Calvin’s TULIP Part III: Unconditional Election

This is the third in the series on Calvin’s Tulip.  Last time we looked at the idea of Total Hereditary Depravity and compared it to what God’s Word says.  Now we consider the doctrine of Unconditional Election or, as it is commonly known, predestination.  Unconditional Election holds that God chooses who he will save without condition.  Nothing that a person can do can affect this choice.  As I have already stated, this is also known as Predestination.  Let’s see what the Bible says (all emphasis mine, MDJ):

• Acts 10:34-35  Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons:  35  But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.
• Deuteronomy 10:17  For the LORD your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward…
• Job 34:19  How much less to him that accepteth not the persons of princes, nor regardeth the rich more than the poor? for they all are the work of his hands.
• Romans 2:11  For there is no respect of persons with God.
• Colossians 3:25  But he that doeth wrong shall receive for the wrong which he hath done: and there is no respect of persons.
• Hebrews 11:6  But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
• 2 Peter 3:9  The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

The Bible does speak of predestination, but only in the sense that we are predestined to be saved in Christ Jesus, and not in any other.  In other words, God predestined a plan by which men would be saved, but not which men would be saved, for “God is no respecter of persons.”

Until next time, let me encourage you to search the scriptures daily, whether these things are so. Acts 17:11

Copyright 2009 Mance J. Davis Jr.