D. Scott Meadows
Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began (2 Tim 1.9).
God loves His chosen people eternally—not just everlastingly, if by everlastingly we mean from a certain point in time and enduringly through a succession of moments without end. Rather, His sovereign love upon particular individuals whom He purposes to create and to save has no beginning and no end. “God is love” (1 John 4.8, 16). His love is not something added to Him, not even a long, long time ago. It is timeless and eternal. It “was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,” before “the beginning” (Gen 1.1), that is, before time, if we may so speak. It is this love that accounts for the Christian’s holy call in his or her life experience to return to God. That call to salvation is “not according to our works,” which are all sinful and unworthy, “but according to His own purpose and grace,” the outworking of His eternal decree, and the exercise of His sovereign prerogative to be merciful and gracious to whomever He will, and to harden or blind the rest (Exod 33.19; Rom 9.15-16, 18; 11.7-8).
Objections to this biblical doctrine abound. Many may be dismissed easily, but some are more difficult. A thoughtful question is, “Doesn’t God’s relationship with particular people change as a result of Christ’s work on the cross?” or possibly, “when they believe the gospel?”
Indeed, Christ’s work on the cross is foundational to the acceptance of sinners with the holy God. We are only “accepted in the Beloved,” that is, in Christ (Eph 1.6). “We were reconciled to God by the death of His Son,” and now we are those “having been reconciled” (Rom 5.10 NKJV). Further, Paul wrote that Christians “were dead in trespasses and sins,” that is, before we believed in Christ, and that we “were by nature the children of wrath, even as others” (Eph 2.1-3). In ourselves, there was no spiritual difference between us and them.
So the question, “Does God’s relationship with particular people change,” requires a qualified answer of yes! But we must understand that, with respect to God, all the change is ad extra, “the outward or external works of God; the divine activities according to which God creates, sustains, and otherwise relates to all finite things, including the activity or work of grace and salvation” (Richard A. Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms, in loc.). God has not changed in Himself, not even a little.
To elaborate a little more, God relates Himself to us differently once we have been joined to the benefits of Christ’s death and resurrection by His Spirit. He is no longer hostile to us but, rather, we have been reconciled to Him so that we are no longer under His wrath but under His grace. We have returned to Him and He has returned to us. “Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the LORD of hosts” (Mal. 3:7).
But if one is asking whether God feels differently about us because of Christ’s redemptive work, then the answer is no. God does not change and does not “feel,” but He does deal differently with us in time. The change is in the manifestation of His immutable Being toward us. Whereas He once manifested Himself in wrath against us, He now manifests Himself in grace. The alteration between “then” and “now” belong to the realm of our changing and unfolding experience of God, but not to the inner life of God Himself or to some “experience” He undergoes.
God loves the elect, for whom Christ died, eternally and immutably, because it is for Christ’s sake that He loves us—Christ as Son of God, as the righteousness of God, as the Lamb slain before the world began, and as the risen, triumphant Redeemer. The Father did not wait until Christ died for us in history to begin to love us (John 3.16; 1 John 4.9-10). We are chosen in Christ before the world began (Eph 1.4; 2 Thess 2.13; cf. Acts 15.18; Rev 13.8). God’s love accounts for His entire redemptive plan that includes Christ’s work on the cross. Our union with Christ in His righteousness and propitiation justifies God in His love for sinners who merited, in ourselves, only His wrath.
Oh, what a comfort this is to my soul, and, I trust, to yours! It is a profound consolation that our salvation is absolutely certain because it is the inevitable effect of God Himself in His absolutely simple Being, and in His eternal and effectual purpose of grace toward us in Christ! I perceive a glorious luster, beyond anything I have ever appreciated before, in texts like Romans 8.38-39, “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” How could it, with God as He is?
So much more could be said, but for now, I pray for our edification, consolation, and blessing in thinking together about all this glorious gospel doctrine. Amen. Ω
All rights reserved. This article was posted on February 6, 2015 but is dated February 1, 2015.