Recap: Last week I proposed that the New Testament could be described as the revealing of God's plan to build the Christian Church - the "structure" God chose to achieve His goal of the salvation of the world. I proposed that, like many building projects, we could look at God's creative Church-building strategy as phased construction.
The focus of the first phase of the establishment of the Christian Church was the sending of Jesus into the world and the selection, training, and preparation of the apostles. This phase of the plan is the essence of the four Gospels.
Today we'll begin to look at one account of the first phase of God's Church-building project with a focus on the doctrine of election in the Gospel of John.
Election in the Gospel of John
I once heard a pastor say that in the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John were the passages that convinced him to be a Calvinist. From John 6, he concluded that God had chosen certain individuals to be saved (unconditional election), and that God draws those people to Jesus with a divine summons (irresistible grace), and that those people will be held in faith until the last day (perseverance of the saints). In those passages he believed that he had found irrefutable scriptural evidence for three of the five Calvinistic "doctrines of grace" - the T-U-L-I-P acrostic of Calvinism.*
* T = (Total depravity) - No one can want God unless God wants them.
U = (Unconditional election) - God doesn’t want everyone.
L = (Limited atonement) - God sent Christ to pay only for those He wants.
I = (Irresistible grace) - If God wants you He will make you want Him.
P = (Perseverance of the saints) - God makes those He wants to keep wanting Him forever. (from Dr. Leighton Flowers - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uy9rA-oeIc4)
The Gospel of John contains some of the most often-referenced passages in the debate on the doctrine of election and predestination. For the next several posts, I'd like to present, for your consideration, a review of some of the commonly cited "proof-texts" used to support the various views of divine election in John's Gospel. We'll undertake to focus on applicable verses in Chapters 1, 6, 10, and 17, but will necessarily find supporting references in other passages throughout the Scriptures.
My goal for each passage is to present a fair and honest perspective from both the Calvinistic/Reformed- and the various non-Calvinistic viewpoints. Although there are many subtle variations within each camp, I will strive to provide an interpretation of the passages that reasonably and fairly represents each traditional school of thought. Each posting will conclude with some thoughts of my own.
Since I don't consider myself a Calvinist nor a traditional non-Calvinist, you will likely find my understanding to be... well... non-traditional. To be clear, by "non-traditional" I certainly don't mean to imply that my viewpoint is non-biblical. On the contrary, by "non-traditional" I simply mean that, since there have been centuries of debate on this doctrine with no consensus among the scholars, I believe that a non-contradictory, true-to-Scripture understanding requires a biblical interpretation that does not necessarily conform to the traditional Calvinistic or non-Calvinistic models.
The Gospel of John - a Brief Overview
I once heard it said that if the Gospel of John were a symphony, the first eighteen verses are like the overture of the symphony. In those verses, John presents a brief preview of each theme to be presented in the Gospel; the deity of Christ, his relationship to the Father, his incarnation; the announcement of his arrival, his rejection, and his embodiment & reflection of grace and his truth.
While there is some dispute among scholars regarding the date of the writing of the Gospel according to John, there is general consensus that it was likely the last of the four Gospels to be written. John makes clear his purpose for writing his account:
Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (John 20:30-31 ESV)
John wrote his gospel account to kindle saving faith in whoever reads it, and that by believing that Jesus is the Messiah (Gr.- Christos), he would obtain eternal life (Gr. - zoe).
John's unique relationship with Jesus is, perhaps, one of the reasons his gospel contains a number of events and important biographical information that were not included in the other gospels (i.e. the Upper Room Discourse and High Priestly Prayer - John 13-17). Although Jesus felt a genuine, familiar affection for all the apostles- referring to them as his "friends" and his "bothers" - John was the "disciple whom Jesus loved" (John 19:26). John was the disciple who affectionately leaned against Jesus as they reclined at the table while Jesus confided in him the treachery of Judas (John 13:25-26). John was the one entrusted to take care of Jesus' mother after his crucifixion (John 19:27), and John was given the responsibility of penning a Gospel account and three letters which were deemed to be "God-breathed" (2 Tim 3:16) and included in the Canon.
Chosen
Although the Gospels are, most notably, biographies of Jesus, his story is told primarily through his interaction with, and his mentoring of his apostles. Every teaching, every miracle, every moment of his three-year earthly ministry was in the presence of, and for the specific benefit and edification of the apostles. In a very real sense, the four Gospels are about their unique relationships with Jesus and about their divine calling to replace him as his chosen ambassadors - Phase 1 of God's Church-building plan, the foundation.
It should be noted that, contrary to the Calvinistic doctrine of "unconditional election", the choosing of the apostles was not unconditional at all. First, as discussed previously, not only did they have to be ethnic Jews (see Posts 24 & 25), but they had to meet the same "conditions" required by all those chosen by God for service in the kingdom; they had to be "foolish... weak... and insignificant... so that no human being might boast in the presence of God" (1 Corinthians 1:27-29 ESV).
Final Thought
Although we should be encouraged by these "conditions" of weakness, foolishness and insignificance in God's chosen servants because it is scriptural evidence that God can use anyone effectively, we should not conclude that the Gospels are about us. They are not.
Although Jesus offered many wonderful, prophetic teachings that pointed to a future grace, generally speaking, we are not in view in the Gospels. If we try to squeeze our twenty-first-century selves into the first-century accounts, the clarity of God's phased construction of the Church becomes murky and confused. We muddy the wonderful story of a clever plan enacted by God at the birth of the Church – a plan that a loving God intentionally unfolded in phases to ensure that a maximum number of people would benefit from his gracious offer of eternal life.
I propose that if we can simply marvel at the wondrous and gracious work that God did in establishing the Church, we will avoid one of the principal causes of confusion and contradictions that have plagued a clear understanding of the doctrine of election for centuries.
To learn more, please consider picking up my book - God's Elect: The Chosen Generation
(available in paperback and on Kindle)
Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/Gods-Elect-Generation-John- Chipman/dp/1632695723/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1507WZLOS9FHL&keywords=god%27s+elect+chipman&qid=1682632127&sprefix=god%27s+elect+chipman%2Caps%2C293&sr=8-1
(Also available at Barnes & Noble & Christianbook.com)
Next Post: We'll examine the relevant passages on election in the Gospel of John, beginning with a well-known argument in Chapter 1.
Here's a link: https://www.bibleinsights.net/post/post-30-born-of-god-election-in-the-gospel-of-john-part-3
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