Mailbag: If Election is True Why Bother . . .

I just received an email asking a common set of questions about election. For example, if election is true - why bother preaching the Gospel, why did Jesus have to go through His death on the cross, etc. Here are some thoughts.

The email says:

I unfortunately do not have as much time to write the detailed response that I would like for each of those questions. So I think what I'll do this time around is answer in a general way, and allow some of the very good commenters that visit Old Truth to help me out with this one. If that ends up not happening, I'll follow-up with more in the days ahead, in the comments section below.

It's true that if God wanted to, he could have designed a world where no intermediate steps would be needed for Salvation. He could have created us in Heaven to begin with, having no ability to sin. Why didn't He do that? I don't know. What we do know from the bible is that, God generally does things through "means". Before I explain that, let me illustrate it with an example from scripture.

In Acts 27, Paul is nearly lost at sea in a storm, and is told by an angel that everyone on the ship will be saved, but the passage says "Unless these men stay in the ship, you cannot be saved".

Now why did God do that? Why didn't He just snap His fingers and make everyone on the ship reappear on dry ground? Again, we don't know why He did it that way. But for some reason, God usually does things through "means". So in Acts 27, the means of saving the men from drowning is the ship. But note that the passage says that everyone WILL be saved from dying (it's a certainty with God), but then it says that they can't be saved UNLESS they stay with the ship (it's conditional based on man's actions).

I think that much of what you are asking is similar. We preach the Gospel because it is God's chosen "means" of bringing the message of salvation to man. Jesus died on the cross as a "means" of redemption and payment for our sins. Faith is also part of the means of salvation, and so we tell people to believe and repent, as the bible commands us to. Prayer is also a "means" that God has ordained. Though we don't know why God does it that way, we are grateful that He has chosen to involve us in His work, and in fact - has given us a very important role.

There are many things that God has given man a part in, even in man's own salvation. But it's important that we trace the reason for salvation all the way back to it's source, which is God. It is because He elected us that we ended up believing and repenting. Or as Jesus said in John 6:37 "All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out". And so we say "to God be the glory for my salvation".

One very good book that would explain these things more thoroughly is
The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination. It's one of the most important books that I've ever read. There's also an online version of the book that you can read for free. I hope that helps you out, if not - feel free to ask more questions below.