What Is Unconditional Election?

Author:

James R. White and George Bryson

Article ID:

DD802-1

Updated: 

Jul 31, 2022

Published:

Apr 16, 2009

The following is an excerpt from article DD802-1 from the Christian Research Journal. The full article can be read by following the link below the excerpt.


UNCONDITIONAL ELECTION DEFINED

The 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith3 states:

God’s decree is not based upon His foreknowledge that, under certain conditions, certain happenings will take place, but is independent of all such foreknowledge.

By His decree, and for the manifestation of His glory, God has predestinated (or foreordained) certain men and angels to eternal life through Jesus Christ, thus revealing His grace. Others, whom He has left to perish in their sins, show the terror of His justice.

The angels and men who are the subjects of God’s predestination are clearly and irreversibly designated, and their number is unalterably fixed.

Before the world was made, God’s eternal, immutable purpose, which originated in the secret counsel and good pleasure of His will, moved Him to choose (or to elect), in Christ, certain of mankind to everlasting glory. Out of His mere free grace and love He predestined these chosen ones to life, although there was nothing in them to cause Him to choose them.

Not only has God appointed the elect to glory in accordance with the eternal and free purpose of His will, but He has also foreordained the means by which His purpose will be effected. Since His elect are children of Adam and therefore among those ruined by Adam’s fall into sin, He willed that they should be redeemed by Christ, and effectually called to faith in Christ. Further-more, by the working of His Spirit in due season they are justified, adopted, sanctified, and “kept by His power through faith unto salvation.” None but the elect partake of any of these great benefits.

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