ELECTION AND PREDESTINATION ACCORDING
TO THE BIBLE
Wayne Jupp - Pastor of Victory Baptist Church, Peterborough Ontario
The Doctrines of Election and Predestination exalt the glory of God in salvation because they clarify the complete relative insignificance of a sinful man’s role in his own salvation proclaiming that the redemptive act is in its totality an act of God.
Imagine a man was dying of a virus wandering aimlessly trying just to get by the best he could until the virus had its way with him, finally killing him. Now imagine that a medical doctor has an inoculation that he has prepared and paid for and even now has brought it to the diseased man.
The man with the viral disease says at to the doctor I don’t need your inoculation I am doing fine the way I am. And week after week as the doctor sees the infected man he pleads with him, and tries to persuade him and convince him that he just wants to save him. The doctor says believe me and just trust me. I want to save your life. One day when things are not going well for the diseased man, this man whose very thinking and powers of reason have been affected by the disease, hears again the invitation of the doctor to save him. He decides yes I will trust this doctor it seems he is right, I am going to die from my disease. I’ll receive the inoculation and he does and is saved.
Both the doctor and the diseased man made a choice. Whose choice was the important one?
The change in the diseased man’s destiny was it based upon the repentance of the diseased man? Or was the destiny affected by this Great Physician who knew there was a man who needed His healing and prepared for that healing, provided for that healing and then took the cure to him and explained it to him and convinced him that he needed to take the inoculation? Whose role was significant in changing this man’s destiny? Whose role was insignificant? He would have rejected the healing if he was not so convinced. He would never have known what he needed and where to begin to look for it.
You see salvation is God’s plan. God’s Choice and completely to God’s glory.
FORWARD
(this article is comprised of a selected illustration from a much longer and in-depth Bible study - for the whole study please contact the author - Brother Wayne Jupp at [email protected])