Part II Can You Know You're Among the Elect?

The previous step, Part I, established that your desire to explore the things of God is a sign that you may be one of God’s elect, that you have “ears to hear and eyes to see” (Matthew 13:10-17. Note: I Peter 1:10-12; I Corinthians 1:18-2:16). That desire to understand is a gift from God, and everyone has the seeds of that desire (Matthew 13:18-19 Note: Romans 2:12-16; II Corinthians 3:3:1-18 key verse 3).

That appears to be part of what it means to have been made in God’s image (Genesis 1:26). Just as God has a Creation, the entire universe, so each man and woman has a creation, their entire lives. Just as God has complete authority and responsibility over the entire Creation, so God has given each man and woman complete authority over their entire lives.

Listen to how Christ explains the Parable of the Sower: The man’s understanding is the operative force concerning his or her salvation (Matthew 13:19). God has given each man and woman the ability to understand the message of the kingdom of God, but when a person chooses not to understand it, that decision enables the evil one to snatch away the seed of their desire to understand. Not only does this passage suggest that each person plays a pivotal role in his or her own salvation, accepting or rejecting the message of the kingdom, but it also confirms the objective existence of our enemy, the evil one.

We first see him (Satan, the devil) in Genesis 3:1-5 along with God’s prophesy concerning Christ and the devil’s ultimate disposition (Genesis 3:14-15).

Ephesians 6:10-18 more directly explains our present circumstances: Our struggle in this life is not against physical forces. It is against “spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Spiritual forces not only concern the marketplace of ideas, which ideas we accept and which ones we don’t, the moral battles now going on in our culture; but it also concerns the power of spiritual beings (angels and demons) whom the Bible says exist in those realms and can exert an influence over us.

It is difficult for those of us whose only experience is living in this physical world to have a good understanding of the spiritual realms because our experience doesn’t easily embrace them.

Think of spirit as thoughts. Like spirit, our thoughts are without physical substance. While they require the existence and operation of our brains, the minute electrical impulses that carry our thoughts are not the thoughts themselves. Those charges are driven by the thoughts that originate in our minds, at the center of our very being.

This life appears to be the battlefield for a war to capture your thoughts because everything you do proceeds first from them. The devil wants you to think like him, like the world teaches, because for the time being God allows Satan an influence here (II Corinthians 2:4; Hebrews 2:8-9; James 4:4-7). But Christ wants you to think like him (I Corinthians 2:10a-16 Note: Romans 12:1-2). He offers us the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6; John 3:16-21).

Notice how Christ combated the devil (Matthew 4:1-11). He quoted the Word (“it is written”) in response to the devil’s suggestions. This is an example of the role of the Word of God as the sword of the Spirit (Ephesians 6:17). Notice that the devil is also familiar with God’s Word. One of his favorite ploys is to distort what it says (Genesis 3:3-5) and counterfeit what it produces.

So, here we are, living in a world of ideas, God’s ideas (truth) competing against the devil’s ideas (falsehoods) with our salvations hanging in the balance. God has endowed us with sovereignty over our day-to-day lives. He has given each of us the ability to understand and choose his ideas along with the freedom to reject them (Note: Romans 1:18-32). I suspect that that’s what this life is all about, The Choice, understanding God’s call to us and our reaction to it.

Consider the rest of Christ’s explanation of the Parable of the Sower. Notice how the results play out in the future events of the person’s life. Next time we’ll expand on the parable and discuss the nature of salvation and the womb of this life.

NOTE: Genesis 2:4-3:24 is an interesting story, but is that what actually happened? Do those two chapters actually reflect real events as historical as, say, World War II or the deaths of your great, great grandparents? I think the best way to answer that is to see how the later biblical characters saw those events. Paul refers to Christ as the first Adam and Christ deals with the devil. While the Bible roots itself in the literal events of human history, the first events in Genesis sure sound like fairytales. Whatever happened then in fact, the Bible clearly wants us to receive as literal events. Wrapped within those trappings are the fundamental truths God wants us to embrace to better comprehend what’s now going on in the world and in our lives.

Part I - Can You Know You're Among the Elect?

Keep in mind that no one verse of Scripture necessarily carries the total truth about any issue. The truth is found in how all the information asserted by the pertinent passages come together to produce a complete, non conflicting picture. You’ll find the truth there.

When I cite a passage, look it up and read it. Then consider my remarks.

Ephesians 1:3-14 key verses 4-5 say that before the creation of the world, God chose those who would be saved and he predestined them to be adopted as sons (saved).

As a result, some theologians conclude that God, by his authority as Creator, has chosen some of us to be saved and some of us not to be saved. The Big Question is this: who among us are included among the saved (the elect) and who are left to be among the others? More pointedly, did God overtly choose you (or me) to go to hell?

That’s a serious question for any thinking person, and that passage from Ephesians clearly seems to support that one’s salvation is entirely up to God; but here’s another passage to consider, Romans 8:28-30.

Except for one element, the same event before the beginning of time appears to be in view. The exception is the phrase, ”FOR THOSE GOD FOREKNEW he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son” (v29a).

That passage suggests that God’s sovereign choice was tempered by his foreknowledge of who would respond to his salvation message and who would not. It was not God overtly choosing without regard to other input, which he clearly had the power to do, but he was responding to the choices he knew would be made by men and women throughout the ages. In other words, the operative force in any individual’s salvation is not God alone but the mix of God’s offer and the person’s response.

God freely extends his offer of salvation, made possible by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross, through various means (the church, Christian radio and TV, believing friends, etc.); and he has blessed each person with the right to accept or refuse it (Matthew 13:19 Note: Romans 1:18-32). That opportunity for choice, I suspect, is the reason why God made this world rather than some other.

So, what does that mean for people today who are seeking God or trying to find out what’s going on in this world? We find the answer in Matthew 13:10-23. It explains why Christ taught in parables and Christ’s explanation of the Parable of the Sower.

Christ explains that he spoke in parables so that those with “ears to hear and eyes to see” would understand the secrets of the kingdom and those without “ears to hear” would not. The operative force is a person’s “ears to hear and eyes to see.” In other words, if the things of God interest you, and you’re willing to entertain that interest, God promises to respond (Matthew 7:7-12; James 4:7-8a).

Your genuine desire to explore the things of God is a sign that you have ears to hear and eyes to see. That is also a sign that suggests you might be one of God’s elect, God’s chosen.

More to come in Part II - Can You Know You’re Among the Elect?

Our goal at The Internet Church is to help you entertain your interest in godly things in an even-handed, intellectually honest way.