What is a Reformed Baptist..

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com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. Romans 7, this evening we are going to continue with our Bible studies addressing the question of what is a Reformed Baptist Church. Our brother last week started with the second level.

We have defined a framework of four different levels. that will help us to answer the question of what is a Reformed Baptist Church. We've said that the first level, the one that we have already covered, is an evangelical church addressing the five solas of the Reformation. We finish with that. When we were addressing that level, we were basically telling who we are and setting a dividing line between orthodoxy and that which is not orthodoxy.

That's why we were interacting with Catholic theology, with Catholic teachings. Those are the five soils of the Reformation. Our brother last week started with the second level that is going to help us to address the question of what is a Reformed Baptist Church, and that is the Calvinistic level. And in order to address that level, we're going to be addressing or studying the five doctrines of grace. or the tulip, or the five points of Calvinism, total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and the preservation or the perseverance of the saints.

That's the second level that we are going through tonight. We're going to be doing unconditional election, but let me just remind you of the third level, which is, what is a reformed church in general? What is a Reformed Church? And we're going to be studying principles such as the principle of worship, or the regulative principle of worship, or we're going to be addressing confessionalism. Why should a church be confessional and what is the degree of attachment to a confession?

We're going to be seeing and studying aspects of what a Reformed Church should be. And then on the highest level of that triangle, that we're just trying to go deeper and deeper, will be the distinctives of a Reformed Baptist Church. So as I said, this evening we're going to be addressing the second doctrine in the five doctrines of grace, or the five points of Calvinism. This is unconditional election. And the text that I want us to refer to this evening is found in Romans 7.

Romans 7 we are going to be reading from verse 13 to verse 25 and let me just give you a little bit of background on what Apostle Paul is doing here in this letter to the Romans. He has already explained the gospel from Romans 1 to Romans 4 He has already presented the gospel and the condition of every human being before the presence of before a righteous and holy and perfect God. In chapter 5 he is giving us the assurance of our justification, the fruits of our justification that we are secure and safe in the covenantal head of Jesus Christ. That we have moved from Adam into Christ and that we are saved And as a result, we have a new life in union with Jesus Christ. And that's what he addresses in chapter 6, the doctrine of our sanctification, the life of a Christian.

But now, in chapter 7, the Apostle is going to speak to us of the relationship of the law and sin. And the passage that we are going to be reading this evening is a personal experience of the Apostle Paul. He's gonna see himself and he's gonna tell us an experience that he of course experienced in light of the relationship between sin and the law of God. He has said that the law of God is good and is holy and is perfect. And then he said that sin is death in chapter six.

Now let's see this experience of the apostle Paul here in Romans 7 in chapter 7 verse 13. Did that which is good, referring to the law, did that which is good then bring death to me? By no means! It was sin producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, soul under sin pay attention to verse 15 for i do not understand my own actions for i do i do not do what i want but i do the very thing i hate In other words, for I do not do what I desire, but I do the things that I hate.

Verse 16. Now, if I do what I do not want or what I do not desire, I agree with the law that is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. Verse 18. For I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh.

For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want or the good I desire, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now, if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. Verse 21, so I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand, for I delight in the law of God. And I repeat that, verse 22, for I delight in the law of God in my inner being.

but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of dead? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. Amen.

This is the word of God. Beloved, the passage that we have here at hand was preached in 1591 by a young man, a young theologian, a theologian, a young preacher, took this text and he was going through a series of sermons in the book of Romans and he was teaching the main doctrines of salvation through the book of Romans. This young preacher, in 1591, he arrived to this chapter and he came to the conclusion that Paul is speaking here of the fallen Paul. The Paul is not speaking of the Christian who is struggling with sin. The Paul is not speaking of the saved and the Paul who is in Jesus Christ, who has been regenerated, who has a new life and who is struggling with the presence of sin, but rather that the experience that the Apostle Paul is communicating here is the experience of Paul in a pre-salvation, of pre-faith.

That young theologian, that long teacher, that long preacher is Jacob's Armenians. 1591, he was teaching to his disciples and he took this text and he came to the conclusion that the man who is here is the man who is a pre-salvation. That was the beginning. Some people think that this is the beginning of that which we understand as Armenian theology. Armenian theology started with this young preacher who was born in 1560, just around the times that the church was producing the first Calvinistic confessions of faith.

He was 31 years old, and he was preaching a sermon, and he came to that conclusion. It is later, after he preaches the sermon, he starts to develop an understanding and he says that the man that is here has the ability to delight in the law of God and has an ability to respond positively to the commandments and the righteousness of God. Many people in the 17th century and the 16th century started to question the outcomes of the sermon and the conclusions that he arrived. Later on, a few years after that, Jacob Arminius and his disciples came to the conclusion that there is a level of goodness in fallen men that allows these men to respond morally to the requirements of God. In this text, we see here how the Apostle Paul says that he does not do the things that he does not want, that he delights in the law of God.

And then Jacob Arminius and those around him, they said, that in men, in the fallen men, there is a certain ability, a possibility to obey the requirements of the law. Beloved, why am I saying this? Because when we started with this series of Bible studies, we said that each one of the elements that we have within those levels, the evangelical, the Calvinistic, the Reformative, the Reformed Baptist, that they build upon the other. And our brother explained to us last week the doctrine of the depravity or the radical depravity of men. The inability, the moral inability of men to respond to the righteous standard of God.

Yet Arminius, he came and his disciples, they said that there is a level of goodness that allows fallen men to respond to the demands of God. Why is this important? Because the doctrine that we're going to be studying tonight, unconditional election, flows from that perception of the total depravity of men. It is when people give men a little bit of a higher level in terms of morality and in terms of ability to respond to the righteous standard of God, that all theology and doctrine shapes. If we do not have a right understanding of who we are before God, then we are not going to have the right understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

How do we know who we are and what our nature is? By putting our eyes to God and questioning and asking ourselves, who is God? When we compare ourselves and when we see ourselves in light of the being of God, then we are going to understand or that we're going to be able to understand the level of the unrighteousness that we have as fallen creatures. The other thing that we've said very importantly is that I want you to see the development of church history providentially not only through these two centuries, the 16th century and the 17th century, but also what we're doing here in the Bible studies. Because in the same way that the Church moved from an evangelical level to a Calvinistic level, to a Reformed level, and to a Reformed Baptist level, the same thing happened during these two centuries.

The Reformation happened probably 70, not probably, but 70 years before this sermon that was preached by Jacob Arminius in 1591. This is when the Reformation started, where Martin Luther nailed the thesis. The Reformation started, and the pillar, the foundation of this Reformation was, as we said, sola scriptura and sola fide, and from them the five solas of the Reformation that define an evangelical church. But from there, in the mid of the 16th century, Reformed theology, or let's say Calvinistic theology, is starting to take shape. In 1560, we have the first confession of faith that is Calvinistic.

And it's in 1591 with this character, Jacob Arminius, that we have the first challenge for that which was the natural and organic development of doctrine from the Reformation. So we moved from an evangelical church to a Calvinistic church. And then when Jacob Arminius dies in 1609, one year after that, his disciples, they come together and they say, what are we going to do in order to preserve the teachings of our teacher? They come together and they formulate the five points of Arminianism, or the five points of the Remonstrance. These are the five points that were refuted later on by the canons of Dort, like probably 10 years afterwards, which are the five points of Calvinism that we are studying as a church.

Now, unconditional election was the foundational point for Jacob Arminius. You know how we have total depravity as the foundational point for the five points of Calvinism? For Jacob Arminius, unconditional election was the foundational point. because he started to see and his disciples started to see this level of goodness, this ability that people had to respond to the message of the gospel and then to respond to the law of God in general. Unconditional election or what if we can summarize it in one question as we always do in one word and in one question, unconditional election says what is the basis for the election of the church?

What is the foundation? What is the motivation in God's mind when he is electing people unto salvation? Is there any condition for salvation? Is there something that people have to do that will tell us that they were elected or chosen before the foundation of the world? And the answer that Armenian theology and the Armenians gave back then, they were not called Armenians back then, Armenian theology gave, it is that election is indeed conditional.

And that the condition of election is faith. That because in our fallen state we have this remnant of goodness and this possibility to respond to the gospel proclamation, then everyone has the ability in and of themselves not through the power of the Spirit, but in and of themselves, they have the ability to respond to the message of the Gospel. So if people have the ability to respond to the message of the Gospel, the decree of God in eternity past is not absolute and sovereign, but is rather partial and synergistic, because God chooses insofar as people in the future or through history will choose him. God in eternity past sees through the corridors of time, and then he will see those who having the ability to believe will respond positively to the calling of the gospel. It's very important, and I don't know if you can see the implications of this, because basically under Armenian theology, the world is divided basically in two categories.

those who respond and they who say yes to the gospel and those who do not say yes to the gospel so heaven is populated by those who had having ability in and of themselves said yes to the preaching of the gospel and hell is populated by those who even having the ability to say yes they rejected the gospel of jesus christ in and of themselves and they went to hell beloved This has a lot of implications, at least in two levels. The first one, it is in the nature of men. Our brother explained to us last week how radically depraved we are and that we are unable to respond to God, that we are unable to please God. But beyond that, the second implication of this statement, it is that we insult or we reduce the decree of God in eternity past. Because then we make the decree of God in eternity past dependent on something that is going to happen in history.

So then, what the Canons of Dor said, it is that the decree of God is unique, it is complete, it is whole, and it is absolute. The absoluteness of the decree of God. That means that the decree of God in eternity past does not depend on anything, that there is nothing that happens between that which is created and the creator that will move the creator to choose or to elect people unto salvation. But beloved, this is something that we know. This is something that we know.

So the question would be, is faith a condition for election? And we as Calvinistic, we will say no. faith is not a condition for election. There is no conditions for the election of God that happens in eternity past, but we know that. So what I want to do today is at least to tackle at least three points, three challenges that Armenian theology will place to Calvinistic And I'm not saying reform theology in purpose, because we are in the Calvinistic level.

Not everyone who is a Calvinist will necessarily be reformed. So I'm saying that in purpose. What are the challenges that Armenian theology will place for, or that we will face as Calvinists, we will face from the Armenian camp? The first one, it is in the nature of faith. And we know this.

cannot be produced by men. Even though we know this, I really want you to have it in your mind very clear, because we're going to move to these three challenges that we have in a way that we're going to go deeper and deeper in theology and doctrine. But the first one, the one that we know, is that faith cannot be produced by men. We do not have the ability to produce that faith. And I want to give you a theological reason why faith cannot be produced by men.

First, there is a sense in which faith is a legal instrument. Faith is an instrument by which I receive the righteousness of Jesus Christ. We've said this in the doctrine of justification is a glorious exchange in which the believer receives the righteousness of Jesus Christ and my sins, my unrighteousness are imputed or given to Jesus Christ. He atones for that on the cross and then I'm imputed that righteousness of Christ and I'm given the blessing of acceptance before God the Father. Faith is the instrument or the means by which the believer receives or is imputed the righteousness.

So therefore, faith, in a sense, is a legal instrument. And when I say legal, I attach it to the righteousness of God. to the holy standard of God. So if I say that a fallen man can have faith in and of himself, I am saying that a fallen man can in and of himself to produce something that is righteous and that is legally accepted before God. And the Bible is very clear in saying that that's not possible, that there is no one righteous, that there is no one good, that no one seeks after God.

Not only that, but faith is the only way that God can be pleased. Hebrews 11, 6. Apart from faith, it is impossible to please God. So if a fallen man can produce in and of himself faith, we are saying that an unrighteous person and an unrighteous being can please God with that which only in the Bible is attached to believers. I want us to see this from Romans, from the mind of the apostle Paul.

So let's go to Romans. The following chapter, we read Romans chapter seven. And I want you to see here these two aspects of faith. That faith is necessarily attached to legal or judicial or forensic language. And not only that, but is the means by which we please God.

Romans eight. Verse six. Verse five. For those who live according to the flesh, those are the fallen men. Those are outside of Jesus Christ.

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh. But those who live according to the spirit set their minds on the things of the spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind of the spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, is enemy to God. So those who are fallen, are in hostility with God, for it does not submit to God's law.

Indeed, it can not. The mind, beloved, the mind of that person who is outside of Jesus Christ, the mind of the fallen creature is a fleshly mind that cannot submit to God, that cannot submit to God's law. If we say that a fallen creature can in and of himself to produce faith, faith is a legal instrument of obedience that submits to God's law. So then we will say that a falling creature has the ability to to submit to the law of God. And the Bible is very clear that it is impossible.

Then it says, verse eight, those who are in the flesh cannot please God. It is impossible for those who are fallen creatures, for those who are outside of Jesus Christ, to please God. So that means that it is impossible for a person to produce faith that is a legal instrument, beloved. Something that we have to understand is that we are saved by obedience. Pay attention to this.

We are saved by obedience. Remember what we've said in 1 Peter, that he chose us according to the foreknowledge of God the Father in eternity past for sanctification of this period unto obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel is a message of obedience. Paul says the obedience of the faith, or Peter says the obedience of the gospel. We have been commanded to repent and to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

So my response to the commandment of the gospel is necessary and intrinsically legal obedience that requires the righteousness of God. This is impossible for men. I don't want you to have a simplistic and a flat view of why unbelievers cannot produce faith. I want you to see the necessary legal, judicial and forensic nature of faith as an instrument that derives or produces righteousness. This is impossible for a fallen creature.

because it is impossible for a falling creature. The second thing that we have to understand under Calvinistic understanding is that always regeneration will precede faith. If I want to produce fruits of obedience that are righteous and just and judicially accepted before God, then my nature has to be changed first. A fallen creature cannot produce anything that is righteous. So those who produce obedience in righteousness have been given life necessarily before they believe the new life The regeneration, the washing of regeneration happens before we have faith.

Let's go to first Peter, please. I don't even know if we have to go to first Peter, because this is what we preach on last week. First Peter, chapter one, verse three, it says, Blessed be the God and father for Lord Jesus Christ. According to His great mercy, He caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. It is God the Father who according to his foreknowledge and his great mercy, he caused us to be born again.

It is not faith what produces the new birth or the new life, but it's rather God himself, the one that produces the new life and faith becomes the result of my new being. Let's go to 2 Thessalonians. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. 2 Thessalonians 2, verse 13 and verse 14. But we ought always, 2 Thessalonians 13, 14.

But we ought always to give thanks to God for you brothers beloved by the lord now pay attention to election here because god chose you as the first fruits to be saved he chose you as the first fruits to be saved through sanctification by the spirit and belief in the truth to this he called you through our gospel so that you may obtain the glory of our lord jesus christ in the mind of Peter and in the mind of Paul, that which is attached to belief, it is my new birth. I have been chosen by God through the sanctification of the Spirit. And let me submit to you that this is a parallel verse to 1 Peter 1-2, what we preached on last week. This definitive sanctification or this positional sanctification that we are removed from the dominating power of sin to be given life and then we obey the gospel and then we have faith and we are united to Christ. We need the transformation of our heart in order to believe.

This is what they prophesied from old, Ezekiel, that he will cleanse us with the water, that he will put his spirit within us, and he will cause us to obey. The first fruit of a regenerated heart, it is obedience, and that's obedience to the gospel of Jesus Christ. So regeneration necessarily precedes faith that's why it is impossible for a man to believe in and of himself all of this you know the first level you know the second level you know now i want to present to you a contemporary challenge to the calvinistic the probably i don't know you probably you've heard probably you have not heard There is a contemporary challenge to our doctrine, to our order salutis, to our order of salvation, that it is increasing and it is growing in the world. And this is very recent. There are some people that say that they do agree that regeneration happens before faith, but they said that there might be, there are two possible streams, that there might be a gap between regeneration and faith.

that a person can be regenerated and that person can believe years or months or time in the future. This is what some people are saying. Even I know someone who believes that. This is one stream that is contemporary. This is Wesleyan-Armenian theology.

These are streams and variations of Wesleyan-Armenian theology. The second one, challenge, the second challenge, it says that upon the preaching of the gospel, everyone is given the ability to believe. So that when the gospel is preached, that everyone, it is in some sense regenerated or given the ability to believe, and then it depends entirely on them to believe or not. This is a huge problem to our understanding of our salvation. Let me give you some reasons.

First of all, because that which we call the order of salvation is never one step after the other. It is a logical understanding of how things happen. It is not that I'm given a new life, and then two or three seconds pass, or one month, and then I decide to believe, beloved, the heart that has been changed. from stone unto flesh, is taken captive to obedience to Jesus Christ. When the eyes of a fallen man are opened to the beauty of God, there is no other option than to obey the righteous commandment of the gospel.

Obedience to the gospel always comes with a new heart, It is the first fruit of the new heart. It is the first response of the person who has been given new life. If we say that regeneration can happen and obedience will happen or may not happen, then we say that a person can see the glory of God and the depths of his sin and to choose sin still. Let me show you from the Bible. Let's go to 1st John.

Hmm. 1st John chapter 5. I want you to see the impossibility of someone being born of God and remain in the world. of someone being born of God and remain without faith. If you remain without faith, you remain a rebel because you're not believing in the Lord Jesus Christ.

So it is impossible for the life or the soul of a person that has been born again to remain in the principles of the world. This is 1 John 5 verse 1. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. So the person who believes has been born of God. You cannot have the new birth without belief.

But the question that we have is not about that. It's about what if a person cannot believe being born again. Then it says, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of Him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments, and His commandments are not burdensome.

For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world, and this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. Who is that that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? I love it. Regeneration, the washing of regeneration by the Holy Spirit, the changing of heart from stone to flesh produces in us An understanding of who we are, that when we see God, we are given entirely in love to him and in faith to his son, Jesus Christ. Saying that if we are born of God and we do not respond in faith, that means that we still love our sin and that we still love our unrighteousness.

And even if it's temporary, that we choose to live in the unrighteousness of our life before coming to God. The new birth, the new life always comes with faith, with a faith that imputes to us the righteousness of God. For this reason, beloved, it is impossible to conclude that faith is a condition of election, Faith cannot be a condition of election simply because men in a fallen state cannot produce faith in and of itself, and because faith is a result of our election. If faith is the result of our birth, of our new birth, our new birth corresponds to the eternal decree of God in electing us and choosing us. So that protects the absolute the absoluteness and the sovereignty of the decree of God in eternity pass.

But the question is, therefore, beloved, is there any condition for our election in eternity pass? And we know the unconditional election says that there is no conditions. But let me submit to you that there is a condition for our election in eternity pass. There is something that precedes our election. There is a condition that goes before our choosing.

We said during the sermon, beloved, that if we want to understand the blessings that we are given as believers, that we have to go and see Jesus Christ. Only by putting our eyes in Jesus Christ and who he is as a man, we will be able to understand the glorious salvation that has been given to us. So I'm going to say to you that yes, foreknowledge is a condition of our salvation. That when our beloved brothers Armenians come to first Peter and then say, you see that we are elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, that they are right in a sense, that they are right in a sense. But that sense in which they are right is that this foreknowledge of God the Father in eternity past, as we said during our sermons, is a covenantal foreknowledge that derives its meaning and its understanding from the eternal foreknowledge of God the Father to the person of Jesus Christ.

Go to 1 Peter, please. 1 Peter 1. What I'm saying to you is that this foreknowledge of the elect derives meaning from the foreknowledge of God the Father for Jesus Christ. Verse 20, it says, He, Jesus Christ. He, Jesus Christ, was what?

Foreknown before the foundation of the world, but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you." Now pay attention how we are believers, who through him, speaking of us, who through him, through Jesus Christ, are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. Jesus Christ was the one who was foreknown in eternity past before the foundation of the world. And the one who was foreknown in eternity past was manifest in time for the sake of the church so that the church may have faith through Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was foreknown in eternity past beloved.

is in eternity past that salvation is promised. You see, salvation is not promised to you. Salvation is not given as a promise to each one of the members of the church. Ultimately, salvation is promised to the person of Jesus Christ. God the Father in eternity past come with his son and they enter into a covenantal relationship an eternal covenantal special relationship in eternity past in which we are partakers of the blessings just because we are in Jesus Christ.

Let's go to Titus. Titus chapter 1 verse 1 to 3. Paul, a servant of God and apostle of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accord with godliness, in hope of eternal life, in hope of salvation, in hope of eternal life. When was this eternal life promised? It says, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages begun.

Eternal life was promised by God in eternity past. He promised this eternal life. And you did not exist in eternity past. This promise of eternal life was given to the Son. It is to Jesus Christ, the one who was foreknown before the foundation of the world.

the first fruit among many brothers, to him salvation was promised. Go to please to 2 Timothy. 2 Timothy 1. Therefore, verse 8 and 10, 2 Timothy 1, 8 and 10. Therefore, do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me, his prisoner, by sharing suffering for the gospel by the power of God.

Pay attention to verse nine. Who saved us and called us to be, to a holy calling, not because of our works, but because of his own purpose and grace. His own, He called us because His own purpose and grace, which He gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages begun. He saved us, not because of our works, not because of anything good that we have done, but because of His mercy and the love that He had for us, and that was given to us in Jesus Christ before the foundation of the world. I don't know when I'm going to get tired of saying this.

I hope that I don't get tired of saying this. But beloved, the question here is not if there is a condition to be elect. Why are we chosen at all? Why do we who are filled with unrighteousness? He knew of all of our unrighteousness.

He knew of our thoughts. He knew of the things that we were going to say, the things that we were going to touch, the things that we want to think and distort in our hearts. He knew of all of those things and even the things that are to come. Yet he did not only chose us or choose us or elect us, but he united us to his beloved son. and everything that he gave to Jesus Christ in eternity past, he gave us.

What is the condition of our election? The condition of election is union with Jesus Christ. It is, and I don't understand why, but the church was united to Jesus Christ in eternity past. And just as the woman is removed from the from the wreath of the man and is made a help feed for men The church that was united to christ in eternity past is removed from him from him and in this world in this wilderness Lives, so then there's going to be an eternal wedding in which the church is going to be reunited to his house to her husband jesus christ And this is mind-blowing beloved How are we going to live our temporary things? How are we going to live these things of the world, our work and our studies and our responsibilities?

Our eyes put in eternity. That's where we belong. We are united to Jesus Christ. This is the foundation of election. Vote Efficient, please.

Ephesians chapter 1 verse 5, it says, He predestined us for adoptions as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will. He chose us as sons according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has blessed us in the beloved. Go to verse 11. In him, that is in union with Christ, in Him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ may be to the praise of His glory. Now, this is the choosing in Him.

He predestined us in Him. Now, verse 13. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation and believed in him, were sealed with a promised Holy Spirit, chosen in Christ in eternity past, united with the Spirit to Christ in Christ through the gospel, eternally united to Jesus Christ in the eternity that is to come. The angels wish to have the type of relationship that the church will have with the person of Jesus Christ. The angels wish to have the status of redeemed and being united with the person of Jesus Christ, because we will see the Father in Christ.

We will be partakers of the fullness of the Spirit in Christ. and we will not get tired of eternity just because of Him. Go to Philippians, please. Philippians chapter 2. Philippians chapter 2 verse 4.

Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, and this was, he's referring to eternity past, he was in the form of God, he was God himself, eternal life, was promised to Jesus Christ or to the Son of God, let's say it better, to the Son of God in eternity past, eternal life was promised to him. And he being in the form of God, being God himself, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of man and being found in human form. He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name.

so that the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Our union with Christ is the best example of who we are to be in light of our election. He is the only mediator between God and men. He is the chosen precious stone. He is the cornerstone of the church that was chosen before the foundation of the world, foreknown by God the Father, and in Him we were foreknown.

So if our election dependent in and of ourselves, we insult the foreknowing and the choosing of Jesus Christ. This is going to set the framework for us to understand that the atonement of Jesus Christ was for those who were in him in eternity past, that he atoned for the sins of his church. Now, beloved, even though we recognize the unconditional aspect of our election, we also acknowledge that we are called to preach the gospel and to call people to faith and repentance. People are required to repent and to believe and we are required to go to the nations and to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. We don't have to make our theology and our doctrine decorative.

And I don't know if that's how you pronounce the word, but we don't have to make our theology only based on the eternal decree of God. This is what is called hyper Calvinism. If you found your theology only on the decree of God, then you lose from sight the providence of God working through history and the means that he has given to accomplish the purpose of his decree. He has called us to preach the gospel and to call everyone to repent and believe independently of the status of election. For those who are elect, it will be the means by which they are added to the kingdom.

And for those who are reprobate, it will be the means by which wrath is restored for the day of wrath. That we might see the gospel and understand, beloved, that this glorious election does not depend on us. There is nothing righteous in us. And it is only God, in Jesus Christ, who did not only elect us, but also saved us and sealed us with the Spirit, in Christ Jesus. Amen?