Word of Salvation – Vol.10 No.32 – August 1964

 

Believe Your Election!

 

Sermon by Rev. K. Kramer on Amos 3:2

Scripture Reading Col. 3:5-19; Amos 3

Psalter Hymnal: 124:1,2,3; 367:1; 381; 221:3,4; 390:2

 

Translated by John Westendorp with some AI help from Google.

Translator’s note: early editions of ‘Word of Salvation’ still had some sermons in Dutch for the migrant communities that then made up the Reformed Churches of Australia.

 

Beloved congregation,

In one of the Lord’s Days of the Catechism the question is asked: does this doctrine not make people godless and careless?  That means in practice: is the confession of and the preaching in the Reformed Churches not such that there is a danger that we too easily hide behind the great truths that this church confesses and preaches?

When it is emphasized over and over again that we must not doubt that God has accepted us in grace, and that we must always assume that we are children of God, and that the Lord Jesus is our complete Savior Who has indeed redeemed us, do we not then contribute to the fact that many people think all too quickly that everything will turn out well for them?

Is not such preaching exceedingly apt to cultivate a false snese of security?  Will it not also be said that there is still much to be done before one may be certain of the forgiveness of one’s sins?

Doesn’t the Bible itself say that ‘the righteous are scarcely saved’?

No one, congregation, shoul underestimate the danger of false security, and we must be aware that we are seriously warned against this danger in both the Old and New Testaments.

So today I minister to you God’s Word concerning the false security that God sharply criticized in the days of Amos.

First I will speak to you about election, and then about the connection between election and the forgiveness of sins.

Our text , brothers and sisters, is not easy.  You will have noticed that immediately when you read it.  It actually says something quite different than we would have expected.  If it had said: of all the families of the earth I have known you alone and therefore I have forgiven all your sins, we would have understood that immediately.  But it says just the opposite: …therefore I will visit all your iniquities upon you.

Israel did not understand that either.  They also thought that in election the forgiveness of sins was automatically included.  Chosen, that meant something like : I have arrived!

How many, congregation, still think that way today?  For many, election is the end of all contradiction.  Whoever is chosen will make it!  In other words: he doesn’t have to worry about anything anymore !

Such reasoning is contrary to Scripture.  Nowhere is it said that election is a divine decree from which it automatically follows that we will go to heaven.  Whoever thinks so does not know how the Bible speaks of election, and may well seriously ask himself whether, by thinking so, he is not adhering to a different gospel than that handed down to us.  This is what the gospel says, that election to salvation is the alpha and omega of God’s grace, and not just a decree whose consequences are automatic.  Election is not the invisible power of God by which people automatically go to heaven, but the result of God’s strong will to show His grace to people who could not claim any right to it.  Election is this, that God in the silence of eternity decided not to let the human race perish in the misery into which it had plunged itself, but to form a new humanity out of the human race, to which He wanted to show His grace.

Without too much emphasis, congregation, it can be said that election is inseparably connected with God’s will to save sinners by grace.  Grace and election are in the scriptures on the same level.  Election is not a cold and hard decision that God has once made, and by which a number of people, as is said, are saved, but it is the incomprehensible counsel of God, by which God himself has opened the way to receive sinful people back into his fellowship.

If this were true for everyone, we would have no difficulty with the question of election.  But because the Scripture clearly states that God has opened this path only for those on whom He has wanted to have mercy, many immediately lose track and immediately ask themselves how and whether a person can ever know whether this path is also open to him.  Because many think that election is nothing more than the decision by which God has determined the number of people who will be saved, they draw the conclusion that only in heaven can it be determined who has and who has not belonged to that number.

It is no wonder then that for many folk election is only a fearful question, and that there are but few who know personally the comfort of election.  For many election is and remains an indigestible theological morsel, which has no value for the practicalities of the life of faith, and about which we had better keep silent.

That those who separates God’s election from God’s grace arrive at strange ideas is something we see clearly, congregation, in the people of Israel.

God had clearly said that He had chosen Israel.  More than once He had made it known that He had taken Israel to be His own people, in distinction from all other nations.  He taught them to walk in His ways.  He would not deal with other nations in this way!

And Israel was also very aware of this.  It knew until the days of Jesus’ walk on earth, that it was God’s people.  We have Abraham as our father and Moses is our highest Prophet, so we will be fine!

But what did the Lord Jesus say?  That it would be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon, two pagan cities, on the Day of Judgment than for Jerusalem!  That they believed that they were God’s chosen people, the Lord Jesus did not blame them for; they indeed were, BUT that they concluded from this that they therefore did not have to worry about anything anymore!   That they held on to what God himself had told them, the Lord Jesus did not disapprove of that in them, BUT that they went in a completely wrong direction with that, …that was their fault!  Not that they held on to their election, but that they no longer saw it as a proof of grace, therefore they were condemned.

That election and grace go together, and that election has everything to do with love, is proven by our text, which does not speak of election but of the fact that of all the families of the earth God knew only Israel.

That this does not mean that God did not know of the existence of those other peoples is clear.  What would God not know?

That this does not mean mere intellectual knowledge is self-evident.  This knowledge is on a par with what we encounter so often in the New Testament, where knowing God is the same as loving Him.  In the Biblical concept of ‘knowing’ it is not about intellectual knowledge, so that we know who it is about, but about a knowledge in which not our reason, but our heart and the attitude of our heart is decisive.

When your children play with other children on the street, you probably know them all, you may know their precise names, but you know your own child differently; you pick them out and pay attention to them the most.  Why?  Because there is something between you and your child that connects you, an invisible bond of community.  You know your child because you love them.

Now the scripture speaks about the knowledge of God.  When John says that eternal life is nothing else than that we would know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent, then it is not about knowing that God exists, and that the Lord Jesus was here in this world for a while, but that we would love God and the Lord Jesus.  Only when one loves, does one know!  Whoever does not love, may know everything about God, but he does not know God.  Whoever knows exactly what the Lord Jesus said and did when He was on earth, knows everything about it, but when he does not love Him, he does not know the Lord Jesus.

Thus our text does not say that God knew Israel, as we get to know a people when we come into contact with them, but that God chose Israel from all other peoples to prove His love to them.  Not because Israel was so good, but solely and only because God had chosen Israel as the object of His love, on the basis of His good pleasure; solely and only because God wanted to love Israel.  And may God not love whom He wants to?

Now Israel never wanted to accept that last thing.  That God had chosen Israel and had taken them as His own people, they thought it was fine; they even boasted of that, but that this election was only a matter of grace, they never wanted to acknowledge.  That they were better off than all other peoples, they did want, and that they could call the almighty God their God, they had not the slightest objection to that, but that this exceptional position was only due to grace, without any merit on their part, that went too far for them.

That the election, as proof of grace, required them to want to live by grace, they found too much, and therefore they did not worry about it.  That their election, with which God had shown that He loved them, obliged them to a new obedience totally passed them by.  No!  Things could not go wrong !  After all, they had been chosen!

Very clearly, congregation, Scripture shows that such a view of election is nothing but a caricature, and serious consideration must be given to the inevitable consequence that such an election will result in rejection.

Where the love of God is reasoned away from election, and where the call for reciprocal love, which comes to us precisely in election, is not listened to, then the end of election is not eternal well-being, but eternal woe!

When, in thinking about election, we do not simultaneously think about the demand for reciprocal love, it is not heaven that comes into view, but hell !  Where it is no longer understood that election is a gracious election, which obliges us every day to a new obedience, there we may not count (as if that were self-evident) on the song of the redeemed, but (and that is self-evident) on weeping and gnashing of teeth.

What do you understand, congregation, by your election?  That you will go to heaven; that you may count on it because you have been chosen?  Or do you perhaps not even dare to say that you have been chosen?  Whoever knows the scriptures knows that all who believe in the Lord Jesus have been chosen by God.  It is clearly stated in Ephesians 1:4 that God has chosen us in Him, that is, in the Lord Jesus, before the foundation of the world.  And what do we read in Col.3:12?  That we, as saints and beloved chosen by God, must give diligence to doing good works.  And what did Peter say?  But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood.

He who does not know whether he is chosen does not believe the Scriptures, and has apparently never really considered the words of the Savior Himself: You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you!

But what does it mean that we are chosen?  That we will definitely go to heaven?  And that we can count on our sins being forgiven?

That there is a close connection between election and forgiveness of sins, congregation, is a foregone conclusion.  But that this connection is different than we often think, is shown by our text.  It says that God, precisely because Israel was chosen, would visit the sins of Israel!  Instead of forgiveness, there was punishment.  But is that not something completely different from what we would expect on the basis of Scripture?  Doesn’t Scripture say clearly enough that if God is for us, no one will be against us?  Didn’t Paul cry out with great joy: Who shall bring any charge against God’s chosen ones?  And didn’t he rejoice that nothing, not even the power of sin, nor even the devil, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord?

How then can our text say that God would visit all Israel’s iniquities on them precisely because Israel was chosen?

Because Israel did not want to see the connection between election and forgiveness of sins as a matter of grace!  Because they only saw election as a great stroke of luck, from which they could only benefit; because they only experienced their election as a gain, which they had ahead of all other nations!  They were God’s people, and so everything would be fine with them.  That they interpreted their election completely differently than God intended is what Amos had to tell them razor-sharp clarity.  “You count on forgiveness, but it is just the other way around; God will visit all your iniquities on you, precisely because you are chosen!”

Whoever thinks that election is a license to live as he pleases, and no longer sees it as a matter for which he may be immensely grateful, and from which he draws the conclusion for himself that he should also live as a chosen one, must not count on forgiveness but on retribution.  For whom election is no longer an incomprehensible miracle, who no longer hears anything at all when he hears God speak of electing grace and of undeserved blessings, must expect something other than what he thought he could count on.  Where election no longer drives a person to wonder, because one takes it for granted that one is counted among the number of the chosen, there the forgiveness of sins is not only a doubtful matter, but an impossible one.  Where election is not an incentive every day again to take seriously what God asks of us, there the forgiveness of sins disappears more and more from sight, until it is no longer there at all and God, instead of forgiving, takes our sins into account one by one.  Where election is no longer experienced as an unimaginably great grace, forgiveness gives way to retribution.

For this the scripture says clearly, that God expects more from His elect than from others.  When other nations sin, that is an abomination to God, but when His own people pile one sin on top of another, then He cannot overlook it.  When another child does wrong, oh, you accept that, but when it concerns your own child, you feel it doubly heavy.  Therefore, here, congregation, is not only a threat but above all a heartfelt plea to take the matter of faith and conversion seriously.  Here is not just the voice of a strange God, who elects and yet does not save, but here is the call of the Father of mercies, to answer His great love with reciprocal love.  Here, in this threat, we hear God’s serious call to His elect Church to reveal herself in this world as a royal priesthood and as a chosen generation!  Here is the voice of the Father, Who calls His child to order, precisely because he is His child, and tells him honestly what he must expect when he no longer responds to the love of his Father, which is shown to him in his election.  Whoever rejects God’s love in election, rejects election itself , and may no longer count on forgiveness.  He is like the heathen and the publican who have no part in the kingdom of Christ.

But he who in great humility confesses the wonder of election, and cannot imagine that he was chosen by God from before the foundation of the world, and has discovered God’s love in it, knows that this love was the divine motive for the complete forgiveness of all his sins; knows that the love of God, which moved Him eternally, brought the Lord Jesus into this world, that whosoever believesin Him should not perish, but have everlasting life; knows that the connection between election and forgiveness is nothing other than the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord, from which no creature shall ever separate him.

Believe then, congregation, your election, and adore God’s love, which comes to you in it, and then wait for what this God will do to you.  According to the faithfulness of His covenant He will forgive you all your iniquities, but only by grace, only for Jesus’ sake!

Amen.