Why Election is not a dry page of a systematic theology tome...

Piper on 7 reasons why teaching election is precious to him and why he believes God has pleasure in it...

1. This truth is biblical. That is, biblical not only in being found once in Scripture, but found throughout it, from God's election of Israel to electing individuals to be saved through Christ.

2. This truth humbles sinners and exalts the glory of God. Whitefield called it the truth that 'shall most debase man and exalt the Lord Jesus'.

3. This truth tends to preserve the church from slipping towards false philosophies of life. It seems historically it often guards us from moving towards universalism.

4. This truth is the good news of a salvation that is not just offered but effected. God actually saves me; electing, predestining, calling, justifying, glorifying. It actually works.

5. This truth enables us to own up to the demands for holiness and yet have assurance of salvation. Knowing I am to be holy does not cripple me but spurs me, knowing too it is God's desire and active plan that he will achieve through me.

6. This truth opens us to the overwhelming experience of being loved personally with the unbreakable electing love of God. More satisfying than an offer, knowing securely I am his is deep joy.

7. This truth gives hope for effective evangelism and guarantees the triumph of Christ's mission in the end. As was a spur for Paul, David Livingstone and Peter Cameron Scott, founder of AIM, 'other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring.'

Taken from Piper's 'The Pleasures of God', where every footnote is a feast.

Boasting in the Sovereign Grace of God...

'We violate the order of human thought and trespass the boundary between God's prerogative and man's when the truth of God's sovereign counsel constrains despair or abandonment of concern for the eternal interests of men.'

John Murray on Romans 9-11

Marvelling at sovereignty...

Been reading Romans 9 in prep for tonight's study... it's pretty hectic as the South Africans would say.
Logically I'm finding it one of the most easiest strands of Paul's argument to understand, but theologically it's a brain-twister, and not just brain but heart too. Just the way Paul brings up the issue of the Jews brings his true colours to light, 'I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers...' (9.2-3).

I love reading Paul, because just when you're wrapped up in understanding his doctrine, his theology, his understanding of how it all works, you're smacked in the face by the way he takes it as the reality it is. It's not simply textbook theory, for actually that's not theology, it's heart, mind, and soul, engaged, enwrapped, involved. What a big rebuke to thinking it's possible to get a grip on God's election without it twisting your heart. Does it make us concerned? Am I gonna stand up and speak the 'truth in Christ' and feel anguish? Not anguish that the word of God has failed, but anguish that so many don't seem to be children of promise (8.9), that so many have rejected the only one who can be their sacrifice for sins (Heb 10.26-27).

The mercy of God, absolutely free, totally unwarranted. Choosing Isaac not Ishmael, Jacob not Esau. Forgiving a people who turned to building a golden calf just hours after recieving the law. Blinding grace. Is there injustice on God's part? By no means! And yet we are chosen, as vessels of mercy, prepared beforehand for glory, to make known the riches of his glory.