Unconditional Election and the Purpose of our Salvation.

It's tough for many to grasp (or accept) the fact that in the Bible, our eternal salvation is based on God's election. The sovereign God is the one who chooses the ones he wants to save. As God told Moses: "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion."

God's mercy is not a response to anything he finds in us. Some will argue that it's a response to our faith, but the Bible gives us a very different picture in which faith is actually our response to God's merciful and sacrificial provision in Christ. God loved us while we were still sinners and his enemies.

Now, it's not because the reasons for God's mercy and election are not on us that there are no reasons at all. God's choices are not random; it's quite the opposite; they are in accordance with his eternal and perfect plans and purposes.

Let's look, for example, at what Paul says in 1 Timothy 1:16: "But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost [sinner], Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life."

It's very interesting to see that Paul sees the reason for the mercy he received in congruence with God's eternal plan to "create" a people for Himself. He perceives the forgiveness and mercy God bestowed upon him as God's way to "display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life."

God's election is unconditional, but it's not without purpose, and it is aligned with his eternal plan to unite all things in Christ (Ephesians 1:10, Colossians 1:20). And we do well in seeing our own salvation in terms of how it advances God's plan for humanity as Paul did in the verse we are exploring.

We, many times, have a very individualistic view of our salvation, not realizing we are saved in order to cooperate with God's mission. God does not save us for idle thankfulness. We are saved to be - in our union with Christ - agents of salvation to many and instruments of edification to the church.

"To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen." (1 Timothy 1:17)

Nino Marques