As Charles Spurgeon recognized, we see both Election and Free Will exist simultaneously in Scripture, so, BOTH are true. Because Truth cannot contradict we must be missing something.
The answer, the source of the dilemma, is in what man cannot see: Time.
Time is a construct designed by God. We are bound to this construct but God, The Designer is not. God Knows all things, Sees all things, Is everywhere at the same moment, ALL THE TIME (pun intended).
God is Omni-Present
Think of Time as a Ball in the hands of God, which is not actually the way it is, I am sure, but it will help us understand what I am pointing out about God’s perspective of Time if we perceive Time in this way. So, Time is a ball in God’s Hands. He can, and does, affect the ball at-any-place-He-wants at-any-“Time” for HEIS. YHWH sees every choice, of every person, at the moment they make that choice, ALL AT THE SAME MOMENT; HEIS, because He said so. The clue to this explanation of God’s Nature is in what God told Moses to say to the Israelites so that they would know it was God Himself who had sent Moses to rescue the Israelites from Bondage. When God said to Moses “Tell them, ‘IAMTHATIAM’ has sent you.”, God was using a tense only God Himself can hold, proving to the Israelites that the Creator had sent Moses. As a result of that explanation the Jews followed Moses out into the desert; Fairly convincing.
Our perspective of Time is very different, however. We see moments in progressive succession. You are reading text tight now that was typed in the past, yet that text may make you decide to believe something different than what you believed a moment before. Such perception of Time is normal for man. We read or hear what God said and we decide, and then we act on that decision. Yet there is no conflict between Free Will, Man in the confines of Time, and God’s Election and Sovereignty. because HEIS, being Divinely Present Perfect at all moments in your short life, as He has Planned out all things with the choices every man and woman has made, God has made all things presently existing for Him FROM THE END to the BEGINNING.
Still with me?
So, when we come to God for Mercy He keeps us, as He promised He would. We read those promises and acted on them according to what we believed, WHILE the Law of God did it’s work on our hearts, converting our souls, showing us the Truth, as God designed in Present Perfect Perfection.
Conclusion:
God gave every one of us the capacity to grasp His Mercy in what He has provided in the Scripture. What we do with His Grace is our choice and our responsibility, and All who come to the Son the Father KNOWS.
If your brain is hurting a bit over this, relax. Obey God in all He says and all will be well.
And when you have some raving individual that claims what you’re saying makes no sense because unless God makes it real to him he cannot get it so why bother?
Just nod, and keep repeating Scripture to them.
As my pastor likes to say, “If you are God’s you will obey, If you are not you will not. So choose this day what you will be.” And that is EXACTLY what God says in what Paul and Isaiah wrote:
Romans 9:20-33
But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed ask him who formed it, “Why did you make me like this?” Or hasn’t the potter a right over the clay, from the same lump to make one part a vessel for honor, and another for dishonor? What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath made for destruction, and that he might make known the riches of his glory on vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory, us, whom he also called, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles? As he says also in Hosea,
“no one”
But in arguing over who is or is not Chosen, let us all be reminded what God says,
“But shun empty chatter, for it will go further in ungodliness.”
Patrick J. Burwell
Director
OnlyJesusSaves.com
