The Lord did not set his love
upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for
ye were the fewest of all people:
But because the Lord loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had
sworn unto your fathers, hath the Lord brought
you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from
the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know
therefore that the Lord thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant
and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand
generations (Deut. 7:7-9).
COMMON GRACE ARGUMENT:
Deuteronomy 7:8 states: “But because the
Lord loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your
fathers, hath the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out
of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.”
“This verse says that God loved Israel,
that is, those in the covenant of grace, and brought them out of the
Egypt. Yet, many in Israel were unbelievers, as Hebrews 3 and 4 and 1
Corinthians 10 say. God has a special love for those in the covenant of
grace, unbelievers and believers alike … outward mercies in the covenant of
grace”
(I)
The short and quick answer [to this
argument] is found in Romans 9. Israel are the seed of Abraham (Gen. 17:7).
Romans 9:3-8 directly answers the question by declaring that “they are not all
Israel, which are of Israel.” And all the seed of Abraham are not automatically
the children of the promise, but a distinction must be made between the
children of Israel who are children of the flesh and those children of Israel
who are the children of the promise. The “seed of Abraham” are only “the
children of the promise.”
A lengthier response would be to
point out that when God speaks through Moses to the nation of Israel, He is
addressing the church as it existed in that day. They were the church militant.
They were the true church of that day.
God speaks to the nation/church as a
whole, even though he knows that there are unbelievers among them. It is the
same way with a farmer who looks at his field of planted corn and says “That
is my corn field,” even though he knows that there are weeds in it. So God
is addressing Israel as a whole.
Deuteronomy 7:6-8 make it clear that
God is looking at the church as a whole with words which are only for the true
seed of Abraham, the children of the promise. This should be easily understood
when the passage speaks of God’s activity of choosing them to be a “special
people unto Himself” and His setting “His love upon” them. This is God’s
work of election, which is a work of love (Eph. 1:4b,5a) and which Scripture
limits to the elect. This would conflict with Psalm 5:5; 7:11; 11:5 and many
other passages which speak of God’s hatred for sinners.
Also, to hold to common grace proves
too much. The common grace would have to be particular, namely, not for
the Canaanites and other nations which God did not choose, but only for those
Israelites who were unbelievers. (RVO, 05/08/2019)
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(II)
(II)
More to come! (DV)
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