SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/30/2018 10:13 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
The Object—The Elect
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Eph. 1:4-6a
Message of the verses: “4 just as He chose
us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and
blameless before Him. In love 5 He predestined us to adoption as sons through
Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, 6 to the
praise of the glory of His grace,”
I
think that a little review is in order as we begin this SD. As most know I am following the outline from
John MacArthur’s commentary on the book of Ephesians and as a reminder the
title of the second chapter in his commentary is “The Body Formed in Eternity
Past,” and this chapter covers Ephesians 1:3-6a. There are two main sections in this chapter,
the first one is entitled “The Aspects of Blessing” and this covers Eph. 1:3,
and it had seven sub-sections in it. The
next main section is entitled “The Elements of the Eternal Forming of the
Body,” and we just finished yesterday the first sub-section under this second
main section. We just finished the first
sub-section in our last SD and are now ready to move onto the following six
sub-sections that fall under this second main section. These are much shorter than the first
sub-section and I will try and complete two of them in today’s SD.
THE OBJECT—THE ELECT
When
the word elect is used is speaks of those whom God has elected or chosen in
eternity past and so the object of the elect is “us” as seen in verse five “He
predestined us to
adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind
intention of His will.” John MacArthur
writes “Those whom God elects are those whom He has declared holy before the
foundation of the world and who have identified with His Son Jesus Christ by
faith. Being a Christian is having been
chosen by God to be His child and to inherit all things through and with Jesus
Christ.”
In
our Sunday evening service earlier this week we listened to our youth pastor as
he is going through preparation for his ordination and so he has been preaching
through some of the doctrines of the Christian faith. Afterwards was a question and answer period
and one of the questions was if he believed in “limited atonement.” Limited atonement is a part of what is called
the Calvinist belief. TULIP is the
acrostic that is used to speak of what Calvinists believe and the “L” is for
limited atonement. Simply put this
belief is that Christ came and died for the elect only. I have to say that I am up in the air as far
as whether to believe it or not. I have
heard sermons from John MacArthur on this subject and am still not sure if this
is true or not, but this kind of comes up in our study of Ephesians and so I
thought that I would mention it. I wrote
to our youth pastor and told him that I was up in the air about this, but then
told him that one of the ways that I try and make up my mind about things like
this is to ask the question does it go against the attributes of God.
THE TIME—ETERNITY PAST
This
is our next sub-section and it also comes from Ephesians 1:5 as God elected us
“before the foundation of the world.”
This means it was before the creation, the fall, the covenants, or the
law, that we were sovereignly predestined by God to be His as He designed the
church, the Body of His Son before the world began.
Let
us look at some verses from Peter’s first letter: “18 knowing that you were not redeemed with
perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited
from your forefathers, 19 but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and
spotless, the blood of Christ. 20 For He was foreknown before the foundation of the world,
but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you 21 who through Him are
believers in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your
faith and hope are in God (1 Peter 1:20).” The focus in really on verse twenty and
according to John MacArthur this verse states that it was God’s plan Christ be
crucified for us ‘before the foundation of the world’ as seen in 1 Peter 1:20. He goes on to say “we were designated for
salvation by the same plan at that same time.”
"Then the King will say to those on His right, ’Come, you who are
blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world
(Matthew 25:34).” This is when it was
prepared for the elect, before the foundation of the world. I think that I may have mentioned this
before, but after I became saved and finally joined a church the Pastor, Pastor
Burns said something that I have never forgotten about this subject of the
elect and that is that this doctrine is for believers. This is a true statement and so if one does
not think of unbelievers and many do when this subject comes up, then it is
easier to understand this doctrine. Our
names as believers were “written from the foundation of the world in the book
of life of the Lamb who has been slain” (Rev. 13:8; cf. 17:8).”
I
know that this subject takes some thinking and also praying and that is one
reason that I only take small bites of it as we go through these first verses
in Ephesians chapter one.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Paul” (Acts 23:12).
Today’s Bible question: “Who wrote the book of Acts?”
Answer in our next SD.
10/30/2018 10:53 AM
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