Ephesians 2:8 “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:”
The question is not can God elect people to salvation
but does He. This has been a debated question since Jesus was on this earth and
even longer. To get a better understanding to arrive at a right answer
everything starts with God. Most Christians or those that claim Christianity fail
to understand that God is Sovereign. God created everyone and everything that
exist outside of Himself and He is eternally self-existent. Therefore, God owns
everything that exist because He created it. Everything in existence is under
the rule and power of our Sovereign God. From the heavens to the very plants on
the earth. In the beginning after God created Adam he sinned against God,
therefore separating himself from God along with his wife who ate of the
forbidden fruit through the slyness of Satan. When Adam ate of the forbidden fruit,
he not only became a sinner separating himself from God he became a spiritually
dead soul. With him being spiritually dead Adam could no longer have fellowship
nor communication with God unless God came and personally communicated with
him. Adam and all his descendants which includes all of mankind are born with
dead spirits, and sinner bounded to sin in their natural state. Paul said of
all mankind, “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good
thing…” Rom. 7:18a meaning there is nothing good in an unregenerated soul,
nothing, not one good thing. Therefore, there is no possibility that an unregenerated
soul can ever “make a decision” of any sort to change what they are by nature.
Therefore, without the election of God to save a remnant no human soul would
have ever come to know Jesus Christ. God said in Rom. 3:11b “…there is none
that seeketh after God.” because there is no want nor ability in the
depraved heart to ever be saved because of sin they hate God. Oh, there a love
in their heart for “a god” just not the very God that condemned them because of
sin. God is Sovereign and nothing can save a dead spirit unless God quickens it
to a living state. But it takes God’s Sovereign Power to quicken a dead spirit.
“And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;” Ephesians
2:1 There is nothing in the scriptures that tells a dead spirit to quicken
itself, nor does it say to “make a decision”, nor does it say that “God
cannot change the human will”. In fact, without the Sovereign Power of God a
sinner will never truly turn to Christ. Now we must ask this question, does God
choose His children by election, yes, and without question. This is why
salvation is “not of yourself but a gift from God,” through His electing
you. So, it is these elect that are given the gift of salvation of God. Paul wrote
in 2Thess. 2:13 “But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you,
brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you
to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of
the truth:” So, these unlearned preachers want people to believe that “God
cannot change the human will”. But the Apostle Paul wrote in Php. 2:13 “For
it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.”
How does God “work in us to will and to do His good pleasure” if He does
not change our will? And why would a lost, spiritually dead sinner who is born
at enmity toward God, ever want God’s salvation? He does not, therefore he goes
about to create his own salvation opposite of God’s giving of salvation. Their
salvation is humanistic at its base, decision, choices, and all sorts of works,
which eliminates the power and work of God, including election. The Jews also
had this ungodly thought about salvation when Paul wrote “For they being
ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own
righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.”
Rom. 10:3 More than 2,000 years later they still do not know who Jesus
Christ is. Neither do most of what call themselves “Christians,” and neither
are they saved except in their own sinful heart and by their ungodly thinking. People
misuse the scriptures to eliminate God from saving sinners, but only to their
own destruction. Salvation is a gift of God, He has the power to give salvation
to one vessel and not another, Rom. 9. The word grace in Eph. 2:9 means - the
divine influence upon the heart – meaning that God influences the heart by the power
of the Holy Spirit once the spirit is quickened to come to Christ. “For as
many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” Romans
8:14 But only as many as God has chosen. Everyone needs to stop believing
everything some man says and believe God.
