God's Election

GLENN EWING

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ELECTION completely fills the Bible, expounding this truth in both precept and practice, God's election is simply the divine election of His Will, even though He has given man his own sovereign choice of will. 
In His divine Council, before time, God through His perfect foreknowledge, chose His plan as a pattern for the ages, choosing each subsequent creation and sealing it with His Covenant Word. 
Having created the vast dimensions of time, space and matter, he also created an angelic army to serve him. Then, He chose or chose to test their love, faith, and obedience to His Word and tested them with “pride.” Ezekiel 28: verse 14 to 17. 

Among the third part that fell from its high position, was Lucifer, its head, and God chose him to test his coming creation, man. The greatest love of God and His divine order, in dealing with the race of Adam, is seen in His foreknowledge, election, and predestination.
Let's look at some of these scriptures. In Ephesians 1: verse 11 we read “…having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.” We read the purpose of God's plan for the human race, in Genesis 1: verse 26, where it reads, in his pact with the pre-race: “LET US MAKE man in our image, according to our likeness; and have dominion…over every animal that crawls on the earth.” God made Adam sinless and like a priest in the paradise of Eden, he had dominion over all creation on earth.
How he must have rejoiced when he saw and read God's choice for man in the sixty constellations of the solar and lunar Zodiac? Little did he know that the story of redemption in God's election of grace would involve him. The angelic creation had been tested with “pride,” however, Adam and Eve were tested with “knowledge,” and when they reasoned from the pure Word of God, sin entered in, and the pure faith of the Word of God was killed in their hearts. hearts.

By asking ourselves: if we can simply understand the wonderful choice of the Almighty, we will try to answer it through four questions that if we answer them we will have the answer to the previous question.

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The FIRST QUESTION is, How was it possible for God to choose his complete plan and purpose even before the foundation of the world? He did it through divine foreknowledge, being able to see everything from beginning to end. We do this on a very small scale when we choose to build our new home. First we form it in our mind, then we put it on a plane and finally we bring it to fruition. God, foreknowing all things, knew that there would always be a remnant of believers faithful to Him, in every dispensation through whom He would minister His will in election. He foreknew each one, who of his own free will would choose his messianic savior, and wrote their names in the book of life before the foundation of the world. In Ephesians 1: verse 4 we read, “As he chose (chose) us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him in love.”

The SECOND QUESTION is How can God, in His sovereign will, expect to fulfill His divine purpose of bringing men and women to their highest calling, or state of maturity, when He has given each man and woman their sovereign choice or decision of willpower? In His foreknowledge He knew how Satan would fight through the sinful Adamic nature of man and through the law of sin in their lives, but He also knew “MAN.” He knew beforehand that in every period of human history there would be some who would surrender their will to Him instead of satan because the Lord would place wonderful promises before them. We see the same situation every day with people acting with a free privilege of choice, cooperating fully with different institutions that have their own sovereign rules of practice. We see it in our school system, at work and even in homes where parents have the choice or decision for behavior, just as children have theirs. Because of the rewards of good and evil, people are willing to cooperate with others superior to them.

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The THIRD QUESTION before us is

How could God, in his election, predetermine and predetermine, or predestinate individuals for certain coming events, in order to bring about his chosen word that had been previously spoken?

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Always through his perfect prescience of all people and their habits and actions in life. God, knowing man and satan, the tempter, knew and foresaw the civilizations that would rise and fall like the waves of the sea. God in his foreknowledge knew the time of spiritual decline in the human race, so he was able to choose in advance his time of judgment on people and nations. Since God knew the entire life of each man, He was able to choose the one He needed for that day, among those who would choose to serve Him fully. In his mercy our great Creator, through his chosen prophets, predicted each great period of judgment to warn his people and prepare for the wrath that would come. Through these fulfillments, God's election was proven and his foreknowledge was established. He saw and chose in advance Noah, Abraham and Moses, as key men in his days. 
In Ephesians 1: verse 11 we read of his predestined plan: “In him I say, in whom also we were fortunate, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.” Knowing the good or bad life that man would live, He chose as “vessels of wrath” certain bad men, who by their own choice would reject Him. One of them was the Pharaoh of Egypt at Passover time. The great Elohim, knowing the temptation and fall of man, also predetermined and chose the sevenfold redemption for man, through the sacrifice of his Only Begotten Messianic Son. “But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without spot and without defilement: Ordained (chosen) before the foundation of the world…” I Peter 1:19, 20. 

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We also see the apostles Paul and Peter fully understanding the foreknowledge and ordination before the foundation of the world in God's election, so the apostle Peter begins his first epistle with these words: “Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father…. ”. Therefore, God confused Satan by knowing and choosing his men, time, place and events in advance. God chose in advance the time, place and manner of Calvary, where Satan was dethroned and defeated for everyone who believed and chose Jesus Christ.

 

The Fourth Question before us is:

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How does God's predestination make his divine election stand?

 

God's predestination does not leave anyone out or interfere in any way with His sovereign election, but God does use those who freely offer themselves in His chosen plan. In the plan of the Almighty Elohim and His pattern for the ages, He has predetermined and ordained beforehand that He would have two steadfast witnesses eternally before Him. These two witnesses in the human race would be the nation of Israel and the Church as two entities, so that his sovereign and immutable word would give them power to remain through election. God knew in advance that as long as the multitudes did not enter these two entities, they would live in spiritual defeat, and many would identify with Israel and the Church. He also knew that there would always be a remnant of the faithful in these entities. 

 

Through these faithful remnants in each dispensation, the great Messiah would make his Word of choice stand. In God's choice regarding these two entities, God was obligated by His Covenant Word to ensure individual POSITION, but it would be the moral obligation of each individual through their personal choice as their STATE of spiritual development. He knew that many would choose to live and die in an immature state, but some, by their own choice in love, faith, and obedience to His commands, would inherit the promises, and attain maturity in Him.

 

In the days of the Apostle Paul many questioned Israel's STANDING before God because of their terrible spiritual STATE in rejecting and even crucifying their own Messiah. We read the apostle Paul's response in Romans 11: verse 1, 2, 5, 7. “I say therefore: Has God rejected his people? In no way. God has not rejected his people, whom he foreknew. Likewise, even at this time there have been relics left by the ELECTION of grace. So? What Israel sought, it has not achieved (by its works); but the ELECTION has overtaken him: and the rest were hardened.”

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Israel as a chosen nation remains to this day, although through the centuries of unbelief it has been terribly punished for its STATE of rejection. An individual case is that of Samson who destroyed himself and many others, maintained his POSITION; in Hebrews 11: verse 32, he was terribly judged by his enemies, due to his STATE of disobedience.
Now, as we seek more evidence of God's plan, his purpose, and his power in his election, let us look at his creations that have endured throughout the last six thousand years of the history of the Adamic race on earth. We behold the same constellations of celestial bodies in the heavens, the same sun and moon, we behold the same species of every creation that Adam saw and they still remain in their calling and position in God's choice for each of them. 

Suppose that if Satan fought against God and had broken his Word and destroyed his creations, then, he would have mixed the species of each creation in nature such as plant and animal life to break the balance between nature and destroy the entire sustenance of the man and then destroy him from the earth. However, the Word of God, the Logos of the Almighty cannot be broken, nor his election changed. Therefore, because of this there has been no sin in any of the aforementioned creations, each remaining after centuries in its own order and species.
So, in every believer, by the new birth, Christ has entered to seal us until the day of redemption, Ephesians 4: verse 30. The power of the shed blood of our Lord, to redeem us completely and the power of Christ dwelling in the spirit to keep us, gives us rest, in the position in Christ for our spirits recreated, made perfect. The Word of God assures us of this eternal position: “Whoever is born of God does not sin, because his seed is in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.” I John 3:9

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One of God's greatest orders regarding election for Israel and the Church was his ordination of the PRIESTHOOD. When men establish offices in their human governments, then, they choose men to fill them, so God has chosen his ministerial offices and the men who are in them both in Israel and in the Church. Since the heavenly is always the model of the earthly, we read in the Word that Elohim in choosing his only begotten son, Christ Jesus, the Messiah as the High Priest who would minister by faith the coming benefits of Calvary to the sinful Adam and Eve , by teaching them that sin cursed man but that through the Lord the seven benefits of Calvary would be available and minister to man in need through the laws of substitutionary sacrifice and dispensing by faith. In Psalm 110 God establishes a covenant song: “You are a priest forever According to the order of Melchizedek.”

 

When God's only begotten son, Christ Jesus, our Lord, was chosen by the Father to be the High Priest of heaven, He chose to prove His Messiahship by fulfilling all the Bible prophecies that spoke of Him. These Bible prophecies were given through the prophets in the passing of the centuries, and established as memorials of redemption, in the Ceremonial laws of the nation of Israel.  They focus on triple compliance. Christ, to fulfill them, had to fulfill them in his ministry as High Priest and in the sacrifices of sin and peace offerings.

Jesus had established that He did not come to destroy the Law but to fulfill it. He was to fulfill His own prophecy regarding redemption, when He prophesied in Matthew 12: verse 40 that He would fulfill the SIGN of the prophet Jonah. “For as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights.” Our Lord chose the way in which He would fulfill the different ministries by dividing His life into SPIRIT, SOUL and BODY according to Hebrews 4: verse 12. In Leviticus 16 we read of this ministry and its practice on the Day of Atonement, when The High Priest, having prepared himself, chose two goats as sacrifices for the two deaths, the sin offering and the peace offering. For sin must be atoned for by the shed blood of the chosen sacrifice. Then by the peace offering, it would be separated, “As far as the east is from the west, He has removed our transgressions from us.” Psalms 103:12.

 

The High Priest had to prepare because after the sacrifice of the first goat for the sin offering, he had to take the blood still hot to the most holy place and sprinkle it on the mercy seat. It was a propitiation for sin, both for the nation of Israel and for the temple priesthood. Then he sprinkled the blood on the four horns of the altar in the court.
Later that day, the second goat was brought by the high priest to the eastern gate, where he figuratively placed the sins on the goat's head. Afterwards, the goat wandered in the desert, driving away sins, representing the best things that would come until the vultures tore it apart in the desert.

Let us see from the Word, the complete fulfillment of the ministry of the High Priest of God and the two goats in Leviticus 16: verse 7-10, to know that the word of God and his work remain by choice. At Calvary, dying on a Roman cross, the physical life of our Lord shed his blood in atonement for all the sins of believers. All our sins have been placed in His natural life in both His body and soul, as He took the place of the two goats for the two deaths. His sinless body and soul became sinful, contaminated with our sins, and the Father turned his face away and could not look at sin.

Then the Ministry of the body was ended, when the last drop of blood fell from our Lord's precious body, and his sin-laden soul waited like the second goat for its death. Our Lord cried out in Luke 23: verse 46: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” This shows that his SPIRIT was sinless and ministered as the High Priest, since the Father would not have received his spirit if he had sin. Afterwards, the SPIRIT of the Heavenly High Priest arose to carry the precious atoning blood to the Most Holy Place of Heaven, just as the earthly high priest did each year in the temple behind the veil that was torn. That same afternoon the spirit of the messianic high priest returned and became the vehicle of the soul that represents the goat and guided it to the desert of hell, to wander in storms and death, removing our atoned sins as far as the east is from the west. Psalms 103:12.​

 

Let the holy scriptures testify concerning the ministry of the Soul in hell: “Put me in the deep pit, In darkness, in depths.” Psalms 88: verse 6. “Why, O Lord, do you reject my soul?” Psalms 88: verse 14. “When he has made his life an atonement for sin…”. Isaiah 53: verse 10. “He will see from the labor of his soul and be satisfied.” Isaiah 53: verse 11. Then in Isaiah 52: verse 14, God sees the soul that took the form of the goat lying still in death in hell. In Psalms 139: verse 15 one sees God's ELECTION at work as He conquers death with death itself and accomplishes in His sufferings the conception of His coming New Testament church. Then in Psalms 16: verse 10 it says: “For you will not leave my soul in the grave (“hell” vkj)…” There the Father imparted his eternal divine life to the beaten SOUL and Christ arose in the kingdom of darkness and set his heel on Satan's head and took away the keys of death and hell. Revelation 1: verse 18.

 

The Spirit of Christ acting in the foreordained election of God, to fulfill his purpose, and also to fulfill all the prophetic scriptures concerning Him and having brought the atoning blood to the Holy of Holies of heaven and directed the heavenly Goat, to the desert of hell He continued his next priestly ministry. He was to free the captives. Under the Mosaic law the inhabitants of the six cities of refuge could not leave until the death of the high priest. In Luke 23: verse 43 we read the last promise and prophecy of our Lord, on the cross: “Then Jesus said to him (to the thief), Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.” Until that time all of God's people who had died had been locked up in the heart of the earth in a great city of refuge called Paradise. We read of this place of habitation for God's people in 1 Samuel 28: verse 12-14. Abel had been the first and the thief the last to enter paradise, which for four thousand years, maintained all the justified spirits of men.
 

 

When the spirit of Christ as high priest entered the gates of paradise triumphantly, we read in I Peter 3: verse 18,19 the story. “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; In which he also went and preached to the imprisoned spirits.” A strange scene, the Body of the Lamb sleeping in the HEART OF THE EARTH in the grave, and his SOUL like the goat suffering in the depths of hell to destroy the power of death. There, the SPIRIT chosen by God to be the High Priest went to Paradise for three days; The spirit, soul and body of the Lord were IN THE HEART OF THE EARTH. The scene in Paradise is illustrated in Psalms 68: verse 19 and repeated in Ephesians 4: verse 8-11: verse  “Therefore it is said, He ascended on high, and led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men. (And that he ascended, what is it, but that he had also first descended to the lower parts of the earth?) What a great exodus or passover when the SPIRIT-of-CHRIST led the multitude to heaven where he had promised an abode for his disciples.

 

Then he had to hurry back to hell and resurrect the soul of our Lord to be victorious over the kingdom of darkness, and later enter the tomb to glorify the sleeping body and thus the Lord would resurrect completely having made a new creation of believers-priests. and having given them a joint inheritance to rule and reign with him. With this ministry complete at Calvary for the spirit, soul and body of every believer a new covenant was instituted, at God's election, established upon better promises, upon better blood, which brings every believer into the sight of God. be a real priest.

New sources of miraculous power were opened and a new inheritance of promises broadened the boundaries of blessings. Every believer born again in Christ, washed in his blood by faith and sealed with the Holy Spirit, given to us, in this new and higher order of priesthood has full access to the throne of grace. The veil of His flesh was torn and as joint heirs with Christ, He invites us to reign as conquerors with Him, in the high calling of the priesthood.

 

Surrounded by nearly 700 commands in the New Testament, which act as our boundaries, and with the mighty choice of promises before us, we are challenged to climb to new heights on Mount Zion and possess our full inheritance in Christ. Not only are we priests of God, washed in His precious blood, redeemed from life-damaging sin, but God has given us His Holy Spirit to enjoy our Pentecost and has clothed us with His powerful Spirit.

 

 

In his election, God has established nine ministries for the New Testament church and each born again believer in Christ as a branch of the true vine must find his place whether in the office of Apostle, Prophet, evangelist, pastor, teacher, elder, deacon, aids, or governorships.
We have at our disposal the life of Calvary, in which the seven sufferings of the Lord forged seven benefits, to mature each believer in the fullness of the stature of Christ.

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1.    We receive his benefit of justification, which is once for all, in the new birth and blood, just as our children have an eternal Position in our family because of their birth and blood. 
The following six benefits are for our spiritual growth to reach maturity and the rewards of overcomers. These benefits are also daily experiences and practices of faith. 
2.    The second benefit is sanctification, which is progressive with growth. 
3. 3. Then follows divine healing for the body when it is needed, too 
4.    divine health each day as we learn by faith to lay “THE PUNISHMENT OF OUR PEACE ON HIM." Isaiah 53:5. 
5.    Then we learn to accept by faith the following benefit of Calvary, PEACE AND REST, and
6.     also, his resurrected life and, finally, 
7.    the glory of God in a continuous life of praise.

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Remember that your POSITION is eternal since “you will never perish.” John 10: verse 28. However, your state of spiritual growth is your choice and places you in one of the ranks of the priesthood in Christ." And those whom he predestinated, them he called; and those whom he called, these he also justified; and those whom he justified, these he also glorified "Romans 8:29-30.

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