thou hast seen and heard."
The elect are elected
* not for being good
* nor
to stay elected
* but for knowing and hearing God and being faithful
witnesses of the Just One.
God is not interested in our caring for ourselves.
Neither is He interested in our caring for our eternal disposition.
God is solely interested in our hearing Him and knowing Him so we
can tell others and help them.
If we are not to be concerned about our eternity,
then it must be unassailable.
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Put on humility as the elect, not to be the elect
Col 3:12 "Put on therefore, as the elect of
God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of
mind, meekness, longsuffering;"
Col 3:13 "Forbearing one another, and
forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even
as Christ forgave you, so also do ye."
The elect are to put others first as the
elect, not to be the elect. Being good Christians (humble) is the
elect's duty after salvation, not to gain salvation.
If your total concern is for others and not self,
then your election, which is the most important thing in the
universe, must not be of ourselves but of God, who keeps us chosen
and elected.
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Rejection of the world
John 15:19 "If ye were of the world, the world
would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have
chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you."
There is not a place for Christians in this
world. The elect Christian's place is in Christ. Be assured that you are
saved, if the world does
not like what you do for Christ.
If you were theirs they would love you. If they
hate you, you must be in Christ and if in Christ, confident of that
position.
Also, we are "chosen out of the world". This could
not mean that we are removed from the world, because we can easily
look around and see we are still here. We are chosen out of the
world's methods (too many to list). The elect are elected to a position in Heaven, but
they, for the time being, must serve on the earth.
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Election is not of works, being good
Rom 9:10 "And not only this; but when Rebecca
also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac;"
Rom 9:11 "(For the children being not yet
born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God
according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that
calleth;)"
Election is not given by God according to the
doing of good or evil of the elect, but it is totally of the One
that calls or elects the elected.
If election is not of man's conduct, then not only
will good conduct not keep man's election, but bad conduct will not
lose it either.
The
saved can feel behaviorally assured of
salvation because it is up to the Lord, not there behavior to stay
saved (elected).
It is all up to a foreknowing God. Take joyful
assurance in this. Know that you are
saved to start with, then
know you are forever
saved.
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G. Steven Andres
Psalms 45:17
Missionary Evangelist
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