Quotes by Sam Storms

Nothing is more effective [understanding divine election] in killing human pride and promoting godly humility and granting insight into the nature of God and inflaming the heart in worship.

If God did not want us to understand His sovereign saving purposes, He would not have given such extensive instruction in His Word. “Therefore,” says Calvin, “We must guard against depriving believers of anything disclosed about predestination in Scripture, lest we seem either wickedly to defraud them of the blessing of their God or to accuse and scoff at the Holy Spirit for having published what it is in any way profitable to suppress” (Institutes, III.21.3).

Those whom God chooses are chosen out from among all others. They who are chosen were in the same sinful condition, the same misery as the whole of the race. They were alike partakers of corruption, morally and spiritually destitute of anything good. They were, like all others, at enmity with God, serving Satan, deserving of death and condemnation, without righteousness. There is no distinction between elect and non-elect prior to the distinction that election makes.

[Jonathan] Edwards reminds us that God doesn’t choose men because He foresees excellence in them, but “He makes them excellent because He has chosen them.” Or again, “God doesn’t choose men and set His love upon them because they love Him, for He hath first loved us” (1 John 4:10). “Nor did God choose men because He foresaw that they would believe and come to Christ. Faith is the fruit of election and not the cause of it.” “Nor is it from any foresight of men’s endeavors after conversion, because He sees that some will do much more than others to obtain heaven, that He chooses.”

Here’s the rub: We simply don’t like the idea that the reason for God’s choices resides wholly within God. We want to account for His decision. We want to explain it, to rationalize it, to provide grounds and warrant for it. We want to be able to point to “factor A, or datum B, or issue C” in something other than God or preferably to “characteristic X, or virtue Y, or work Z” in us. We want to point to this quality or that personality trait or some accomplishment in one that isn’t in another as the grounds for God’s decision.

Some contend that we should believe in divine election reluctantly, wishing that it were otherwise than what we find in Scripture. They argue that we should speak of it with sadness and regret, and talk about it only when pushed or coerced to do so. But there is something seriously wrong when we fail to rejoice in what pleases God. There is a grievous flaw in our thinking and in our affections when we are reluctant to speak about what God spoke so often of in Scripture.

God did not sovereignly choose you so that the idea of Him choosing you might merely bounce around in your brain. He chose you for worship. The ultimate purpose of predestination is praise! You have been chosen for this goal: the proclamation of his excellencies and your extravagantly affectionate and inexpressibly joyful delight in them (cf. 1 Peter 1:8; 2:9).

Divine election is certainly one of the more profound and controversial doctrines in Holy Scripture. To some it is an idea conceived in hell, a tool of Satan wielded by him to thwart the evangelistic zeal of the church and thus responsible for populating hell with men and women who otherwise would have been reached with the gospel message. To others divine election is the heart and soul of Scripture, the most comforting and reassuring of biblical truths apart from which grace loses its power and God His glory. To the former, then, election is a primary reason why people are in hell. To the latter, it is the only reason why people are in heaven!

No one who believes in the Bible disputes the fact that election is taught there. It isn’t the reality of election, or even its source, author, time, or goal that has elicited so much venom among professing Christians. It is rather the basis of divine election, that is to say, why and on what grounds some are elected to salvation and life and others are not. There are essentially only three options, the first of which is more pagan than Christian.

1. It has been argued that God elects those who are good. In this view, election is a debt God is obliged to pay, not a gift He graciously bestows. It is on the basis of inherent or self-generated righteousness that God elects men and women. This is the doctrine of Pelagianism, named after the British monk Pelagius who popularized the view in the fifth century. One would be hard-pressed to find an advocate of this perspective within the professing Christian church.

2. Others contend that God elects some who are bad who, notwithstanding their being bad, choose to exercise faith in Jesus Christ. It is on the basis of this foreseen faith that God elects them. This is the doctrine of Arminianism, named after the Dutch theologian James Arminius (1560-1609). It has also been called Wesleyanism because of the influence of John Wesley.

3. There is the view that God elects some who are bad who, because of their being bad, are not of themselves able to exercise faith in Christ. It is on the basis of His own sovereign good pleasure that God elects them. This is the doctrine of Calvinism, named after the French theologian John Calvin (1509-1564).

By making election conditional upon something that man does, even if what he does is simply to repent and believe the gospel, God’s grace is seriously compromised. To say that something is done by grace is simply to say it is done by God. If salvation is from beginning to end a manifestation of God’s grace then it is from beginning to end a work of God. To inject any human effort or contribution whatsoever is to reject divine grace. Either election is unconditional and altogether of God and His grace or it is conditional and therefore a cooperative venture in which God and man both contribute.

Only the doctrine of unconditional election preserves the integrity of divine grace. According to the notion of conditional election, God graciously makes possible, but not certain, the election of all people by restoring to each that power and freedom of will of which they had been deprived by Adam’s fall into sin. Whether or not God elects any person is therefore dependent on the way in which he or she makes use of this ability. By establishing the condition for election as faith, God is thereby obligated to elect all those who, by means of their now purportedly free wills, believe in the gospel of Christ. But surely, then, election itself can be neither of grace nor according to God’s good pleasure. I suppose one might say that it was gracious of God to restore in all people sufficient ability to believe and that it was gracious of God to impose the condition of faith in Christ (by which one qualifies for election). But it is certainly not possible to say that election is itself gracious. To choose men because they believe is an obligation to which God is bound; it is a debt he must pay. If it would be unjust of God, having made faith the condition of election, not to elect those who believe, then election is a matter of giving man his due. Election would be the divine response to what a person deserves. He deserves being chosen because by a free act of will he has fulfilled the condition (faith) on which election was suspended… How can election be gracious if it is something God must do because justice requires it? Election is gracious precisely because it is the bestowal of life on those who deserve only death.