One week as I was teaching a class of high school sophomores at Rocky Bayou Christian School the subject of the doctrine of election and predestination came up. We were looking at John 6:36-65 and I asked how 6:37, 44, and 65 related to the doctrines of election and eternal security. The passages are as follows:
John 6:37 “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.
John 6:44 “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.
John 6:65 And He was saying, “For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.”
All of a sudden it was a free for all. Many students were quite passionate about how they believe that we choose to believe and that the doctrine of election was wrong. But all I asked was how these passages related to the issue of election. I did not define the doctrine nor advocate a certain view. They assumed (although correctly) that I held a certain view and proceeded to argue against it. Add to this, the students who held the same view as I did also joining in the fray, and chaos began to reign. After I called for order, I emphasized the point that I was not asking an explanation or defense of a certain viewpoint but to honestly interact with what the text says and what conclusions we could legitimately draw from it.
By using the word “election,” I pressed an emotional trigger. We are passionate about what we believe, and this particular sparked a lot of emotion. However, no matter how passionately and strongly we may hold a particular belief, we must always submit it the words of Scripture. We must be careful about what our authority is; is it our emotional connection to what we believe, or is it the absolute authority of God’s revelation of Himself in Scripture.
A second issue that came up was how all this affected how we live today. I was amused by that question because they were arguing so passionately for a particular view, then asking if it was relevant. If it wasn’t relevant, why were they so passionate about it? I suspect they knew they were emotional, but did not see the concrete outworking of it, how it helped them to make decisions and treat other people. Among other things, the relevance is this: What we believe about God affects most everything we do. If we believe He is absolutely sovereign, it will affect how we live. If we believe that He is absolutely committed to saving people, we will want to be a part of that saving work, and work harder at sharing the gospel. In order to truly know who God is we must study and submit to Scripture, every word of it.