Election – Hearts Overflowing With Joy!

In this next to last entry on the practical, heart affecting applications of the truth of God’s sovereign electing grace, I would like to share with you once again an excerpt from my reading in the very excellent book: Living for God’s Glory: An Introduction to Calvinism, by Joel R. Beeke. In the first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism we are asked: “What is the chief end of man?”, to which we are given the succinct Biblical answer: “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever.” Joy in God is an essential part of what it means to glorify Him. And glorifying Him is our primary purpose for existing at all. And God’s electing grace in salvation is meant to elicit overflowing joy in response to this great sovereign, saving God. Here’s the way Living for God’s Glory puts it:

J.I. Packer calls the joy election brings to believers their "family secret." Believers have a joyful security that is incomprehensible to the world. For true believers, John Piper says, election is not "a doctrine to be argued about, but a doctrine to be enjoyed. It’s not designed for disputes; it’s designed for missions. It’s not meant to divide people (though it will); it’s meant to make them compassionate, kind, humble, meek, and forgiving," and to fill them with joy (Eph. 1:3-14).

Election glorifies God (Eph. 1:6,12). "The end of our election is that we might show forth the glory of God in every way," Calvin says. According to the Canons of Dort, the final glorification of the elect is for the demonstration of God’s mercy and for the praise of His glorious grace (I, 7). Election makes us praise God for our salvation. As Sinclair Ferguson writes, "Until we have come to the place where we can sing about election with a full heart, we have not grasped the spirit of the New Testament teaching." [italics mine] Election assures us that God is the seeker rather than the sought; thus, all the praise belongs to Him. As C.S. Lewis says: "Amiable agnostics will talk cheerfully about man’s search for God. For me, they might as well talk about the mouse’s search for a cat... God closed in on me." As Josiah Conder wrote in 1836:

"Tis not that I did choose thee, for, Lord, that could not be;
This heart would still refuse thee, hadst thou not chosen me.

Thou from the sin that stained me hast cleansed and set me free;
Of old thou hast ordained me, that I should live to thee.

Twas sov’reign mercy called me and taught my op’ning mind;
The world had else enthralled me, to heav’nly glories blind.
My own heart owns none before thee, for thy rich grace I thirst;
This knowing, if I love thee, thou must have loved me first."

Election is the Bible’s teaching, not man’s. It promotes humility, not pride; encouragement, not depression; confidence in evangelism, not paralyzing fear; holiness, not license; assurance, not presumption; God’s glory, not our own. Oh, that election would make us cry out with the apostle Paul, "For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever" (Rom. 11:36). (pgs. 71-72)

Have we come to the place where we can sing about election with a full heart, grasping the spirit of the New Testament teaching? The Bible must be our guide here, and we must bring our thinking and our affections under it’s authority as God’s very word. As we reflect on these things, may we do so in preparation for corporate worship tomorrow, and so come into God’s awesome presence with hearts overflowing with joy for His totally undeserved sovereign mercy toward us--chosen in Christ before the worlds began!