Some truths are immediately applicable: exercise is good for your health. Or, there’s a traffic jam on the M25.
Other truths are interesting but without making a huge difference to us: that Komodo Dragons have an iron coating on the edge of their teeth – while interesting – is unlikely to make much practical difference in your daily life. (Unless of course you were previously tempted to risk being bitten by one!)
Isn’t this true not only of mundane facts, but also of theological facts? It’s abundantly obvious that Christ’s death for the washing away of sin and giving of new life is enormously significant to everyone. But what of predestination and election? Is that not something primarily for theological students to debate about while the rest of us simply get on with our lives?
Not according to Article XVII which says that “the godly consideration of Predestination, and our Election in Christ, is full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to godly persons.”
That certainly sounds like something to be in on. How could sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort be anything but useful? Especially when our lives are so often characterised by bitter, unpleasant, and unspeakable anxiety.
But how might “the godly consideration of Predestination” bring this comfort? I want to offer you just one way in which it does so: a new perspective.
Many of life’s anxieties come about from the feeling that things happen at random. Whether it’s a new job, university place, or even good weather for our Summer holiday, how it will pan out seems to be entirely random. Yet the consideration of God’s election teaches us that things are not random.
Romans 8:28 is dear to many of us, “we know that for those who love God all things work together for good”. All things for good. What a promise. But what’s the ground of this promise? Read on in the verse, “for those who are called according to his purpose”. All things work for good because of God’s purpose.
And Paul doesn’t leave to the imagination what God’s purpose is. Just a few verses later he says, “those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified” (8:30).
In other words, the comfort of knowing that all things work together for good for those who love God is based in God’s election. It’s God that predestined, God who calls, God who justifies, and God who glorifies. When almighty God is the agent of actions they achieve their end. When once we’re elect there’s no doubt about being also glorified.
Would we have this unspeakable comfort of election? What if we doubt of our election? Hear William Perkins, don’t let “he that as yet has not felt in his heart any of those effects presently conclude that he is a reprobate; but let him rather use the Word of God and the sacraments, that he may have an inward sense of the power of Christ drawing him into Him and an assurance of his redemption by Christ’s death and passion”. [1]
Election is an unspeakable comfort. A necessary tonic to the anxious worry many of us live in. And this comfort comes to us through God’s ordained means of Word and sacrament.
Let’s not, then, treat election as an esoteric doctrine for theological students, but let us, by “godly consideration”, see God at the helm of our lives achieving his purpose from beginning to end.
Footnotes:
William Perkins, The Works of William Perkins, Volume 6, ed. by Joel Beeke and Greg Salazar (Reformation Heritage Books, 2018), p. 263.
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Benjamin Lucas trained at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford and has an MA in Theology with the University of Wales. He is married to Emily and they have three children. He is the Associate Vicar at All Saints' Lindfield.
Views expressed in blogs published by the Latimer Trust are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of the Latimer Trust.