Four lessons we should learn about God when seeking to better understand divine election:
1. God’s will is irresistible (v. 19)
2. God is infinitely superior to human beings (v. 20a)
3. God, as Creator, has complete authority over His creatures (vv. 20b-21)
4. God always achieves high and holy purposes in the exercise of His will (vv. 22-24)
1689 London Confession of Faith:
“By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestinated, or foreordained to eternal life through Jesus Christ, to the praise of His glorious grace; others being left to act in their sin to their just condemnation, to the praise of His glorious justice.” – LBC (1689), Chapter 3, paragraph 3
R.C. Sproul on Election and Double Predestination:
“I am asked frequently whether I believe in double predestination. Here is where we face what I have to call “double or nothing”. If some of humanity is elect, then others are non-elect. The non-elect are those whom we call the reprobate…. …unless we are universalists there is no way to avoid the idea of a double aspect to divine predestination. Of course predestination is double. There is election and reprobation. We cannot avoid that fact with mental gymnastics. However, once we affirm double predestination, we have to ask what kind of double predestination we affirm. Even within the communion of Reformed theology there is ongoing debate about that very question. Most agree that predestination is double, the debate is over how to understand the double aspect.
One view, sometimes called hyper-Calvinism, teaches us a symmetrical view of predestination, or equal ultimacy. A symmetrical view of double predestination holds that in the case of the elect, God decreed their election from eternity and in the fullness of time intervenes in their lives and creates saving faith in their hearts by his grace. God invades the soul of the elect and quickens them from spiritual death to spiritual life and brings them to faith in Christ. In a symmetrical manner, the reprobate are doomed from eternity, and God in the fullness of time intrudes into their lives and creates fresh evil in their souls, ensuring their ultimate reprobation and damnation. This symmetrical view believes that God works grace by direct intrusion, and he works hardening by creating evil in the reprobate in an equal manner.
However, that is not the orthodox reformed doctrine of double predestination, and I do not hold to that symmetrical view, or equal ultimacy. I hold to a positive-negative view of double predestination. A positive-negative distinction in predestination is this: in the case of the elect, God positively intervenes in their lives to rescue them from their corrupt condition. The Holy Spirit changes their hearts of stone to hearts alive to the things of God. That is his positive intervention. In the case of the reprobate, God works negatively insofar as he passes over them. He leaves them to their own devices, but he does not intrude into their lives to create fresh evil. In the mass of fallen humanity, some received the saving grace of God; God intervenes to rescue them from their sinful condition. He passes over the remainder. Those of whom he passes over are not elect; They are reprobate. They are judged because of the evil already present in them.”
-R.C. Sproul, “Romans: An Expositional Commentary”p. 294
Donald Grey Barnhouse on the door in the cross:
‘Imagine that the cross has a door in it. All you are asked to do is to go through. On one side, the side facing you, there is written an invitation: “Whosoever will, may come.” You stand there with your sin upon you and wonder if you should enter or not. Finally you do, and as you do the burden of your sin drops away. You are safe and free. Joyfully you then turn around and see written on the backside of the cross, through which you have now entered, the words “Chosen in him before the foundation of the world.”’
Charles Spurgeon on “”whosoever will” and “chosen before the foundation of the world”:
“I see indelible marks both of predestination and free agency everywhere in God’s universe. Then why do you ask questions about your election when God says, “whosoever will”? It is foolish to stand and ask whether you are ordained to come when the invitation bids you come. Come, and you are ordained to come; stay away, and you deserve to perish. Yonder is the gate of the hospital for sick souls, and over it is written, “Whosoever will, let him come,” and you stand outside that house of mercy, and say, “I do not know whether I am ordained to enter.” There is the invitation, man! Why are you so mad? Would you talk like that at Guy’s or at Bartholomew’s Hospital? Would you say to the kind persons who picked you up in the street, and carried you to the hospital, “Oh, for goodness’ sake, do not take me in, I do not know whether I am ordained to go in or not”? You know the hospital was built for such as are sick and wounded, and when you are taken in you perceive that it was built for you. I do not know how you are to find whether you were ordained to enter the hospital or not, except by getting in; and I do not know how you are to find out your election to salvation, except by trusting Jesus Christ, who bids you trust, and promises that if you do so you shall be saved.”
-Taken from “A Sermon for the Most Miserable of Men” Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Volume 15 –
For further study on the topic of divine election:
The London Confession of Faith (1689) – Chapter Three
“Chosen For Life” – Sam Storms
“Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God” – J. I. Packer
“Redemption Accomplished and Applied” – John Murray