The Elephant in the Room: Corporate-Vocational Election
Sermon 4 in series: Ephesians - Live Like You Really Are
Chuck Sligh
February 5, 2012
TEXT: Ephesians 1:4-5 – “According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: 5 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will.”
POWERPOINT: There is a PowerPoint presentation for this sermon available by requesting it from me at chucksligh@hotmail.com.
NOTE: This sermon is somewhat technical and was difficult for those in my congregation who were young believers or relatively untutored in theology. I received the most positive comments I ever received on any single sermon I have preached…and also the most negative I ever received on a single sermon. The positives all came from those familiar with election and had grappled with its implications as taught by the two major systems of thought on election; and the negatives all came from those who were new to the subject.
INTRODUCTION
Today we’re going to dive deep into the waters of theology. Over the next 2-3 weeks we’ll exegete Ephesians 1:3-14, but before we do that, we have to deal with “the elephant in the room.”
“The elephant in the room” refers to an obvious problem no one wants to discuss. The elephant in the room in our text is the issue of election and predestination.
As we deal with the elephant in the room in Ephesians, let me say a few things at the outset:
• If you’re a visitor this morning, let me say that this is a very technical sermon, and unlike ANY other sermon I have preached in a Sunday morning sermon. – So please come back again when you will hear a normal sermon of exhortation or edification.
• Second, if you’re a new believer who has never heard of these things before, don’t be alarmed. – These are deep issues that you may find complex and disconcerting, but which you can grapple with later in your Christian life.
• Finally, if you already have definite views on these issues, understand that I’m not attacking you this morning. Election is a thorny issue in the Bible and there are good, godly, Bible-believing men and women who hold all the major views on election. I’ll explain rather forcefully why I reject BOTH of the main views—Calvinism and Arminianism and why I now believe in what is known as “Corporate-Vocational Election.” If at the end of this sermon we still don’t agree, that’s perfectly fine. My only request is that you listen with an open mind as I present my case.
First, we need a little history lesson:
For several hundred years before the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s, Roman Catholicism had devolved into a works-based religion wherein salvation was largely dependent on man, with some enablement from God. When the Reformation occurred in the 1500s, the Reformers reversed the equation to the idea that man had no role in receiving salvation, but that God did everything.
There were many good things about the Reformation, but it was not really a return to biblical Christianity nor to the church in the first four centuries of its relative purity, but rather mainly a return to the teachings of a fifth-century church father named Augustine of Hippo, especially his views on election. Thus, the Reformers retained several unbiblical practices and beliefs, such as the state church, the right to persecute and put to death those who disagreed with them, the practice of infant baptism, and inaccurate views on communion.
Baptists, I might add, were never a part of the Protestant Reformation. Various baptistic groups by many names existed apart from the Catholic church beginning in the fifth century in pockets all over Europe, eventually being stamped out one by one out as heretical by the Catholic Church, and later by Protestants also, only to pop up somewhere else—kind of like the Whack-a-Mole game. For a couple of informative histories of these faithful baptistic groups that existed alongside the Catholic Church long before and during the Reformation, I recommend reading The Pilgrim Church by E.H. Broadbent or The Baptists, by Jack Hoad.
Getting back to the Reformation, one of the most important of the reformers was a man named John Calvin whose book, Institutes of Religion—a thorough systematization of Augustinian views on election—was so influential that today Augustine’s views on election are not know as Augustinianism, but Calvinism. As Calvinism spread, a man by the name of Jacobus Arminius challenged Calvinism, and his views became known as Arminianism—and for the past 450 years Calvinists and Arminians have been duking it out, producing a lot of heat, but very little light.
Let’s look first at what these two systems of theology teach and then we’ll examine what I believe the Bible teaches.
I. CALVINISM VERSUS ARMINIANISM
My comments about these two systems will be extremely brief and will not do justice to either position, but I offer them as a reference point for the rest of my sermon. The two positions can be summed up by the following chart:
[THIS IS A TABLE CHART IN MY NOTES WITH 2 POINTS OF VIEW LISTED SIDE-BY-SIDE]
The 5 Points of Calvinism (TULIP) The 5 Points of Arminianism
1. Total Depravity (or Inability)
Man is totally depraved, unable even to believe or repent (i.e., he essentially has no genuine free will). God must initiate the work of faith.
1. Free Will
Man is a sinner who has the free will to cooperate with God’s Spirit and be born again, or resist God’s grace and perish.
2. Unconditional Election
God’s election is based upon His sovereignty. His election is His own decision, and is not based on the foreseen response of anyone’s faith and repentance.
2. Conditional Election
God’s election is based upon His foreknowledge. He chooses those He knew would of their own free will respond to the Gospel and choose Christ.
3. Limited Atonement
When Christ died on the cross, He shed His blood only for those who have been elected to be saved and not for the whole world.
3. Unlimited Atonement
When Christ died on the cross, He shed His blood for everyone. He paid a provisional price for all but guaranteed it for none.
4. Irresistible Grace
Grace is extended only to the elect. The internal call by God’s grace cannot be resisted and always results in conversion. Grace is not extended to the non-elect.
4. Resistible Grace
Saving grace can be resisted because God won’t overrule man’s free will. Man is born again when he believes in Jesus Christ and receives God’s grace.
5. Perseverance of the Saints
God preserves the elect so they persevere to the end, so no chosen person will ever be lost.
5. Falling from Grace
Those who are truly saved can lose their salvation by falling away from the faith. (Not all Arminians agree on this and believe in eternal security of believers.)
We could spend weeks discussing the basic differences between the two systems, but let me make a couple of observations:
• First, the two systems approach salvation from opposite poles, but they are alike in one very important feature: They both hold that election and predestination have to do with God’s choice of particular individual sinners to salvation.
• Second, both systems amass impressive and convincing scriptural support for their respective views,…but also, both have serious logical fallacies, self-contradictions and a need to explain away verses that don’t fit within their system.
This scripture-filtering and the presence of so many disturbing self-contradictions and logical fallacies caused me to go through an obsessive 25-year investigation of the doctrine of election and led me from my former acceptance of Calvinism to where eventually I came to reject both views. To get to that point, I’ve read in their entirety at least 30 books from all viewpoints on election (there are actually 4 major ones), and referenced scores of commentaries on every significant passage on election in the Bible. One thing that became clear is that both sides of the debate approach the Word of God with a theological sieve through which they interpret verses on election, and if certain verses don’t fit in the grid, they’re explained away, sometimes by very fanciful and novel explanations that defy belief!
[PAUSE] But what if one were to examine the Bible as a WHOLE, and look at the vast, overall sweep of the Bible regarding election and the many words dealing with election instead of cherry-picking verses to fit within a particular system? And if you discarded either side’s fundamental presuppositions (that is, their filter) and just tried to discern what the BIBLE said, what would you find?
If you did that, as many others have done, you would be stunned to find that the entire structure of both schemes is built on faulty foundations.
II. LET’S NOW EXAMINE AN ALTERNATIVE VIEW: CORPORATE-VOCATIONAL ELECTION.
By corporate-vocational, we mean that election in the Bible is largely about a people of God and their God-given tasks and blessings. If you inspect closely how the scriptures talk about election throughout the Bible without any special theological glasses to filter what you see, you will discover the following:
A. First, God elected or chose JESUS CHRIST so that He is “THE chosen one”:
• In a prophecy of the coming Messiah, God says in Isaiah 42:1 – “Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.”
• Later, in verse 6, God says, “I the LORD have called thee [that is, Messiah] in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles.
The New Testament writers quote this verse or allude to Christ’s special status as “the chosen one” or “God’s elect One” several times in the New Testament:
• Matthew 12:17-18 – “That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, 18 Behold my servant, whom I have chosen; my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased: I will put my spirit upon him, and he shall shew judgment to the Gentiles.”
• 1 Peter 2:4 says of Jesus: “To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious.”
• And 1 Peter 2:6 says, “Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded.”
• Jesus as God’s “chosen one” was known even by His enemies, for at His crucifixion Luke 23:35 says, “And the people stood beholding. And the rulers also with them derided him, saying, He saved others; let him save himself, if he be Christ, the chosen of God.”
• We’ll not have time to explore it in detail, but when God the Father says about Jesus both at His baptism and at His transfiguration, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased,” scholars recognize the term beloved to be a synonym of chosen based on how it is used in messianic scriptures in the Old Testament.
• In addition to these are many scriptures that talk of Jesus as being “appointed” to His mission and role as the suffering Savior and later as the resurrected Lord.
Now note a couple of things about the use of elective terminology concerning Jesus:
• First, the election of Jesus had nothing to do with choosing Him to salvation since He was perfect, and did not need to be saved.
• Second, His choosing was for service, and to a purpose, a role, and ultimately a destiny of honor and privilege.
So the touchstone of election in the Bible is Jesus Christ, God’s “elect one.”
B. The second use of elective terminology concerns the election of certain GROUPS for selective service and privilege for the Lord.
• God chose the priesthood and the Levites as groups for SERVICE in the Temple.
• In 1 Timothy 5:21, Paul speaks of, “the elect angels,” which refers to certain angels chosen for special stations or duties by God. – We know that there are ranks among angels, with certain ones who are prominent and others of lesser rank.
In all these instances—the priesthood, Levites, angels—God’s election of them has nothing to do with personal salvation, but service and privilege.
C. The third usage of elective terminology is God’s choice of THE NATION OF ISRAEL.
God’s choice of Israel as a chosen people group has been one of the greatest shaping forces in world history. The scriptures that show that God sovereignly chose Israel as His chosen people are so numerous that we need not belabor the point here.
But the thing to see is that God’s choosing of Israel was NOT TO SALVATION. In fact, most of Romans 11 was written to explain to the Jews that because they were Jews by birth, it did not guarantee that they would be saved. ALL people born Jews were COLLECTIVELY God’s chosen people, but each one had to come to God individually for personal salvation. Significantly, there is not a SINGLE scripture in the Bible that speaks of particular, individual Jews being elected, or chosen to eternal salvation.
So what was the election of Israel for, if not to salvation? God chose the Jews for a purpose, for a role, for a destiny to carry out God’s will in this world. That role was to provide the line through which the Messiah would come, to be the people through whom He would give us His Word, and to be the conduit to bless all nations with God’s glory and reign through Christ.
Now so far, we have seen that 1) the overall sweep of election has nothing to do with choosing anyone to eternal salvation, but is mostly corporate (that is, dealing with groups rather than individuals), and 2) it has to do with choosing those groups for certain purposes and to service and to certain privileges.
D. Fourth, when elective terminology is used of particular INDIVIDUALS, it has to do with choosing them to service and privilege—not to eternal salvation.
1) There are too many instances of this in the OLD Testament to cover in detail today. Examples that immediately come to mind are God’s choosing Abraham (Neh. 9:7); Jacob (Ps. 135:4); Moses (Num. 16:5); David (1 Sam. 13:13-14); and individual prophets (for example, Jeremiah in 1:4-8 and Amos in 7:14-5). But here’s the point: Election terminology concerning individuals in the Old Testament NEVER has to do with personal salvation, but ALWAYS has to do with choosing for service and privilege.
2) In the NEW Testament, some verses CAN be interpreted as referring to individual election, but even here the main usage of elective terminology about particular individuals has to do with service and/or privilege, not salvation.
• So Jesus chose THE APOSTLES—not to eternal salvation—but to be His representatives to take the Gospel to the world when He ascended to heaven.
• He chose PAUL—not to be saved—but to be the Apostle to the Gentiles.
• I could cite many other examples as well.
IV. The final and most important usage of elective terminology concerns THE CHURCH.
Now as we’ve seen, the Old Testament is silent about election of particular persons to salvation but speaks of God choosing corporate GROUPS for His special purposes, and when INDIVIDUALS are chosen, they’re elected to particular service and privilege.
Ephesians 1 is considered the key to understanding election in the New Testament. In the text we began with this morning Paul says in verses 3-4 – “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: 4 According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.”
The key to this whole subject of election of God’s people is in the words, “chosen in Him” (that is, “in Christ”). We are not chosen TO BE in Him, but we are chosen IN HIM.
Ephesians 1 literally drips with this concept of our election IN CHRIST. Take a pen and circle in your Bibles the words “in Christ Jesus” in verse 1; “in Christ” in verse 3; “chosen in him” in verse 4; “in the beloved” in verse 6; “In whom” in verse 7; “in himself” in verse 9; in verse 10, circle the words “in Christ” and “in him”; “In whom” in verse 11 and again in verse 13 two times; “in Christ” in verse 20.
What do all these references tell us? Paul is not here teaching about election of INDIVIDUALS to salvation, but rather to the election of a people—the church, or the body of Christ—who are “in Christ” to particular duties and purposes and privileges.
When we understand that Christ is God’s elect, His chosen one, His beloved, you have the key to understanding our own election.
CHRIST is the chosen of God, and we are chosen IN HIM (verse 4).
CHRIST is the beloved of God, and we are accepted “in the beloved” (verse 6).
In their book, God’s Strategy in Human History, R.T. Forster and V.P. Marston state regarding Ephesians 1, “We are chosen in Christ. This does not mean that we were chosen to be put into Christ. It does not mean that God chose to make us repent but left others unrepentant! It means that as we repented and were born again into the body of Christ, we partake of his chosenness. He is chosen and we are chosen in him. This was, of course, planned by God in his foreknowledge even before the world began.” [R.T. Forster and V.P. Marston, God’s Strategy in Human History (Highland Books, GB, 1989), p. 97.]
In his outstanding book, Election and Predestination, Samuel Fisk writes, “Predestination and election do not refer to certain people of the world becoming saved or lost, but they relate to those who are already children of God in respect to certain privileges or positions out ahead; they look forward to what God will work in those who have become his sons.” [Samuel Fisk, Election and Predestination (Penfold Books and Bible House, Oxford, 1997), p. 37.]
Thus the believer is elect, not because he was personally picked out by God to be saved as opposed to the reprobate who were not chosen; but rather, when a believer places his faith in Jesus Christ for salvation, he becomes one of “the elect.”
Once the scales of a particular theological system fall from your eyes, this becomes easily identifiable in the main texts that deal with election and predestination.
Suddenly, whereas you never noticed it before, when Paul says in Ephesians 1:4 that we are “chosen in Christ”, you realize that we’re not chosen TO BE SAVED, but rather that as believers partaking in all Christ’s blessings in heavenly places, we’re chosen to a destiny, namely that “in Christ” we’re “holy and without blame before him in love,” meaning that God ordained that as believers, we would share in Christ’s perfect holiness whereby God sees us through Christ’s righteousness, and not our own sins. – This is election to PRIVILEGE, not to salvation.
When you read the next verse that starts, “Having predestined us,” you suddenly notice that verse 5 doesn’t say that God predestinated us to be saved, but rather to a certain privilege: “the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself.” – We’ll see next week the wonderful truth this conveys.
When you come to verse 11 where Paul again says that God predestinated us, it suddenly hits you that he doesn’t say that it was to salvation, but rather to a TASK, namely, verse 12 says it is to “be to the praise of God’s glory.”
If one understands Bible election as first corporate and second vocational, that is, for service and privilege, it changes the focus of many debates about election.
William Klein puts it this way, “The debates often center on the issue by asking: Has God chosen specific individuals to save, and if so, was it on the basis of foreseen faith or simply a matter of God’s sovereign will? We have concluded that this question does not trouble the biblical writers. God has chosen to save a people, and in New Testament language that people is the church. In the old covenant, a person entered the chosen nation of Israel through natural birth. In the new covenant a person enters the chosen body, the church, through the new birth. To exercise faith in Christ is to enter into his body and become one of the ‘chosen ones.’” [William W. Klein, The New Chosen People: A Corporate View of Election (Wipf and Stock Publishers: Eugene, OR), pp. 265-266.]
Thus, there are no quibbles about whether man has free will or if God is sovereign.
God has SOVEREIGNLY CHOSEN that sinners be saved by His grace, and that faith is the means by which they enter into a relationship with God and become “in Christ” and thus, a part of the body of Christ.
THAT is the teaching of Romans 11.
And when a person exercises his FREE WILL to enter into God’s sovereign plan, he becomes one of God’s elect because he is “in Christ.”
With corporate-vocational election, one does not have to go to elaborate lengths to explain the obvious contradiction of why a God who “is love” according to 1 John 4:8 & 16) can create billions of people and doom them forever to an eternity in hell.
One does not have to worry if he is one of the ones chosen by God, nor does he have to find assurance in his works, as both Calvinism and Arminianism teach. – Rather, he can rest in knowing he is “in Christ” because of his faith in Christ, and can then concentrate on his calling to be holy and to serve God out of thankfulness and joy rather than fear.
That’s not to say that there aren’t some difficulties with corporate-vocational of election, but it seems to have the least conflicts with the obvious teachings of Scripture about salvation and the nature of God and His interactions with man.
CONCLUSION
That is a simplified presentation of what I believe the Bible teaches on election and predestination. What does any of this have to do with you and me?
• Well, first of all, if you have not turned from sin and trusted in Christ to save you, you will have no excuse at the Judgment. You will not be able to say at the judgment, “I was not chosen to be saved.” You will have to admit that you chose freely to spurn the free gift of God’s salvation. Come to Christ this morning and be saved.
• Second, as we advance through the book of Ephesians, we will see how God has chosen that those in His body who are in Christ will share in His manifold blessings and have important responsibilities and purposes in our lives. Allow yourself to be challenged to live for God and fulfill your calling and destiny in Christ. Live who you really are, not what Satan has convinced you you are. Forsake all sin and faithfully serve the Lord Jesus Christ.
Suggested Reading on Corporate-Vocational Election:
1. Exhaustive for those more theologically inclined: The New Chosen People: A Corporate View of Election, by William W. Klein (Wipf and Stock Publishers: Eugene, OR, 2015).
2. More for the layman: The Faith of God’s Elect, by John F. Parkinson (Gospel Tract Publications, Glasgow, Scotland, 1999)
