To Be Chosen

When Jesus and His disciples arrived at Caesarea, Jesus asked them all, “whom say ye that I am?” Peter responded with Christ, the son of the living God.

Jesus then said to Peter, “Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 16:17).

The revelation of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior is appointed and designated specifically and exclusively for God’s chosen people. It is done at a time and place of the Lord’s choosing. Nature does not reveal Christ to us, God does.

Intellect does not reveal God to us. We don’t, “figure it out” on our own.

No quality or merit causes the revelation. There is no deed, nor preparation, qualifications, or level of holiness and righteousness that must be attained before being chosen.

The election by God of His people is strictly by the grace of God. He opens our eyes to Him. Once our eyes (the window to the soul) have been opened, we are then able to see God in other things. We discover the joy and wonder of the symphony God conducts in nature, something we were deaf to prior to our quickening.

God awakens us to Him at different points in our lives. Some at a young age, some when they are old. Jesus explains this in the parable of the vineyard and the workers who were all paid the same penny although each worked a different number of hours.

Jesus said, “So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen” (Matthew 20:16).

Many are called but few are chosen. This does not mean that the elect are picked out of a crowd. There is no preferred quality, merit, or deed that qualifies us. Our election occurred before time began.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: 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: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will” (Ephesians 1:3-5)

Which adds another element. Almost everyone will hear the gospel message, but only a few will respond. Why? Because God only motivates His chosen, the ones chosen before the foundation of the world to respond to His call.

Do you think this is unfair?

“What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” (Romans 9:14-15)

Everything is a creation of God. Can He not do as He pleases with what is His? God is the potter. We are the clay. God can do as He wishes with the clay for He created the clay in which He forms His desire.

“Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did he in heaven, and in earth, in the seas, and all deep places.” (Psalm 135:6).

What God can never do is unrighteousness, God cannot, "not be”, nor  can God vary in any form or fashion.

The call goes out to all the world. But Jesus said that the, “people's heart is waxed gross (hardened and stupid), and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them” (Matthew 13:15).

The 19^th century theologian Albert Barnes used a choice and most appropriate word to describe the people who’s heart had waxed gross and choose to stop their ears to God’s call.  The word was "Obdurate". It means to be, “stubbornly persistent in wrongdoing” (Merriam Webster). God obliges the wish of an unrepentant and obdurate sinner. This means that not only will God allow their behavior but makes it spiritually binding.

It is really important to understand that the sinner is so by choice. This is an act of their free will. God obliges the obdurate will, reluctantly so, for He would have everyone to repent and live! See Ezekiel Chapter 18.

David told his son Solomon that the, “Lord searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts: if thou seek him, he will be found of thee; but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off for ever. Take heed now; for the Lord hath chosen thee to build an house for the sanctuary: be strong, and do it.” (1 Chronicles 28:9-10).

God knows the heart. He also knows a stony heart, a heart that won’t allow the word in to take root and grow. Read the parable of the sower in Matthew Chapter 13.

Peter said, “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light; Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy” (1 Peter 2:9-10).

The chosen are this royal priesthood, the chosen. The term a, “peculiar people” doesn’t mean a strange people, but rather, “a thing acquired” by God, a “possession” (Vine’s).

Election was by God’s grace and the counsel of His own will. Why? So that we would “be to the praise of His glory”. (Ephesians 1:12)

We are called according to His purpose. As such, we know that being God’s chosen that all things, both good and bad that occur during this life, will work together for our good, to the elect that love God (Romans 8:28).

Bill Hitchcock