In one particular youth service this
year, a speaker broached the topic of salvation, and listed Ephesians 1: 3-14,
and candidly named the first step of our salvation process as “God chooses us”.
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
has blessed us in the heavenly realms with
every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to
be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he[b]predestined us
for adoption to sonship[c] through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and
will— 6 to the praise
of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. 7 In him we have redemption through
his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of
God’s grace 8 that he
lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, 9 he[d] made
known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in
Christ, 10 to be put into
effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in
heaven and on earth under Christ.
11 In him we were also chosen,[e] having
been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in
conformity with the purpose of his will, 12 in order that
we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of
his glory. 13 And you also
were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the
gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a
seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until
the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.
Not unexpectedly, that day our
small-groups had an unusually lengthy post-service discussion. Then we
perceived God as seemingly callous and who issued winning lottery tickets at
random. It felt odd when we attempted to reconcile that with what we already knew
of God; Himself being love and righteousness.
Yet, chancing upon verses like 2 Peter
3:9 bothered us. What was the right conclusion??? More importantly, what was
the biblical conclusion????
9 The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some
understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to
perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
But
we failed to reach a conclusion then and every other time we had such
discussions.
It
was this unsettled confusion that I brought along with me to this internship,
and
Which
is why I was excited when TULIPs was first mentioned during our first week, and
followed up by multiple discussions which would drag out over lunch and our
travelling time to whichever location we were headed to next (Actually
predestination was already brought up the first night during camp but my
presentation group decided to leave the conversation to get supper HAHAHA
#priorities).
Looking
back, the most fundamental question regarding predestination that we struggled
to comprehend was a matter of “justice” and “fairness”: “If God already chooses
who He wants to be saved, how can a fair (and loving) God therefore punish the
remaining few when He did not choose them in the first place?”.
Preacher
Chee Hong kindly clarified key ideas about predestination over lunch with us,
knowing that the majority of us were concerned with the topic.
Truthfully,
there was never an issue of fairness or justice in God choosing us before the
creation of the world (Ephesians 1:3)!
No one
can stand before a holy and righteous God and claim to have never committed or
thought a single sin, and even then “all our righteous acts are like filthy
rags” (Isaiah 64:6).
This
is followed by Romans 5:12 and 6:23, that clearly state that our very nature
being sin, we deserve nothing less than death.
12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one
man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people,
because all sinned—
23 For the wages of sin is death…
How dare I cry for fairness if, because
of my sinful nature, the only fair thing I deserved as punishment was death? John
3: 18 and 36 further aided my understanding of this principle. God’s wrath did
not reach those He did not choose just because He did not choose them; rather
God’s wrath was initially on all of us because of our sin. Only through
Christ’s redemptive act on the cross did those who believe in His name receive
God’s grace and mercy; whereas God’s wrath remained on those who do not
believe.
18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever
does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in
the name of God’s one and only Son.
36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever
rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.
Our definition of free-will in this big
scheme of things also is skewed, because of our sinful nature. Our perception
of God and righteousness only operates between the boundaries of our darkened
minds and corrupt heart; therefore there is no such “free-will”. We are
unwilling and also unable to have totally free free-will (Romans 8:7-8).
18 They are darkened in their understanding and separated
from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the
hardening of their hearts.
Ephesians 4:18-19
6 The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind
governed by the Spirit is life and peace. 7 The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it
does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8 Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please
God.
Romans
8:6-8
Yet, all is not lost. Ephesians 2
explains we can be and are saved by grace, through Christ’s ultimate sacrifice
on the cross. When Jesus hung on the cross, He carried the weight of all the
sins of the world on Him, our past present and future sins, as a one-time
payment. Our God is a righteous and holy God who cannot simply overlook all our
sins, even if we have chosen to believe. Therefore Jesus Christ died on the
cross and paid the ultimate price to reconcile our relationship with God.
Therefore when God looks at us, He no longer views us as filthy rags but as
pure and sinless as Christ was and is (Of course it is also important to
genuinely repent and confess in prayer when we do fall into sin again, not
taking the cross for granted).
4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich
in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in
transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.
Ephesians 2: 4-5
After the immense discussion of
predestination, I asked how to reconcile God’s election of His people with
continuing to evangelise to my friends, if God has already chosen who He wants
saved. I was given an entirely new perspective: it is precisely because of
election, that we have hope when we speak and evangelise to people. Left to our
own devices, how could we ever hope that the inattentive young punks or fidgety
and sleeping youths in church would ever turn and listen to the gospel?
It is precisely because we know that
among the different groups of people we speak to and interact with daily, there
are some among them that God has chosen to know and accept Him.
This is why we have hope in continuing
to spread the gospel to the ends of the earth.
Truthfully I have carelessly judged my
non-Christian friends and thought to myself how I could never imagine these
people stepping into the inside of a church, much less worshipping and choosing
to accept God. Yet another part of me also knows that we are all the same
filthy rags to God, none of us more holy or deserving or sinful than others. It
is precisely how hopeless all of us seem, that we can only say “only by God’s
grace” that the church is made up of colourful, repentant sinners.
Of course this short reflection on
predestination barely scratches the surface of the huge topic but I think this
nicely concludes what left a deep impression on me throughout the course of
STEP.
As I struggled to digest all that we’ve
learnt during this internship, I am constantly left in awe and reminded of how
God’s wisdom and understanding is limitless, and in comparison, mine so
limited.
Even after this internship ends, I may
still struggle with the issue of predestination and election from time to time
when my heart struggles to process what my mind already knows. But I am and can
be assured in Christ that in everything, God is still a merciful, loving but
also a righteous and holy God. There is nothing that escapes Him, nothing that
happens without His commanding it to happen.
God use me as Your instrument to work
through me for the good of others, and give me more the strength to do so when
I don’t feel like it.
References
The Holy Bible, New International Version.
(n.d.). Biblica.
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