The Highway Forums General Discussion Devotional Quotes Election

"Moreover, the topic of election is nearly always introduced for a practical purpose, in order to foster assurance (not presumption); holiness (not moral apathy); humility (not pride); and witness (not lazy selfishness)...Similarly in 1 Thessalonians 1:4 Paul unites the love of God and the election of God. That is, He chose us because He loves us, and He love us because He loves us. He does not love us because we are lovable, but only because He is love. And with that mystery we must be content." John Stott

"Many people want to know their election before they look to Christ. But they cannot learn it thus; it is only to be discovered by “looking unto Jesus.” Look to Jesus, believe on Him, and you shall make proof of your election directly, for as surely as you believe, you are elect. If you will give yourself wholly up to Christ and trust Him, then you are one of God’s chosen ones. Go to Jesus just as you are. Go straight to Christ, hide in His wounds, and you shall know your election… Christ was at the everlasting council. He can tell you whether you were chosen or not, but you cannot find out in any other way. Go and put your trust in Him. There will be no doubt about His having chosen you, when you have chosen Him." C.H. Spurgeon

"The marvel of marvels is not that God, in His infinite love, has not elected all this guilty race to be saved, but that He has elected any." - B.B. Warfield

It might be replied, that it is superfluous that Paul should endure for the elect.' Cannot God save those whom he elected and adopted before the creation of the world, without the assistance of men? Has the immutable decree of God any need of human help, or of creatures? Why then does Paul say that he endures on account of the elect?' Now, it is true that God will conduct his people to the inheritance which is prepared for them but yet he is pleased to make use of the labor of men. Not that he is under a necessity of borrowing anything from us, but he confers on us this honor by his undeserved goodness, and wishes that we should be instruments of his power. Thus Paul does not boast that the salvation of the children of God depends on his steadfastness or on the afflictions which he had to endure; but he only means that God wishes to conduct his people by means of the word, and that he employs men whom he has chosen for that purpose, as for his own work, and makes them instruments of the power of his Holy Spirit.

~John Calvin

The elect are gathered into Christ’s flock by a call not immediately at birth, and not all at the same time, but according as it pleases God to dispense his grace to them. But before they are gathered unto that supreme Shepherd, they wander scattered in the wilderness common to all; and they do not differ at all from others except that they are protected by God’s especial mercy from rushing headlong into the final ruin of death. If you look upon them, you will see Adam’s offspring, who savor of the common corruption of the mass. The fact that they are not carried to utter and even desperate impiety is not due to any innate goodness of theirs but because the eye of God watches over their safety and his hand is outstretched to them!

~ John Calvin, The Inst. vol. II

"It is not indeed, then, because men are sinners that men are left unelected; election is free, and its obverse of rejection must be equally free: but it is solely because men are sinners that what they are left to is destruction. And it is in this universalism of ruin rather than in a universalism of salvation that St. Paul really roots his theodicy. When all deserve death it is a marvel of pure grace that any receive life; and who shall gain say the right of Him who shows this miraculous mercy, to have mercy on whom He will, and whom He will to harden?" —B.B. Warfield, Predestination, A Dictionary of the Bible