Weekly Bible Study – May 2, 2016

Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, Doctrine of Election.
Part 1. The Election of Israel.

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Prepare yourself for learning the Word of God!

Before we begin, if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ (that is; you have believed [trusted] in Him for His promised gift of eternal life), it is important to prepare yourself to learn God's Word so take a moment to name, cite or acknowledge (confess) your sins privately to God (i.e.; with your thoughts directed only to God the Father).

1 John 1:9 says: "If we confess our sins, He (God) is faithful and just to forgive us our sins (known sins) and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness [unknown or forgotten sins]." NKJV (New King James Version) [italics added]; we call this REBOUND, read the full doctrine as to “why” we need to use 1 John 1:9 to grow spiritually. REBOUND

If you have never personally believed in the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior (that is, believed in Him for eternal life), the issue for you is not to name your sins; the issue for you is to have faith alone in Jesus Christ alone for eternal life:

John 6:47 says: "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me (Jesus Christ) has everlasting life." NKJV [italics added]

Notice again what Jesus said in John 6:47: "…he who believes in Me (Jesus Christ) has everlasting life." It doesn't say, "will have"; it says, "has." Therefore, the very moment you believe in Jesus Christ for His promise of everlasting life, you have it (it's really just that simple; nothing more and nothing less), and it can never be taken away from you (John 10:28-29). Furthermore, the gift (Ephesians 2:8c) of everlasting life (also called eternal life in scripture) is available to every human being; there are absolutely no exceptions.

John 3:14-18 says: "¹⁴ And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, ¹⁵ that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁶ For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. ¹⁷ For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. ¹⁸ He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." NKJV

Let us now bow our hearts and take a moment to prepare for worship and learning God's Word. If there is any known sin in your life, this is the time to just cite it privately to God the Father with your thoughts directed towards Him. With your head bowed and your eyes closed, you have total privacy in your mind and soul:

Study to show yourself approved to God!

Grace Bible Church
Robert R. McLaughlin Bible Ministries

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STUDY TITLE:

Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, Doctrine of Election.
Part 1. The Election of Israel.

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Terms & Abbreviations used:

PPOG = Predesigned Plan of God
Human Good = Evil + Good Deeds while not in fellowship with God
OSN = Old Sin Nature
TLJC = The Lord Jesus Christ
SSE = Spiritual Self Esteem
PVTD = Positive Volition Towards Doctrine
+H - The Happiness of God
NVTD = Negative Volition Towards Doctrine
Doctrine = Bible Truth

To look up other “terms”, go to:

Alphabetical Listing

BEGIN BIBLE STUDY
Unless otherwise noted, all scripture quotes and references
are from the NASB – New American Standard Bible

Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, Doctrine of Election.
Part 1. The Election of Israel.

We need to understand the difference between what is known as Monergism and Synergism. Not monogenism which is the theory that the human race has descended from a single pair of ancestors.

Monergism which states that the regeneration of an individual is the work of God through the Holy Spirit alone.


Synergism, which, in its simplest form, argues that the human will cooperates with God’s grace in order to be regenerated. So the question naturally arises, does man have a free will?

This is God’s world, governed by His rules and persons born into it it have to live with what God blesses them with. The moment God opens our spiritual eyes, we see. The moment He unplugs or circumcises our ears, we hear. Likewise, the moment God capacitates us with understanding and illumination, we believe.

God isn’t doing the believing for us, He has only restored the spiritual capacity we were meant to have. If God miraculously gives new eyes to a blind man and he sees, it is not God who is doing the seeing but the man, yet all glory goes to God because without this new capacity, sight would not be possible.

We infallibly exercise our own faith because we have been given the new capacity to do so by the work of the Holy Spirit, who has disarmed our hostility to God by giving us a new moral perception.

This is the story behind EPH 2:8 and 2CO 6:1-2. That is why EPH 2:8, For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that [the grace, the salvation and even the faith] is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; This is why the apostle Paul wrote in 2CO 6:1-2, And working together with Him, we also urge you not to receive the grace of God in vain for He says, “At the acceptable time I listened to you, And on the day of salvation I helped you;” Behold, Now is “the acceptable time,” Behold, Now is “the day of salvation”

So much then for our introduction to our subject which is coming up this evening in ROM 9:27, the Doctrine of Election

ROM 9:14-27, What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be! For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.” So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires. You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will? On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, ‘Why did you make me like this,’ will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use, and another for common use? What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so in order that He might make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles. As He says also in Hosea, “I will call those who were not My people, ‘My people,’ And her who was not beloved, ‘beloved.” And it shall be that in the place where it was said to them, “You are not My people, “There they shall be called sons of the living God.” And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, “Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, it is the remnant that will be saved;

First of all the verb for cries out is the present active indicative of krazo which means to cry but really it means to shout out with an intensive and urgent form of speaking. It is translated here, “speaking [preaching] in an emergency.” This is when Sennacherib invaded Israel. Sennacherib was the prince of Assyria who ruled 705-681 B.C.

This was the great crisis which came to Israel because of a large rejection of the first advent also known as the incarnation. The incarnation is the expense of time, Jesus Christ, the second Person of the Trinity, dwelt on earth in hypostatic union. The Jews had rejected the Lord Jesus Christ and therefore they ended up receiving Sennacherib which was a form of divine discipline from God.

The Assyrians under Sennacherib were knocking at the gates of Jerusalem and getting ready to attack the Jews. Isaiah gave the message, producing the action of the verb in a dramatic speech in a time of a national crisis. The indicative mood is declarative representing the verbal action from the viewpoint of reality.

You must remember that the theme of the book of Romans is generally the integrity of God. And the integrity of God has 2 parts, that is His absolute righteousness and His perfect and absolute justice.

Therefore, election, which is the subject here in Rom 9, cannot be viewed apart from God’s integrity. And that’s why ROM 9:14 says, there isn’t any injustice in God, is there?

ROM 9:14, What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be!

Paul not only anticipated the question of his adversary, his sparring partner, his debating partner, but he also used a leg sweep, and swept his legs out from underneath him before he could even make that, and made it himself, and then answered it. In other words, when you think about election, we all think about God’s sovereign choice, but it’s very dangerous to separate or disengage His sovereign choice from His justice and from His omniscience from all the other attributes of His deity. Election is a subject that cannot be viewed apart from God’s integrity. And what do I mean by that? I mean that because God is just and righteous, He will never violate your free will. Election does not mean that God chose you to do something or be something or be someone that you have no say in the matter.

JOH 15:16, “You did not choose Me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and {that} your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask of the Father in My name, He may give to you.”

JOH 13:18, “I do not speak of all of you. I know the ones I have chosen; but {it is} that the Scripture may be fulfilled, ‘He who eats My bread has lifted up his heel against Me.’”

JOH 15:19, “If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

LUK 6:13, And when day came, He called His disciples to Him; and chose twelve of them, whom He also named as apostles:

ROM 9:20-21, On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use, and another for common use?

The point is that when the word of God says that God has chosen us that is not a violation of our free will.

The question is posed, which we all have already looked at it, and it’s answered emphatically in ROM 9:14 there cannot be injustice or unrighteousness in God. There cannot be any compromise of His divine essence. There can be no opposition or contradictions between His divine attributes. This means He can never be unfair or unjust with His divine decisions. This was ultimately revealed with the doctrine that we just completed, the Substitutionary Spiritual Death of our Lord. We went into this in great detail, especially with consideration to the fact that there is no capriciousness or impulse or arbitrary action or thought in God’s sovereignty.

When He elected us, He elected us according to not only his sovereign choice but according to His omniscience, including His foreknowledge. So, before we go on we are now ready for another subject that may seem technical, however, as you will see, it makes your Christian life very meaningful. Election is an important part of understanding the third category of mystery doctrine which we have been noting which is the unique equality factor of the Church-age.

We have been elected. and the question you should have is elected to what? The answer is that you have been elected to have God’s highest and best.

Point 1 is a definition.

Election is the expression of the sovereign will of God in eternity past before the universe existed and before mankind lived on planet earth. Election is the sovereign or absolute right that God has over His creation. In this study, election is defined as one of two important principles or desires from the sovereignty of God. The other of course is predestination.

We have noted along with foreknowledge, predestination, justification and glorification, they are all printouts from the Doctrine of the Divine Decrees and the sovereign will of God. This is why we read in ROM 8:28-39, And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first born among many brethren; and whom He predestined, these He also called; and whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Just as it is written, “For Thy sake we are being put to death all day long; We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Like predestination, election is used for believers only, ROM 8:33, “Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies.”

Please notice that in this passage that the elect are justified!

Now, in MAT 22:14 the Lord Jesus Christ said “For many are called, but few are chosen.”

The Greek adjective “polloi” is used from a semitic perspective which involves both quantity and totality, therefore “all” is the appropriate translation. The Jews would use the word “many” to mean all! For example, in DAN 12:2 speaking of the second coming Daniel says, “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, others to disgrace and everlasting contempt.

In this passage “many” refers to all! In fact in MAR 10:48 this word is translated all, “And many were sternly telling him to be quiet, but he kept crying out all [polloi] the more,

Or LUK 10:40, “But Martha was distracted with all [polloi] her preparations;”

Or LUK 18:39 “But he kept crying out all [polloi] the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”

This is also brought out in ROM 8:29, For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first born among many brethren;

The Lord Jesus Christ is not the first-born among many brethren, He is the first-born of all brethren.

Now, the fact that the word “many” can mean all is especially brought out in Rom 5.

ROM 5:12, Therefore, just as through one man [Adam] sin entered into the world, and spiritual death through sin, and so spiritual death spread to all men, because all sinned

ROM 5:15-18, But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many. And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned; for on the one hand the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation, but on the other hand the free gift arose from many transgressions resulting in justification. For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ. So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men.

All men have been re2conciled to God and have the opportunity through faith in Christ to be justified before God.

So, as you can see there are times in the Bible when the word many means “all”.

MAT 22:14, “For many are called, but few are chosen or elected [eklektoi] .”

Remember ROM 11:29, for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.

The “calling of God” is irrevocable in the fact that even though God knows who is going to respond and who is not, He still sends out the invitation which is the doctrine of the unlimited atonement. Therefore, “the many or “all” are called but few are elected!

So, There is no such thing as double election or a double pre-destination. Election is a benefit which expresses the sovereign will of God for each believer in the Royal Family during the Church-age.

Election means that God elected or chose you to have His highest and best for your life both in time and in eternity, EPH 1:2-7, Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love. He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace,

Therefore, election is the expression of the sovereign will of God for your life.

Now, pre-destination is different. Pre-destination is the “provision” of the sovereign will of God for your life. Pre-destination refers to the plan which God has provided for each believer.

Under election, the sovereignty of God willed the highest and best for every believer, having previously deposited it into escrow in eternity past. The mechanics for the election of the Church is the baptism of the Holy Spirit which occurs at the very moment we believe in Christ. This is one of the forty things we receive at salvation by which each one of us is entered into union with Christ.

The election of the Church includes both equal privilege and equal opportunity for every believer.

Not only do you have a magnificent destiny under the PPOG, but election says that you have the same privileges and opportunities as all other believers for the execution of that plan. Under election, equal privilege is your Royal priesthood. Under election, equal opportunity is logistical grace support and blessing for both winners and losers.

Point 2. There are Three Elections in history.

a. Israel under the ritual plan of God.

b. Christ under the incarnation plan of God.

c. The church under the pre-designed plan of God.

Israel was elected under the ritual plan of God, that’s why DEU 7:6 says, “For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has elected you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.

ISA 45:4 says the same thing, “For the sake of Jacob My servant, And Israel My elected one, I have also called you by your name; I have given you a title of honor though you have not known Me.

The Lord Jesus Christ was elected under the incarnation plan of God, ISA 42:1, “Behold, My Servant, whom I uphold; My elected one in whom My soul delights. I have put My Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the nations.

MAT 12:18, Behold, My Servant whom I have elected; My Beloved in whom My soul is well pleased; I will put My Spirit upon Him, And He shall proclaim justice to the Gentiles.

LUK 9:35, And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is My Son, My Chosen One; listen to Him!”

Then the church under the pre-designed plan of God, COL 3:12, And so, as those who have been elected of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience;

It’s very interesting to note that each election brought a new category of species into history.

For example the election of Israel brought in the new racial species, the Jew. This is one of the main reasons why there are problems in Iraq and the Middle East.

Then there is the election of Christ which brought in the hypostatic union, i.e. undiminished deity and true humanity in one person forever. Jesus Christ is eternal God and therefore different from humanity. Jesus Christ is true humanity and therefore different from eternal God. He had to become true humanity to be our Savior, our great high priest, and our mediator.

The election of the Church brought in the new spiritual species, the Church or Royal Family of God. This is called the new creature in the Bible.

2CO 5:17, Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.

GAL 6:14-16, But may it never be that I should boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. And those who will walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God.

The following link is to a good news message describing how one can receive eternal life:
Ticket to Heaven, it was written for anyone not absolutely certain about their eternal future.