Election in Vincent’s Word Studies

So as I am getting familiar with the Greek alphabet, I was flipping through Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament trying to sound out the Greek words to no avail, when an entry for 1 Thessalonians 1.4 caught my eye yesterday morning:

4. Election of God. Incorrect. … This, and the kindred words έκλέγειν to choose, and έκλεκτός chosen or elect, are used of God’s selection of men or agencies for special missions or attainments; but neither here nor elsewhere in the N.T. is there any warrant for the revolting doctrine that God has predestined a definite number of mankind to eternal life, and the rest to eternal destruction.*

The entry contained a footnote directing the reader to a note on page 133 in Volume III. The note was a decently-sized essay attempting to turn Romans 9-11 upside down and to provide an Arminian heads-up for texts that might sound like they are teaching “…revolting doctrine[s.]” These doctrines, which need not be named or labeled, were called on page 133 (in Volume III) the “…most dangerous perversion” of chapters 9-11, and were deemed to be an “…arbitrary” choice.

I read the essay, and I think I gave it a fair shot (mostly because I am still not satisfied with my own understanding of Romans 9-11), but as I worked my way through, I came across a passage that blew my mind. The entire article is a bitter tirade against the doctrines of particular grace, and would have us believe that in God’s electing of national Israel to “…the temporal privileges of the chosen people,” (p. 139) he left the most crucial decisions up to the pathetic self-determination of “children of wrath” (Eph. 2.3). Ultimately, God’s purposes were allegedly dependent on the obedience of persons who were “dead in [their] sins” (Eph. 2.5). Understanding how national election is somehow more “fair” than election to salvation is beyond my comprehension. Ultimately, the reason Abraham was chosen, purportedly; was because he believed God. Had Abraham cursed Yahweh of Hosts like we all have too many times, God would have been forced to choose someone else who would obey. How can it be God’s Sovereign choice if it is, at the end of the day, depending on someone else’s choice?

Digressing, the passage that blew my mind read like this on page 137:

That there is a divine election–the act of God’s holy will in selecting His own methods, instruments, and times for carrying out His own purposes–is a fact of history and of daily observation. It appears in the different natural endowments of men; in the distribution of those natural advantages which minister to the strength or weaknesses of nations; in the inferiority of the Ethiopian to the Caucasian; in the intellec-tual superiority of a Kant or a Descartes to a Chinese coolie.
Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament. Vol III (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1887). 137, emphasis mine.

This teaching ought to be in a museum. In case you’re wondering what a coolie is (because I sure had no idea), according to the Oxford Canadian Dictionary a coolie is: “an unskilled, low paid labourer in or from India, China, or other Asian countries.”

What stood out to me was the passage I was instantly reminded of from another author decidedly in the opposing camp to Dr. Vincent, A.W. Pink. In what is likely the book he is primarily known for, The Sovereignty of God, Pink expounds the Reformed understanding of Divine Election (to salvation), which crushes forever all boasting and the supposed superiority of one race over another. Paul crushed these racially prejudiced attitudes in Romans 9-11: God has the sovereign right to shift his electing purposes according to his good pleasure and abundant mercy.

The ones who [our Lord Jesus Christ] took into favored intimacy with Himself and commissioned to go forth as His ambassadors, were, for the most part, unlettered fishermen. And so it has been ever since. So it is today: at the present rates of increase, it will not be long before it is manifested that the Lord has more in despised China who are really His, than He has in the highly favored U.S.A.; more among the uncivilized blacks of Africa, than He has in cultured (?) Germany! And the purpose of God’s choice, the raison d’etre of the selection He has made is, ‘that no flesh should glory in his presence’–there being nothing whatever in the objects of His choice which should entitle them to His special favors, then, all the praise will be freely ascribed to the exceeding riches of his manifold grace.
A.W. Pink, The Sovereignty of God. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1930). 55

It pretty much says it all. We are all alike condemned under sin, no one nation is more prone to rebellion than the other–and neither is one nation more prone to obedience than the other. God’s choice enters into no calculations Human merit or ability. He has a purpose, which is to demonstrate Humanity’s relentless rebellion and His own awesome mercy and justice, manifested in particular grace toward the called-out ones, “out of every tribe, language, people, and nation.” (Rev. 5.9) This includes everyone. It is Paul’s teaching of the ingrafted branches:

For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For, “Whosoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.” … if some of the branches be broken off, and you, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them, and with them share of the root and prosperity of the olive tree; boast not against the branches. But if you do boast, it is not you who support the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, “Branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in.” True; by their unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by your faith. Do not be conceited, but fear; for if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. See then the goodness and severity of God! Toward those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in his goodness; otherwise you also will be cut off. They also, if they don’t continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. For if you were cut out of that which is by nature a wild olive tree, and were grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree, how much more will these, which are the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree? For I do not desire you to be ignorant, brothers, of this mystery, so that you won’t be wise in your own conceits, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, and so all Israel will be saved. Even as it is written, “There will come out of Zion the Deliverer, and he will turn away ungodliness from Jacob. This is my covenant to them, when I will take away their sins.” Concerning the Good News, they are enemies for your sake. But concerning the election, they are beloved for the fathers’ sake. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. For as you in time past were disobedient to God, but now have obtained mercy by their disobedience, even so these also have now been disobedient, that by the mercy shown to you they may also obtain mercy. For God has shut up all to disobedience, that he might have mercy on all. Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out! “For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Or who has first given to him, and it will be repaid to him again?” For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things. To him be the glory for ever! Amen.
Romans 10.12-13, 11.17-36

I understand that Vincent was a man of his time and was fraught with frailties, cultural blind spots, and ignorances that have not escaped my own reading of texts, and I do understand that Pink wrote half-a-century later than the latter did, and I ought not to judge him by the sensitivities and knowledge of another century, and I also understand that Reformed folk are just as guilty of verbal and physical atrocities as are Arminian folk, but I cannot help it–Vincent’s belief in the superiority of the “Caucasian” race to the “Ethiopian” or Asiatic races was defended upon his understanding of election–which was not unto salvation, only of one nationality to superiority and another to inferiority. Vincent’s distorted understanding of the doctrine of election left humanity alone and bleeding, it made Whites to reign over Blacks because of an innate superiority, decided to be this way by God (I feel dirty writing these sentences). Most importantly, it abandoned humanity to fend for themselves and grope after God as in the dark, and it made the Ethiopians just as accountable as the Caucasians (who are supposedly “intellectually superior.”) That is what I call “revolting doctrine” and the “most dangerous perversion” of Romans 9-11.

~ by Tyler on July 16, 2007.