Article 8: A Single Decision of Election

This election is not of many kinds; it is one and the same election for all who were to be saved in the Old and the New Testament. For Scripture declares that there is a single good pleasure, purpose, and plan of God’s will, by which he chose us from eternity both to grace and to glory, both to salvation and to the way of salvation, which he prepared in advance for us to walk in.

_______________________________

Scripture teaches us that election is based upon God’s eternal counsel and purpose, and is a mystery to us unless revealed by God in his word or through the passage of time, when that which God has decreed in eternity past comes to fruition in human history (cf. Ephesians 1:3-14). The previous articles have pointed out that election is not based upon anything God foresees in the creature. He sovereignly decrees what comes to pass, and does not merely react to what his creatures may or may not do.

In Article Eight, we now learn that God’s decree is one. God does not have multiple wills or purposes, as for example, when our Lutheran friends contend that God has an antecedent (prior) will to save all men and women, and a consequent (subsequent) will to save those who believe and do not resist grace (i.e., the elect). This may be a sincere attempt to solve the problem of reprobation (God not choosing some to be saved, thereby rendering them objects of his wrath), but ends up creating another unnecessary problem–two apparently contradictory wills within God. These two wills include God’s will to save all, and his subsequent will to save the elect, only because his prior will (the salvation of all), cannot be realized.

To read the rest, follow the link below

Read More