Archives - Redeeming God

Many people believe that in eternity past, before the foundation of the world, God chose (or elected) certain individuals to receive eternal life. Everybody else remains in a state of eternal condemnation. We looked at Romans 9 last week, and Ephesians 1:4-5 is another text that some people use to support the idea of God choosing who becomes a Christian. The verse says this:

… just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will …

In this study, we are going to briefly consider Ephesians 1:4-5, showing that while God has elected and predestined us, this does not mean that He chose whom to give eternal life to, and whom to condemn. Election is not to eternal life, but to service in the plan and purposes of God.

A longer version of this study can be found in two of my sermons on Ephesians:

Ephesians 1:3-4 – Security from the Father: Election
Ephesians 1:5-6 – Security from the Father: Predestination

Ephesians 1:4-5 is not teaching how God chose, predestined, or elected some people to receive eternal life (while condemning or passing over all the rest).

A careful reading of the text reveals the same truth we have seen elsewhere, that election is to service. These verses teach that it was God’s plan from eternity past to adopt all who believe in Jesus as His heirs so that we will become holy and without blame before Him.

This is seen in two main ways.

We were Elected to be Holy and Blameless (Ephesians 1:4)

First, in Ephesians 1:4, Paul writes that God “chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.”

Note that the text does not say that we were chosen “to be” in Him (Christ), but rather that we were chosen “in Him.” This means that Jesus Christ is the primary elect one, and believers are chosen, or elect, because of our connection with Jesus.

We are among the elect because we are in Christ, and He is elect.

It should be obvious as well, that God did not choose Jesus so that Jesus could have eternal life. Eternal life is in God and is in Jesus Christ (John 17:3), and therefore, God did not elect Jesus to eternal life, but to serve a particular role and function within His sovereign plan for this world.

Therefore, just as the election of Jesus is to a specific task and purpose, so also, all those who are elect “in Christ” share the same task and purpose as Jesus. Jesus came to be a blessing, to serve others, to reconcile the world to God, and to reveal God to the world (cf. Luke 4:17-19).

Since are in Jesus, then we are to do similar things. As the elect in Christ, we must follow Jesus Christ wherever He leads and in whatever He does.

Since we are to do what Jesus does and to follow Him wherever He leads, there is a danger to the evangelical proclamation that “Jesus has done it all.”

While it is absolutely true that He has “done it all” in regard to what is necessary for making eternal life available to all humanity, He has not “done it all” in regard to God’s plan and purpose for this world. All that Jesus still intends to do, He does through His elect followers, the church.

Through us, Jesus does greater things than He did during His ministry (John 14:12).

The fact that we were chosen in Jesus for service is further supported by the fact that Paul goes on to write that we were chosen in Him to be holy and blameless (Ephesians 1:4).

We were not chosen to receive eternal life, but to a way of living that reflects God’s holiness and righteousness to the world.

We were not elected to eternal life, but to a way of living life. We are to live holy and blameless lives before a watching world.

We were Predestined to the Adoption as Sons (Ephesians 1:5)

Paul states much the same thing in Ephesians 1:5 when he writes about predestination. He says that God “predestined us to adoption as sons.” Predestination is about God’s goals for His people; “not the selection of who will become His people.”[2]

Predestination is about the benefits, privileges, and blessings that God determines to give to all those who become His children by faith in Jesus Christ. Some of these blessings include adoption into God’s family (Eph 1:5), future glory (1 Thess 5:9, Rom 8:29-30; 9:33; 1 Cor 2:7), and the opportunity to do good (Eph 2:10).

One reason many people think that predestination refers to God’s choice about who receives eternal life is because they misunderstand Paul’s use of the word “adoption” here in Ephesians 1:5. The word “adoption” was defined earlier in this dictionary (see Adoption), but a brief summary of what this word means will help us better understand Paul’s point here.

Typically, when people read about adoption in Paul’s writings, they think of the modern practice of adoption where a mother and father, through legal processes, make a child their own who was not biologically their own. They find an orphan who has no mother and father and adopt this child into their family.

But this is not how adoption worked in biblical times.

In the Roman world of Paul’s day, adoption was not about making a child your own, but was instead about naming a child as an heir. While the firstborn son was usually the heir, a father might adopt one of his other biological children as his heir, or the child of some other family so that the two families could become one through adoption.

One famous example is when Julius Caesar adopted Octavian (who became Caesar Augustus) to be his heir, even though Octavian was not Caesar’s son. Caesar had a biological son with Cleopatra named Caesarion, but he was not named as heir.[3]

So biblical adoption has very little to do with picking a parentless child to join your family, and has more to do with choosing someone as an heir. In other words, adoption is not about bringing someone into your family, but with giving a child privilege and position within the family.

While God did predestine from eternity past that there would be a people whom He would adopt as His heirs, this does not mean that God individually selected which people would become those heirs.

Instead, He set in motion a series of events which would bring about the creation of this family of God called out from among all the people of the earth.

When viewed this way, we see that Ephesians 1 is in agreement with multiple other passages in Scripture that election is to service in God’s Kingdom.

Election is to Service in God’s Kingdom

We see that elect people are not “in Christ” before the foundation of the world, but rather, it is Christ Himself, as the ultimate Servant of God, who was chosen before the foundations of the world to perform a service to God in redeeming the world and revealing God to the world.[4]

Paul’s point in Ephesians 1:4-5 is that when we join with Christ by faith in Him (Eph 2:8-9), we automatically become connected with the eternal and divine purpose of God in Jesus Christ so that we can perform the good works He has prepared in advance for us to do (Eph 2:10).

Jesus is the one was chosen before the foundations of the world, and so all who join with Jesus in faith will be caught up together with Him in His purpose to love, serve, and redeem the world.

[NOTES]

[1] See my book God’s Blueprints for Church Growth (Forthcoming) for more on this way of understanding Ephesians.

[2] William W. Klein, (#AmazonAdLink) The New Chosen People: A Corporate View of Election (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 1990), 279.

[3] There is some dispute about whether or not Caesarion was actually Caesar’s son. During the tense period of time when Mark Antony and Cleopatra ruled in Egypt while Octavius Caesar Augustus ruled in Italy, Mark Antony declared that Caesarion was “the son of God” the “king of kings” and the rightful heir to Rome. This led to a war, which Octavius Caesar eventually won, after which time, Octavius took the titles of divinity for himself, along with Augustus (Most High) and Prince of Peace, for now there was peace in Rome (Pax Romana). As they say, history is written by the victors, and so the stories about Caesarion being illegitimate were spread and encouraged, thereby supporting Octavian’s claim to the throne.

[4] Some have noted that the term “the foundation of the world” does not refer to the creation of the world, but rather to the foundational principles and values of this world, that is, the values and activities that make human civilization possible. See, for example, Brian Zahnd, Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God (New York: Waterbrook, 2017), 113. According to Scripture, the foundation of civilization is accusatory scapegoating violence (Listen to my podcast episodes on Genesis 3–4).

So when biblical writers talk about something “before the foundation of the world,” they are not saying “before the world was created” but “before we fell into our habits of blame, accusation, scapegoating, and violence. In this view, the preposition “before” does not necessarily mean “before in time” but might mean “before in location.” Jesus did die “in front of” or “before the face of” the founding principalities and powers of this world, and in this way, exposed and humiliated them by showing the world a better way to live (Col 2:14).

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What Romans 9 REALLY teaches about election

By Jeremy Myers

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In a previous post I introduced the concept of what the Bible means when it talks about election. You will want to go read that post, or listen to the podcast, before you read this post, as it forms the foundation for the ideas presented below.

And if you really want to learn more about what I discuss in this article, you will want to get my book,(#AmazonAdLink) The Re-Justification of God. It provides more information about how to understand Romans 9:10-24. (And yes, I know the title is strange and the cover is boring, but you can find out the reason for WHY by using the “Look inside” feature at Amazon. This will allow you to read the Author’s Note and the Preface to the book, which explains more.)

(#AmazonAdLink)

Here are the texts about election from Romans 9 that we want to briefly consider here:

And not only this, but when Rebecca also had conceived by one man, even by our father Isaac (for the children not yet being born, nor having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of Him who calls), it was said to her, “The older shall serve the younger” (Romans 9:11-12).

For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth” (Romans 9:17).

Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor? What if God, wanting to show … wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom he called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles? (Romans 9:21-24).

Brief Overview of Romans (for Context)

It is first of all helpful to recognize the overall message and meaning of the book of Romans.

Despite what some think, Paul’s letter to the Romans is not about justification, or even the righteousness of God. It is not about how great God is or how to go to heaven when we die.

Instead, Paul’s letter to the Romans is about how the gospel “saves” believers and unbelievers alike (Romans 1:16-17) from wrath. This becomes clearer still when we recall that the word “saves” does not mean “justifies” but “delivers” (see my study on the word ‘saved’) and “wrath” does not mean “go to hell when you die” but refers instead to the devastating and destructive consequences of sin

Paul’s letter to the Romans is about how the gospel not only delivers people from the eternal and spiritual consequences of sin, but also from the temporal and physical consequences.

Romans 9 fits squarely within the second part of this theme.

Up to this point in Romans, Paul has argued that although sin is a universal human problem (Romans 1–3), God has a divine purpose and significance for all believers, so that if we live in light of our justification (Romans 4–5) and walk by faith (Romans 6–7), God will bless us and work with us to accomplish His will on earth (Romans 8).

In the last part of Romans 8, Paul sets out to encourage his readers that nothing can get in God’s way of accomplishing His purposes (Romans 8:28-39).

Yet there is one main problem with Paul’s logic up to this point.

Though Paul says that nothing can get in God’s way of Him accomplishing His purposes in us, the biblical record seems to indicate that something got in the way of God accomplishing His purposes for Israel.

Israel too was God’s elect, but by all appearances, God “set them aside” and turned to the Gentiles instead. So if God’s purposes failed with Israel, how can Paul say that God’s purposes will not fail for the church?

Romans 9–11 contains Paul’s response to this objection.

In Romans 9–11, Paul explains that God’s purposes for Israel did not fail, and for the most part, Israel herself did not fail.

Nevertheless, if we understand what happened to Israel, we will then be better able to protect the church from something similar happening to us.

Jacob and Esau in Romans 9

In the first part of Romans 9, Paul uses three biblical examples to show that God’s election of people and groups is to service.

The first example is Jacob and Esau, and it is important to note that both Jacob and Esau were elected, or chosen, by God. It is often assumed that only Jacob was chosen by God, but Paul clearly indicates that God chose the older brother, Esau, to serve the younger brother, Jacob.

This once again proves that election is to service.

Through the way Paul structures his argument and Old Testament quotations, he indicates that that while Isaac and Jacob were chosen to be recipients of the promise, Ishmael and Esau were still chosen by God, but for other purposes and tasks.

God’s choosing and election in Romans 9 is not to eternal life, but to vocation, mission, purpose, and service.

Esau’s election certainly was a different service than the one to which Jacob was called, but it is clearly a call to service nonetheless.

This call to various forms of service was not only true of the individuals, Esau and Jacob, but also to the nations that came from them, Edom and Israel. Just as Israel was chosen to perform a particular type of service to the world, so also Edom was chosen to perform a particular type of service to Israel.

Therefore, just as Paul is not saying that all Israelites have eternal life, so also, Paul is not saying that all Edomites (the descendants of Esau) are destined for eternal damnation.

The passage is not about eternal destinies at all.

Any Edomite has just as much opportunity to believe and receive eternal life from God as any Israelite. God chose Israel so that they might be a blessing to the surrounding nations, and God chose Esau and the Edomites to help Jacob and Israel in this task.

The Hardening of Pharaoh’s Heart in Romans 9

The same truths are then applied by Paul to why God raised up Pharaoh during the Exodus events.

The way Paul structures his argument in Romans 9:14-18, Paul shows that Pharaoh too was chosen, or elected, by God. But this says nothing about Pharaoh’s eternal destiny.

Romans 9:14-18 is not referring to where Pharaoh will spend eternity.

Instead, God raised up Pharaoh and solidified the proud and stubborn rebellion that was in Pharaoh’s heart so that those who witnessed and heard of what happened in Egypt would know that the God of Israel alone was God. Could not God, in His gracious sovereignty, do such a thing with Pharaoh without affecting whatsoever Pharaoh’s ability to believe in God’s promises and thus become part of God’s redeemed people?

Of course He could!

The hardening of Pharaoh’s heart, whether it is done by God or Pharaoh, or by some symbiotic combination of the two, has absolutely nothing to do with Pharaoh’s eternal destiny.

Even if the Exodus account laid all the responsibility for the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart upon God Himself, and none upon Pharaoh, this still would tell us nothing about whether or not Pharaoh concluded His life as one of God’s redeemed.

Pharaoh’s eternal destiny is not under discussion in Exodus or in Romans, and so Pharaoh’s heart can be hardened so that God’s purposes are achieved, while still leaving plenty of room for Pharaoh to believe in God’s promises and become one of God’s people.

When Pharaoh’s kingdom came crashing down around him through the Ten Plagues and the destruction of his army in the Red Sea, one wonders if Pharaoh learned the lesson God had sought to teach him, and had returned back to his empty throne room where he threw himself upon the mercy of the One True God, recognizing God’s sovereignty and power over all—even over Pharaoh himself.

The Bible does not say this happened, but we can hope.

The Potter and the Clay in Romans 9

Paul uses the image of the potter and the clay from Jeremiah 18 as his third example of how election works. There are numerous interpretive issues with this portion of Paul’s argument, which I explain in more detail in my book, (#AmazonAdLink) The Re-Justification of God. In that book, I propose that the following translation of Romans 9:22-24 best summarizes Paul’s point:

What if God, wanting to reveal wrath for what it is and make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of dishonor which were headed for destruction, so that He might make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of honor—which is the plan He has prepared beforehand for glory—and He did this not only for the Jews, but also for the Gentiles?

Read this way, God does not create two classes of people, one to destroy and one to bless. God does not create vessels for dishonor, but instead, endures with patience those who are dishonorable in the hopes that they would see His mercy and become vessels of honor.

God is longsuffering toward those who are in rebellion so that He can display His grace and mercy to them, with the hope that the vessels headed for destruction might instead become vessels headed for glory.

Either way, God’s creative wisdom enables Him to use honorable vessels for honorable purposes and dishonorable vessels for dishonorable purposes.

Once again, this has nothing whatsoever to do with the eternal destiny of these vessels, but instead concerns their role, function, and purpose within this life.

Romans 9 and Election

So Paul believes that election can be both corporate and individual, and that election is not to eternal life, but to service in this life.

Paul illustrates this teaching on election by pointing to Jacob and Esau and the nations that came from them, the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart, and God’s choice to use both honorable and dishonorable vessels to accomplish His purposes of blessing, reconciling, and redeeming the world.

Romans 9 is not about some strange act of God whereby He chooses some to receive eternal life while others get damned to hell by God’s sovereign eternal decree.

No, the point of Romans 9 is that God sought to bless the entire world by raising up Israel to be a light and a blessing to others. Having completed this task, God did not set Israel aside.

Instead, He transitioned from having an elect group of people in part of the world to calling all people in the world to join Him in the new elect people. So although Israel was elect, she fulfilled her task and became a non-elect nation so that the non-elect world could become elect.

This is what Paul continues to explain in Romans 11 as he answers the objection about how God’s promises and purposes do not fail even if God’s elect people do.

Romans 11 Supports this Reading of Romans 9

Paul returns to discuss election in Romans 11. Here are the pertinent texts:

Even so then, at this present time there is a remnant according to the election of grace (Romans 11:5).

What then? Israel has not obtained what it seeks; but the elect have obtained it, and the rest were blinded (Romans 11:7).

Concerning the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but concerning the election they are beloved for the sake of the fathers (Romans 11:28).

As seen in the discussion above about Romans 9, the entire discussion in this part of Romans is about how God’s promises to the church can be trusted, since God’s promises to Israel seem to have failed.

Since Paul argued near the end of Romans 8 that nothing can separate us from God’s loving plan for us, the natural objection to this is, “But what about Israel? Weren’t they separated from God’s plan due to their sinful rebellion and failure to serve as a blessing to the world?”

Paul’s initial response in Romans 9 is that election is not to eternal life and glorification, but to service in this life.

Having made this point, Paul goes on to argue in Romans 10 that Israel did not fail, but actually succeeded, and in fact, can continue to be elect by joining the elect people of God in the church. This is why Paul calls the church to proclaim the gospel to the Jews as well.

If the church does her job of proclaiming the gospel, any Israelite who believes in Jesus will become elect and join God’s plan and purposes in this world. This is what Paul goes on to describe in Romans 11.

The church has not replaced Israel in God’s plan for the world, but has been grafted in to supplement God’s plan, which, as it turns out, was God’s plan from the very beginning.

Even within Israel as a whole, there is always a remnant of believers who carry on the original task and purpose which God gave to the people of Israel (Romans 11:5). Though most of Israel is blinded, those Israelites who believe in Jesus for eternal life are thus part of the church and elected to participate in God’s purposes for this world (Romans 11:7).

Furthermore, a day is coming when Israel will return to her true calling, thereby bringing about the resurrection of the world (cf. Romans 11:12-15). Though many Israelites are antagonistic to the gospel, they nevertheless continue to serve role in God’s plan, and will do so in the future as well. In this way, though they are “enemies” to the gospel, they are beloved friends regarding election (Romans 11:28).

Note that, once again, nothing in this part of Romans 11 has anything whatsoever to do with people’s eternal destinies.

Paul is not talking about whether or not people can lose their eternal life. He is talking about positions of service in God’s plan for the world. God wants to bless the world, and while He chose Israel for this purpose, He now seeks to do it through the church, until ultimately all will be blessed by God (Rev 21:23-26; 22:2).

Just as God elected Israel to serve His purposes in the world, God chose the church for similar purposes.

God’s election of Israel and the church is not His choice of who will receive eternal life, but His choice of who will serve Him by being a blessing to this world.

Such an understanding helps make sense of some of the notoriously difficult verses in Romans 11. For example, Paul writes in Romans 11:17-21 that the elect branches were cut off so that non-elect branches could be grafted in, which in turn will lead to the elect-which-became-non-elect to be re-grafted back in and become re-elect.

If Paul is referring to eternal life when he speaks of election, none of this makes any sense. How can a people or a nation whom God elected “to eternal life” before the foundation of the world go from being elect to non-elect and then re-elect?

Romans 11:17-21 makes perfect sense, however, when we recognize that election is not to eternal life but to service. God wants to bless the world through His people. Israel accomplished their role in this, which led to the birth of the church.

But this does not mean that the church replaced Israel in God’s plan, but that God grafted Gentiles into His overall plan, and now invites all Israelites to be included in this ongoing plan, just as God invites all Gentiles as well.

In this way, when Paul writes about branches being cut off so others can be grated in which will lead to the cut off branches being grafted back in again, he is not talking about people losing and regaining eternal life, but about losing and re-gaining places of privilege and purpose in God’s plan for this world. God’s plan of redemption started with Israel, shifted to the church (consisting of both Jewish and Gentile believers), so that “of Him and through Him and to Him are all things” (Romans 11:36).

Israel, the elect nation, became non-elect once she had completed her task of bringing Scripture, the Messiah, and the elect church into the world.

God now joins believing Gentiles with believing Israelites together to form the church so that as the elect people of God, they will be a blessing to the world.

God’s plan did not fail, but simply transitioned from one group (Israel) to another (the church), so that the second group (the church) could be a blessing to the first (Israel) as well as to the whole world.

Election, Romans 9-11, and the Theme of Romans

This understanding fits perfectly with Paul’s overall theme in Romans about the gospel as the power of God unto salvation for all believers.

Remember, salvation is not about believing in Jesus for eternal life (though that is a central part of the gospel), but is also about living with purpose and significance as members of the new creation in this life.

This is Paul’s message in Romans, and Romans 9–11 fit perfectly into this overall theme. The gospel is good news for all who believe, whether Jew or Gentile.

It tells believers that our God is on the move in and through us; that His plan is moving forward. If we follow Him in faith, we will play a thrilling part in His plan for this world.

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Election is to Service

By Jeremy Myers

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The biblical teaching on election is a controversial issue in the church. But it need not be so. By carefully defining our terms and then looking at how the word “election” is used in context, we see that what the Bible teaches about election is not something to be debated, but celebrated.

So let us look at what the words mean, and then consider several texts which contain them.

The word election comes from the Greek noun eklogē (1589), the adjective eklektos (1588), and the verb eklegō (1586). All the words mean “chosen, select,” and I wish that Bible translators would have consistently translated them as “choose” or “chosen” as this would have reduced some of the confusion surrounding the term “elect.”

There are many related terms as well, such as calling, foreknowledge, ordained, and predestined, but by considering the term election, or to choose, the basic meaning of these others words will become clear.

The key truth to remember about election, or “God’s choice,” is that God chooses certain people and groups of people to perform certain tasks in this world so that He can accomplish part of His plan in and through them.

And what does God elect, or choose, these people for?

God does not choose which people will receive eternal life and which ones will not. Instead, God chooses which people will have a prominent role in helping Him move forward His plan for this world.

In other words, election is not to eternal life, but to service.

Biblical Election and Governmental Elections

It is helpful to think of biblical election the way we think of any other type of election. Most modern countries occasionally have some sort of “election” process. During these elections, individual people or groups of people are chosen to serve in a specific role or office so that they can perform a particular purpose.

When those who cast their votes elect a person or group to an office or role, they are not saying that such elected people have eternal life. No, they are saying that these are their chosen people to perform certain tasks in society.

It is the same with divine election.

When God “elects” people or groups, He is not choosing who will receive eternal life, but is selecting them to perform certain tasks in His plan and purposes for this world.

Whom Does God Elect?

Since this is how to understand election, it is obvious that God can elect individuals or entire nations.

He can elect believers or unbelievers.

Sometimes, the people God elects will later believe in Him and be justified (cf. Gen 12:4; 16:16; 17:1), while other times, they will not believe, and remain elect unbelievers (cf. John 6:70; Rom 9:10-24).

Of course, all who believe in Jesus are automatically elected by God, because all believers are “in Christ” and Jesus is the primary elect person in Scripture (cf. Luke 23:35; Eph 1:4-5).

Furthermore, just because God chooses, or elects, someone to fulfill a purpose in His plan for the world, this does not mean that the person will do what God wants.

God never forces anyone to do anything.

But if a person, or group of people, fails to fulfill the purpose for which God chose them, this does not thwart God’s plan or ruin His divine will. Instead, God, in His infinite wisdom and creativity, simply elects someone else to do what the first person or group failed to do.

When Peter failed to take the gospel to the Gentiles, despite being repeatedly instructed to do so, God raised up Saul (Paul) to become the apostle to the Gentiles (cf. Matt 28:19-20; Acts 1:8; 9–11; Gal 2:8; 1 Cor 15:8).

Ultimately, of course, God desires that those whom He chooses will carry out the task that He assigns them to do, but if they do not, God can even raise up people for Himself from stones (Luke 3:8; 19:40).

God can even choose groups of people, such as Israel or the church, to accomplish His will in the world. Again, just as with God choosing individuals, God’s choice of a nation, such as Israel, does not mean that all Israelites have eternal life. Election has nothing to do with eternal life. God can choose all Israel to perform a certain task in this world without requiring that all Israelites have eternal life.

It’s sort of similar with the church as God’s elect (cf. Rom 8:33; Eph 1:4; Col 3:12; 1 Thess 1:4; 2 Tim 2:10; Titus 1:1; 1 Pet 1:1-2; 2:8-9; 5:13; Rev 17:14), except that all members of the church do indeed have eternal life. But God’s election of the church is not because all Christians have eternal life or so that all members of the church will receive eternal life.

All Christians have eternal life and all Christians are elect, but this is not the same thing as saying that all who are elect have eternal life.

Maybe we could put it differently: All who have eternal life are elect, but not all elect have eternal life.

Election is to service; not to eternal life.

While all who have eternal life are elect, not all the elect have eternal life. God raises up whom He wills to perform tasks He desires so they will accomplish His plan and purposes in this world. With this central idea in mind, let us look at several key texts from Scripture that reveal this truth in more detail.

Matthew 20:16; Matthew 22:14

For many are called, but few are chosen.

Many people seem to think that the calling and election of God are two synonymous terms (cf. Romans 8:30). Yet here, Jesus clearly indicates that while many are called, only few are chosen.

In an attempt to explain this passage, some scholars tend to talk about two different types of calling, a general call and an effectual call, and then say that this text is only referring to the general call of God to all people.

But once we recognize that the election of God is not to eternal life, but to a role and purpose within God’s plan for the world, it is no longer a problem to think of God’s calling as simply an invitation to participate with Him in what He is doing in the world. While this calling can go out generally to all, God can also individually select certain people to serve Him in specific ways.

So Jesus is not referring to the calling or election of some to eternal life, but is teaching the consistent biblical message that while God desires that all people will serve Him, not all do, and so God chooses to work with those who participate with Him in what He is doing in the world.

God issues a general call to everybody, but only chooses those who respond to the call and indicate a willingness to serve Him in this world.

This is exactly the truth taught in the context by the parable of the workers in the vineyard (Matthew 20:1-15). The vineyard owner needs workers to harvest his grapes, and so he makes several different invitations over the course of the day for anyone in the marketplace who might want to work. He chooses to hire and pay any who response to his invitation.

Note that if this parable were about God’s unconditional election of some to eternal life, then the landowner would not have issued a general invitation at all, but would have gone throughout the marketplace and hand-picked several to be his workers, and none of them could have said “No.”

Furthermore, if this parable is about election to eternal life, the fact that they then work during the day and get paid when the harvest is brought in would indicate that eternal life is based on works.

Thankfully, this parable is not about eternal life, nor the false idea that we have to work to earn it. Instead, it is about Gods’ willingness to work with anyone who wants to work with Him, even if it is the eleventh-hour workers who have supposedly been standing around the marketplace all day waiting for someone to hire them (Matthew 20:7).

These men are either liars (if they had truly been there all day, they would have been hired to work), lazy (maybe they were there and heard the call, but didn’t want to work), or greedy (maybe they kept hoping a better-paying opportunity came along), but the landowner hires them anyway.

Jesus is showing here (and in the following two chapters of Matthew, as revealed by the inclusio of Matthew 20:16 and Matthew 22:14) that while many people are called to participate in how He runs the world, only those who show up are “chosen” to do so.

When God invites all to participate with Him in His rule and reign on earth, He does so without partiality or favoritism. All are invited, and it does not matter who shows up first or last; all will be welcomed.

Those who accept the invitation, however, must recognize that while they will be given blessings and benefits from the overabundance of God’s generosity, these blessings and benefits must be gained in the right way (by entering through the front door, which is Jesus), and must be used in the service of others.

God calls all to join Him in spreading His kingdom upon the earth, and those who respond to the call are chosen by Him to accomplish specific tasks and purposes.

Matthew 24:22, 24, 31

And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect’s sake those days will be shortened (Matthew 24:22).

For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect (Matthew 24:24).

And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other (Matthew 24:31).

To understand what these passages teach about election, several things must be noted.

First, the word “saved” in Matthew 24:22 cannot refer to “receiving eternal life” (cf. Matthew 24:13). In Scripture, this word means to be delivered from something, and context determined what kind of deliverance is in view. Here the deliverance is from physical death due to the calamities that come upon the world. The salvation in Matthew 24 is not about going to heaven, but is about deliverance from physical death during times of tribulation.

Second, note that the elect cannot refer to a select group of individuals whom God sovereignly chooses to receive eternal life, for the text says that some of them will be deceived by false christs and false prophets. If God sovereignly controls the beliefs and behaviors of His elect, how is it that they could be deceived by false teaching?

Third, the gathering of the elect from the four winds does not refer to some sort of future rapture event, but to God gathering Jewish people from all over the world to return to Israel so that His plan and purposes for them can be fulfilled. In the context, Jesus mentions the people of Judea (Matthew 24:16), and references the image of the fig tree which is a symbol for Israel (Matthew 24:32-35).

So Matthew 24:15-28 is not teaching that God elects some people to eternal life while passing over the rest. The passage is about God’s plan for Israel, and how dark and terrible days are coming for her.

Yet so that God’s purposes with Israel can be fulfilled, God will cut those days short and gather the people of Israel back together so that He can complete His plan and purposes through them. If God didn’t cut short those days, most of the elect would die and many would be deceived, and so God’s plan would not be accomplished.

The passage is not about who gets eternal life and who does not. If it was about this, as some assume when they see the word “saved” in Matthew 24:13, 22, then this passage only becomes more difficult to understand, for it then would be teaching that those who have eternal life can be deceived, and might ultimately not be “saved.”

Instead, it is much better to recognize that eternal life is not in view anywhere in the text. The election of Matthew 24 is an election to service, so that God’s plan and purposes are fulfilled through Israel to the world.

John 6:70

Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?”

In this text, Jesus says that He has chosen all twelve of His disciples, but one of them is a devil. Understandably, this verse causes great problems for those who teach that God’s election is only to eternal life. Jesus clearly chooses Judas, just as He chooses the other eleven. Yet Judas “is a devil.”

There are only three possible ways of understanding this text:

First, it is possible that this text teaches the doctrine of reprobation, which is the idea that while God elects some to spend in eternity with Him, He elects others to spend eternity in hell. Judas would be one such person.

The second possibility is that Judas was actually elect unto eternal life. There are, in fact, some who hold this view.

The third option is to recognize that election is not to eternal life, but to some task or service. This would allow Judas to be chosen by Jesus to fulfill a task, even though Judas may never have received eternal life.

Clearly, that third view is the most theologically attractive and reasonable. Jesus has chosen some from among His many followers (not all of whom were believers; See Disciple) to fulfill a specific task and purpose within His mission and ministry to this world.

Judas, whether he ended up as a regenerate believer or not, definitely fulfilled a specific and vital role in what Jesus intended to accomplish in this world. Judas was elect, yet just like the other eleven apostles, he was not elected to eternal life, but to a specific task and purpose in God’s plan (cf. Matthew 27:9-10).

John 15:16

You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.

In John 15:16, Jesus provides an extremely clear statement about what it means to be chosen and why certain people are chosen by God, and by Himself.

Furthermore, we see exactly why Jesus chose those whom He did. He did not choose certain people to receive eternal life, but so that they could “go and bear fruit.”

In the context, the picture of bearing fruit is related to abiding in Jesus Christ so that He can do His work in and through us. It is a picture of fellowship and faithful living. The choice is not to eternal life, but to service.

That the choice of Jesus in John 15:16 is to service and not to eternal life is seen by comparing this text with the passages that actually describe the even where Jesus chose His apostles. One of these is found in Mark 3:13-14, where we are told that Jesus chose twelve apostles “that they might be with Him and that He might send them out to preach.”

Very clearly, these twelve were chosen to a specific task and purpose, which included proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world. This is how we can also understand Jesus’ statements to these same apostles in John 15:16. He is reminding them of the purpose for which they were chosen.

It is helpful as well to remember who Jesus is speaking to in John 15. This chapter is part of “The Upper Room Discourse” of John 14–16, where Jesus is speaking to the eleven remaining apostles (Judas already left, John 13:30).

The eleven apostles have many questions about what is going to happen to Jesus and what is going to happen to them, and Jesus explains over the course of these three chapters that He is going to die, but that this will enable to the Holy Spirit to arrive, so that they can continue with the work that Jesus began of advancing the Kingdom of God on earth.

So when, in John 15:16, Jesus says, “You did not choose me, but I chose you,” He is specifically speaking to His eleven apostles and reminding them that He chose them out of the wider mass of His followers for the specific task of learning from Him so that they could do the things He did (cf. John 6:70; 14:12-14; Luke 6:12-16).

This does not mean that Jesus has only chosen these eleven to do His work, for numerous other texts in the Scripture indicate that all who believe in Jesus are chosen, or elected, by Him to have a place in helping Him advance the Kingdom of God on earth.

Just as Jesus chose the eleven for this task, so also, now that the Holy Spirit has come, all believers are similarly chosen.

We too, like the eleven, were not chosen to receive eternal life, but, having received eternal life by faith in Jesus, we are chosen to serve God and love others.

So this is the basic teaching about election in Scripture. Election is to service; not to eternal life.

Future articles will be considering the famous election passages of Romans 9-11 and Ephesians 1, so make sure you come back! You can also get my book, (#AmazonAdLink) The Re-Justification of God, which also addresses the biblical teaching on election.

For now, what do you think of this understanding of election? Does it make sense? Do you see how it will clarify various passages of Scripture? Does it improve your understanding of how God works in this world?

This course costs $297, but when you join the Discipleship group, you can to take the entire course for free.

Eternal Life vs. Discipleship in the Gospel of John

By Jeremy Myers

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Many Christians seem to think that all who believe in Jesus for eternal life will automatically becomes a disciple of Jesus, and if someone says they believe in Jesus but don’t do a good job following Jesus, this proves they are not truly a believer. But this is not what Scripture teaches.

The Bible shows that there is a difference between believing in Jesus for eternal life and following Jesus on the path of discipleship. It is possible to be a believer but not a disciple, and it is possible to be a disciple and not a believer.

The Gospel of John is the gospel of belief. It presents, better than any other book in the Bible, the single condition for receiving eternal life. The Gospel of John shows that eternal life is given to anyone who simply and only believes in Jesus for it (John 3:16; 5:24; 6:47; etc.).

But the Gospel of John is also great for discipleship. While the Gospel of John shows that eternal life is the free gift of God to anyone who believes in Jesus for it, it also shows that the path of discipleship has numerous other conditions and requirements. The Gospel of John does a great job showing the different conditions and results between eternal life and discipleship.

Over and over we see that after a person believes in Jesus for eternal life, He then invites these believers to follow Him on the path of discipleship. We also see that when some unbelievers have been following Him as disciples for a while, He invites them to believe in Him for eternal life.

Once you see the difference between believing in Jesus for eternal life and following Jesus on the path of discipleship, many texts in Scripture will make much more sense.

Understanding the differences between eternal life and discipleship will also liberate you from fear and legalism. You will see that God gives you eternal life freely. No good works are required to earn it, keep it, or prove that you have it. And you will see that all the passages in the Bible which call for obedience and good works are not conditions for eternal life, but for the path of discipleship and following Jesus.

Several passages from the Gospel of John make this distinction quite clear. Let us look at a few.

Disciples who became believers (John 2:11)

This beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory; and His disciples believed in Him.

John 2 presents the first sign in the Gospel of John, the turning of water into wine at the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee (John 2:1-12). At the end of this sign, John records that some of Jesus’ disciples believed in Him (John 2:11).

In this way, John clearly reveals that these men were disciples before they were believers, but now that they had followed Jesus for a time, heard some of His teachings, and seen one of His miracles, they believed in Jesus.

Now, they were no longer just disciples; they were disciples who also believed.

So you see? It is possible to be a disciple of Jesus who has not believed in Jesus for eternal life. Jesus calls all such people to believe in Him for eternal life, and when they do, they continue on the path of discipleship as believing disciples.

But it is also possible to be a believer and not a disciple! John 2:23-25 shows this.

Believers who did not become disciples (John 2:23-25)

Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name when they saw the signs which He did. But Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all men, and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man.

Some look at this text and think that these people who believed in Jesus were not “true believers” because Jesus did not commit Himself to them. But nothing in the text indicates that they were not true believers.

Since John writes that they believed in Jesus, and since John consistently writes that anyone who believes in Jesus receives eternal life, the most logical and straightforward reading of this text is to take John at his word and understand that these people believed in Jesus, and therefore, had eternal life.

But if this is so, then why did Jesus not commit Himself to them?

The reason is stated within the text.

Jesus did not commit Himself to them because he knew what was in men. And what is in men? It is that humans are reliably unreliable. You can trust that humans are untrustworthy.

So when John writes that Jesus did not yet commit Himself to these new believers, this does not mean that they were not truly believers. No, it means that Jesus knew that some of these believers might not follow Him for very long, or might not stand by Him when things became difficult.

Jesus was not yet ready to decide which of these believing disciples would form His twelve apostles. He was not yet ready to trust these new believers with all of His plans and goals for His ministry.

Jesus knew that these people who believed in Him had eternal life. But He also knew that most of them had expectations and ideas about what the Messiah would do, and very little idea about what Jesus actually intended to do.

And so while most of them would have immediately “signed on the dotted line” to become a member of Jesus’ inner circle, Jesus wisely waited. He knew that many of them would stop following Him after they learned a little bit more about Him and what He had come to do.

But again, remember, even though they might stop following Him, this does not mean that they never believed in the first place. The text says they did, and only those who deny what the text says can argue that these people were not “true believers.”

And Jesus was wise to not entrust Himself to these believers, for a few chapters later, some of them do indeed turn away from Him. In fact, John 6:60-66 shows that there are five possible combinations of believers and disciples.

There are FIVE combinations of Believers and Disciples (John 6:60-66)

Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, “This is a hard saying; who can understand it?” When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples complained about this, He said to them, “Does this offend you? … But there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who would betray Him. … From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more (John 6:60-61, 64, 66).

As John’s Gospel account of Jesus continues into John 6, we are introduced to some of the hard teachings of Jesus that caused some of his disciples to stop following Him. Jesus taught that His disciples that they must eat His flesh and drink His blood if they were going to participate with Him.

He was, of course, speaking figuratively, but some of His disciples did not like what He said, and so they turned away and stopped following Him.

Yet many of the listening Jewish audience also did not like to hear such things.

We do not know how many disciples were present when Jesus said this, yet John writes that Jesus knew which of them believed in Him and which did not. This means that among this large group of disciples, some of them were believers while others were unbelievers. But they were still all disciples.

However, after the hard teaching of Jesus, many of these people stopped being a disciple. The text says they “walked with Him no more.”

While the reader is tempted to think that it was only the unbelieving disciples who turned away from Jesus, John flips the table on such an understanding by revealing in John 6:71 that Judas Iscariot was among those who stayed. Since Judas appears to be an unbelieving disciple who continues to follow Jesus, it seems possible that there were believing disciples who stopped following Jesus.

Believing in Jesus is no guarantee of ongoing discipleship to Jesus.

So here in the context of John 6, there are five groups of people who relate differently to Jesus:

First, there are the unbelieving non-disciples of Jesus who do not follow Him and do not believe in Him (John 6:41-59).

Second and third, there are believing and unbelieving disciples who stop following Jesus (John 6:66).

Fourth, there are unbelieving disciples who continue to follow Jesus. Judas might have been one of these, though the text does not say if there were others (John 6:70-71).

Finally, there were the believing disciples who committed themselves to following Jesus no matter where He led, because He had the words of eternal life (John 6:67-69).

The reader of this text is supposed to ask which group they themselves belong to. Which group do you belong to?

John 8:30-32

As He spoke these words, many believed in Him. Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed in Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

This passage is important because it clearly shows the two different conditions for becoming a believer and becoming a disciple.

In John 8:30, a group of people believe in Jesus, and since we know from elsewhere in the Gospel of John that whoever believes in Jesus receives everlasting life (John 3:16; 5:24; 6:47) we can know that those who believed in Jesus here received everlasting life (see Everlasting Life).

However, in the very next verse, Jesus speaks to those who believed in Him and says that if they abide in His word, they will also be His disciples (John 8:31). To “abide” means to remain, stay, continue, or dwell (see Abide).

If they stayed with Jesus in this way, they would come to know the truth, and the truth would set them free. The implication is that they were not yet His disciples, but if they remained with Jesus, and followed His teachings, then they would become His disciples.

Of course, the opposite is also true. If they stopped abiding in the teachings of Jesus Christ, then they would no longer be His disciples. They would not learn the truth, and would instead remain enslaved to sin and their rebellious ways.

But would they still have eternal life? Yes, of course!

Abiding is not a condition of eternal life; eternal life is a free gift of God’s grace to all who believe in Jesus for it.

Bob Wilkin says this:

The context clearly distinguishes between being a believer (John 8:30) and being a disciple (John 8:31-32). The former occurs at a point in time and is conditioned only upon believing in Christ. The latter occurs over time and is conditioned upon ongoing obedience and good works.

Many pastors and scholars go on to note, however, that in the following context, Jesus speaks to some Jewish leaders who were there and says that they are of their father the devil, and even says that they do not believe Him (John 8:44-45).

These pastors teach that these nonbelieving Jews are the same as the believing Jews that Jesus speaks to in John 8:30-32. But how can this be? If John says that these Jews did believe, and then a few verses later, Jesus says they did not believe, this is a clear contradiction in the Bible.

There best solution to this problem is to recognize that there appears to be two different groups of Jews in the context: believing Jews and non-believing Jews.

Most of the dialogue in the context is between Jesus and the nonbelieving Jews. Many of them are among the religious Pharisees (John 8:13) who only want to challenge what Jesus says and does.

They do not believe in Him, nor do they follow Him. In the context, they raise one objection after another to everything Jesus says (cf. John 8:19, 22, 25, 33, 39, 41). Charlie Bing says that such objections are “totally out of character with the inclination of those mentioned in John 8:31-32.”

So there are two groups of Jews in the text: a group of believing Jews, whom Jesus addresses in John 8:31-32, and a group of unbelieving, antagonistic Jews, whom Jesus addresses in the rest of the passage.

Admittedly, the pronouns in the text make it appear that Jesus is speaking to one group throughout the entire text, but if this is so, then the Bible has a contradiction within just a few verses, where John says they do believe and Jesus says they don’t.

It is far better to recognize that there are two types of people in a larger group. In this one large group, there are some who believe and some who don’t (this also fits with modern church contexts).

Jesus warns those who do not believe in Him that they will die in their sins (John 8:24) and are of their father the devil who leads only to murder and violence (John 8:44), while at the same time, He encourages those who believe in Him to follow Him further into freedom and liberty (John 8:32, 36).

Believing in Jesus is the sole condition for receiving eternal life, but abiding in Jesus and His word is one of many the conditions of being His disciple so that we can fully experience freedom in Him.

So if you have believed in Jesus for eternal life, what are some of the conditions for following Jesus as a disciple? The Gospel of John includes many of these as well.

Love one another to be a Disciple of Jesus (John 13:35)

“By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

In John 13:35, Jesus provides the defining characteristic of one of His disciples. He says that they will love one another.

Love for others is how people can recognize true disciples of Jesus Christ.

It is critically important to recognize that loving one another is not a condition for receiving eternal life, or else nobody would have eternal life, for nobody fully loves all the Christians they interact with.

Many Christians are quite difficult, if not impossible, to consistently love, and so if this were a condition for receiving eternal life, nobody would have it.

So thankfully, Jesus is not talking here about how to receive eternal life, but how to be recognized as one of His disciples.

Note as well that this is not even about saying that you love other Christians, but about being recognized by others for your love.

Far too often, the world looks at Christians and says that we are unloving.

Oddly, the default Christian response to such an accusation from the world is to argue. We say things like, “Well, you only say that because we don’t condone sin. We are only standing up for what is right. It’s not loving to hide the truth. I love the sinner, but I hate the sin. If you come to our church, then you will see how truly loving we are.”

If a non-Christian says that Christians are not loving, and our only response is to argue, we should not wonder why they don’t believe us.

In fact, far from being known for our love, some Christians seem to strive to be known for their hate. They seem to think that a true Christian will be hated.

I overheard two guys in the store the other day who were both wearing Christian t-shirts. One was saying to the other, “Yeah, they all hate me at work, but that’s okay, because I’m standing up for Christ.”

But Jesus says that we should be known by our love, which means that we will not only love others, but will also be loved by others. Just like Jesus was. The only people who hated Jesus were the religious elites. So if religious people love you, but “sinners” hate you, you are probably not following Jesus.

As a side note, the ironic thing about Christian T-shirts themselves is that people often depend on them to tell others that they follow Jesus.

But Jesus says that if you are His disciple, you won’t have to tell people. They will know it by your love. If you have to depend on a T-shirt to tell others that you are following of Jesus, you might not be following Him very well.

Jesus does say, of course, that His disciples will be known by their love for one another. Some take this to mean that love for other Christians is our priority, and we shouldn’t worry about whether or not non-Christians feel loved by us.

Jesus does say, after all, the since the world hated Him, it will also hate His followers (John 15:18; cf. 1 John 3:13). John writes elsewhere that we should not love the world or anything in the world, for friendship with the world is enmity with God (1 John 2:15-17; cf. James 4:4).

The best way to understand these texts, however, is to recognize that the term “world” is referring to the “world domination system” that is opposed to God and His ways. We should love all the people in the world, but not how they are enslaved to the values and domination system of this world.

In fact, religious people tend to be more enslaved to the world domination system than non-religious people. This is why it is mostly religious people, rather than the “sinners,” who hated Jesus during His ministry.

In the Gospels, the only people who really hated Jesus were the religious leaders who had sold out to the world domination system and were using it to control and manipulate others. It was those whom many would consider “worldly” that loved Jesus and were loved by Him. So if sinful, “worldly” people hate you but religious people love you, you might not be following Jesus.

If you are not a friend to sinners, you are not a friend to Jesus.

So yes, Christians will first and foremost be known by their love for “one another.” But this love must overflow into love for “the other,” that is, into love for people in this world.

If we want to tell people we are followers of Jesus, we do it by loving them and loving one another.

The person who loves others unconditionally but doesn’t claim to follow Jesus is closer to the Kingdom of God than those who claim to follow Jesus but doesn’t love others unconditionally.

If love is of God, and everybody who loves is born of God and knows God because God is love (1 John 4:7-8), then it only makes sense that love will be the prevailing characteristic of one who is born of God and know God.

It is not a person’s words that make him or her a Christian, or what they post on Facebook or wear on their T-shirts, or even how many Bible verses they can quote, how often they attend church and Bible studies, or whether they can “take a stand for Christ.”

They will know we are Christians by our love.

If you have not love, they will never know you are a Christian, no matter how much you tell them you are.

In light of John 13:35, then, the question we should be asking is not “Am I a follower of Jesus?” but rather, “Do I love others like Jesus so that they know I am His disciple?” This question leads to related questions:

Do my words sound like words Jesus might say?
Do my actions look like things Jesus might do?
Do I love unconditionally, forgive freely, serve sacrificially, and accept all?
Do I challenge the religious status-quo for setting up barriers to God and creating groups of us vs. them?
Do I break down the walls of religion by eating with the so-called ‘tax-collectors and sinners’?

These are the sort of ways that others will know that you are a disciple of Jesus. When we love others in this way, we will be bearing much fruit as a disciple of Jesus Christ. This is what He talks about in John 15:8.

Bear Fruit to be a Disciple of Jesus (John 15:8)

“By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.”

There is a lot of debate over vine and branches imagery of John 15, and whether or not the branches which do not bear fruit are truly Christians or not.

Note that this passage is not about how to receive eternal life, but rather about living as a disciple of Jesus Christ. Those who abide in Jesus Christ and His teachings will bear fruit (see Abide), and in this way, they will show that they are His disciples.

If a person does not bear fruit, all it proves is that they are not His disciple. Nothing is said one way or the other about whether or not such a person has believed in Jesus for eternal life.

Just as both believers and unbelievers can follow the teachings of Jesus and see positive results in their lives (and the lives of others), so also, both believers and unbelievers can ignore the teachings of Jesus and experience negative consequences in their lives as a result. These negative consequences are symbolized by the fire in John 15:6 (see Fire).

So neither good works nor the lack of good works prove anything about whether or not a person has eternal life.

Good works can indicate whether or not a person is following the teachings of Jesus, and while most disciples are also believers, this is not always the case, and so we should avoid trying to determine someone’s eternal destiny based on their works.

Instead, we should invite all people to look to Jesus Christ alone, and believe in Him for eternal life. Once they have done this, we can also invite them to follow Jesus so that they will bear much fruit and live the abundant life (see Abundant Life).

Be a Believer AND a Disciple

For the best experience of this life, it is important to BOTH believe in Jesus for eternal life AND follow Jesus on the path of discipleship.

But we must always make sure we understand the differences between these two.

Eternal life is the absolutely free gift of God by His grace to anyone and everyone who simply and only believes in Jesus for it. There are no strings attached. There is no fine print. There are no ongoing good works attached on the back end.

Eternal life is freely received, and once it is given, it cannot be revoked or taken back.

Discipleship, however, is where the real joy and fulfillment in Christianity comes from. It has numerous conditions, and requires much sacrifice and persistence. It is not free. It calls you to love, serve, and give.

Following Jesus as a disciple is the greatest challenge you will face in life, but also the greatest thrill, and it prepares us for what life will be like with God in eternity.

So for the best experience NOW in this life, and the best foretaste of what life will be like in eternity, believe in Jesus for eternal life AND ALSO seek to follow Jesus on the path of discipleship.

When you understand the difference between these two offers, all of Scripture will make more sense, and you will better understand where you are at with God and as a follower of Jesus.

Questions? Let me know in the comment section below! And also join the discipleship group, where we learn a lot more about these types of topics and questions.

This course costs $297, but when you join the Discipleship group, you can to take the entire course for free.

Does the Sermon on the Mount tell you how to receive eternal life? (An Interview with Kent Young)

By Jeremy Myers

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As part of this article on the Sermon on the Mount, I introduce the proper way to read and understand the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7, and then I also interview Kent Young about his excellent commentary on the Sermon on the Mount.

In our discussion we look at these three Bible verses:

Matthew 5:22: “… But whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of hell fire.”

Matthew 5:29-30: “If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that once of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut if off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.”

Matthew 7:13a “… Enter through the narrow gate …”

Kent’s commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, titled Theirs is the Kingdom, is available as a free download on his website, or as a (#AmazonAdLink) paperback on Amazon.com

How to Read and Apply the Sermon on the Mount

Matthew 5:1 begins the famous “Sermon the Mount” in Matthew 5–7.

At the beginning of this teaching, Jesus notices a multitude of people following Him, and so He goes up on a mountain to teach His disciples. At this point in His ministry, Jesus had not yet selected the twelve disciples to be His closest followers (cf. Matt 10:1-4; Luke 6:12-16), and so this time of teaching was not just to a select few disciples, but to the entire multitude of followers.

It cannot be imagined that every single person in the multitude of disciples was already a believer, and so this is a message that invited the followers of Jesus—whether they were believers or not—to listen to His teachings about a better way to live.

Nowhere in the Sermon on the Mount does Jesus talk about how to receive eternal life. Eternal Life isn’t even mentioned.

Why not? Because the Sermon on the Mount contains instructions about how to live this life, not instructions about how to receive eternal life.

And anybody, believer and unbeliever alike, can benefit from the instructions of Jesus about how best to live.

The Sermon on the Mount is not about Eternal Life

It is critical to recognize that the Sermon on the Mount does not contain the offer of eternal life, because if we get confused on this fact, we will think that one gains eternal life by fulfilling the conditions and requirements Jesus talks about in this Sermon.

For example, if Jesus is telling people how to receive eternal life, then we gain eternal life by being mournful, meek, and merciful, by being poor in spirit, peacemakers, and persecuted (Matt 5:3-12).

If Jesus is teaching about how to receive eternal life, then we must make sure our righteousness exceeds that of the most religiously righteous people in Jesus’ day (Matt 5:20).

If Jesus is teaching about how to receive eternal life, we must not hate or lust (Matt 5:21-28). If you do lust, you better pluck out your eye and cut off your hand if you want to spend eternity with God (Matt 5:29-30).

If Jesus is telling people how to receive eternal life, then according to Him, you must refrain from making oaths, go the second mile, and love your enemies even when they hate you and try to kill you (Matt 5:33-47).

Ultimately, if Jesus is teaching about how to have eternal life, you need to be perfect just as God is perfect (Matt 5:48).

All of the preceding statements come from the first chapter of the Sermon on the Mount. There are two more to go.

If you believe the Sermon on the Mount is about eternal life, you will fall into legalism

When people think that the Sermon on the Mount is about “how to gain eternal life” they end up adding all sorts of good works to the free offer of eternal life through “faith alone in Jesus Christ alone.”

And when a person adds all the calls to obedience of the Sermon on the Mount to the free offer of eternal life, this causes many people to despair of ever gaining eternal life from God.

Indeed, if the Sermon on the Mount contains the conditions for receiving eternal life, not a single person would ever achieve it.

How to Understand the Sermon the Mount

Thankfully, there is a much better way of understanding this Sermon from Jesus.

Jesus is not telling people how to gain eternal life. Instead, Jesus is teaching His disciples about the best way to live this life.

Jesus is teaching people about the requirements of following Him and being His disciple. Clearly, nobody can ever fulfill or accomplish all these requirements, yet there is something in here for everyone, and nobody will ever get bored in trying to follow Jesus.

So whether you are a believer or not, the teachings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount will challenge you to live in the way that God wants and intends for humanity.

But never think that these teachings will help you earn or gain eternal life for yourself. To receive eternal life, the only thing that is needed is to believe in Jesus for it.

Difficult Texts in the Sermon on the Mount

With this understanding of the Sermon on the Mount, we are in a better position to understand some of the troublesome texts it contains.

To help with some of the tricky texts of the Sermon on the Mount, listen to the podcast interview I did with Kent Young, and then get his book, Theirs is the Kingdom, as a free download on his website, or as a (#AmazonAdLink) paperback on Amazon.com

This course costs $297, but when you join the Discipleship group, you can to take the entire course for free.

Did the Flood of Genesis 6-8 really happen, and if so, did God really send it?

By Jeremy Myers

18 Comments

The flood of Genesis 6-8 is one of the most troubling passages of Scripture due to its violent portrayal of God. In general, there are three approaches to understanding the flood event.

1. Resistance is futile! Assimilate or die!

This view says this about Genesis 6-8:

It happened exactly as the text says, and God is sometimes very violent. Deal with it. If you don’t like this, God will probably be even more violent toward you in eternity when you burn in hell. But I love God, so He’ll be nice to me. And even though God said He would never again destroy the earth with water (Genesis 8:21), in the future, God will send a flood of fire upon the earth to destroy everyone again (2 Peter 3:6-7).

(Note: I include Greg Boyd’s “Divine Withdrawal” view in this category. He argues that God finally got fed up with the evil of mankind, and so He withdrew His divine hand of protection that was holding back the destructive floodwaters, thereby allowing them to destroy humanity. In this view, God didn’t do the destroying Himself; He simply stepped back to let the destroyer have its way with humanity. In a personal conversation with Greg Boyd, I related to him the following video clip, and he agreed that for the most part, it represents his position.)

2. Flood? What flood? We don’t need no stinking flood!

This second view says this about Genesis 6-8:

The account is some sort of myth. Maybe it complete fiction. Maybe it’s a fable of some sort that teaches a lesson about God’s hatred of sin. Maybe there was some sort of local flood that might have happened a long time ago, but it certainly didn’t cover the earth and kill everyone. Whatever happened (if anything happened at all), it didn’t happen as the text says.

People who hold this view also reject the historical accuracy of many other passages in Scripture as well. Some will even reject the historicity of the miracles of Jesus, including His resurrection.

I have never been comfortable with calling anything in Scripture an error, partly because such an approach often allows people to simply pick and choose which passages they like and which ones they don’t, consigning the texts they don’t like into hermeneutical oblivion. In other words, writing off a text as “error” allows a person to avoid seriously studying and teaching that text, thereby ignoring or missing the deep truth(s) it contains.

3. The Correct View

(That’s a joke! I’m proposing a view, which I think has a lot of merit in Scripture…)

(Oh, and I believe the flood truly happened. I believe the worldwide flood is an historical event. There is lots of sociological and geological support for the flood, which I won’t dive into here. But regardless, my view of the flood can still be true even if there was no worldwide flood.)

Before I suggest a third view, note two things from the text:

1. People were violent before the flood (Genesis 6:5, 11, 13).

The stated reason for God sending the flood is because the earth was filled with violence. God seems opposed to how violent mankind has come, and so decides to do something about it.

2. People were violent after the flood (Genesis 8:21)

The flood brought no change to the evil and violent tendencies of the human heart.

Isn’t this strange? If the stated reason for the flood was to stop the violence of humanity, then God seems to have failed in His task of stopping violence. Is God so foolish that He couldn’t look at the hearts of humanity before the flood and see that even if He killed them all, the survivors and their descendants would continue to constantly live with evil hearts and violent lives?

To ask the question is to answer it. Of course God is not foolish! Something else must be going on behind the scenes.

So … Wait … God hates violence?

As soon as we start looking for what this “something else” might be, some other details from the text start to jump out from the page.

For example … God states at the beginning of the account that He is sorry He made mankind because they are so evil and violent (Genesis 6:6).

Ok, so God is opposed to violence. That’s a good thing.

But then … to show how opposed He is to all the violence that covers the face of the earth … God engages in the greatest act of violence possible by drowning all the people and animals on the earth (except for those on the ark)?

So to stop the violence that covers the earth, God sends a violent flood to cover the earth?

Something’s not right here.

Yes, “God is God and can do what He wants,” but this seems a bit over the top, even for God.

Is this just a divine example of the bad parenting advice “Do as I say; not as I do?”

If so, then since we become like the God we worship, it is no wonder that people were just as violently evil after the flood as they were before.

It is a very, very tiny step from believing that “God is extremely violent against evil people” to “God wants me to engage in violence against evil people.” Indeed, the rest of biblical history (along with all human culture) reveals this exact step taking place over and over and over again.

If God really is so violent, why wasn’t Jesus?

Jesus was adamantly opposed to all forms of murderous violence, even against His so-called “enemies.”

He didn’t call down fire from heaven, but rather rebuked His disciples for thinking such things (Luke 9:54). He didn’t call down angels to defend Himself (Matthew 26:53). He even told Peter to put away His sword, and then He healed the man that Peter has struck (Matthew 26:52).

Yes, Jesus cleansed the temple, but no human or animal died, nor does the text say anyone was even hurt (Matthew 21:12-17; Mark 11:15-19; Luke 19:45-48; John 2:13-16). Yes, Jesus told his disciples to buy a sword , but this was to fulfill prophecy; not so they could actually use it. And don’t even get me started on the book of Revelation.

If it is true, as Scripture says, that Jesus fully reveals God to us (John 1:14, 18; 14:9-11; 2 Cor 4:4; Php 2:6; Col 1:15; Heb 1:2-3), but Jesus was never violent, then we are faced with a choice: Either (A) God truly is violent and Scripture is lying when it says that Jesus fully reveals God to us, or (B) Scripture is not lying, and Jesus does truly reveal God to us, and therefore God is not violent, and we need to understand all those violent texts in some other way.

I go with Option B: Scripture is not lying, and Jesus is not violent, so neither is God.

Isn’t that a contradiction?

If Scripture is not lying, but Scripture says God is violent, while Jesus shows that God is not violent, isn’t this a contradiction?

It initially seems so.

But with one small little tweak on how you read the Bible, it all falls into place.

Most people think the Bible reveals God to us. And while it does to some extent, the ultimate revelation of God is found in Jesus Christ (whom we read about in Scripture, of course). But Jesus shows us how to read the Bible. Jesus provides the interpretive lens through which to study Scripture.

And when we look to Jesus, and specifically the most violent aspect of the life of Jesus, His crucifixion, and we carefully see what is being done to Jesus on the cross, we discover something surprising.

God didn’t kill Jesus on the cross; we humans killed Jesus on the cross … and we blamed God for it. Humans killed Jesus and claimed they did so in God’s name, to fulfill God’s will.

But they weren’t fulfilling God’s will. They were doing the opposite. They were committing the greatest sin in human history. And they were completely ignorant of what they were doing. This is why Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).

Through the cross, we see Jesus showing us how to understand the “violence of God.” The “violence of God” against Jesus on the cross is not God’s violence at all, but is rather the violence of humans which we then blame God for.

Since we (1) Believe God is violent, we (2) become like the God we worship by engaging in our own violence, and (3) justify our violent actions by blaming our violence on God.

But Jesus entered into this twisted framework of violent theology and blew it up from the inside. Through His death and resurrection, Jesus showed (1) that God is supremely non-violent and that (2) we humans are the violent ones.

Once we see this revelation of Jesus on the cross, we then discover that all the other violent portions of Scripture reveal exactly the same thing.

The violent texts of the Bible do not reveal God to us … they reveal us to us. The violent passages of Scripture are not a revelation of the heart of God; they are a revelation of the heart of humanity.

But humans didn’t send the flood!

So now we come back around to the flood. The flood event is extremely violent, and the text blames this violence on God. This fact invites us to read the flood through the lens of the crucifixion.

And when we do, we realize that the flood account of Genesis 6–8 sounds like the explanation that is offered for any natural disaster throughout human history.

“God sent Hurricane Katrina on the people of New Orleans because of Mardi Gras and Voodoo.”

“God sent the Indonesian Tsunami because the people there are Muslim and Hindu.”

“God caused my neighbor to get in a car wreck because he said some profane things about God when I invited him to church.”

Meanwhile, God, through Jesus Christ, is saying,

“NO! No no no no no! Please stop saying such things! I didn’t send those storms. I didn’t kill those people. I love them and forgive them as my own children! It was a terrible disaster that happened to those people, and my only involvement is to weep and mourn with them, while calling you to go help them!

“But as long as you think I am punishing them, you will continue to sit and gloat at the disaster that has come upon your enemies. But your enemies are not my enemies, for I have no enemies. I call you to love your enemies, for they are my children too.”

So What Happened in the Flood?

I believe the flood account of Genesis 6–8 was written many thousands of years after it actually happened, and is therefore a human explanation for an actual historical event. I believe it is an inspired and inerrant account of the human explanation for a natural disaster, and as such, it invites us to see how we humans explain natural disasters today.

The flood event of Genesis 6-8 contains all the signs of a human rationalization for a violent natural disaster:

The people committed great sin (Genesis 6:1-4) and became monsters. They were so bad, they did nothing but evil all the time (Genesis 6:5, 11, 13). And so God destroyed them all! Yay! But … it didn’t really work, because we’re still pretty violent. So be careful … If you sin against God, He might destroy you too!

Do you see? A flood did occur. It was a terrible natural disaster unlike anything the world had ever seen. After the fact, the few survivors started to postulate about why such a disaster occurred, and, just like every human before and since that time, they decided that God sent the disaster to punish humans for their sin.

But now, in Jesus, we have learned that this is not what God does. So when we read the flood account of Genesis 6–8, we no longer read it as a warning about what God might do to us if we sin, but rather as a warning about how we will be tempted to think and act when we see bad thing happen to other people.

Looking at our face in the mirror of Genesis 6–8, we must ward ourselves against the common human practice of condemning others when bad things happen to them. We must stop saying, “Well, he lost his job and got cancer, so God must be punishing him for some secret sin.” (Remember Job?) Instead, when bad things happen to people, we must, like Jesus, enter into their hellish pain and sorrow, and help them or love them in in any way we can.

When bad things happen to others, we must remind them (and ourselves) that God did send the disaster and is not punishing them for sin. Instead, He is with them in their suffering and grieving for their loss.

So the flood account is a hard text to read. Not because it reveals a God before whom we must cower in fear and trembling, but because it reveals to us the blackness of our own sinful hearts when we prefer to condemn others in God’s name rather than help them through their pain.

The next time something bad happens to a family member, friend, or foe, how will you respond?

This post was part of the September 2018 Synchroblog on the topic of the flood. Here are the other contributors to this month’s topic. Go and read them all!

The Flood Story – K. W. Leslie
A Flood of Insightful Hope – Jordan Hathcock
There will Never Be a World Wide Flood Again but Was There Ever One in the First Place? – Done with Religion
The Flood as a Foreshadowing to the Cross of Christ – God is Not like Thanos from the Infinity War – Scott Sloan\
The Great Flood: 7 Amazing Lessons Every Christian Needs To Know – Joseph A. Brown
Is God like Thanos from the Avengers Infinity War? – Scott and Sadie
The Flood is a Remedy for Corruption – Tomasz Leszczynski
Did God Really Drown Millions in the Flood? – Mike Edwards

Are “believers in Jesus” and “disciples of Jesus” the same thing?

By Jeremy Myers

28 Comments

Here is a truth that will help you unpack many tricky and often-misunderstood Bible passages:

Though all believers have eternal life,
Not all believers are disciples, and
Not all disciples are believers.

It seems a little confusing at first, but if we think through each statement a little more slowly, it all makes sense.

Let’s unpack the statements one at a time:

All believers have eternal life

We know from numerous Bible passages that anyone who believes in Jesus has eternal life.

Jesus makes this claim over and over in the Gospel of John (cf. John 3:16; 5:24; 6:47).

There should be nothing too controversial about this statement by Jesus, but strangely, many Christians don’t agree with Jesus on this matter. Many say that faith alone in Jesus Christ alone is not enough, for we also need to submit our lives to Jesus, obey Jesus, follow Jesus, and perform all sorts of good works to prove that we truly belong to Jesus.

But if you look at all of the Bible passages which contain instructions for these sorts of things, they ALL are talking about becoming a follower, or disciple, of Jesus. They are NOT talking about receiving the free gift of eternal life from Jesus.

This leads to the second statement from above:

Not all believers are disciples

Ancient discipleship was very close to what we call apprenticeship. A person would follow and learn from a master teacher or craftsman in order to become like him and do what he did (Matt 10:25; Luke 6:40).

This usually progressed in four stages: First, he listens to the master’s instructions. Second, he watches the master perform the action. Third, he performs the action with the master’s help. Fourth, he is able to perform the action on his own, and starts teaching it to others.

A mathētēs (disciple) who only listened to the master teach but never progressed out of the classroom, would never be considered a true disciple, even if they could recite from memory everything the teacher had ever said.

While “classroom” teaching and learning was part of the discipleship process, it was only the very first part. A student who never progressed past the classroom would not be considered successful. While learning was important, putting into practice what had been learned was the most important.

A true disciple not only learns what the teacher knows, but also practices what the teacher does (cf. Luke 6:40).

All of this means, of course, that true discipleship is a lifelong process, especially when we think of being a disciple of Jesus.

Since no person can ever fully learn everything Jesus has to teach, and no person can ever fully resemble and practice everything that Jesus leads us to do, all who are disciples of Jesus will spend their entire lives learning from Jesus and following in His footsteps.

Since this is so, is should be immediately obvious that there are major differences between believing in Jesus for eternal life and being a disciple of Jesus.

For example, once a person receives eternal life through faith in Jesus, they have eternal life forever. They receive the free gift of eternal life immediately upon believing in Jesus, and nothing they can say or do in the future will cause God to take away this eternal life from them.

Discipleship, however, is not instantaneous, is not a free gift of God, and has numerous ongoing conditions.

While a person cannot lose their eternal life, they can stop being a disciple if they fail to meet the conditions.

Therefore, as you can see, it is possible to believe in Jesus for eternal life, but fail in several aspects of discipleship. Such a person is still part of the family of God, but they are not properly participating in the activities of the family of God.

God will not kick them out of His family for such inactivity, but will continue to seek to teach, train, call, and maybe even discipline these children so that they will grow up from infancy and become productive members of His family.

But this leads to another surprising insight … the third statement from above:

Not all disciples are believers

Just as it is quite possible for someone to believe in Jesus, but not become a fully-committed follower of Jesus, it is also possible for someone to follow Jesus as a disciple, but never actually believe in Him for eternal life.

Judas Iscariot might be one example, but there are other examples in the Gospel accounts, such as those who follow Jesus for a while, but then leave Him when the going gets tough (cf. John 6). It appears that many of those who left didn’t believe in Jesus for eternal life.

Even in modern times, we all know people who consider Jesus to be a good moral teacher, and try to follow His example and teaching, and yet who still believe that their own good works and moral living is how they will earn eternal life for themselves.

Such people are certainly disciples of Jesus, for they listen to much of what He says and follow His example, but they do not have eternal life because they have not believed in Jesus for eternal life.

Mahatma Gandhi repeatedly said that he did his best to follow the teachings and example of Jesus, especially what Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount. It is too bad we Christians do not follow the example of Gandhi in this regard! However, as far as we know, Gandhi never believed one of the main things that Jesus taught, which is that God gives eternal life to anyone who believes in Jesus for it.

Sadly, there are probably many who call themselves Christians who do their best to follow Jesus, and yet who have not believed in Jesus for eternal life but instead continue to trust in their own good works and effort to earn everlasting life for themselves.

Seek to be BOTH a believer AND a Disciple

If you want the full experience of the Christian life, you should not only believe in Jesus for eternal life, but also seek to follow Jesus in the path of discipleship. This way, you not only have eternal life from Jesus, but the abundant life with Jesus.

You not only get to be part of the family of God, but also get to join in the thrilling adventures that God goes on with His active family members.

Let me provide one example of how this helps us understand Scripture.

Matthew 10:37-39 is about discipleship; not eternal life

Matthew 10:37-39 contains several more costly and difficult conditions for the person who would be a disciple of Jesus.

In the previous context, Jesus said that His teachings would create division and strife between family members (Matt 10:34-36). Jesus says that if this happens, His disciples must choose to follow Him rather than stay committed to their family. In the parallel passage of Luke 14:26-33, Jesus says that His disciples must even “hate” their family members.

These passages have been widely misunderstood, primarily because we do not live in the honor and shame culture of Jesus’ day. In a culture that was governed by honor and shame, turning away from family business, family traditions, and family culture to follow other traditions was akin to hating your family.

In that culture, there was no greater way to bring shame on your family. If a person told their family that they were going to give up the family inheritance, not follow through on the family business, and not following the family traditions, the other family members would feel slighted, insulted, shamed, and even hated. They might say, “Why do you hate us so much to turn your back on your traditions?”

Jesus is saying that in such situations, there might not be anything one of His followers can do.

We should never hate our family members or treat them in unloving ways, of course. Such behavior has nothing to do with following Jesus.

But when we follow Jesus, other family members are likely to misunderstand. They might even (wrongly) feel that we hate them.

And while we are to always show our family members love, and invite them to follow Jesus along with us, if they force us to choose between Jesus and family, Jesus is saying that His disciples will choose Him.

This is not easy. It will feel like dying, which is exactly what Jesus says.

He invites His disciples to take up their cross and follow Him. Following Jesus is following Him into the death of our old life.

We will die to old habits, old traditions, and old beliefs. We will lose our old life. But in the process, we will gain a new way of living with Jesus Christ. When we lose our life for the cause of Christ, we gain a new life with Him (cf. Matt 16:24-27; Mark 8:34-38; Luke 9:23-26).

This discussion in Matthew 10:39 about finding a new life with Jesus has caused some to think that Jesus is referring to eternal life. But typically, when Jesus is referring to eternal life, He refers to it as such. When He is simply talking about life, He is referring to the temporal, physical life here on earth, as is the case here.

This world has a certain set of values and goals, but they always and only lead to death. So when we try to hold on to our life in this world, we lose it. However, when we give up the values and goals of life in this world, and instead adopt and accept the values and goals of Jesus, it is then that we discover how to properly live this life with God and with others.

So do you want to follow Jesus on the path of discipleship? It won’t be easy. It might even cause some of your family members to condemn and hate you. But the life you will gain as an active member of the family of God will make it all worth it.

Matthew 10:37-39 is not telling you how to receive eternal life, but is telling you what you can expect if you truly follow Jesus on the path of discipleship. Following Jesus can be quite costly, but it is more than worth the cost.

A chart showing the differences between believers and disciples

Eternal Life	Discipleship
Free Gift	Costly
Received through faith	Received through commitment and obedience
Not by works	By works
Instant justification	Life-long sanctification
Jesus paid the price	The Christian pays the price
Believe in Jesus	Follow Jesus as Lord
Believe in Jesus	Obey the commands
Cannot be earned	Earns reward

Are you a believer AND a disciple?

So … have you believed in Jesus for eternal life? Good! Now listen for where Jesus wants to lead you…

Are you trying to follow Jesus, but you are not sure you have eternal life? That’s a good start … but let me be one of the first to invite you to believe in Jesus so that you can KNOW that you have eternal life, and so that you can better follow the leading of Jesus in your life.

Make sure you understand the differences between believing in Jesus for eternal life and following Jesus on the path of discipleship. They condition and results of both are completely different, but both are necessary to experience ALL that God wants for us in the life.

Once you understand the differences, however, many troubling texts in Scripture will make a whole lot more sense.

If you want to learn more about this topic, join my online discipleship group and take the Gospel Dictionary online course:

This course costs $297, but when you join the Discipleship group, you can to take the entire course for free.

What is the second death? (Revelation 21:8)

By Jeremy Myers

34 Comments

Note: Make sure you read all the way to the bottom to find out how to download a 2-hour audio teaching that is related to the topic of hell.

Revelation 20:6, 14 and Revelation 21:8 describe an event called “the second death.” It is contrasted with those who did not participate in “the first resurrection,” which is the resurrection of all believers at the return of Jesus Christ. Those who are not believers end up experiencing the second death.

So what is this second death?

To put the question another way, if Hebrews 9:27 says that it is destined for humans to die once, then how can John write in Revelation 20:6, 14 and Revelation 21:8 that there is a second death?

Here is what Revelation 20:6, 14 and Revelation 21:8 say about the second death:

Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power … Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. … But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake of fire which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.

The “Second Death” is not Annihilation

Some argue that the second death is annihilationism … that is, a person who experiences the second death will no longer exist in eternity. They say that at the first death, people die physically, and then at the second death they die spiritually, which means that they cease to exist.

This view would be possible if “death” means “non-existent.” But it doesn’t. The word “dead” never means “non-existent” in Scripture.

Instead, “death” means to be separated from the plan and purposes of God.

When something dies, it no longer functions the way God intended. This is true of physical bodies, sexual reproductive organs, interpersonal relationships, and faith.

So here in Revelation 20:6, 14 and Revelation 21:8, the person who experiences the second death will not be living out God’s plan and purposes for them in eternity.

The second death is simply being separated in eternity from what God originally wanted and planned for humanity.

God wanted humans to live in perfect harmony and unity with Himself, each other, and all creation. But when a person dies apart from Jesus Christ, they will experience eternity apart from Jesus Christ as well.

Then how is the Second Death related to the Lake of Fire?

While John describes this eternal existence apart from Jesus Christ as “the lake of fire,” this does not mean that the unregenerate are swimming around in a lake of fire and brimstone any more than anyone who lives in “Salt Lake” is actually swimming around in a large, salt-filled lake in Utah.

The “Fiery Lake” might be the place that unregenerate people live for eternity, but this does not necessarily mean that they are suffering and burning for eternity within the lake. Furthermore, as I point out in my forthcoming book on hell, the term “Lake of Fire” referred to the body of water we now call the Dead Sea.

So to say that someone was going to be case into the Lake of Fire, or the Dead Sea, is a symbolic or metaphorical way of saying that such people will end up in a place devoid of life.

This is what John goes on to describe. In the afterlife, as part of the second death, people will be subject to the same “lusts of the flesh” that humans are subject to right now here on earth. Just like in this life, people who live in the second death will be cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters and liars.

So what is the Second Death?

The second death is not annihilation or eternal torment in flames of fire.

Instead, it is the continuation for eternity of what we experience in this life, but in an amplified way.

It consists of God allowing human beings to live life completely separated from Him. It is allowing them to live as slaves to hatred, violence, envy, immorality, deception, greed, lust and every evil thing.

As such, the second death is the opposite of eternal life. Eternal life is life lived as God always wanted, planned, and desired; eternal death (or the second death) is life lived in the complete opposite way, separated from everything that God intended for humanity.

It is existence in everlasting death. It is ongoing existence that is filled with all the problems and frustrations of this life, but without any end to them. The first death is a blessed escape from the frustrations of this life (which is why death is a blessing). But the second death has no end. It is an eternal existence without an end, while facing the frustrations of life lived without God.

Just as being “born again” does not mean to “start your life all over again,” but instead refers to the transformation of a person’s life so that they head in the direction God wanted, so also, to “die again” does not mean that a person dies a second time, but that a person’s life goes in a direction that is even further away from God wanted and desired.

The “second death” therefore, is not annihilation, or the death of the eternal soul. Instead, it is the act of being entrenched or solidified in the way of rebellion against God.

The second death is an irreversible step on a path that leads away from what God wanted and desired.

Did C. S. Lewis write about Hell?

C. S. Lewis’ theological fantasy book, The Great Divorce, depicts what this sort of everlasting death might look like. (He claims he was writing fiction … but was this really his view of hell and he was afraid of being called a heretic?)

The Great Divorce is a fascinating story of a man who gets on a bus in hell to take a trip to heaven. In the second chapter, Lewis describes what life is like for those who live in hell.

When people first arrive, Lewis writes that people find themselves in the center of a vast, sprawling town, which is very much like any town you mind find on earth, except that everything is free and nobody has any needs. So people move into any house they want, and start living in their new existence. But within a few days or weeks, they have a quarrel with one of their neighbors, and decide to move to a different street.

Lewis writes that this process continues forever, until some people get to the point where they live millions of miles away from anybody else.

In the everlasting second death, each person is allowed to be as selfish and mean as they want, and this causes them to eventually separate themselves from everyone else so that they finally live in complete isolation for all eternity, wrapped up in their own thoughts of everybody else’s faults and failures.

The Second Death is Everlasting Existence without God

In this life, there is an end to the choices we make. As we destroy our families, friendships, and health, we draw into ourselves and become more and more separated from others over time. Death stops this process of separation so that we can finally see ourselves and others as we really are, offer forgiveness and be forgiven, and begin to live in love and grace as God desires.

But in an eternal existence without God, where physical death is not an option, people will continue to separate themselves until eventually, they cut off all contact from everyone, and live solitary lives of self-centeredness and complete separation. For people who were created for community and relationships, this truly is a living hell. But it is a hell constructed by their own choices.

So just as eternal life is a life lived in eternity where we live life to its full potential, so eternal death, or the second death is a life lived in eternity where people achieve none of their potential. It is a life of everlasting death. Of no escape from the consequences of selfish human decisions.

Those who experience the eternal second death (living in the realm of death, but never dying) are living in a hell of their own making. Their eternal existence will be a life dominated by the sins mentioned in Revelation 21:8.

In eternity, where there is no death to deliver a person from the devastation they have brought into their lives, this ongoing death will simply continue forever and ever.

What are your thoughts about this concept? Do you agree? Disagree? Does it still sound like “hell” to you? Is it just and fair for God to let people live in eternity in such a way? Would annihilation be more loving?

This course costs $297, but when you join the Discipleship group, you can to take the entire course for free.

What does “passed from death to life” mean in 1 John 3:14?

By Jeremy Myers

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In 1 John 3:14, we read this:

We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death.

Is John saying that in order to receive eternal life, you need to love other Christians? Lots of other pastors and Bible scholars teach 1 John 3:14 in just this way, but is that really what John meant?

If so, then how can eternal life be received “by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone”?

If eternal life is also earned by making sure we love other people, then eternal life is partially earned by good works, and is no longer by grace alone through faith alone.

So what is the meaning of 1 John 3:14?

The Theme of Fellowship in 1 John

To understand 1 John 3:14, it is first of all important to understand why 1 John was written.

The first letter of John is written so that the readers may live a life of fellowship with God and with one another (1 John 1:3).

With this as his primary theme, John provides instructions throughout his letter about how to have fellowship with God and with one another.

Note that fellowship is not the same thing as a relationship (see Fellowship). You can be related to someone while not having any fellowship with them. Children are often estranged from parents, so that while they are still related, they never gather together to enjoy each other’s company.

The same thing can happen to those who are related to God and to one another through Jesus Christ. We can be spiritually related while failing to be in daily fellowship.

John writes his letter to make sure that those who read it maintain their fellowship with God and with one another.

With this theme in mind, John paints many contrasts in his letter, comparing the life out of fellowship with darkness and death, while describing life within fellowship as light and life (cf. 1 John 1:5-7; 2:8-10; 3:14-16; 5:11-13).

And while eternal life is mentioned in this letter (cf. 1 John 2:25; 3:15; 5:11), this is not because John is equating eternal life and fellowship, but because ongoing fellowship with God and one another is based on the unchanging fact of eternal life from God.

While you can have relationship without fellowship, you cannot truly have fellowship without relationship.

John knows his readers have the relationship with God and writes so that they might maintain their fellowship as well (cf. 1 John 2:12-14). To live out of fellowship is not to lose our eternal life, but to live away from light and love and in the realm of death and darkness.

1 John 3:14 is about fellowship with God and others

So when John writes in 1 John 3:14 that we know we have passed from death to life because we love our brethren, he is not talking about how we know we have eternal life, but how we know we are in fellowship with God and one another.

One way to know you are in fellowship with God is because you are in fellowship with other believers, that is, because you love one another.

The opposite is also true. Anyone who does not love his brother “abides in death.” The word “abide” means “remain, or to continually dwell” (see Abide), and so the one who hates his brother is not living in the fellowship that God wants and desires for us, but is instead continuing to live in the realm of death, from which Jesus rescued and delivered us.

1 John 3:14 is about escaping the realm of death in which we live, and experiencing true life

As seen in my studies on the word “Death,” the world is controlled by death. We engage in rivalry and accusation which leads to the death of others, and we kill others in the attempt to avoid our own death. We also believe that the death of our enemies will bring peace, but violence against our enemies only results in an increase of their violence against us.

Jesus came to rescue and deliver us from this never-ending cycle of escalating violence, but if we Christians continue to hate our brothers and live in rivalry against them, we have not escaped the control of death but continue to dwell in it and be ruled by it.

So, John invites his readers to love one another instead of hate, and in this way, escape the realm of death.

The context provides further evidence that physical violence against other human beings is what John has in mind when he writes about death. He is not talking about spiritual death or the loss of eternal life, or even that the one who hates his brother proves that he really wasn’t a Christian in the first place.

The context has nothing to do with such ideas.

Instead, John directs the reader to the first death in Scripture, when Cain murdered his brother Abel (1 John 3:12). John also goes on to describe death as “murder” (1 John 3:15).

While John does go on to say that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him (1 John 3:15), he does not mean that no murderer can be a Christian, or that no Christian can murder someone.

He means that when a Christian hates someone or murders someone (for this does happen), it is because they are continuing to follow the ways of this world, rather than the ways of God (see the discussion of 1 John 3:14-15 under Abide).

The meaning of 1 John 3:14

1 John 3:14 is not about gaining or keeping eternal life, or proving that you have it. Instead, it is about living in the way of life that God wants for His people, rather than the way of death that this world is accustomed to.

So, do you want to know that you are living in God’s way of life rather than the world’s way of death? You can know this if you have true and genuine love for other people.

Does this help you understand 1 John 3:14? Please ask any follow-up questions you might have in the comment section below.

This course costs $297, but when you join the Discipleship group, you can to take the entire course for free.

Three Views on Hell (and a fourth view I hold)

By Jeremy Myers

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Note: Make sure you read all the way to the bottom to find out how to download a 2-hour audio teaching that is related to the topic of hell.

In my forthcoming book on hell, I survey the three most common views on hell. Here is what I wrote:

In western Christian theology, there are three common views about hell.

Traditionalism

The first, Traditionalism (sometimes called Eternal Conscious Torment or Infernalism), is the most widely recognized. In this view, the unredeemed dead suffer for all eternity in flames of fire.

The traditional view of hell is usually equated with pictures of people screaming in agony for all eternity as they float around in a lake of fire while being burned alive but never dying.

Such a view is found in many popular books and movies, including Dante’s Inferno, Bill Wiese’s 23 Minutes in Hell, and the 1997 science fiction horror movie “Event Horizon.”

Universalism

The second view, Universalism, is the opposite of Traditionalism. In this view, there is no eternal dwelling place for the unredeemed dead. Instead, all people will end up living with God for eternity.

Though many people reject God in this life, the Universalist believes that when a person stands before God in eternity, they will see the error of their ways and will gladly choose to be with God for eternity. And God, who is defined by love, will accept all people into eternity with Him.

The biblical texts which seem to teach about people living in eternal fire are either outright rejected or are interpreted as referring to some sort of divine discipline in this life or the next before a person enters eternity with God.

Annihilationism

The third common view is Annihilationism (sometimes called Conditional Immortality or Conditionalism). This view holds that all the unregenerate dead will ultimately cease to exist so that only the redeemed will live with God in eternity.

This view tends to be the “middle ground” view between Traditionalism and Universalism. It recognizes, along with Traditionalism, that choices made in this life do have eternal consequences and that some people will continue to rebel against God, even in eternity. Therefore, God cannot force people to spend eternity with Him against their will.

However, the Annihilationist also agrees with the Universalist that it would be monstrous for God to torture people for all eternity. The biblical texts which seem to imply an eternal existence in fire are instead understood as texts that describe an eternal destruction so that those who undergo it simply cease to exist.

Some Annihilationists believe that this destruction occurs immediately after a person dies, while others believe that there is first a period of punishment and suffering for sins, until a person is finally consumed and ceases to exist.

Other Views on Hell

Although these are the three main views on hell, there are various other flavors and degrees of each.

For example, the Catholic teaching of Purgatory is sort of a cross between Traditionalsim and Universalism. Purgatory teaches that while some will suffer in hell for all eternity, others will have a shortened period of suffering to pay for their sins, after which time they will be able to enter heaven and spend eternity with God.

Then there is the view known as Ultimate Reconciliation, which, like Purgatory, is also a cross between Traditionalism and Universalism. However, in this view, rather than some people spending eternity separated from God in hell, Ultimate Reconciliation teaches that eventually, all people will end up reconciled to God in heaven.

So while Purgatory is closer to Traditionalism, Universal Reconciliation is closer to Universalism. But both include a period of time in which a person undergoes suffering for the sins they committed in this life while they were in rebellion against God.

My View on Hell

In the book I am writing about hell, I argue several things about hell. Among them are these:

The traditional doctrine of hell is drawn more from pagan and mythological sources than from Scripture.
There is no Greek or Hebrew word in the Bible that is properly translated as “hell.”
Yet “hell” does exist … but not in the afterlife. Hell is the experience of some people (in varying degrees) during this life.
The ministry of Jesus and the task of the church is to rescue people from the hell they are living in.

What does this mean about nonbelievers who die? What is their eternal state? The truth is that the Bible says almost nothing about the question of the eternal state of unregenerate people. So I trust in the love, mercy, and goodness of God to work it out.

I do not think that God will annihilate part of His eternal creation, nor do I believe that God will cause the objects of His love to suffer for all eternity. But this doesn’t make me a universalist, for I also believe that God respects the decisions of people to live without Him if they so choose.

Therefore, I believe that God, in His wisdom and sovereignty, will create a way for people to live forever separated from Him, but not in a way that tortures them for eternity.

What do you think of this proposal? Share your views in the comment section below.

This post was part of the August 2018 Synchroblog. Below are the other contributors to the synchroblog. Go check them out!

What God May Really Be Like – Why Can’t Even God-Followers Get Along?
Wesley Rostoll – Why did God accept Abel’s offering and not Cain’s?
Liz Dyer – Religious Freedom is NOT Freedom to Discriminate
Jordan Hathcock – Let’s Get Dirty

We were Elected to be Holy and Blameless (Ephesians 1:4)

We were Predestined to the Adoption as Sons (Ephesians 1:5)

Election is to Service in God’s Kingdom

[NOTES]

Brief Overview of Romans (for Context)

Jacob and Esau in Romans 9

The Hardening of Pharaoh’s Heart in Romans 9

The Potter and the Clay in Romans 9

Romans 9 and Election

Romans 11 Supports this Reading of Romans 9

Election, Romans 9-11, and the Theme of Romans

Biblical Election and Governmental Elections

Whom Does God Elect?

Election is to service; not to eternal life.

Matthew 20:16; Matthew 22:14

Matthew 24:22, 24, 31

John 6:70

John 15:16

Disciples who became believers (John 2:11)

Believers who did not become disciples (John 2:23-25)

There are FIVE combinations of Believers and Disciples (John 6:60-66)

John 8:30-32

Love one another to be a Disciple of Jesus (John 13:35)

Bear Fruit to be a Disciple of Jesus (John 15:8)

Be a Believer AND a Disciple

How to Read and Apply the Sermon on the Mount

The Sermon on the Mount is not about Eternal Life

If you believe the Sermon on the Mount is about eternal life, you will fall into legalism

How to Understand the Sermon the Mount

Difficult Texts in the Sermon on the Mount

1. Resistance is futile! Assimilate or die!

2. Flood? What flood? We don’t need no stinking flood!

3. The Correct View

1. People were violent before the flood (Genesis 6:5, 11, 13).

2. People were violent after the flood (Genesis 8:21)

So … Wait … God hates violence?

If God really is so violent, why wasn’t Jesus?

Isn’t that a contradiction?

But humans didn’t send the flood!

So What Happened in the Flood?

All believers have eternal life

Not all believers are disciples

Not all disciples are believers

Seek to be BOTH a believer AND a Disciple

Matthew 10:37-39 is about discipleship; not eternal life

A chart showing the differences between believers and disciples

Are you a believer AND a disciple?

The “Second Death” is not Annihilation

Then how is the Second Death related to the Lake of Fire?

So what is the Second Death?

Did C. S. Lewis write about Hell?

The Second Death is Everlasting Existence without God

Do you want an MP3 teaching about the word "Fire" in Scripture?

The Theme of Fellowship in 1 John

1 John 3:14 is about fellowship with God and others

1 John 3:14 is about escaping the realm of death in which we live, and experiencing true life

The meaning of 1 John 3:14

Traditionalism

Universalism

Annihilationism

Other Views on Hell

My View on Hell

Do you want an MP3 teaching about the word "Fire" in Scripture?

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