The Doctrine of Election - Part Six

Extract

The Doctrine of Election – Part Six
A. W. Pink

10. Its Blessedness
11. Its Opposition

10. Its Blessedness

First, the doctrine of election magnifies the character of God. It exemplifies His grace. Election makes known the fact that salvation is God’s free gift, gratuitously bestowed upon whom He pleases. This must be so, for those who receive it are themselves no different from and no better than those who receive it not. Election allows some to go to hell, to show that all deserved to perish. But grace comes in like a dragnet and draws out from a ruined humanity a little flock, to be throughout eternity the monument of God’s sovereign mercy. It exhibits His omnipotency. Election makes known the fact that God is all powerful, ruling and reigning over the earth, and declares that none can successfully resist His will or thwart His secret purposes. Election reveals God breaking down the opposition of the human heart, subduing the enmity of the carnal mind, and with irresistible power drawing His chosen ones to Christ. Election confesses that “we love him because he first loved us,” and that we believe because He made us willing in the day of His power (Psa. 110:3).

The doctrine of election ascribes all the glory to God. It disallows any credit to the creature. It denies that the unregenerate are capable of predicting a right thought, generating a right affection, or originating a right volition. It insists that God must work in us both to will and to do. It declares that repentance and faith are themselves God’s gifts, and not something which the sinner contributes towards the price of his salvation. His language is, “Not unto us, not unto us,” but “Unto him that loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood.” These paragraphs were written by us almost a quarter of a century since, and today we neither rescind nor modify them.

“The Lord makes distinctions among guilty men according to the …