Weekly Bible Study – November 17 2014

Doctrine of Election, Part 4. The Election of The Church.

PLEASE READ FIRST

Scripture References, Word & Phrase descriptions: If available on the website you're viewing this on, a few links (i.e., those without an already written scripture quote or brief explanation) are hover pop-up active, meaning the scripture reference will just pop-up if you hover your cursor over it (don’t click on the link, just hover your cursor over it), they work best using the Firefox browser – pop-ups in Internet Explorer, Chrome & other browsers only appear for a few seconds at best. If you don’t have Firefox (or hover pop-ups aren’t available on the website you’re viewing this on), that’s OK, move your cursor off and on the link until it is read; or left click the link which will open the verse at the online bible; or you can always use your Bible to look up the verses.

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]

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

The Tree of Life is a weekly teaching summary:
God’s Word is Wednesday, Friday and Sunday mornings

STUDY TITLE:

Doctrine of Election, Part 4.
The Election of The Church.



OPTION: If you would prefer to go directly to the Grace Bible Church website to read this study message, all verse reference links are active there (but not hover active) and Enlarged Text is also an available option – right click the above link then left click “Open Link in New Window” or “New Tab”

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

Doctrine of Election, Part 4. The Election of The Church.

In our doctrine of election, we are now ready for the point of doctrine that applies to us as members of the Church-age.

As a believer in Christ, you have a calling and an election for you to respond to. All Church-age believers must understand what election is all about! This is why the apostle Paul said in 1TH 1:4, knowing, brethren beloved by God, His choice of you or His election for you.

The Greek verb for to know is eidotes which in the perfect tense means that you should know fully and be able to recognize completely what election really means and how it relates to God’s plan for your life.

You have been elected to operate in the Royal Family Honor Code as in COL 3:12, Dress yourselves, therefore, as elected ones belonging to God, separated ones, having been loved, [and then the verb is in view] dress yourself with the affections of grace compassions, kindness, [true sensitivity] humility, gentleness.

To understand your election, you must function under the Royal Family Honor Code. God has not only chosen and elected you to something, but He wants you to know what that calling and election entails. First of all, you must understand and throw away the concept that you have been called and elected to be good moral people, because in the eyes of God human good is just as disgusting as the Pharisees according to the prophet Isa in ISA 64:6.

As a part of Election, God willed for you to have wealth, His wealth. As a result of becoming believers in Jesus Christ, we have the most fantastic wealth in our portfolio of invisible assets. This wonderful wealth is mentioned a number of times throughout the New Testament epistles.

ROM 9:23, 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,

As members of the Royal Family of God, we are described as “vessels of mercy,” i.e., we have received mercy. When we believed in Jesus Christ, we received at least forty things from God. That was the beginning of God’s mercy and God’s grace toward us. After that, we receive logistical grace support and blessing. All believers receive this whether they are winners or losers. We are the beneficiaries of the most fantastic plan that God has ever put together for those who are believers in Jesus Christ. This verse tells us that each believer has a destiny, although very few believers understand that they have a personal sense of destiny, which is the experience of attaining spiritual self-esteem and beyond.

There are two categories of destiny:

1) The temporal destiny is the advance to maturity and becoming an invisible hero.


2) The eternal destiny which begins with the Rapture of the Church when we receive our resurrection bodies.

There are two categorical functions of volition:

There is the sovereignty of God who has provided everything for our benefit, here referred to as “the riches of His glory given to vessels of mercy.”

There is also the free will of man which means that there coexists
God’s sovereignty and human volition.

We can have these riches through our positive volition toward the mystery doctrine of the Church-age. Now, is the only opportunity we have to use the free will God has given us in order to exercise it for His plan and purpose and to enjoy the riches He provided for us in eternity.

EPH 3:16, I pray that He may give you on the basis of the riches of His glory to become strong by means of power through His Spirit in your inner being.

ROM 11:33-36, says in effect O the depth [inexhaustibility] of the wealth, both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How inscrutable are His decrees; how untraceable are His ways! Who then has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has become His advisor? Or who has given to Him and has not been compensated? For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.

In EPH 1:18 Paul says, “I pray that the eyes of your right lobe may be enlightened so that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.”

To be enlightened requires perception of the Word of God, metabolization of Bible doctrine, the attainment of wisdom beginning at spiritual self-esteem. You have a fantastic inheritance and a fantastic destiny. You will have the greatest opportunity that has ever been given in history to born-again believers.

Nothing like it ever existed in the Old Testament. Only Jesus Christ was the recipient of it during the dispensation of the Hypostatic-union.

EPH 3:8, To me, the very least of all saints, this grace has been given to preach to the Gentiles the inscrutable wealth of Jesus Christ.

In eternity past, God the Father provided for you a complete portfolio of invisible assets and escrow blessings.

COL 1:27, In whom God willed to reveal to the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

COL 2:2, That their right lobes may be encouraged, having been knit together in virtue love, and attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding on the basis of metabolized doctrine of God’s mystery.

Promises of Wealth.

PHI 4:19, My God shall supply all of your needs on the basis of His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

These riches include logistical grace support. This means that God’s justice is imputed to God’s righteousness to us at salvation. God’s righteousness given to us at the moment of salvation is the basis for God being able to give us anything He does after salvation. Possessing God’s perfect righteousness means that whether you are a winner or loser in life, God will support and bless you. He does so because His justice imputes all blessing down the grace pipeline from His justice to His righteousness in you.

So blessing never depends on how good or bad you are, or on anything else you do or don’t do. God blesses us on the basis of His riches in glory, not on the basis of who and what we are, or on the basis of what we do.

HEB 13:5-6, Let your lifestyle be free from love for money; be content with what you have, for He Himself has said, I will never leave you, I will never forsake you. So that we may say with confidence, The Lord is my helper. I will not be afraid of what man will do to me.

That’s a promise to winners and losers alike, to the spiritual and the carnal, to the spiritual adult and to the apostate. You have all of God’s wealth available to you in your portfolio of invisible assets. The wealth in eternity is forever and ever and ever. It is conveyed at the judgment seat of Christ completely. The first conveyance or the down payment occurs in time as a transfer of phenomenal spiritual wealth and blessings!

In time, spiritual capacity or maturity is needed to taste these blessings. However, the second conveyance occurs at the Judgment seat of Christ. It will be staggering to the winner at that time. We call it crowns, decorations, and rewards, but those descriptions do not even begin to describe the fantastic things that God has elected every single one of us to have.

The principle is simple. Because all of us have a free-will, there will be great differences among believers in heaven forever and ever. We call them winners and losers because that’s what the Bible calls them.

The Bible tells us that there will be those who will suffer a loss of rewards in 1CO 3:11-15.

1CO 9:24-27, Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.


COL 3:23-24, Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.


2TI 2:5, Similarly, anyone who competes as an athlete does not receive the victor’s crown except by competing according to the rules.

HEB 12:1, Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.

1TI 6:10-12, For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many grief’s. But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses.”


MAR 8:34-38, “Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for his or her soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.”


PHI 3:12-14, “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

GAL 6:9, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”

JAM 1:12, “Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.”

ECC 9:10, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the realm of the dead, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.

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.