Such in outline are the diflcient classes described as ' elect ' in Holy Scripture. We must consider next what can be learnt with regard to the liurjiose for which they were chosen. We must not, of course, assume that the purpose is the same, or even in all points analogous in the dillbrent cases. Still it is not unnatural to suppose that we shall gain some help towards understanding the apjilication of the method in any one case by a careful study of its application to the rest.
The selection of the family of Aaron and the tribe of Levi need not detain us loni;. It is a simple case of the choice of certain indiviclu.als to fill an ollice of trust, a position at once of privilege and responsibility on behalf of their fellow-counliymcn.
The choice of Israel presents a more com- plicated problem. The choice in the first instance involved a call to occupy a special position in rela- tion to J" — to be, and to be acknowledged before the world as. His peculiar people. ' Ye are my witnesses,' saith the Lord, ' my servant w hom 1 have cliosen ; that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he' (Is 43""). And this position of privilege involved a special responsi- bility towards God and towards the rest of man- kind. On the one side, they were the trustees of God's glory in the world, ' his witnesses,' ' the peoj)le which he formed for himself, to show forth his i>iaise.' On the other, they were the heirs of the promise made at the call of the Father of the elect, that ' in him and in his seed should all the families of the earth be blessed ' (cf. Gn 18"). And this work for others is the characteristic function of the ideal 'servant of the Lord,' who embodies in himself all that is most characteristic of the chosen Israel.
In NT comparatively little is told us of the purpose of election. ' 'fhe poor in this world,' St. .lames writes, 'God chose (to be) rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which he promised to them tliat love him.' 'God chose you,' writes St. Paul to the Thessalonians, 'from the beginning {or "a.s a firstfruit," diropx')'' for air' apxvs) unto .salvation.' ' Hechose us,' he writes again (Eph 1') 'in him {i.e. in Christ) that we should be holy and without • There \a, indeed, one poflsoKe in the Gospels, which will call for notice later on, in which a distinction ia drawn between the many 'called' and the (cw 'chosen.' Hut the existence of thit one imssuKc does not invalidate the statement in the t.'xt, whicli merely asserts that there arc other passages Ui which this narrow sil^QiQcation for ' elect ' is excluded.
680
ELECTION
ELECTION
blemish before him in love.' The Christian, there- fore, stands as the Israelite stood before him in a special relation of intimacy with God, receiving from Him the spiritual gifts and graces, together witli the responsibility for appropriating them (Col 3''), which such an intimacy presupposes, and the assurance of eternal salvation, of which that intimacy is at once the foretaste and the pledge.
Tlie indications of a wider purpose in the election of the Christian are not, indeed, as definite as in the ease of OT Israel. It would, however, be a mistake to regard them as altogether wanting. Our Lord (Jn 15) Himself told His apostles that He had chosen them that they might bear much fruit. The chosen race exists, as St. Peter reminds us (1 P 2'), appropriating the words of Is 43, 'to sliOw forth the excellencies of him who called them out of darkness into his glorious light.' And St. Paul, in the same sentence (Eph 1*"") in which he speaks of our election in Christ 'to the praise of the glory of his grace,' reveals as the final goal of the eternal [>urpose, ' the summing up of all tilings in Clirist, tlie things in heaven and the things upon the earth ' ; a goal towards tlie attainment of which our election cannot be regarded as more than a preparatory stage.
We conclude, therefore, that according to the predominant use of the term in Holy Scripture, election is an attribute of the visible Church, and finds its true goal, not simply in the salvation of certain elect individuals, but m the evangelization of the race. There is indeed good scriptural analogy for a concurrent use of the term in a narrower sense, to describe as it were an election within the elect. For St. Paul uses it (Eo 11') to describe the inner circle in Israel who accepted the gospel when it came to them — 'the remnant' to which alone an immediate salvation had been promised by Isaiah (Ro 9*', Is 10^). And our Lord again and again warns us in His parables that the members of His Church will be subjected to a searching judgment — as the result of which the unworthy will be cast into the outer darkness. It is in this connexion that He uses the warning words about the many called and the few chosen to which allusion has already been made. But there seems no authority for restricting the use of the term, as some theological systems do to this narrower sense — refusing to recognize as elect in any real sense, either those Israelites who in St. Haul's day were disobedient to the gospel, or those members of the visible Church who fail to stand in the judgment. Still less justification is there for assuming that the object of the election of tliis restricted circle has no end beyond the personal salvation of the individuals who compose it.