on 29 June 2021
Q20. Did God leave all mankind to perish in the estate of sin and misery?
A. God, having out of his mere good pleasure, from all eternity, elected some to everlasting life, did enter into a covenant of grace to deliver them out of the estate of sin and misery, and to bring them into an estate of salvation by a Redeemer.
Why? Why did God choose you? Why did God choose a people for himself?
The only answer we can come back to is out of his mere good pleasure. There was nothing in us, no reason for God to choose us. But in eternity God set his love upon a people, the elect.
He loved them with an everlasting love (Jeremiah 31:3).
He chose them before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4). There would be a people that he would bless with eternal life.
This raises all sorts of questions and concerns for us, but the Westminster Confession states that, “The doctrine of this high mystery is to be handled with special prudence and care, that men attending to the will of God in His word, and yielding obedience thereto, may, from the certainty of their effectual vocation, be assured of their eternal election” (WCF 1:8). That is this doctrine of election. That God chose some to eternal life, should reassure and comfort us.
Q19 goes on to tell us that God bound himself to his people in a second covenant, not a covenant of works where the condition was their obedience, but a covenant solely reliant upon himself.
A covenant all of his grace and his mercy, that he would rescue and redeem. He would bring us out of that state of sin and misery and put us into an estate of salvation. He would do this out of his mere good pleasure: For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,not a result of works, so that no one may boast Ephesians 2:8-9.
How would he do this? What would it take for this to be accomplished? A Redeemer, one who would buy us back for our God, to ransom. There was a cost to this Salvation that he would freely pay.
“Salvation is of the Lord” (Jonah 2:9) really is the key verse in the bible.