Sovereign Election and Evangelism

complimentary, not contradictory...

I read this post on Julianne's Semper Reformanda yesterday, and found it quite accurate and good. Then, last night, at my church's mid-week meeting, I read the following excerpt from a theology book we are going through together:

"At the same time God chose His people He ordained all the means necessary to accomplish their full and final salvation. See Rom. 8:29,30. These means were inseparably joined to election in the decree of God. We have no sympathy with Hardshellism, hypercalvinism. To say that the elect will be saved whether they ever hear the gospel or not is to misunderstand completely the connection between election and the means God has ordained for the accomplishment of the end of election.

Salvation- spiritual, temporal, and eternal- is by grace through faith (Eph. 2:8-10; Rom. 5:1; Gal. 8:26). All the heathen that die without hearing the gospel will be lost (Rom. 1:19,20; 2:12). Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God (Rom. 10:17).

Wherever God has an elect soul, in the fullness of His own time, He will in some way send the gospel to call that one from darkness to light. See 2 Thess. 2:14. Thus Philip was sent to the elect eunuch, and thus it was given to Paul to endure that the elect might obtain eternal salvation (2 Tim. 2:10). Thus we have the divine tie between election and missions." (T.P. Simmons, A Systematic Study of Bible Doctrines)

So much for the nonsense Arminians claim about Calvinism killing evangelism. Good Calvinists evangelize. They do it out of obedience, the do it because God promises that He will save His elect through "the foolishness of preaching" (1 Corinthians 1:21).


Later,

Rand