Question 20: Hope!

Question 20: Did God leave all mankind to perish in the estate of sin and misery?

Answer: God, having out of his mere good pleasure, from all eternity, elected some to everlasting life, did enter into a covenant of grace to deliver them out of the estate of sin and misery, and to bring them into an estate of salvation by a Redeemer.

The questions and answers that immediately precede this one are true, but not pleasant. They are truths that could sink us into the depths of despair, were it not for the good news of Jesus Christ. But sin does not have the last word in Scripture, and the catechism is faithful to follow the Scripture on this point. After darkness there is light; in the depth of our sin, there is the hope of a Savior. This question discusses our hope in three parts: election, the covenant of grace, and the redeemer. Since the redeemer, Jesus Christ, will be the central focus of the next several questions, we will focus our attention right now on the topics of election and the covenant of grace.

Election, God's choosing those people whom he would save before the foundation of the world, is from one perspective a logical consequence of God's omniscience and sovereignty. God cannot perfectly know the future unless it is predetermined, and since he is sovereign it must have been predetermined by himself. However, the Bible does not present this idea to us as bare philosophy. The attribute of God that election highlights most vividly is his love. Deuteronomy 7:7-8 demonstrates this powerfully as Moses speaks to Israel about their God: "It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt."

The idea of election is tied closely to the idea of covenant. As the next verse in Deuteronomy 7 says, "Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations." Chapter 7 of the Westminster Confession of Faith defines more fully what the authors of the Westminster Confession and Catechisms mean by the phrase "covenant of grace." This covenant is the bond between God and man that is exclusive to those who have salvation in Jesus Christ, administered in types and shadows during Old Testament times, and then administered by Jesus himself through the New Testament. Thus Deuteronomy 7:9 and Luke 22:20 (Jesus' initiation of the new covenant at the Last Supper) speak of the same covenant grace in its different administrations.

Although election and covenant both have reference to God's people, the differences between election and covenant involve both time and perspective. Election, God's eternal choice, speaks from above. It is precise and unchangeable. God, who knows all things, has always known exactly how many would be saved. Covenant, the administration of salvation, is from below. It is dynamic and changing. Although people can be elect before they are born (Jeremiah 1:5), they cannot be members of the covenant before they are conceived. Some who are in the covenant do not believe and are removed from the covenant, having given evidence that they were not truly elect (Romans 11:7). Ultimately, however, both election and covenant will end up in the same place. The covenant people will be purified (Matthew 13:24-30), the elect will be gathered (Mark 13:27), and God will perfectly separate those who are his from those who are not (Revelation 22:10-14).