Anytime the topic of election comes up, it raises questions.
One question specifically raised is: if God has eternally chosen a particular people in Christ unto salvation, can the gospel still be offered freely to every sinner who hears it?
This was actually one of the very questions that was being asked as the Marrow of Modern Divinity was coming to popularity. Well-meaning pastors were trying to be honest with the scriptures, and honest with their theology, but were creating a big problem.
Not to bury the lede (this spelling is correct, but for those with ADHD, here is the reason and the origin of the phrase), the answer is yes, and the reason is found in the relationship between God’s eternal purpose and the revealed promise of Christ.
Let’s make sure that we understand our categories before we get into the explanation.
Election concerns God’s purpose to save.
The gospel concerns the way Christ is proclaimed and received in time.
And Scripture never requires the sinner to know the decree of election before coming to Christ, nor does the preacher need access to that decree before calling sinners to believe. The gospel comes to sinners as a revealed word from God, and that word gives sufficient warrant for faith.
This is important because election can easily be handled in a way that creates uncertainty where Scripture gives a promise. A sinner hears that God chose his people before the foundation of the world and begins asking whether he is included among them, or whether those who hear are elect.
This is why, in The Marrow of Modern Divinity, Edward Fisher begins the discussion of grace with God’s eternal purpose. Election belongs within an eternal purpose. God chooses sinners in Christ unto salvation, and that choice rests in his grace and not in something foreseen in them. This means election explains why sinners come to Christ, but it does not establish who is permitted to come.
Jesus actually brings these truths together in John 6:37:
“All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.”
The first clause speaks of the Father giving a people to the Son and promises that those given to Christ will come to him.
The second clause speaks directly to the sinner who comes, and promises that Christ will receive him.
This distinction is important, and must be understood in order for us to understand the free offer.
The warrant of faith is found in the gospel promise itself. A sinner may come to Christ because Christ is presented to him in the gospel as sufficient for sinners and because Christ promises to receive those who come. The preacher may proclaim Christ to every hearer and call every hearer to repentance and faith because God has commanded that the gospel be preached in this way, and because the preacher does not have the ability to identify the elect before preaching.
The same principle applies to the hearer. The sinner is not told to investigate the counsel of God before believing. He is confronted with the command to repent and the promise that Christ receives sinners.
Again, to keep the categories clear, election belongs to the eternal counsel of God, and the gospel belongs to what God has made known and commanded us to proclaim.
We do not reason from what God has hidden in order to qualify what he has revealed.
When Christ says that whoever comes to him will not be cast out, the troubled sinner has no warrant to insert anything that he may think or feel into that promise, and neither does the preacher.
The doctrine of election also gives us an explanation for the efficacy of the gospel.
If salvation ultimately depended upon the sinner producing faith from within himself, then the universal proclamation of Christ would provide an opportunity that fallen humanity would uniformly reject, namely because of the sinner’s inability under the covenant of works. Man owes obedience and cannot render it. His problem includes both guilt and corruption. This is the reason that salvation must go farther than a bare invitation.
To carry the flow of how election works forward, Fisher explains that God purposes salvation in Christ, Christ undertakes the obligations of his people as their surety, and the Spirit brings sinners to faith.
In short, election ensures that the preaching of Christ will actually result in sinners actually coming to him.
That gives us another way to state the relationship between the two. The free offer tells us that Christ is truly presented to sinners, while election explains why that offer becomes effectual in those whom God brings to faith.
This also helps guard assurance from becoming consumed by speculation. A believer may ask whether his sins prove that he was never elect, or whether the weakness of his faith places him outside the saving purpose of God. If he begins there, his attention quickly turns inward. But election understood points him toward Christ, where the believer’s confidence rests upon a Savior who has undertaken the debt of his people.
This is also the reason that election is always spoken of as being ‘in Christ’.
God’s choice cannot be separated from the mediator through whom salvation is accomplished. The Father’s purpose includes the Son’s work, and the Spirit applies that work in time.
Seen this way, election gives no basis for imagining that God secretly works against the gospel he publicly proclaims. The Father who elects is the Father who gives the Son; the Son who accomplishes redemption is the Son who promises to receive sinners, and the Spirit who applies redemption is the Spirit who brings sinners through the gospel to Christ.
Every sinner who hears the gospel may be told that Christ is sufficient, that repentance and faith are commanded, and that everyone who comes to Christ will be received. And the preacher does not need to soften election to preach the free offer of the gospel, nor does he need to qualify the gospel to preserve election.
God’s election does not limit the free offer; it simply explains it.
