God’s Eternal Election and Christ’s Rejection by His Own
This issue’s question concerns God’s eternal election and the rejection of Jesus by “his own”: “In John 1:11, we read, ‘He came unto his own, and his own received him not.’ Opponents of the Reformed faith use this text to argue that election is not unto salvation.
The nation of Israel, they say, was elect (i.e., ‘his own’) yet not all of ‘his own’ received Him. Hence, election doesn’t necessarily lead to salvation or at least is conditional upon the acceptance on the part of such elect: only some of ‘his own’ ‘received
him’ (12). What is meant by ‘his own’ in John 1:11? Christ ‘came unto his own’ with a view to being their Saviour, yet ‘his own received him not’?”
One of the things that Scripture emphasizes about election is that it is personal and not general: God elects certain persons to salvation and eternal life, and He rejects or reprobates others. Both are clearly taught in Romans 9:6-13: “Not as though the word
of God hath taken none effect. For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel: Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not
the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed. For this is the word of promise, At this time will I come, and Sara shall have a son. And not only this; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac; (For
the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;) It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have
I loved, but Esau have I hated.” Jehovah chose and loved the individual Jacob, and rejected and hated the individual Esau. This, mind you, is programmatic for every individual in the human race is either personally elected or personally reprobated (cf. 14-24).
Ephesians 1:3-6 speaks of personal election: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that
we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted
in the beloved.” The words “we” and “us” refer to specific persons, the “saints” and “faithful in Christ Jesus” (1), who were elected or “chosen” (4) or “predestinated” (5) to salvation.
For similar texts in Paul’s epistles, the reader should consult, e.g., Romans 8:28-30 and 11:1-10, Colossians 3:12, I Thessalonians 1:4 and 5:9, and II Timothy 1:9.
It is characteristic of those who deny the sovereign, eternal and unchangeable election of some only, that, unable to deny the many references in Scripture to election, they make election general and not personal. God, so they say, only chose nations or certain
kinds of people but not specific persons. Thus, though Romans 9:6-13 clearly refers to particular persons, the passage is often interpreted as though it only speaks of nations and not persons. In this way, they reduce the passage to this: In the Old Testament,
Jehovah chose Israel to be His favoured nation, not the Ishmaelites nor the Edomites.
At the time when the Canons of Dordt (1618-1619), the original Five Points of Calvinism, were written, the Arminians, who opposed God’s sovereign and omnipotent grace, taught that election only means that He chose certain conditions for salvation,
repentance and faith, and not specific persons. That went along with their teaching that faith and repentance are not truly God’s gifts, but come from us as products of our own free will—we choose to repent and believe. By so doing, we meet the conditions
that God set in election and so we find ourselves among the chosen.
The Canons forcefully oppose this, rejecting the errors of those “Who teach that there are various kinds of election of God unto eternal life: the one general and indefinite, the other particular and definite; and that the latter in turn is either
incomplete, revocable, non-decisive, and conditional, or complete, irrevocable, decisive, and absolute. Likewise: that there is one election unto faith and another unto salvation, so that election can be unto justifying faith without being a decisive election
unto salvation. For this is a fancy of men’s minds, invented regardless of the Scriptures, whereby the doctrine of election is corrupted, and this golden chain of our salvation is broken:
And whom he foreordained, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified (Rom. 8:30)” (I:R:2).
The slippery Arminians claimed that they did not deny an election that was “particular and definite,” an election of particular and definite persons, but they taught that there was another election that was “general and indefinite,” an election that left it
to the will and choice of men whether or not they would believe, be saved and be counted among the elect. That “indefinite” election meant that salvation depends on man’s choice, not God’s.
That kind of election, really no election at all, is, as the Canons point out, “incomplete” (no one knows, not even God Himself, who will be among the number of the elect), “revocable” (a person may lose his election), “non-decisive” (God does not
determine it, but leaves it up to the will and whim of men) and “conditional” (for men, by fulfilling the conditions God has set, make themselves elect). Nor is this election sovereign or eternal or unchangeable. It is not even divine, that is, an election
by God Himself, for man makes himself elect by his choice. Such an election is not found in the Bible.
In the light of Scripture’s teaching regarding divine election, what does it mean that Christ “came unto his own, and his own received him not” (John 1:11)? Can it possibly mean that Jesus came to those who had been given to Him by the Father in election but
was never received by them, so they ended up forever lost, even though they had been eternally chosen? Were they elect, but was their election “incomplete” and “non-decisive”? In light of John 6:37, that cannot be for Christ assures us, “All that the Father
giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.”
There are two possible explanations of John 1:11 that are in keeping with the doctrines of the Word of God. The first explanation is that “his own” are not the elect but simply the Jews, His own nation and people. Jesus came to them and they rejected Him, as
indeed the gospel accounts record them as doing. There is then no suggestion in this verse of an election which is not personal, particular and definite or of a salvation which is conditional on the will or works of men. The text, following that interpretation,
does not speak of God’s sovereign and irrevocable election.
The other explanation, which we prefer, is that “his own” are the elect. He came to them and they did not receive Him, no more than did the non-elect world of which Jesus speaks in the previous verse (10). The elect also rejected and despised Him, until, by
Jehovah’s almighty grace, they truly understood who He was, and received Him and the right to become the children of God (12). This fits with Isaiah 53:3: “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and
we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.”
Surely, anyone who knows his own heart knows that he is one of those who “received him not.” If I had been in the palace of the high priest or in Pilate’s judgment hall or at Golgotha, except for God’s mercy, I too would have spit in the face of the Son of
God, called for His crucifixion, preferred Barabbas and been ranked with the impenitent thief who blasphemed, “If thou be the Christ, save thyself and us” (Luke 23:39). Anyone who understands his total depravity knows that it was his own hands that crucified
the Son of God, and his own heart that rejected and despised Him. The world did not know Him (John 1:10)—a tragedy—but neither did we who from eternity were His own—an even greater tragedy! We also did not know Him and never would have known Him—not until
He sent us His Spirit to work repentance and faith in our hearts.
Those who did receive Jesus, those to whom He came, are those whose hearts were changed, who were granted repentance unto life and the gift of faith by the Holy Spirit. This is the Word of God in John 1:13: “Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of
the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” It is true that Christ’s own nation rejected Him in spite of all the promises of His coming, but there is no one who receives Him, no one who has any regard for Him, unless He Himself makes that possible: “No
man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day” (6:44).
You and I did not receive Christ at first, yet we always were His own, given to Him by the Father, redeemed by His blood and then, when the time that God appointed came, we were regenerated by His Spirit! What a wonder!
Rev. Ron Hanko
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