UNDERSTANDING PREDESTINATION AND ELECTION

UNDERSTANDING PREDESTINATION AND ELECTION

This is a very difficult subject to share and discuss; over the years, many believers and godly individuals have ‘laboured’ to understand and appreciate this subject. Nonetheless, it is a very important subject to appreciate and understand; it deals with the Sovereignty of God, the nature of created man, the love, grace, and mercy of God, the reality of sin, the presence and reality of evil, the will of man and God’s supreme will, might, and justice.
Personally, this is a subject which is very close to my heart, as, over the years, I struggle to understand the meaning and application of this aspect of theology; and on top of that, in my some thirty years of pastoral ministry and fifty odd years of medical practice, I had to confront and think through this subject, with much ‘agony’ and ‘heartache’ as I sought to ‘convince’ many fellow-believers (some very close to me, and among them my family members). Among many positive areas of outworking in appreciating and applying this truth, one that stands out so richly to me is the depth of the enrichment of worship, adoration and love of God that comes about when this truth is assimilated into one’s life.

Simply stated, the doctrine of predestination is that from eternity God has chosen some for salvation in Christ, but has left others to their own choice of rebellion against him. On some, he has mercy, drawing them to Christ; others he has hardened by allowing them to harden themselves, or rather to be hardened and blinded by Satan, whose slaves they have willingly become.
By nature, we do not like this doctrine for it appears to make us puppets on the one hand, and it appears unfair on the other. Nevertheless, it is a doctrine that is amply taught in Holy Scripture.
It is based centrally on the nature of God, who is sovereign and merciful; it is based on the nature of man, rebellious and dead in sin; and it is based on the character of salvation, which is a free gift.

We need to unravel all these to come to a meaningful appreciation of this subject; and I urge all of us not to turn away from this because it is a complex subject, for it has very much to do with our salvation, from beginning to consummation, and our pilgrimage journey on earth, not just as individuals, but corporately as a church, as well as the ultimate glory of God and his honour.

We must begin with the fact that God is Creator of everything, and sovereign Lord over all that he has created. His sovereign lordship is not only over the impersonal happenings of nature but also over the lives of men and women who are a part of his creation. His sovereignty in our lives is not exercised in an impersonal way, but through our natures that he himself has made. God has not given over his sovereignty or withdrawn from any area in his creation. To think that God, as God, is unable to remain sovereign, having created men and women with true human natures and wills, is of course preposterous and absurd. The fact is that God is sovereign over every aspect of his creation, over the great and over the minute, over men and women, their actions, thoughts and wills, and even over evil men and their wills. He is sovereign over death – he can bring the dead to life by his word as easily as he brought creation into existence out of nothingness in the first place. His sovereignty is not diminished because of man’s rebellion against him.

Let us look at some passages of Scripture, teaching election and predestination:
“He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the kind intention of his will, to the praise of his grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the beloved…In him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to his purpose who works all things after the counsel of his will, to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ should be to the praise of his glory.” (Eph. 1:4-12)
In 2 Thessalonians 2:13-14 the apostle wrote: “God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth. And it was for this he called you through the gospel, that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Peter wrote his letter to those he described as having been “chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father”. (1 Peter1:1-2)
Paul also wrote, “God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to become conformed to the image of his son.” (Rom. 8:28-29)
In the next chapter Romans 9, Paul wrote most fully on the doctrine of predestination. First, he stated that God chose Jacob rather than Esau simply because of God’s own decision. There was nothing in the children which evoked that choice. The apostle concluded, “He has mercy on whom he desires, and he hardens whom he desires” (Rom. 9:18).
Then in the rest of the chapter Paul made clear by the way he answered objections that God’s choice is not conditioned by anything in those who are predestined.
We will share subsequently more on this intricate subject, God willing.

UNDERSTANDING PREDESTINATION AND ELECTION (B)

This doctrine raises an intellectual as well as an ethical problem for some. The intellectual problem has to do with the relationship of our wills, which we know to be real wills, with the sovereign will of God who chooses tor salvation. The ethical problem is the question of the fairness of God’s choice: why one and not the other?
Let us first consider the intellectual problem: this has to do with the relationship of the will of God and our wills. Our understanding finds difficulty in how our wills, which we know to be real, can remain true wills within the sovereign will of our Creator, in whom we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28) and who so we are clearly taught by revelation, works all things after the counsel of his will (Eph.1:11).
There is no problem however within the experience of the converted, regenerate Christian. Such a one, for example, can pray with complete confidence to God for guidance through the intricacies of life; he is following numerous spiritual injunctions to commit his way to the Lord God who will direct his paths. As the Christian looks back over life, he can see clearly that God has fulfilled and is fulfilling his promise to answer this prayer for guidance, yet the guidance experienced comes through entirely natural means. At no point is the Christian conscious that his own natural God-given faculties are suspended in order that the guidance might be piped to him, as it were. Every step of the road is his step, every decision is his, made, if he has these particular gifts, by intellectual reflection and decision, otherwise perhaps through the influence of friends and their intellectual wisdom. Thus the Christian is conscious both of the over-ruling guidance of God and of the true and full working of his own nature and of circumstance in the receiving of this guidance. Reason may find difficulty in reconciling these two but experience finds none.
Here we see the relationship between the will of man and the sovereign will of God. God is sovereign, yet the reality of our nature and our free will is not infringed. A good example in Scripture is that of Joseph and his brothers. Joseph answered his brothers, “It is not you who sent me here but God”, and “you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good”. Every action which led to Joseph’s position in Egypt was God’s action. God sent him to Egypt, yet at the same time it remained truly human action, freely decided on, so that those who perpetrated the wrong remained responsible.

Although our wills are free wills, it is incorrect to say that they are independent wills over against God’s will. The possibility of this concept was the false suggestion of the devil to Adam, grasped at, by man but certainly not achieved by him, though man thinks he has attained to it and that he is in fact free from God’s sovereignty. Adam’s mistake was that of thinking that by rebelling against God he would become sovereign. But no creature can ever become sovereign over against its almighty Creator, and no will can be free if by this is meant independent of its Creator.

Sin does not remove us from God’s sovereignty; otherwise sin would be a tremendous success. God remains sovereign; we remain true men and women, enslaved now to the devil against our nature, instead of to our true Master, but nevertheless still within the sovereignty of God who is Lord over heaven and hell.
God controls his creation; he does not originate moral evil or sin, for this originates from the created will (or rather person), yet he remains in control of its effects. He is also able to re-create the will and free it from sin, in accordance with his own decision and choice.
The freedom, the reality of our will, is not infringed by God’s sovereignty, because he exercises his sovereignty only in accordance with the natures of his creation. Thus in working in us he works through our natures, which he has created, and which he foresaw in determining his plan, indeed which he created for the purpose of fulfilling his decrees.

At this juncture, with regard to the sovereignty of God in the transformation of the rebellious sinner into a son of God, into a new creation in Christ, and his perseverance to the end, Scripture ‘supports’ the sovereignty of God in all aspects of salvation as in every other sphere of human affairs. However, it may be argued that the exhortations and especially the admonitions and warnings of Scripture are a proof that there is a real possibility that God’s elect will fall away and fail to persevere to the end; this is to misunderstand the purpose of these exhortations and warnings.

God works through our natures so that in bringing his children to glory he will work with them through their response to his Word. Their regenerate wills will gladly follow his exhortations and take heed to the warnings. It always remains true that if a person continues in sin he will not inherit the kingdom of God. Paul reiterated warnings that fornicators and drunkards and idolaters and moneymakers will not inherit the kingdom of God. This remains true.. All of us know that we can at any time choose to give ourselves to these things and so fall away and be lost eternally. Nevertheless, by the grace of God we will not fall into one or the other of these sinful ways of life. The warnings are the means by which God saves us from these fatal falls, just as the warning erected in front of a precipice is effective to prevent anybody falling over. The warnings are to ensure our perseverance and they achieve this.

Salvation is through faith, which is expressed in obedience. Now faith and obedience are the work of our own personality, but are also the work of God in the heart of the believer. God works through our natures, and in his working he does not destroy or suspend these natures, nor do the natures get in the way of his working. We must always remember that God works out his purposes through the nature of his creatures. He does not find the nature which he has created an obstruction to his will. Thus he has created men and women with responsible natures and true wills. In calling his elect and bringing them to glory God does not need to suspend our nature or overrule our will, but he accomplishes his purposes, determined on before the creation of the world, through our free wills.
So faith and obedience are both the work of God and at the same time our own work. Since faith is the work of man we must preach the gospel and exhort people to believe, and must ourselves believe and persevere in our obedience; yet since it is a work of God we must look to God, trust him that he will give faith according to his will, and give him thanks when we see evidence of tat creature will; for ourselves, we must rely on his faithfulness to keep us to the end according to his promises
The warning is true; and the promise is true.
We shall look at the ethical problem, God willing, in the next sharing.

UNDERSTANDING ELECTION AND PREDESTINATION (C)

The ethical problem in the doctrine arises from our God-given sense of fairness. Fairness, righteousness and justice are the basis of all our relationships with one another. But we are on dangerous ground if we set up our sense of fairness, that is what we believe to be due to us and to others, as the criterion for judging God’s dealings with his rebellious creation.
A rebel deserves nothing but condemnation and punishment. Since salvation is in the realm of mercy, not punishment, it is difficult to see how the concept of fairness plays any part in it. If God is to be fair and just to rebels we all deserve and will receive punishment. But mercy supervenes, and mercy is apart from the realm of justice. Mercy is that which is held out and given to those who have absolutely no claim on it. Hence the rebellious sinner who is the recipient of God’s mercy can hardly discuss and make demands about this mercy on the basis of his sense of fairness. Mercy is a completely different category from justice. God, the judge of the earth, will do right (Gen. 18:25), but he will not be judged by us.

The Bible constantly testifies that salvation and eternal life are God’s gifts. A gift is in the complete disposal of the giver; he may give it, or he need not. The same is true of mercy; it is completely at the disposal of the merciful. He may show mercy, or he need not. Salvation is a gift. The Giver may give it, or he need not. If salvation is deserved, it ceases to be a gift. It then becomes a reward for merit; wages which have been earned. But salvation is entirely a gift from beginning to end. It therefore means that it must be given according to God’s will and choice. The character of salvation as a gift, the merciful provision of salvation, is bound up with the doctrine of God’s complete freedom in election and predestination.

There is nothing in us of ourselves which deserves God’s favour, but only God’s condemnation (Rom.7:18; 5:18) – there is nothing good that dwells in our flesh. Yet how wonderfully Christians experience the life of peace with God, through forgiveness, joy in his presence and love towards him and others. By his Spirit, faith in daily life and sure hope for the future, a daily fellowship with God through prayer and his Word. This relationship to God is God’s gift, and it springs entirely from God’s initiative. Jesus said to his disciples, “You did not choose me, but I chose you”. (John 15:16).
Our present Christian experience and our future hope are attributed in the BIble to God’s decision, a decision which was made from the beginning of creation with regard to us personally (2 Thess. 2:13). We are vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory (Rom 9:23).

As we experience our Christian status as adopted sons of God, all the glory and the thankfulness of this state of things must be given to God! It is not shared partly with ourselves, as though we had contributed the vital link which made the difference between death and life.
God is sovereign in Salvation; it is he who chooses those whom he adopts as sons (Eph.1:5), it is he who re-creates them from dead sinners to living saints. Even our response of faith is God’s gift, given according to his purpose. In the BIble, frequently, repentance is said to be the gift of God (Acts 5:31,11:18; 2 Tim. 2:25), and this is natural because we have not the power of self-recovery within ourselves to turn back from a self-centered life to a God-centered life. If anyone repents in this radical way, it is God’s gift to him.
The difference between those who are lost and those who are being saved rests in God’s decision made before the world was. God is righteous, God is wise and God is loving, and he has mercy on whom he
wills (Rom. 9:18).
We must remember that we have no claims on God. In the first place we were created by him. Can the pot dictate to the potter? (Isa. 29:16; Rom 9:20-21). We cannot probe the purposes of God beyond what he has revealed to us in Scripture. We know his character of love, and graciousness, of wisdom and righteousness. He is dealing with a sinful and rebellious race, creatures who reject their Creator; yet he has mercy, and his actions of salvation spring from within his character of wisdom and love and righteousness.
Paul kept both sides of the truth before his readers in Rom. 9 to11. In chapter 9 he emphasised God’s sovereignty in predestination and election, but he completed his discussion of this subject in chapter 11 by reminding his readers that those who are lost are lost through their own unbelief, while if his readers hope to be saved it can only be by their continuing in faith. Otherwise, they too will be lost like the rest.
But remember that this faith does not originate in ourselves; it is our faith, it is true, but it is God’s gift to us. And because it is God’s gift to us we may look to the future with confidence that he will continue to give us the grace to believe.
Our assurance rests on a knowledge of God’s promises and his faithfulness. It is not presumption but an act of true faith.

THE GOD-GIVEN COVENANT CARRIES OBLIGATIONS

In the previous sharing (not in the e-mail but only in the apps), we looked at Covenantal theology and we noted how God’s relationships with humanity and with the elect are based on his covenant with his people, stretching from the fall, and extending to his (merciful, loving and gracious) initiation of the plan of salvation and redemption, with the view of the consummation in the new heaven and new earth.

What I highlight in today’s sharing is from the portion of the previous one on covenantal theology:
“The God-given covenant carries, of course, obligations. The life of faith and repentance, and the obedience to which faith leads, constitute the covenant-keeping through which God’s people receive the fullness of God’s covenant blessing. Covenant faithfulness is the condition and means of receiving covenant benefits, and there is nothing arbitrary in that; for the blessings flow from the relationship; and human rebelliousness and unfaithfulness was constantly doing this throughout the Old Testament story, and the New Testament makes it plain that churches and Christians will lose blessings that would otherwise be theirs, should covenant fidelity or faithfulness be lacking in their lives.”

We have seen how the people of God constantly rebelled against God in unfaithfulness to the covenant, in the Old Testament: again and again, God sent prophet after prophet to warn them, and to exhort them to return to Him, and yet their turning back to God was short-lived to the point that God called them “a stiff-necked people” who refused to fulfill their obligations to the covenant God made with them.
The northern kingdom was ‘destroyed’ by Assyria, while the southern kingdom remained for a while before the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple by the Babylonians.

In the last book of the Old Testament, the prophet Malachi warned of the failures of Israel to keep the covenant and he also looked to the coming of the Messiah, and the judgment that would follow when God’s people reject the Saviour. But the day of the Lord would also reveal God’s eternal plan to redeem a people of His own in the end of world history and in the establishment of God’s eternal kingdom in the new heaven and new earth.

“I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come, says the Lord Almighty. But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the Lord will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the Lord, as in days gone by, as in former years.”
Chapter 4 of Malachi continues:
“Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and that day that is coming will set them on fire,”says the Lord Almighty.’Nor a root or a branch will be left to them. But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays. And you will go out and frolic like well-fed calves. Then you will trample on the wicked; they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I act,’ says the Lord Almighty.(vv1-3).

God’s people continue to break their obligations to the covenant with God even after the coming of the Messiah, the Son of God. In the final days, not only the wicked would be punished, but those who break His covenant would surely be judged and be put on trial. God always keeps his part of the covenant; God’s people unfortunately do not, from the Old Testament times until the present. We tend to take God’s grace for granted and just like the Israelites of old, we think ‘Jerusalem and the temple” cannot fall. But God left the temple in Jerusalem.

In these last days, God’s people in the church are again breaking their obligations to the covenant of grace. The warnings of the Lord Almighty of impending judgment and the refiner’s fire stand out clearly in Malachi which had reference to the times of the New Testament and beyond. As the Bible states, “Prepare to meet your God”.

THE ETHICAL AND MORAL IMPERATIVE IN THE LAST DAYS

In the epistles to the Thessalonians, when Paul dismissed the claim that the parousia had already taken place by referring to the rebellion (apostasia), an event that would take place before Christ comes again.
This rebellion, the falling away that will happen, is directly related to the other factor, the man of lawlessness (antichrist) who will appear.
This man of lawlessness is to be revealed (1Thess. 5:3) and this point is repeated in verses 6 and 8. Paul tells us that this man will oppose and exalt himself over everything that is called God or worshipped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God. The original historical reference in Daniel that is quoted by Jesus in Mark 13 was Antiochus Epiphanes, who in the year 167 BC installed the cult of Zeus in the temple of Jerusalem. However, it is the scale and timing of the man of lawlessness that is going to be particularly significant.

What this points to is a climactic revelation where a supreme agent of Satan will be revealed. In his person, all the hostility of proud humanity to God comes, as it were, to a definitive eschatological head. This person, an incarnation of evil, parallels the federal headship of fallen humanity in Adam, and parodies Christ as the head of the new humanity. The man of lawlessness is a great imitator of Christ, but in a context of utter evil and total oppression to him. The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan just as the coming of Jesus will be in accordance with the work of God, but here displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing (2:9).
Everything the Lord Jesus does, and will do, is mimicked by the man of lawlessness. He will have his own parousia, his own signs and wonders, all sorts of highly impressive miracles, which will delude and deceive, as the Lord Jesus himself warned us (Matt.24:24),
These events, occurring throughout the history of the church, find their fullest focus in this climactic event immediately before the end. But the mark of the elect is that they are not deceived. It is those that are perishing who are the gullible victims. Every sort of evil deceives those who are perishing, because they have refused to love the truth and so be saved.

So what is happening immediately before the parousia is that people have chosen not to believe the truth, which is the only way to salvation. When you do not believe the truth, then you do not believe nothing, you believe anything, and what verse 11 describes is the lie which they believe. ‘For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie. There is a chilling logical progression here; falling away is produced by the man of sin who induces unbelievers to accept the lie that he is God. It is all a powerful delusion which God not only permits, but directly visits on those who have delighted in wickedness and refused to believe the truth. For this reason, God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and be condemned.

God’s judgement is at work in the whole process of the last of the last days, preceding the salvation, as these ultimate rebellions against him are revealed. But without the Christ, the antichrist would be unthinkable. His very existence and rebellion is in itself proof of the reality of Christ and his kingdom. All the deception, all the lies, are only there because the lawless one seeks to fight against everything Christ means in the world. In that sense, he is a representative Satanic figure.

Whether we are alive when the Lord Jesus comes, or whether we have died, with the certain knowledge that either way we will be living with him for ever, everything is grounded in the work of Christ for us, and our union with him accomplished through faith. So when we recognise how far reaching that change is and how certain of it we can be, then we must live godly lives of faith, love and hope, because we have to live today in the light of eternity. This the great source of encouragement and strengthening to which verse 11 of chapter 5 refers – ” Encourage one another and build each other up.?” We build one another up in love. That is both how faith works and how love labours.

OUR PRIORITIES, INDIVIDUALLY, CORPORATELY, BEFORE THE PAROUSIA

We have been considering the coming of the man of lawlessness before Christ’s return. In 1 Thess. 5:7 we read: “For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work.” Though the individual has yet to be revealed, the reason that has not yet happened is given in verses 6 and 7: “And now you know what is holding him back, so that he may be revealed at the proper time. For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way.”

What is holding sway now is the secret power of lawlessness, that is the great anti-christian force at work in the world, which we can see throughout the last centuries and currently in human history. The number of Christian martyrs in this generation is thought to be more than the total number in church history; the sin, corruption, immoralities, and ungodliness prevailing today, are beyond our wildest imagination – it reminds us of what is stated in Genesis 6:5: “The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.” That preceded the flood and the destruction sent by God at that point of time.
Another devastation is on the way according to Isaiah 24:
“See, the Lord is going to lay waste the earth and devastate it; he will ruin its face and scatter its inhabitants (vs1)…The earth will be completely laid waste and totally plundered .The LORD has spoken.(vs3)… Therefore a curse consumes the earth; its people must bear their guilt. Therefore earth’s inhabitants are burned up, and very few are left….Terror and pit and snare await you, people of the earth. (vs17)…The floodgates of the heavens are opened, the foundations of the earth shake. The earth is broken up, the earth is split asunder, the earth is violently shaken. (vv18b-19)..In that day the Lord will punish the powers in the heavens above and the kings on the earth below (vs21)”.

Take note of the words of the Lord Jesus in Matthew 24:
“For then there will be great distress, unequalled from the beginning of the world until now – and never to be equalled again. If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened” (vv. 21-22).
“Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.” (vv.35-39)
If you have any doubts about the coming of the man of lawlessness and the great tribulation, as well as the impending devastation of the world, and the coming of the Son of God, the words of Isaiah and the Lord Jesus should put away those doubts completely. We are not dealing with fiction.
If, like the people in the time of Noah, we are oblivious of what was coming, it would be a great tragedy when we face the destruction and devastation that would come about.
We know that the secret power of lawlessness can only prevail according to the sovereign will of God – God’s timing is the predominant factor. He is the one who is in control of the proper time and he is the one who sends the powerful delusion of the lie. God is the one who now prevails, even though he allows the forces of evil a great deal of rope. All the forces of evil are subject to God’s total authority at every stage of the process.

“The lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendour of his coming.” (2 Thess.2:8) It is a great thought that the very breath of the glorified Lord Jesus will slay the lawless one, like a blast from a fiery furnace. The splendour of his coming is all that is needed. ‘He utters his voice; the earth melts’ (Ps. 46:6). The ‘breath of his mouth’ is familiar biblical language for uttering the word of the Lord, which expresses the will of the Lord. All that the Lord Jesus will need to do is to utter his word. He will overthrow him with the breath of his mouth and destroy him by the very splendour of his coming. Just as everything began that way – God said, ‘Let there be’ and there was – so everything will end that way. He speaks his word and his will is done. How much we need to develop that confidence in the power of the word of the Lord Jesus for ourselves today! Our problem is that we tend to think that God’s words are like our words. But while our words express our thoughts, they do not execute our will. The difference is that when God speaks, it is done.

So, in the light of what has been revealed, what should be our priorities as individual Christians and as a church?
We must first beware of not becoming entrenched intellectualists, constantly presenting ourselves as rigid, argumentative, critical Christians, champions of God’s truth for whom orthodoxy is all. There is little warmth about such ones. Relationally, they are remote; winning the battle for mental correctness is that one great purpose. We are reminded that belief and behaviour go together; creeds must result in conduct; doctrines should result in deeds. That is not to say that accurate doctrines, beliefs and creeds are not important and relevant. But if they end up with believers who are proud, argumentative, not open to reason, and remote from godly living, then we can be sure that God is not pleased. Conceptual knowledge kills if one does not move on from knowing notions to knowing the realities to which they refer – from knowing about God to a relational acquaintance with God himself. True religion claims the affections as well as the intellect; it is essentially ‘heart work’; theological truth is for practice – it is the science of living to God.
Faith and repentance, issuing in a life of love and holiness – of gratitude expressed in goodwill and good works – are explicitly called for in the gospel.
The Spirit is given to lead us into close companionship with others in Christ; the discipline of discursive meditation is meant to keep us ardent and adoring in our love affair with God. Spiritual pride leads to divisions and conflicts among brethren – and this is one area of ‘speciality’ that the evil one specialises in, in promoting such pride in those who are vulnerable.
Our priorities in our Christian lives should lead to humble-minded, warmhearted, and clearheaded people of God. God did not appoint believers to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. That is why we have to be watchful and self-controlled. Our future hope is grounded in the past at the Cross of Calvary, and so must our present Christian living be. We cannot build ourselves spiritually in isolation. We build one another in love – that is how faith works and how love labours. We need to restore corporate responsibility of fellowship as a priority in churchlife; caring for one another, particularly for the weak, the timid – they need encouragement – we need also to warn those who are idle (2 Thess. 3:6) and indifferent and complacent in their christian life.

For those in leadership, there is a need to acknowledge that true leadership is not achieved by going to a college, or taking a course, or by assuming a title or even by being elected to a position. True leadership is about doing God’s task conscientiously, honestly and Christianly. It means working hard, caring for people, and admonishing in love. Such ones deserve our respect and high regard for their work.