THE PROOF
OF ELECTION
“According as he
hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the
world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in
love” (Ephesians 1:4).
There are those that
ridicule the doctrine of election by
claiming that if it is true then it doesn’t make any difference
how the elect
live. They also assert that since election guarantees the salvation of
the
elect, then they can never be lost if they live in sin. It’s true
that election
does guarantee the salvation of the elect, but it is not true that they
can
live as they used to live before experiencing God’s salvation in
election.
Furthermore, election doe not give the elect the liberty to continue to
live in
sin; for it would be a contradiction of our text: “According
as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of
the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him
in love”.
The Proof of Election, then, is not claiming that we are one of the
elect, but
that our lives shows that we are “holy in
all manner of conversation (living)” (1 Peter 1:15) and that “(we) may be found of him in peace, without
spot, and blameless” (2 Peter 3:14) when He returns. When He
does, then He
will be able to “present…to himself a
glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing;
but…holy and
without blemish” (Ephesians 5:27).
Yet, we have to confess
we come so far from being holy and
blameless in our daily walk before the Lord. There is not a day that we
will
stumble and give in to some temptation; and oh! How we lament our many
failures! Nevertheless, we are still responsible to maintain a
character, by God’s
grace and Holy Spirit, by living such a life that is consistent with
our
election in Christ