Predestined as Sons
God's love compelled him to elect us into his family.
It magnifies these blessings to a high degree that they are the products of eternal counsel. The alms which you give to beggars at your doors proceed from a sudden resolve; but the provision which a parent makes for his children is the result of many thoughts, and is put into his last will and testament with a great deal of solemnity. And, as this magnifies divine love, so it secures the blessings to God’s elect; for the purpose of God according to election shall stand
He acts in pursuance of his eternal purpose in bestowing spiritual blessings upon his people.
The glory of God is his own end, and it should be ours in all that we do.
This makes it evident that their salvation was accomplished, not by any accidental or unlooked-for occurrence, but by the eternal and unchangeable decree of God.
If the reason is asked, why God has called us to enjoy the gospel, why he daily bestows upon us so many blessings, why he opens to us the gate of heaven,—the answer will be constantly found in this principle, that he hath chosen us before the foundation of the world. The very time when the election took place proves it to be free; for what could we have deserved, or what merit did we possess, before the world was made?
No doctrine is more useful, provided it be handled in the proper and cautious manner, of which Paul gives us an example, when he presents it as an illustration of the infinite goodness of God, and employs it as an excitement to gratitude. This is the true fountain from which we must draw our knowledge of the divine mercy. If men should evade every other argument, election shuts their mouth, so that they dare not and cannot claim anything for themselves.
The cause of our salvation did not proceed from us, but from God alone.
From the stated purpose it is evident that election does not carry man half-way only; it carries him all the way. It does not merely bring him to conversion; it brings him to perfection.
How then is it ever possible for God to bestow such a great, glorious, and basic blessing as election upon “children of wrath,” and to do so without detriment to his very essence and the inviolability of his holy law? The answer is that this is possible because of the promise of the Son (in full co-operation with the Father and the Spirit), “Lo, I come; in the roll of the book it is written of me; I delight to do thy will, O my God; thy law is within my heart” (Ps. 40:7, 8. Cf. Heb. 10:5–7; Gal. 4:4, 5; Phil. 2:6–8). “In Christ,” then, saints and believers, though initially and by nature thoroughly unworthy, are righteous in the very sight of God, for Christ had promised that in their stead he would satisfy all the requirements of the law, a promise which was also completely fulfilled (Gal. 3:13). This forensic righteousness is basic to all the other spiritual blessings.
The Father is described as having pre-horizoned or pre-encircled his chosen ones. In his boundless love, motivated by nothing outside of himself, he set them apart to be his own sons.
Hence, what he did was a result not of sheer determination but of supreme delight. A person may be fully determined to submit to a very serious operation. Again, he may be just as fully determined to plant a beautiful rose garden. Both are matters of the will. However, the latter alone is a matter of delight, that is, of his will’s good pleasure. Thus, God, who does not afflict from the heart (Lam. 3:33), delights in the salvation of sinners