About God’s Election⤒🔗

Thinking about God’s election seems a tricky undertaking. It is one of the differences between Reformed and evangelical churches. But also within the Reformed circle a discussion has started and criticism has sounded about some aspects of the Canons of Dort. In fact, even when people subscribe to the Canons all the way, there can be a world of difference in how they are dealing with it. To give one example: both the “Gereformeerde Gemeenten” and the “Gereformeerde Kerken” (liberated) endorse the Canons of Dort. But they deal with the content in very different ways. The way it appears now, it is a permanent ecclesiastical breaking point.

The Format←⤒🔗

The above does not sound very encouraging as an introduction: so many differences! That immediately makes it clear that we would be in danger of drowning ourselves in this topic if we were to deal with the differences as our starting point. That is why I prefer to go a different route. I want to attempt to outline how the Bible — and in its wake the Reformed confession — speak about election and rejection. At the same time I want to explore what this means for you in your life with the Lord.

The Tone←⤒🔗

Often the first reaction to the biblical teaching about election and rejection is: how difficult and complicated it all appears to be! I will not deny that here we meet the limitations of what our human mind can fathom. The Lord is so incomprehensibly great! That creates all kinds of problems for our thoughts. If God has chosen from eternity, then what about our responsibility as human beings? Is it then fair that people are lost because of their unbelief when they were not elected after all? Serious questions! No wonder there was and is so much discussion about it. There is also the additional danger that you accept the doctrine of election and rejection as a “notice,” but that it actually means nothing for you. The Canons of Dort are often more praised than it is actually read.

Now go ahead and read Ephesians 1. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ… He chose us in him before the foundation of the world.” That is a different story. No worries, no sighs, and no complaints. Instead, praise! And Ephesians 1 is not alone in this. You always find it in the Bible time and again. God is praised as the God of election. That really functions in the life of faith. It makes people intensely happy and grateful. It apparently sets the right tone when we need to talk about the divine election.

Pitfalls←⤒🔗

When you talk about what the Bible says about God’s election and rejection, there are a few peculiar pitfalls. I want to warn you about these immediately:

• When you are not careful, you will approach things in a very abstract way. Then you are talking about the election, and the rejection, as if these are matters that stand on their own. But biblically you have to say: we are talking about the God of election and rejection. We stand before the Lord himself. He is not a God of arbitrariness, but he is a God of love.
• When you realize that you are dealing with God here, then you also understand that you can never arrive at a conclusive reasoning here. It has been tried again and again in church history: designing a system in which you solve all sorts of rational difficulties. Do not do it! The Lord is much too exalted for that. Do not assume that you will be able to fit God into your thoughts. We explore the biblical data in order to echo these in simple faith even when — to our system of logic — that may lead to open endings.
• As a final pitfall I mention our human curiosity. In particular it concerns the question: why did the Lord not elect certain people? I will say it right up front: from a biblical perspective this is a wrong question. In fact you want to check the Lord and look for some measure of accountability. From a biblical point of view you have to ask a completely different question: a pronounced question of faith, “Why me?” That is not an immodest, curious question, but it is the question of amazement. There you have it again: the right tone of surprised joy.

Different Kinds of Election←⤒🔗

I need to give another preliminary note. This article is about the divine election unto eternal salvation. At the same time, the Bible also knows of other forms of divine election. I am thinking in particular of the election to be part of God’s people, to be allowed to belong to God’s people. This is a special privilege, only because of God’s mercy. However, not all who were given a place in the covenant are saved. There are baptized members of the covenant who turn their back on the Lord. They will be held responsible more seriously. They despised God’s electing love. But note the difference here. The election to belong to the covenant is not automatically the election to eternal salvation, even though you know as a believer that the one is an extension of the other. We therefore distinguish between the election‑to‑belong‑to‑the‑covenant (the way Moses speaks about this in Deut. 7:6-8) and the election‑unto‑eternal‑salvation (the way Paul speaks about this in Eph. 1). In this regard, Calvin spoke of the general and the special election. In this article, therefore, we deal specifically with that special election. However, in doing so God’s covenant is not left out of the picture.

Election and Rejection According to the Canons of Dort←⤒🔗

God’s election and rejection: you can read about it in Chapter I of the Canons of Dort. The Canons follow the biblical line beautifully! All people have sinned in Adam. God would not have wronged anyone if he had therefore decided to punish all people forever (CoD I.1). But: God is love. He sent his only Son into the world that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. Literally a combination of two Bible texts (CoD I.2)! In his goodness, God now causes the promise of the gospel to be proclaimed, through which he calls people to faith and repentance (CoD I.3). When someone does not believe the gospel, God’s wrath will remain on him. But by faith you are saved from eternal ruin by the Saviour Christ (CoD I.4).

Unbelief — do not blame God for it. You bear the full responsibility for your inability and unwillingness to believe. As is true of all sins, it is your own fault. But faith is a gift from God. You are saved by grace, through faith, and this is not your own doing: it is the gift from God, Ephesians 2:8 (CoD I.5).

God confers faith to some people, while he withholds it from others. And this goes back to his eternal decree. God knows all his works from of old, says Acts 15:18. There is election and there is rejection — a decision that is as merciful as it is just (CoD I.6).

What do we mean by God’s election? It is the unchangeable purpose of God from before the foundation of the world to save some people (a fixed number), in themselves just as guilty as others, in Christ and to give them faith for that purpose. No one is entitled to it. It is free electing love of God, purely out of mercy. And then the Canons in Article 7 also refer to Ephesians 1 and Romans 8. Article 10 highlights this even more. For God’s gracious(!) election there is only one basis that we can point to: God’s good pleasure. This plan stems from God’s eternal love for the elect (II.9). All of this is pronounced in language from the Bible!

The other side of this decree of election is God’s decree of rejection. You can read about it in Canons of Dort I.6, and more extensively in Canons of Dort I.15. When God chose some people, he decided to leave others to their own wickedness and self‑chosen destruction. And again you have to say: the Canons of Dort repeat the Bible’s teaching. See the reference to 1 Peter 2:8. In their unbelief people stumble upon the rock that is Christ, as they were destined to do. It remains a difficult and problematic word. Yet it really is as God has revealed it.

Note the Difference!←⤒🔗

There is a striking difference in the description of election and rejection in the Canons of Dort. When it comes to the election, it is formulated very actively. In his electing love God intervenes in Christ, and also draws people through his Word and Spirit. With regard to rejection, the formulation is more passive: God decided to leave people to their self‑chosen wickedness and hardness. The Canons do this on purpose. Because they realize the reproach: if faith depends on God’s choice, then you can hardly blame someone for his unbelief. In fact, it is then God’s fault that someone is lost. If only he had chosen him or her.

But no man will be able to defend himself for this unbelief with this excuse on the Last Day. The inability and unwillingness to believe is one’s own fault. Behind the hardness of our human heart lies our apostasy from the living God. That also causes our unbelief to be guilt before God. No person is lost except through his own fault.

Thus the Canons point to God’s justice here. God does nothing wrong when he leaves people to their own wickedness. All of us deserved this. The miracle is not that people will be lost, but instead that people will be saved! God is not obliged to do that. As a human being, you have no claim to God’s grace and electing love. It is purely and exclusively the free favour of God that he saves people in Christ, and that he gives them faith and eternal life. That is the unanticipated and non‑obligatory love of God. Just as no man can excuse himself for his unbelief on the Last Day, so no man can boast of his faith. You received it from God, in Christ, through the Spirit, through the power of his electing love.

The biblical teaching about election in this way wants to emphasize that God’s mercy is really only a matter of grace, going back to God’s eternal decree of mercy. All self-esteem is excluded. I can only praise his free grace and favour! There you hear the tone of Ephesians 1 again.

Faith in Practice←⤒🔗

That is all well and good, but what should you do with this in the actual practice of faith? What about those problems of our minds? Is everything not nailed down from eternity? And even if you say “yes and Amen” to what the Canons confess, deep in your heart the question concerning why God passes over some people can continue to gnaw at you. And that includes people to whom you so dearly want to grant faith. In the same way you may struggle with the question: how can I know with certainty that I belong to the number of God’s chosen ones?

Here it is good to remember the warning about the pitfalls that I mentioned earlier. Do not try to force things in your mind into a watertight system. And do not try to check the Lord with the curious question: why not others? Do not seek to enter into the hidden secrets of God. This is a warning that is repeated several times in the Canons. “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children” (Deut. 29:29). Do not go the way of curiosity. The Bible shows us another way.

Start therefore where the Bible starts with us. That is, take the promise of God as your starting point — the promise of the gospel. In that promise, God gives Christ with his full salvation: there, it is for you! Take it! For the promise is about giving, which calls for an acceptance in faith. That is how the Bible speaks to us. The jailer asks Paul and Silas, “Sirs, what must I do I to be saved?” (Acts 16:30). Then the reply is, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household” (Acts 16:31). This man can simply believe that gospel. And he also has to believe that. In short: the God of the Bible addresses us, based on the promise, in terms of our responsibility.

God ensures that that good news is proclaimed in this world. He sends preachers of the gospel to whom he wants and when he wants. Through their service, people are called to faith and repentance.

This is how the gospel sounds to the world outside. That is also how it sounds to the inside, in the church. There we may know ourselves as people of God’s covenant. Indeed, a matter of election. Here faith sees the God of election coming to him. The promise of the gospel was directed to you personally in baptism. The urge to believe the promise becomes all the more serious. Do not think that you have arrived when you are baptized. Please, no covenant automatism, nor a Christianity of “people who have arrived!” Oh yes, when a child dies at a young age, you as parents do not have to doubt God’s election and the salvation of your child. By virtue of the covenant of grace the children of the believers are holy (CoD I.17). Even though a response of faith has been impossible, God keeps his word on his part. But if you grow up in the covenant, then that response is indeed expected of you. And this continues as a lasting activity. Brilliant, the way the Heidelberg Catechism puts it in Lord’s Day 31: it is proclaimed to each and every believer that their sins are really forgiven them, as often as they by true faith accept the promise of the gospel. As often as! So this is the starting point: God’s word of promise, which insists on the reply of faith.

What a blessing when you say “yes and Amen” in faith to the promise of the gospel! No, that is not something that you are proud of. You should be grateful for it — thankful for the work of the Holy Spirit in your heart. For you do not believe on your own; it is the work of God’s Spirit that reaches and changes your heart through the Word. I have received my faith from the Lord!

In this you will then recognize, as a child of God, the electing love of God. Then you no longer worry abstractly about why others do not believe. But you are silent in amazement and gratitude: the Lord is so good to me! I did not deserve this at all. In myself, I am no better than others. Thank you, Lord, for such grace!

Certainty←⤒🔗

That brings us to the matter of assurance about your personal election. One of the Dutch hymns says, “Yes, before I was born…his love chose me.” Can you sing such a hymn with true confidence? Do the words “I” and “me” truly represent you?

You do not get that certainty when you try to inquire into the mysteries and depths of God with curiosity, says Canons of Dort I.12. Instead, pay attention to what the Bible points to as fruits of your election: true faith in Christ, childlike awe of God, godly sorrow for sins, and a hunger and thirst for righteousness.

Notice, by the way, that the Canons of Dort say that God’s children notice these fruits of election with spiritual joy in themselves. So that is different from desperately searching for signs of your election. There you have a sore point that separates us from many so‑called experiential Reformed people. Several of them (but not all!) believe that only those who are chosen from eternity belong to God’s covenant. If you want to dare to believe God’s promises, you must first be sure that you have been chosen. Something must have happened to you first. But that is not the case! Start with what God promises. Derive your boldness and reliance from it. And with joy discover the work of the Lord in your life. They are expressions of his electing love.

Besides, the Canons of Dort state rather soberly that personal assurance of election can vary from person to person. Your assurance can also go up and down. Your faith is not always equally strong, and you are not always full of childlike reverence toward God. Fortunately, the certainty about your personal election of eternity finds its deepest foundation in the Lord Jesus Christ himself. It is stated so beautifully in Ephesians 1: God has chosen us in Christ from before the foundation. In Christ! That is the same Christ whom we encounter in the promise of the gospel. When you belong to him, if you know yourself to be one with him in faith, then you may know yourself elected by God in him forever. That is what someone like Calvin (among others) has indicated as: Christ is the mirror of our election. We see our election reflected in Christ.

Personal assurance of one’s election is therefore not a matter of worrying and rooting in yourself, but of believing in the Lord Jesus as he is promised in the gospel. When I belong to him in faith, then I may know myself to be a chosen one. And I see that reflected in the fruits of the election, in what the Lord is accomplishing through the Holy Spirit in my heart and my life.

No Passivity←⤒🔗

When you go the way of the Bible in faith, and start where God begins: with his promise and your responsibility, then that also helps you against the danger of passivity. Something in the line of, I can sit down with my arms crossed, because everything is decided after all. Then you let yourself be guided again by a wrong view of the divine election, instead of dealing with it in faith that begins with the promise in order to get to God’s election.

It is by way of the gospel and the gospel preaching that the Holy Spirit reaches our hearts. In that way he connects us to Christ. Yet faith knows highs as well as lows. So use the means that God grants to support the faith (CoD I.16). In this way you are moved to travel the road of the covenant. Do not wait passively, but actively seek the help that God has in store for you.

No passivity. I draw attention to this purposely because we also confess the perseverance of the saints in the Canons of Dort. The work of grace that the Lord begins in his electing love in a person is also brought to completion by him. God keeps him who is born of God, born of incorruptible seed, to the end. That is a huge comfort for people who know themselves in their weakness. The Lord is faithful and strong, and he will complete his work for me!

That is again typically the language of faith: there is peace in God. That is altogether different from a reasoning such as: “Once you have been chosen, you will be fine. You no longer have to worry about it.” But the Canons show a different way (V.14): “Just as it has pleased God to begin this work of grace in us by the preaching of the gospel, so he maintains, continues, and perfects it by the hearing and reading of his Word, by meditation on it, by its exhortations, threats, and promises, and by the use of the sacraments.” In addition to the promises, there are also incentives to remain faithful, and warnings not to fall away. God continues to hold a person accountable. And it is along that way that he accomplishes perseverance through the Holy Spirit.

No, we do not receive all of this in a logical system. We also should not try to accomplish this. What the Bible says about election and rejection wants to be experienced in faith, in thankful wonder, and with respectful adoration. That is also part of it: a holy respect for God’s righteous judgment. That deepens your happiness and gratitude. And that brings you to praise him. Each chapter of the Canons of Dort, thus, ends with it: to this God alone, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, be honour and glory forever. Amen.