I somehow lost my RSS subscription to the Auburn Avenue blog and am just seeing some gems I have missed.  For example, here is a great post on “Election according to Peter” that deals with First Peter 1.1-2, and quotes some Reformed sources I had never read.

Go read the blog entry and then read comments I wrote for a paper in seminary in 1996.  I quote the important part after the jump:

Here is what I wrote:

Election as an Historical Act

While the doctrine of election is taught plainly in Scripture (e.g. Eph 1.3-14), that does not mean every time the word “elect” is used, as either a verb or a noun, it is being used as a technical term for this doctrine. Here are some examples of some other uses of the verb, eklegomai , “to elect”:

“And He began speaking a parable to the invited guests when he noticed how they had been picking out the places of honor at the table . . .” (Luke 14.7). What is Jesus observing here? Obviously, he sees the guests sitting down in certain seats. This is referred to as election. To elect the places of honor means to claim them by occupying them. Likewise, we read in Luke 6.13: “And when day came, He called His disciples to Him; and chose twelve of them, whom He named as apostles.” Here “elected” is virtually synonymous with “appointed.” The election was an action which took place in history.

In Acts we find similar usages. Peter declares to the Counsel of Jerusalem, “Brethren, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the Gospel and believe” (15.7). The event to which Peter referred was the vision he was given by God. God “elected” him by giving that vision. Peter is emphatic that the choice was made by God in time and space-”among you.”

Likewise, Acts 13.17: “The God of this people Israel chose our fathers, and made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt, and with an uplifted arm He led them out from it.” The most natural reading is that this passage lists three historical events, not one timeless decree and two historical events. God chose Abraham when He called him in Genesis 12.1-3.

All that is being said here is that the “election” or “choice” (which, remember, is all one Greek word, not a technical theological term) in Scripture has a similar semantic range to its English counterparts. If I hold up to you a platter of cookies and say, “Choose one,” I am not simply requesting a mental operation. I am asking you to pick up a cookie with your hand and put it in your mouth. Choosing, depending on context, ranges from the mental action of making a decision upon which one will act in the future to actually acting. Thus, while we make a needed distinction in technical theology between God’s decree and His execution of His decree, the Bible is free to refer to either of these as God’s election. It is simply using ordinary language, and we must be careful not to import our own technical distinctions into the meaning of the words.

This range in meaning to the verb, eklegomai, is also reflected in the adjective and substantive noun, eklektoss – the “elect” or “chosen.” Like his speech recorded in Acts 15, Peter also sometimes uses election to refer not to recipients of the eternal decree but to the recipients of the space-time action of God:

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who reside as aliens, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who are chosen, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, that you may obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled clean with His blood: May grace and peace be yours in fullest measure (1 Pet 1.1, 2).

Here, our standard doctrine of election is not found in the word “chosen” or “elect,” but in the word “foreknowledge. Having been foreknown by God, the recipients of Peter’s salutation have been “chosen” by the action of the Spirit in setting them apart.

Paul is apparently also capable of using the term in this way. He exhorts the Colossians to act “as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved” (3.12). While it is true that the elect are loved from eternity, they are not holy from eternity. They are holy when they are engrafted into Christ by the Holy Spirit and both forensically justified and definitively sanctified. Thus, to act as the “chosen of God” is almost meaningless if the term is being used in it’s technical sense in Reformed theology. Rather, to be “chosen” is to be actually called and regenerated and gathered into the Church. Likewise, “the faith of God’s elect” (Tit 1.1; NIV) makes little sense unless it means the faith of the visible saints, those who have actually begun in history to profess faith in Christ.

So I love seeing Steve Wilkin’s authorities confirm what I thought was my own lonely observation.  He writes:

Scottish preacher and expositor, John Brown, says this commenting on the term election as it is used here in the first chapter of Peter’s epistle: “I apprehend the word ‘elect’ here, and in a number of other places in the New Testament, does not refer directly to what has been termed the electing decree, but to the manifestation of it in the actually selecting certain individuals from amidst a world lying in wickedness, that they may be set apart to God, and become his peculiar people.”

He then quotes the puritan commentator, Robert Leighton, “Election here means the selecting them out of the world and joining them to the fellowship of the people of God.” This is the election of which our Lord speaks when he says, “Because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen [elected] you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.” (John 15:19)

When we connect election with God’s calling a people out to be His own special possession, it helps us to see how the biblical writers most often use this term. Election, to Peter, is not something secret and unknowable but something manifested openly and public to all the world in the Church of Christ Jesus. God’s purpose in election is always carried out in terms of His public calling men into communion with Himself.

We live in a sad day when, frankly, I feel like I need to wear body armor any time I dare make an observation from Scripture that is not backed up by “the rabbis” of the Reformed Tradition.  It is a nauseating age in which to try to minister in a Reformed context.  But despite this perversion of our present time, I am actually happy to see that I’m not alone in observing what the Bible says on this matter.  Thanks to Steve for finding these great truths in the mouths of witnesses.