This is where we really start to get to the good stuff. What is perhaps the most distinguishing mark of Evangelical Calvinism is its doctrine of election. Following a basic christologically conditioned doctrine of election as advanced by Barth, Evangelical Calvinism advocates a universal atonement, even a universal pardon. However it maintains a traditional reformed emphasis through the doctrines of the carnal and spiritual union with Christ which we shall outline in the next post. The purpose of this post is to outline in brief the way in which Evangelical Calvinism thinks of election as christologically conditioned.
Basic to the Evangelical Calvinist understanding is that Jesus Christ acts as the elect one. Jesus acts as the elect man on behalf of humanity. Election is then a pre-temporal act of God in which God determines that he will enter into creaturely existence to bring glory to himself in the glorification of his creatures. This act of God is the foundation of all other acts of God. As Barth states:
The doctrine of election is the sum of the Gospel because of all words that can be said or heard it is the best: that God elects man; that God is for man too the one who loves in freedom. It is grounded in the knowledge of Jesus Christ because he is both the electing God and the elected man in One. It is part of the doctrine of God because originally God’s election of man is a predestination not meerely of man but of Himself. Its function is to bear basic testimony to eternal, free and unchanging grace as the beginning of all the ways and works of God.
There is a very interesting logic to Barth’s approach to the doctrine of election. He places it as a part of the doctrine of God, something which, as far as he can see, no one else has done. There is good reason for this however. 2/1 deals with God as he is in his perfections. Having done this, Barth then moves to tell us about this election of Jesus Christ as God-man. This is the foundation of all God’s ways and works ad extra. Barth will then move into the doctrine of creation, then reconciliation and redemption having laid the ground work for this all in the election of Jesus Christ for us. God has then determined himself to be God for us before the act of creation. God is wholly invested in becoming incarnate in Jesus Christ. However, in grounding this is the divine perfections, Barth does not want to say that election is constitutive of God’s being, but rather that God in his divine perfection can stretch forth and act in the creation on behalf of the creature. (This is of course tied up with recent debates over election and triunity which I do not want to enter into here. If you want to know what I think there, email me.)
It is interesting to think biblically here. If we understand Israel as elect on behalf of all nations ‘you will be a light to the nations’ Gen 12:1-3, Israel’s election was never just for itself. God was in fact bringing all of humanity into his purposes by electing Israel. And we see glimmers of hope in their history, but through their failure light does not go forth, but rather they are destroyed by God and taken into exile. Jesus then comes along and acts as the true Israelite. We see in Matt 1-5 this pattern of Jesus as the true Israelite who God calls and sends to Egypt (Matt 2) then brings him back through the waters (Matt 3) and into the desert for temptation (Matt 4) and then he gives his Law through this new Israelite (Matt 5-7). There is a pattern which Matthew is working with which suggests Jesus is in fact the true Israelite, the elect one. Jesus has then come to act as Israel was always meant to: ‘as a light to the nations’. But this man is not just a man, this is the visitation of Yahweh himself. Yahweh has come to do what we could not do; Yahweh has come to redeem us.
Barth was concerned in his construal of election to safeguard against an abstract divine decree which, quite apart from the act of election, condemns some to hell and others to eternal life outside of Christ. What Barth’s construction of election does however, is allow us to say that both eternal life and destruction are found in the person of Christ. As the elect one, Jesus acts on behalf of all humanity as we have already seen. However, not all are saved. Judgement then takes place on the basis of rejection of Christ, and in the phrase of TF Torrance ‘repeating the sin of Adam all over again’. But at this point i have gone beyond my intention for this post.
The next post in this series will deal with the carnal and spiritual union. Having outlined in brief the way in which election is re-framed for the Evangelical Calvinist, I will turn to see how this then accounts for the fact that we still have both reprobate and saved.
Scott Kirkland
