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possible to raise a similar objection to this statement, implying that salvation depends
upon believing as a procuring cause. The reader will not need any array of quotations to
prove that salvation is procured by the finished work of Christ, the One Who died for us
while we were "yet" sinners, and indeed before we were born. It is evident that "faith"
has its place, but not the place represented in the supposed objection.
To the Thessalonian church, the apostle writes: "Knowing brethren beloved, your
election of God" (I Thess. 1: 4). Are we to assume from this statement that the apostle
was a privileged person who, in virtue of his high office, had been permitted to read the
book of life? No; he knew the election of these Thessalonians as we may know our own
or that of our friends:--
"For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy
Ghost, and in much assurance" (I Thess. 1: 5).
Would anyone be so foolish as to maintain that Paul intended us to believe that these
Thessalonians had put themselves into the book of life because they had received the
gospel? The true order is just the reverse--it was because these Thessalonians' names
were in the book of life that God saw fit that His gospel should reach them in saving
power. They had certainly turned to God from idols, and were waiting for His Son from
heaven, Who had delivered them from the wrath to come (I Thess. 1: 9, 10), but
underlying this turning, this waiting and deliverance, is the truth of 5: 9:--
"For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus
Christ" (I Thess. 5: 9).
The election of God includes not only the finished work of Christ, but all the ways and
means that are necessary to bring the elect to a knowledge of the truth.
The same truth underlies the teaching concerning the Body of Christ. This church is
an elect company "chosen in Him before the foundation of the world" (Eph. 1: 4). This
company will be saved and called in accordance with the purpose and grace of God given
to them in Christ Jesus before age-times (II Tim. 1: 9). Inasmuch as Eph. 1: reiterates the
glorious fact that such "chosen" ones are also "predestinated", and that "according to the
good pleasure of His will", it is quite certain that both faith and knowledge of the truth
are to be kept in their places and not to be thrust forward into the position rightly
occupied by the electing grace of God. Known unto God is every member of that church,
not only before he believes, not only before he is born, but before the overthrow of the
world.
How do the members of that Body know their calling? And how do we know that
fellow-members are in the same blessed company? None of us has access to the book of
life, none of us knows the secret purposes of the Lord; we can only predicate life by its
manifestations, and the root by the evidence of the fruit. Holding an important place in
all such evidence is faith; and faith leads on to knowledge. So Titus 1: 1:--