What about Ephesians 1? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
Some people think that Ephesians 1 speaks about individual election. Bates challenges that. If there is one individual who could be called elect, it would be Jesus the Christ and anyone who is in Him is elect. Thus far, I have not read anything about how Bates views free-will or God’s sovereignty in this. I suspect that is a more philosophical question he’s fine to just let the philosophers hash out amongst themselves.
The references to us throughout the text are indeed plural. This refers to a group of people who are in Christ. Not only that, but Bates says that the number is growing. The implication I gather is that if the number of the elect is growing, it can’t be a fixed number that has always been.
For predestination, Bates contends that God predestined the king individually. Those who are in Christ then are part of His community. There could be a parallel in that we are in Adam by representation and thus we choose either to remain in Adam or instead to be in Christ.
One of the mistakes we make in our understanding of Scripture often is that we come to the text and assume that it is answering our questions on our terms. First off, the text might not really care about our questions. Suppose we come to the text and say, “I want to know what God’s will for my life is”.
Now if someone asks me that question, I take them straight to Romans 8 and say that God’s will is to conform you to the likeness of Christ. I find the text to state that outright. If you are in Christ, then God’s will for your life is to conform you to the likeness of Christ.
“Yes, but should I get married? Should I go into ministry? What kind of job should I have? Where should I live? Should I have children?”
All fascinating questions, and none of them are answered in an individualistic level in the text. I find it strange so many people who say Sola Scriptura want to go beyond the text and leave that to personal emotions that they think God is using to speak to them, which is also not found in the text. The text is not answering our questions.
So let’s suppose one wants to know about if slavery is wrong. Many an atheist will go to the Bible and see slavery is not outright forbidden and then say “There you have it! The Bible never condemns slavery!” In this case, they are using our terms. They are assuming that slavery in the ancient world in Israel was like slavery in the Civil War era of America. Note that they could be right on that hypothetically, but you don’t find that by going to the Bible, seeing where it mentions slavery, and then assuming that the meaning is the same. You have to actually do the research for that.
(And no, they’re not the same.)
Next time, we’ll start tackling more about the idea of individual election.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)
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