"Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God. For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance" (I Thessalonians 1:4-5).

Calling by the Holy Spirit-wielded gospel, justification, sanctification, and glorification are inherent and integral parts of the decree of election, and are the Divine underpinnings guaranteeing a heavenly destiny for all the Father gave the Son in the covenant of election. Based upon this God-exalting truth, Christ, the Mediator of the covenant, said: "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out" (John 6:37). The giving of the elect by the Father unto the Son antedates time, and there is no power that can pluck them out of the hand of sovereign and triune faithfulness (John 10:28-30).

The covenant of election is not a contract or agreement between God and man, but it is a Kingly manifesto, emanating from the unimpeachable and omnipotent throne of God. It is based on this great truth that God says unto Jeremiah: "... I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee" (Jeremiah 31:3). It is through the atoning blood of the "everlasting covenant" that Christ is made the great Shepherd of the sheep (Hebrews 13:20).

However, we need to know and ever remember that the covenant of election is not fatalistic in any sense or degree. Fatalism denies the death of Christ, and substitutes fate for Divine providence. The Koran is the Bible of fatalism, and "It denies the death of Christ and sees no need of atonement". (A. H. Strong - SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY, Pages 186, 427)

The fruit of eternal and unconditional election is judicial blamelessness and personal holiness (Ephesians 1:4). But to say this and no more is to leave this great truth shrouded in impenetrable darkness. So, Paul, the fervent and God-fearing Apostle, by Divine inspiration sheds much light on the subject, whereby the gospel of Christ is given its place and significance in the covenant of redemption. Paul, speaking of Christ, said to the Ephesian saints: "In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise" (Ephesians 1:13). In the regenerative experience nothing precedes or preempts a hearing and a believing of the glorious gospel of Christ.

While the gospel cannot regenerate, it has pleased God to make it the power whereby He calls His elect out of their spiritual darkness, into the glorious light of the eternal and living WORD, from Whom redemption comes, and in Whom there is no variableness. To highlight the divinely-ordained necessity of the gospel in regeneration of God’s elect, Paul said: "If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost" (II Corinthians 4:3).

While the gospel is on one hand bitterness to some, it is on the other hand made sweeter than honey to those effectually called by it. While on one hand it is as a millstone around the neck of the self-righteous, dragging them constantly downward unto the blackness and darkness of the bottomless pit, it is on the other hand a divinely appointed means to lift up God’s elect from their fallen state, and cause them to sit in heavenly places with Christ Jesus, their Saviour and Lord (Ephesians 2:5, 6). The true gospel is a terror to the reprobate, and a source of unceasing comfort to the elect of God.

God’s elect, like all of Adam’s children, stand equally guilty and condemned before God. They are by nature desperately wicked and there is no fear of God before their eyes (Jeremiah 17:9; Romans 3:18-19). The elect of God are by their natural birth as much filled with enmity against God as the vilest reprobate, and their love for this present evil world leaves no room or time for God (Romans 8:7; I John 2:15). These truths are hard on the flesh, for the natural man thinks in his flesh there dwelleth every good thing, and in his dark and deceived heart, he says: "I will not have Christ to reign over me" (Luke 19:14). But all that man is by nature, and all that he does and says, points up his critical need of the new birth. It was to an extremely religious man, and a "master of Israel", that Christ said: "That which is born of the flesh is flesh ... Ye must be born again" (John 3:6-7).

"The ministry of the word is the vehicle in which the Spirit of God conveys Himself and His grace into the hearts of men; which is done when the word comes not in word only, but in power, and in the Holy Ghost: and works effectually, and is the power of God unto salvation ... God the Father, Who is the Father of Christ; He as such begets men again according to His abundant mercy, (I Peter 1:3), and as the Father of lights, of His own sovereign will and pleasure regenerates with the word of truth ... which He sheds abundantly through Christ the Saviour, that He saves His elect." (John Gill - BODY OF DIVINITY, Pages 532-534)

No doctrine in the New Testament is more plainly and abundantly set forth than the teaching of salvation by faith in the crucified, buried, risen, and glorified Christ. "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast" (Ephesians 2:8, 9). The fruit of salvational faith is:
    Justification (Romans 5:1),
    Preservation (I Peter 1:5),
    Perseverance of sanctification (II Corinthians 5:7; Galatians 2:20; Jude 1).

And all whom God justified by faith, shall be glorified by the same faith (Romans 8:30). All this is the profit of God-given faith which comes by effectually hearing the gospel (Hebrews 4:2).

But whence cometh this all glorious faith? This is a profound question, and the interrogator should not be and cannot be satisfied with anything less than a divinely-inspired answer, and so it is we turn to the pages of Holy Writ and there we find the God-given, plain and incontestable reply, i.e. "So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Romans 10:17). Regeneration and salvational faith are the immediate or direct effect of hearing and believing the gospel of Christ, and faith being a constituent element of regeneration, bespeaks an eternal union of the two. Simply stated, he that is regenerated has faith, and vice versa.

The Lord, speaking of Paul, said: "I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake" (Acts 9:16). The sufferings of this dedicated saint were manifold and exceedingly bitter (II Corinthians 11:23-27), but he remained faithful to his heavenly calling (Galatians 1:15-6). He wrote to Timothy, his son in the faith, saying, "I endure all things for the elect’s sakes, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory" (II Timothy 2:10).

Paul knew God had His eternal and infinite host of elect people, and he also knew God had appointed the glorious gospel of His Son, as a means whereby they would be saved (Romans 1:16). Speaking of Corinth, the Lord said unto Paul: "I have much people in this city" (Acts 18:10). This "much people" were the Lord’s before the foundation of the world, and that by elective decree, but they were not as yet regenerated. Thus it is the Lord said unto Paul: "... Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace: For I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee: ... And he continued there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them" (Acts 18:9-11).

Near the end of his first letter to the church at Corinth, Paul reminded them that he had preached Christ unto them during his eighteen months with them, saying: "MOREOVER, (emphasis OBM) brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain" (I Corinthians 15:1-2). Earlier in this same letter, Paul emphatically declares: "In Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel" (I Corinthians 4:15). Paul knew there could never be a need for re-regeneration, but he also knew that a reiteration of the glorious gospel of the Son of God can and often does reinvigorate the weary saint.

THE ETERNALNESS OF ELECTION AND THE GOSPEL

"But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth" (II Thessalonians 2:13).

"But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you" (I Peter 1:25).

Peter credits the "elect" to whom he writes as having experiential knowledge of the eternal gospel; and so as to glorify God and edify His people, Peter vividly restates the glorious gospel of Christ, saying: "Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, ... But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you" (I Peter 1:18-20).

While the gospel was graphically foreshadowed in the sin-slaying lamb of Moses (Exodus 12:1-13), it was (is) concretely manifested and personified in the sin-atoning anti-type of the ancient lamb of Israel. It is owing to the substitutionary and justifying death of Christ that God says of His elect: "Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more" (Hebrews 8:12; 10:17).

The abstruseness of the Old Testament gospel has been in great part removed, and God’s elect people now have "in heaven a better and an enduring substance" (Hebrews 10:34). "God was manifest in the flesh" (I Timothy 3:16), and by His sinless human nature and sacrificial death, many of the hidden truths of the Old Testament gospel was revealed. However, the mortal nature of God’s elect stands between them and full understanding of the infinite and glorious gospel of Christ, and in their earthly pilgrimage they look "through a glass darkly" (I Corinthians 13:12). Nevertheless, they should and can grow in grace and knowledge of their Saviour, and rejoice in knowing one day soon we shall behold Him "face to face" (I Corinthians 13:12; II Peter 3:18).

The means by which election is brought to fruition is the preaching of the Holy Spirit-empowered gospel, which is never void of quickening grace, and it is through the medium of the "engrafted (inborn) word" that regeneration is effected (James 1:21). All the praise for election, the gospel, and regeneration belongs exclusively unto God, for the root and fruit of election grows out of the ground of Divine initiative. The gospel is part and parcel of the sovereign scheme of redemption, and the rejection and mockery of the gospel by the non-elect, does not in the least impair its effectiveness in calling out all those for whom Jesus died. All whom God elected unto life everlasting, shall without exception hear and believe the gospel, for God has "appointed" them to "obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ" (Acts 13:48; I Thessalonians 5:9).

The antiquity of the gospel antedates the creation of the world, and shall postdate time by an endless duration. The gospel did not have its origin in Bethlehem, Nazareth, or Jerusalem. Neither did it have its origin in Egypt with the lamb of Moses, nor with faithful Abraham who laid his own son on the altar (Matthew 2:1; Exodus 12; Genesis 22). Jesus told the Jews: "Abraham rejoiced to see My day: and he saw it, and was glad ... Before Abraham was, I am" (John 8:56, 58).

Neither did the gospel originate with Abel and his bloody sacrifice, nor with the animal blood which God shed to get a covering for our original and fallen ancestors. The origin of the gospel cannot be ascertained by angels or men, for it is a part of the unsearchable and eternal counsel of the omniscient God, and one of its attributes is timelessness.

The gospel is an infinite and glorious part of the "everlasting covenant", in which God the Father is the Covenantor; Christ Jesus, His Son, is the Covenantee; and the Holy Spirit is the Executor. Christ said: "It is the Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing ... When He, the Spirit of truth, is come ... He shall glorify Me: for He shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you" (John 6:63, 16:13-14).

The Spirit does only the things that magnify the Son, and the Son does only and always those things which please the Father (John 8:29; 14:31). Christ did not die intestate, and the WILL of the Sovereign Testator reads: "Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world" (John 17:24). The eternal and covenant suretyship of Christ has been sanctioned by His atoning death, and it is owing to this very truth that Paul asks: "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? ..." (Romans 8:33). Of course Satan and reprobate men bring many charges against God’s elect, but they are foolishness in God’s sight, and He accepts none.

The preaching, hearing, and believing the gospel are the means which the Holy Spirit uses to make God’s elect, not merely alive, but derivatively God-like, for a new Person lives within them, and this new life is evidenced by a new and God-honoring personality. Paul said: "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me" (Galatians 2:20; II Corinthians 5:17).

Paul said to the church at Corinth: "And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified" (I Corinthians 2:1-2). Paul knew that Jesus Christ was the personified gospel, and that remission of sin was realized in hearing and believing the gospel. Thus it is, Paul says in the conclusion of this epistle: "I declare unto you the gospel ... By which also ye are saved" (15:1:2).

The freewill salvation of Jacobus Arminius, Campbell’s baptismal salvation, and Romanism’s sacramental regeneration, are superficial and void of any redeeming substance. They are no more acceptable to God than the fig leaves of Adam and Eve, for God hates every false way, and every would-be regenerative work of man is a hiding under falsehood (Psalm 119:104; Isaiah 28:15). The carnal mind is enmity against God, and with absolute consistency seeks the elevation of self. The natural man is egocentric, and all of his thoughts and actions are self-serving. He flatters himself by thinking it is in his power to determine his own eternal destiny. The Lord said to one of these puffed up self-predestinarians: "Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?" (Luke 12:20). Man has come up with many religious inventions, (Ecclesiastes 7:29) and they all seem right unto him, but God says: "... The end thereof are the ways of death" (Proverbs 14:12).

The gospel and the Lamb of the everlasting covenant are coeternal, and the conduction of the gospel was and is committed to the Holy and eternal Spirit (I Corinthians 2:4). The Holy Spirit-propagated gospel will never return unto the Lord void, for He says: "... It shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it" (Isaiah 55:11). Our Lord rebuked the doubting apostle, by admonishing him to check the scars of His redeeming wounds (John 20:27). The beloved John refers to Christ as "... The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" (Revelation 13:8). The wounds which the Saviour received at Calvary were for the transgression of His people, and were the result of His faithfulness and commitment to the everlasting covenant, but in the mind of God the scars of redemption antedated time. Thus, the gospel is as ancient as the redeeming grace of God, and when God’s elect see their nail-scarred Saviour in heaven, they will say, "There never was a time in the purpose of God when these scars were not present and apparent."