6. The purpose of the doctrine of eternal election.
Scripture instructs us about the purpose of the doctrine of eternal election in great detail and in very certain terms. This doctrine is not intended to negate or limit the universalis gratia, as many before and after Calvin have thought,1694) but to confirm and emphatically inculcate the sola gratia. Christians, when comparing themselves with non-Christians, should not think that God has accepted them among his people in consideration of their "different behavior," their better conduct or their lesser guilt, etc., but it should remain present to Christians in all circumstances and at all times that, compared with unbelievers, they also behave badly and are in the same debt before God, as much as depends on them. If they were to accept the contrary, they would be eliminated from Christendom, the kingdom of grace, and would be confined
1693) This is also stated by Frank (Theol. der Konkordienf. IV, 206): "The later" (i.e. among the later Lutheran theologians) "popular theological means of information of a praevisa fides in connection with the voluntas Dei antecedens and consequens does not want to catch, it seems, because, on the one hand, faith itself is to be regarded as an effect of grace … . . and because, on the other hand, the confession does not make use of that means of information at any point."
1694) Cf. the detailed historical presentation of this contrast under the sections "general" and "serious" grace, II, 21 ff.; furthermore: "Terminology in relation to God's will of grace", where it is also proven that Luther and Calvin only agree in certain expressions, but completely differ in the matter, II, 36-55.
555 > Eternal election. [English ed. ~ 490-491]
to the kingdom of the Pharisees, which is under the curse.1695) This is the intention of the doctrine of Election of Grace revealed in the Scriptures.
So already in the type of Election of Grace, namely in the election of Israel to the covenant people. If one reads Deut. 9:4 ff., one gets the impression as if Moses in his address to the people of the Jews could not find words enough to take away the delusion of the people that they come to Canaan because they are better in comparison with the heathen. It says: "If therefore the Lord thy God hath driven them [the heathen] out from before thee, say not in thine heart, The Lord hath brought me in to possess this land for my righteousness' sake: for the Lord hath driven out these heathen from before thee for their ungodliness. For thou camest not in to possess their land for thy righteousness and uprightness of heart: but the Lord thy God doth drive out these heathen for their ungodliness, to keep the word which the Lord sware unto thy fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Know therefore that the Lord thy God giveth thee not to possess this good land for thy righteousness' sake, because thou art a stiff-necked people." The doctrine of election to salvation has the same purpose. It is as if here, too, the Holy Spirit could not find words enough to impress upon Christians the truth that they owe their acceptance to salvation not to any betterment on their part, but only to the grace of God in Christ. 2 Tim. 1:9: not κατά τά εργα ημών, but κατά ιδίαν πρό&εσιν και χάριν την δοϋ-εΐσαν ήμΐν εν Χριστώ Ίησοϋ προ χρόνων αιωνίων. Eph. 1:5-6: κατά την ευδοκίαν του ϑελήματος αντον εις έπαινον δόξης τής χάριτος αντον. Rom. 11:6.: εΐ δε χάριτι, ουκέτί εξ έργων. From this scopus — the affirmation of sola gratia. — chapters 9-11 of the Epistle to the Romans are also rightly understood. These chapters are not directed against general grace—the apostle teaches general grace very emphatically even in these chapters, chs. 10:21; 11:32—but these chapters are characterized throughout as a polemic against the delusion of one's own righteousness and of being better than others.1696)
1695) Luke 18:9 ff; Gal 3:10.
1696) See also the summary ch. 9:30-33 and the further exposition ch. 10:1-13, then also the polemic against the Gentile Christians, insofar as they ascribe to themselves a being better than the Jews, ch. 11:18 ff.
556 > Eternal election. [English ed. ~ 491-492]
The Lutheran Confessions also confirm sola gratia as the purpose of the doctrine of election. Formula of Concord (713, 43. 44) [Trigl. 1077, ibid., 43ff. 🔗]: "It confirms most powerfully the article that we are saved and justified without all our works and merit, purely by grace, for Christ's sake alone. For before the time of the world, before we were, even before the foundation of the world was laid, since we could do no good, we were chosen by grace in Christ according to God's purpose for salvation, Rom. 9; 2 Tim. 1. By this also all opiniones and erroneous doctrines of the powers of our natural will are put down, because God in His counsel before the time of the world considered and decreed that He Himself would create and work in us all things pertaining to our conversion by the power of His Holy Spirit through the Word." Likewise 723, 87. 88 [Trigl. 1091, ibid., 87 f. 🔗]: "By this doctrine and explanation of the eternal and saving election of the elect children of God, God is given His glory wholly and completely, that out of pure mercy in Christ, without any merit or good works on our part, He makes us blessed according to the purpose of His will, as it is written Eph. 1: 'He hath ordained us to filial adoption unto himself through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glory and grace, whereby he hath made us accepted in the Beloved.' Therefore it is false and wrong when it is taught that not only the mercy of God and [the] most holy merit of Christ, but also in us is a cause of God's election, for whose sake God has chosen us to eternal life. For not only before we do any good, but also before we are born, hath he chosen us in Christ, even before the foundation of the world was taken: and ‘that the purpose of God might be according to election, it was said unto him, not of the merit of works, but of the grace of the caller; that he which is greatest should serve that which is least’. As it is written: "I loved Jacob, but I hated Esau. Rom. 9:11 ff.; Gen. 25:23; Mal. 1:2 f.."
In the confirmation of sola gratia by the doctrine of eternal election, there is also a reason why this doctrine is terrible to some and comforting to others. To all those who think that they are not like other people, who still find on their side their own virtue and ability: semina virtutum, at least facultas se applicandi ad gratiam, different conduct, a lesser guilt, etc. — to all these the
557 > Eternal election. [English ed. ~ 492-493]
Scriptural doctrine of the Election of Grace, because it destroys their whole religion, to which they count the "self-determination that is inseparable from the human being".1697) On the other hand, the Scriptural doctrine of the Election of Grace, because it so powerfully confirms sola gratia, is very comforting to all those who have been "smitten into heaps" by the thunderbolt of the law, have come to despair of themselves, and see the only salvation in pure, free grace. "There is" — says the Formula of Concord (714, 45-49 [Trigl. 1079, ibid., 45 ff. 🔗]) — "the beautiful, glorious consolation that God has made every Christian's conversion, righteousness, and salvation so dear to him and so faithfully meant it that, before the foundation of the world was taken, he held counsel about it and decreed in his purpose how he would bring me to it and preserve me in it; Again, that he had so well and certainly purposed to save my salvation, because it might easily be lost by the weakness and wickedness of our flesh out of our hands, or snatched and taken away by the cunning and power of the devil and the world, that in his eternal purpose, which cannot fail or be overthrown, he has decreed and taken it into the almighty hand of our Savior Jesus Christ, out of which no one can snatch us, John. 10, wherefore also Paul saith Rom. 8, Because we are called according to the purpose of God, who then will separate us from the love of God in Christ?" Thus, individual Christians see in the Election of Grace, because it is a confirmation of sola gratia, a great comfort in their weakness and in their temptations.
Furthermore: Because it looks at times as if the Christian church on earth has come to an end, we should also find in the Election of Grace a guarantee for the existence of a Christian church under all circumstances. This, too, the Scriptures teach as the purpose of eternal election. When Elijah, in his pessimism, came before God and lamented, "Lord, I alone am left," God instructed him that there were still seven thousand left as the effect of election, Rom. 11:7: ή εκλογή (abstractum pro concreto) επέτυχεν, "election has obtained it." When in the last time the affliction grows to a climax, God shortens
1697) Recently, Dr. Schmidt in Distinctive Doctrines4 , p. 230, advocates again with great determination that the man inspired by grace has "an option between obeying the call and yielding to the saving influences of God's Spirit, on the one hand, and between refusing to do so, on the other hand".
558 > Eternal election. [English ed. ~ 493-494.]
for the sake of the elect, the days of tribulation, Matt. 24:22. So also the Formula of Concord (716, 50 [Trigl. 1079, ibid., 50 🔗]): "There is also this article a glorious testimony, that the church of God shall be and remain against all the gates of hell." Eternal election stands in causal relation to the Christian church.
All those who make something inherent in man (aliquid in homine) the cause or occasion of eternal election, whether this be a whole or half human achievement, the "inalienable" human self-determination or something similar, turn the purpose of the revelation of the doctrine of eternal election into the exact opposite. They turn the doctrine that is supposed to confirm and glorify God's grace1698) into a doctrine that actually confirms and glorifies human virtue and good behavior, that takes salvation from God's hand of grace and places it in man's hand, that makes grace and salvation not certain but uncertain, that makes the Christian church move away from its foundation — sola gratia. We must not forget that as long as someone still believes in his heart and before God that a cause or reason for eternal election lies in himself, he still bears the marks of the lost, as Paul also reproached the Gentile Christians when they forgot the "There is no difference here" and wanted to rise above the unbelieving Jews.1699)
To the purpose of the doctrine of eternal election belongs finally also an admonition and warning, which all Christians need very much according to their flesh. Because the eternal election did not take place in a bare manner (nude), but in the sanctification of the Spirit and in the faith of truth, all Christians are powerfully admonished by the doctrine of eternal election that they will be found in the way in which their election took place in eternity. To this admonition Christ uses eternal election when, after describing the way of salvation, he says: "Many are called, but few are chosen." The same purpose is served by the exhortation addressed to Christians to establish their calling and election.1700) The chosen ones wear
1698) Eph. 1:6: εις έπαινον τής δόξης τής χάριτος αντον, ής εχαρίτωοεν ήμας εν τω ήγαπημένω.
1699) Rom. 11:18-22.
1700) 2 Pet. 1:10. Cf. Luther's disputation on Luke 7:47. St. L. VII, 1461, Thesis 57.
559 > Eternal election. [English ed. ~ 494-495.]
this garment in their temporal appearance: "hear the gospel, believe in Christ, pray and give thanks, are sanctified in love, have hope, patience and comfort in the cross. Rom. 8. And though all these things be very weak in them, yet they hunger and thirst after righteousness." The Formula of Concord also emphasizes the exhortatory purpose of the doctrine of eternal election in the words (715, 51 [Trigl. 1079, ibid, 51 🔗]): "Mighty admonitions and warnings are also heard from this article, as Luke 7:30: 'They despised God's counsel against themselves'; Luke 14:24: 'I tell you that none of these men will taste my supper'; again: 'Many are called, but few are chosen'."