Catacomb Resident Blog

Covenant Election

15 July 2023

Someone has already noticed that Heiser has addressed the topic of election and predestination, and I'm not on the same page with him. Feel free to take any position that answers your convictions. I cannot speak for you, but I can certainly explain how I use the terminology on this blog.

The crux of what separates Heiser and me on Divine Election is that I assert the use of the terminology and concept depend on the applicable covenant. He leaves that out. If you don't include the Covenant in your thinking, you'll miss too much that really matters. The underlying concept of election is not in dispute: God has chosen some people to be part of His Covenant.

When we talk about Jehovah separating out for Himself the Nation of Israel, it wasn't a simple matter of DNA. That was merely the starting point God used to make a full and genuine offer of Covenant covering. Even as the offer was being revealed, God accounted for the likelihood that some of the nation would not abide by the covenant requirements. He also accounted for the likelihood that outsiders would want to join and would qualify to become full members of the Nation of Israel, the people over whom He was God.

The provisions were common enough on the human level when various rulers in the Ancient Near East embraced a people by covenant (treaty) as his nation. Thus, it's rather consistent on both levels. What men did on such matters was a reflection of how the divine council did things. God could reject some of those who didn't measure up, and they would become property of one of the council members. Meanwhile, the council members might lose individuals and collections of people as they came under Jehovah's covering.

I'm hardly the only one to say that the real issue was Israel-the-Mission, not Israel-the-Nation. The nation was not elect or chosen; the mission was. The mission was going to be fulfilled, one way or another. And it was Heiser himself who noted that Jesus fulfilled the Covenant of Moses. He did it for them, and folded the Old into the New Covenant. Actually, we don't have the words in English to declare just how those two covenants relate. But Christ on the Cross ended Moses.

So, the Covenant of Moses was revocable; that's stated in the Law itself. However, the Lord has said that the Covenant in His Son is not. The meaning of Chosen or Elect takes on a wholly new meaning in Christ, as does "chosen/elect before the foundation of the world". Jehovah knew what He was planning to do, so the way Israel was chosen was different from the way those in Christ were chosen.

Consider: The Covenant of Moses did not promise going to Heaven. It was all about what God would give to His people during this life as a covenant community. That part of the Covenant is still working, but Israel refuses to embrace it. Now it's open to Gentiles in the Covenant of Christ. At the same time, those who were faithful under Moses could have found themselves going to Heaven, but not as a direct result of the Covenant. Rather, it was because those individuals worked out the whole question of being at peace with God eternally. Going to Heaven was always an individual thing, and it still is.

Thus, both Moses and Noah were earthly covenants, or "Law Covenants". They both tacitly pointed to going to Heaven. The Covenant of Christ is a Spiritual Covenant that starts with being individually chosen, and includes the recognition of Law as serving a purpose for a witness and the community of faith. Being chosen under a Law Covenant is not the same as being chosen under a Spiritual Covenant.

Law is for the witness and community; faith is for the individual soul. Law never got you to Heaven. Law got you a stable community and a strong witness. Faith always got you to Heaven under any covenant, and it drives you to seek a witness and a stable community. All law covenants end with the Return of Christ. His Spiritual Covenant does not end because it never began; it's inherent in the eternal nature of God.

It's not enough to the know the grammar in the Bible. You have to understand what it actually says, which is not the same thing. If you are going to understand the Bible, you must always keep track of how things relate to the Covenants.

As for the "security of the believer": How does God bring people to faith? The answer is beyond our grasp. We might have some memories of certain experiences we had on the way to faith, but we cannot possibly know the whole story, even for ourselves individually. For others, we simply cannot begin to understand. It's my personal experience that compelled me to accept predestination without question. I didn't come to Christ; He came for me. I can't imagine trying to pull away from my faith.

Is it possible to say "no" to God when He comes knocking? The Bible sometimes uses symbolic language as if it were possible, but that doesn't answer the ontology, only the appearance of things. We are obliged to act as if it is possible to renege on our faith commitment. At the same time, we are encouraged to believe that God can overcome our resistance and will never abandon us.

Like most things regarding individual faith in Christ: It is impossible to make sense of it on a human level. We aren't supposed to seek logical answers to some questions. The real flaw in Calvinism is that it responds to Arianism, allowing the latter to select the field of battle. And Arian's mistake was demanding a logical frame of reference that could be verbalized. Calvin and his friends made the mistake of taking the bait, so that Calvinism ends up today full of inconsistencies with Scripture just as much as Arianism.

The Hebrew leadership, very much like their fellows across the Ancient Near East, would not have dared to assert an ontology (the nature of the thing under discussion) on much of anything in the spiritual realm. Almost the whole of their teaching was functional. It didn't' answer all your questions, but it got you to the place of peace with God.


This document is public domain; spread the message.