The Elect--Who are these Guys?

Many theologians have stated that the Elect are Israel,and none else! This is quite a bold statement for anyone to make, but a theologian of all people should know better! We shall look to the Holy Bible for this answer. Pastors have echoed these who have made such statements. Another statement that theologians and Pastors have made, when they have been cornered on the issue, of who the Elect are, is the answer : well there are two Elect groups! We shall also look at the Holy Scriptures for the answer to this bold statement!
First, let's look to the Epistles of the New Testament starting with Romans 8:31-34 Paul is speaking concerning the Christian's calling of God. "What shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God's Elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us." Who can deny the Paul here is talking to and of Christians? Everything connected with the ones Paul is talking about here is completely belonging to Christians and Christians only. The Elect are falsely accused! they are justified by God! The Holy Father-God has freely given His Son to die for them! And He has risen for this same group of people, the Elect! Christ makes intercession for the Elect.
Let us look to Colossians 3.10-15 "And have put on the new man [ the one who is born again ] who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him, where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision, nor uncircumcision, barbarian nor Scythian, bond or free, but Christ is all and in all. Put on, therefore, as the Elect of God holy and beloved, bowels of mercy, kindness, humbleness of mind, gentleness, longsuffering, forbearing one another, and forgiving one another. If any have any quarrel against any, just as Christ forgave you, so also ye do and above all these things put on charity which is the bond of perfectness and let the peace of God rule in your hearts to the which ye also are called in one body. And be ye thankful.
Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by Him." Who can deny that Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is saying here that Christians, believers, are the Elect of God and they're called in one body. It's very obvious that the Elect of God is the Body of Christ.
I Peter 1:1-5: Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ to the strangers scattered throughout Pontius, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Blythinia, Elect according to the foreknowledge of Jesus Christ, grace unto you and peace be multiplied. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ which according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus from the dead to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled that fadeth not away reserved in heaven for you who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed at the last time.”
Again, it's obvious that Paul is referring to the Elect or Christians because although he does refer to them as strangers, yet they're strangers that are Christians that he hasn't yet met that he has visited those cities. It's assured us that they're Christians because of the wording he uses. He says that we are begotten again by the Lord. It means that we are born again. Also Paul's used of the word "salvation" and "sanctification" here also identifies them as believers.

1 Thessalonians 1.1b-4 "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers, remembering without ceasing your work of faith, labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of our God and Father, knowing, beloved [ Christian ] brethren your Election of God." Paul, here is writing to Christians! "...your work of faith, labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus... all describe Christians and no one else!

1 Peter 4.13 " She who is ... Elect together with you, greets you; and so does Mark my son." Again Paul is speaking to Christians as the Elect. This is confirmed by verse 10 "But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you." Notice how the word Called is used here in close connection with Elect!

Look at Titus 1.1-4 " Paul a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's Elect and the acknowledgment of the truth which is according to godliness,in hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began, but has in due time manifested His word through preaching, which was committed to me according to the commandment of God our Savior; to Titus, my true son in our common faith: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior." The Word of God says "it is impossible to please God without faith." And we as believers know that there is only one true Faith! The Jews who have not recognized Jesus as Messiah do not have faith which is according to godliness. They do not acknowledge the Truth. Need I say more? **** there is a lot more to write on The Elect!!!
The title "Christians" is only used three times in the New Testament and not at all in the Old Testament. In Acts 11:25. . .then Barnabus departed for Tarsus to seek Saul and when he had found him he brought him to Antioch. So it was that for a whole year they assembled with the Church and taught a great many people and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.”
And in chapter 26 of the book of Acts Paul is witnessing to Agrippa and in verse 9. . . "indeed I myself thought I must do many things contrary to the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. This I also did in Jerusalem and many of the saints I shut up in prison having received authority from the chief priests and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them. I punished them often in every synagogue and compelled them to blaspheme and being exceedingly enraged against them, I persecuted them even to foreign cities.”
And then down in verse 27, 28 Paul was still witnessing to King Agrippa. "King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets. I know that you do believe. Then Agrippa said to Paul, "You almost persuade me to become a Christian." Even King Agrippa understood that when Paul was with the saints that he had persecuted before he was converted, even King Agrippa that they were called Christians and understood that clearly that the saints were called Christians.

The third reference to Christians is in I Peter 4:12,13, 14, and 16: "Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial to try you as though some strange thing happened to you, but rejoice to the extent that you are partakers of Christ's sufferings that you may also be glad with exceeding joy. If you are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are you for the Spirit of glory and of God rest upon you for He is blasphemed, but on your part He is glorified. And down to verse 16: Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this matter."

ELECT -- When you get right down to it, all are called of God! Called to belief in God and called to repentance. It's only those who respond to God's call that are Chosen [Elect]. " For God is not willing that any perish but all come to repentance!" You have elected to follow Christ. You have chosen to follow Christ. Make your calling and election sure... Make your calling and choosing sure... Yes God has Chosen you and you have Chosen God. God doesn't get anyone home to heaven against his or her will. The will of man is one of the supreme attributes that God has created in man from the beginning that in a smaller sense parallels that of God's Supreme will. God never created robots. Neither man nor angels has God created without a will. If angels didn't have a will, there would never have been a rebellion in heaven! God has created mankind with free will. [This I believe, is where Calvinism in the strictest sense, falls apart! You've heard "Many aspire but few attain." Well this saying applies well in Christianity.....Yes God is Soverign, He has decreed that all who put their trust in the finished atonement of Jesus are saved. God is not a man that He should lie, yet God doesn't release man of his respondsibility in the love relation between them.....] STUDY MORE!

Some zealous pre-tribers might look to the Dispersion as Elect Jews quoting John 7.35, 1 Peter 1.1,2 and James 1.1 as some solid ground that the Elect are exclusively Jewish. Yet the very foundation Epistle of Peter that is quoted also identifies the Elect as a : royal priesthood, a holy nation, a chosen [Elect] generation, His own special people... and belief or faith in Christ as the Elect Cornerstone as the only qualifying condition that makes people, God's special people 1 Peter 2.6-10!

Not only was a Jewish Remnant scattered or dispersed in the O.T. but also God's people in the N.T. were scattered or dispersed in what some scholars term the infancy of the Church, Acts 8.1-4/ 11.19 possibly Eucibius' Church History. Please remember what was prophesied in John 11.49-52 "And one of them, Caiaphas, being high priest that year, said to them, "You know nothing at all, nor do you consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and not that the whole nation should perish." Now this he did not say on his own authority; but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, and not for that nation only, but also that He would gather together in one the children of God who were scattered abroad."

Christians many times directly or indirectly referred to as "the children of God" a few examples should suffice: John 1.12, Romans 8.16, 1 Cor. 4.14, Eph.5.8, Phil. 2.15, 1 John 3.2, 1 John 5.1,2. 3 John 1,2,3. Let these verses,especially John 11.49-52, be foundional every time you read or hear of the One body of Christ! Whether from the book of Romans, 1 Corinthians, Ephesians or Colossians.

Like so many have been stressing we all have a Judeo-Christian heritage and as Paul the Hebrew of hebrews has said in Romans 2.29 "but he is a Jew who is one inwardly and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, and not in the letter, whose praise is not from men but from God!"

In O.T. times one book that stands out in my mind is The Book of Enoch. From the Book of Enoch there are aprox. 41 places where this word [elect] is used. About 15 references are to Jesus as The Elect One as in the Bible [Isa.42.1 with 1 Peter 2.6] and 35 referances as believers, Christians and referred to as saints, righteous, the holy]. MORE REFERANCES... In New Testament times from the Apostlic Fathers in the early writings of Hemas are 7 referances the the [elect]......MORE...._


WITH AND FOR THE ELECT

Here's a note to go along with the notes on Christ's coming with the saints and for the saints. Here's the note: God is sovereign. When God brings with Jesus the disembodied saints according to I Thess 4:13, it is His prerogative whether these things will be visible or invisible or semi-visible. But in Rev 19:11-21 when Jesus is coming as King of kings and Lord of lords with the armies of heaven accompanying Him, they [the saints] are riding white horses and this fact impresses upon the reader visibility. The angels at this time will be visible according to Bible references. The angels will be visible as they have been on important occasions throughout His story, history.
The important fact to remember is that God's Word definitely pronounces Jesus's coming with the saints and for the saints and this fact is irrefutable. It is clearly seen by any student of the Bible who is honest with himself, logic and the Scriptures. Hebrews 12:9B: "Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of Spirits and live?" Hebrews 12:22,23: "But you have come to Mount Zion and that city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusulem and an innumerable company of angels and the general assembly of the firstborn who are registered in heaven to God, the judge of all the spirits of just men made perfect."
Notice here that a large portion of the church is already up in heaven and that those that are departed with Christ are the spirits of just men made perfect. That's important to notice.
In I Peter 3: 18-20: "For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive by the Spirit, by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison who formerly were disobedient. Once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah while the ark was being prepared in which a few, that is, a few souls were saved through water." I'd like you to notice that here in verse 18, I think, that He, Jesus, will bring us to God in this same phrase or very similar phrases in I Thess 4:13,14 "that He might bring us to God." This same awesome event that is going on here but what I'm trying to bring out is to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord in that the dead in Christ are disembodied, the saints, they are spirits of just men made perfect.
Earlier in the study I made identifying who the Elect are, I mentioned in the study the qualifications and qualities or characteristics of the Elect and then I went on to list the many, if not all, the references that are used for "Elect." And in that study here this is to be given as further support of identifying who the Elect are. For the first example, I used I Peter 1:1, 2: "Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ our Lord to the strangers gathered abroad throughout Galatia, Pontius, Cappadocia, Asia and Bythinia, Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father through the sanctification of the Spirit unto the obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ, grace unto you and peace be multiplied."


Praise God that the Triune God is involved in the salvation of souls and in the salvation of the Elect Christians. What I'd like to bring out here is that in the same book in fact I Peter 2:11 Peter writing to Christians and it says: "Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims to abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul." Now we turn to the inspired writer of Hebrews 11:13: "All these died in faith, not receiving the promises, but having seen them afar off and were persuaded of them and embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth." Here speaking of the Old Testament saints that lived by faith, that they pleased God by faith and that they confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims. Praise God. Nevertheless, they're saints and now they're in the presence of God.
Here in the Gospel of John, in going along with who are the elect, these strangers and pilgrims , are--these sojourners. In the Gospel of John, the Lord Jesus said: "15:18-21: "If the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love his own, but because you are not of this world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the Word that I said unto you. The servant is not greater than his lord. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you. If they have kept my sayings, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do unto you for my name's sake because they know not Him that sent me. "
When Jesus said," that I called you out from them," these are the words which are the very meaning of church, "eccesiastes," the called-out ones. Jesus is describing strangers and pilgrims of this present evil age. Christ is our example, and if they persecuted Him, they will also persecute you and I. He was a pilgrim and a sojourner just passing through and He had a mission to complete and in this manner, this is what makes believers, Christians, Chirst-like ones, Chirst-likeness. I want to expound on the qualifications of the Elect, or the standards, the characteristics of the Elect, as I have with this first example in I Peter, with other verses, bringing in other related verses that use the same terms, the same words in the very verses that talk about the Elect.
Now, I'm going to expound on some other verses, particularly one in the book of Revelation where Christ is coming in glory and in power. In chapter 19 in the book of Rev, we'll look at verse 7 and 8. Talking about the marriage of the Lamb has come and His wife has made herself ready. "And it was granted unto her to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white. Fine linen is the righteousness of the saints so here all are agreed that this is talking of the Church and the Bride of the Lamb is the Church and then down further in verse 14: "And the armies which were in heaven followed Him, meaning Jesus, upon white horses, clothed in white fine linen, clothed in fine linen white and clean. . . ." And then verse down to further down . . ."I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and the armies gathered together to make war against Him that sat on the horse and against His army.
So they're coming in glory to fight against Anti-Christ, the beast , and those who followed him. Praise God! And over into chapter 17 of the book of Revelation verse 13 and14: "And these have on mind and so give their power and strength over to the beast. They are the Anti-christ and the ten nations. Verse 14: "And these shall make war with the Lamb and the Lamb shall overcome them, for He is Lord of lords and King of kings and they that are with Him are called and chosen and faithful."

The word here that is translated in the English version "chosen" is very much in the Greek "Elect." There are the pre-tribbers who insist that the elect, especially in the Olivet discourse in Matt. 24 and the synopsis of the Gospels, the parallels to that Olivet discourse insist tha the Elect is Israel and has nothing to do with the church, saying that the Church has already been raptured into heaven. This verse in Rev 17 along with 19 hits a devastating blow to the pre-trib lie because here those who are coming with Christ are the Elect, those who are coming at the end of the tribulation to do despite against the anti-christ and his followers are the Elect and this does damaging things to the pre-trib theory, the pre-trib lie.
If Christ is coming for the Elect, as Israel in Matt 24, then in Rev He's coming with them. This doesn't make any sense at all, because they'd already be with Him. If this is to make any sense at all in accordance with and in harmony with the other Scriptures, the Elect must be the Church, the Elect must be true Christians.
The Elect are both dead and living saints, the Called-Out Ones, the Holy Ones, the Church. When Christ gathers his elect and brings them from heaven where she's coming from, and He's gathering them from the, He's gathering all His holy ones unto Him whether dead in body or alive , the disembodied elect with the living elect that are on the earth are gathered together to Christ.
So we find that in Matt. 24, the Olivet discourse that Jesus is coming in glory at the end of the tribulation and He's gathering the Elect, the angels are doing the gathering, but He's coming back to the earth in glory, He's gathering the Elect. We turn to the book of Rev. and we find that in chapter 17 and 19 or in chapter 19 when Jesus is coming in glory and power to put an end to the Anti-christ and his followers or to punish the Anti-christ and his followers, we find that He is coming with His Elect, the armies of the heavens. We find that He's coming with the bride which we find out from Rev… is the Elect and He's coming in power and glory. Jesus doesn’t descend half way down from heaven, gather the Church and do a U-turn and return to heaven to party for seven years during the Great Tribulation as Pastors and Pre-tribulation theologians teach (see chapter…)

Often pretribbers try to say that in the Olivet discourse in Matt 24, that Jesus was talking of the Jews and that the disciples, being Jewish, represented the nation of Israel. I beg to differ. The disciples had already been called by Jesus, were sent out and were obedient to him, did special miracles, and were well on their way already, being the foundation of the Church. Not only that but Jesus referred to His disciples while during His earthly ministry as as the friends of the Bridegroom or even the Bride—Thus the Church.
Jesus repeatedly uses references of personal pronouns, you’ throughout the discourse to the disciples. Being present during the time of great persecution. The main verse of expression that is used in saying that these are Jews only and not the church is “and pray that your flight be not in the winter nor on the Sabbath.” This saying of Jesus is not hard to decipher. Jesus knowing the future and talking to the disciples as representatives of the church, looked forward, and was including the Elect Jewish Remnant along with the elect, the church and warning the newly converted elect Jewish remnant not to be overly orthodox so as not to flee as under Jewish law and breaking the Sabbath when the calamity of the Antichrist is upon them, and to flee into the desert, into the place God had prepared for them, the rock city of Petra.