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the Apostle gloried. So much real doctrine is wrapped up in this word. It reminds us
that, while redemption snaps the chains of sin and death, and leads us into liberty, yet that
liberty is not without its Divine obligations. We have not been delivered from Satan, the
flesh and the world system, to please ourselves and go the way of our choosing, but to
acknowledge the lordship or domination of the One who has saved us by His precious
Blood.
We are not our own, we are bought with a price and this nothing less than the life
and death of the Son of God, who loved us and gave Himself for us (I Cor. 6: 19, 20;
Gal. 2: 20). We are His property, His slave, and saving grace has simply changed
masters for us, the Lord Jesus Christ instead of Satan, self and sin. Yet how many of
God's people practically own this? Many know him as Saviour, who have never
acknowledged His Lordship. Such could never call themselves, as Paul did, bondslaves
of Jesus Christ, for a slave has no rights, no property, no will of his own; he existed
solely for his master. The Apostle had laid everything at the feet of His Saviour without
reserve, and we should face up to the fact that none of us can truly call ourselves
"servants (bondslaves) of God", until we have done likewise. And then how wonderfully
God is willing to accept such living sacrifices (Rom. 12: 1) and commence to do His
work through them!
So Paul, writing to Titus who had been called of God as a servant, into which service
the Apostle was about to guide him, likewise describes himself as a servant and an
apostle (a sent one) of Jesus Christ.
This ministry and apostleship was "according to the faith of God's elect". Kata, the
preposition used here with the accusative case, has the meaning of `in harmony with'.
We meet the truth of election at the beginning of this epistle, even as we do in Ephesians
(Eph. 1: 4). Eklektos is used in the Pauline epistles six times:
"Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?" (Rom. 8: 33).
"Salute Rufus, chosen in the Lord." (Rom. 16: 13).
"Put on therefore, as the elect of God" (Col. 3: 12).
"Jesus Christ and the elect angels" (I Tim. 5: 21).
"I endure all things for the elect's sakes" (II Tim. 2: 10).
"According to the faith of God's elect" (Titus 1: 1).
The noun ekloge is used of the Apostle himself by the Lord. "He is a chosen vessel
unto Me", literally, he is a vessel of election unto Me (Acts 9: 15). The only other
occurrences in Paul's epistles are in I Thess. 1: 4, and four times in the dispensational
section of Romans, each reference referring to Israel and the faithful remnant
(Rom. 9: 11; 11: 5, 7, 28). The verb eklegomai, to choose or elect, occurs three times in
I Cor. 1: 27, 28 and the one reference in Ephesians before mentioned (1: 4).
It is clear then, that no one can believe the truth given through the Apostle of the
Gentiles unless they accept the truth of election. But we must be careful here. In
Scripture, election and predestination are definitely linked with God's foreknowledge
(Rom. 8: 29; I Pet. 1: 2) and Divine foreknowledge is as important as election and is
indispensable in seeking to understand what election implies. Some have torn these two