“God unconditionally chose a peculiar people and Christ paid for them completely.”
God did not choose ANYONE unconditionally. Not the children of Israel nor anyone who believes on Jesus.
God is not a respecter of persons.
The Lord did say this to the children of Israel:
And now IF ye will indeed hear my voice, and keep my covenant, ye shall be to me a peculiar people above all nations; for the whole earth is mine. And ye shall be to me a royal priesthood and a holy nation: these words shalt thou speak to the children of Israel. (Exodus 19:5-6)
He repeated they were chosen to be a peculiar people in Deuteronomy:
For thou art a holy people to the Lord thy God, and the Lord thy God has chosen thee to be a peculiar people to himself of all the nations on the face of the earth. (Deuteronomy 14:2)
However, this chosenness was very much conditional.
The Old Testament is filled with conditional sentences. Specifically, first conditional sentences, which are:
If you do this, then this will happen. If you do not do this, then that will happen. See Exodus 19:5-6, above.
Deuteronomy 28 is a perfect study of conditional logic, the conditions laid down by the Word that was God, the Logos, which is the very root of our word logical. God’s word is logical.
The entire book of Deuteronomy is of Moses recounting all things to the children of Israel in the 11th month of the 40th year in the wilderness, immediately prior to his death.
Thus, everything Moses said in chapter 28 was very shortly after that which he said in chapter 14.
If the Lord chose them unconditionally, he wouldn’t have said what he said in Exodus 19:5-6, nor would he have given Moses the words that are recorded in chapter 28.
The Lord DOES NOT CHANGE.
For I am the Lord your God, and I change not: (Malachi 3:6)
Towards the end of Deuteronomy and just before Moses’ death (chapter 31) the Lord told Moses to bring Jesus (Joshua) to the tabernacle. This is what he said:
Deuteronomy 31:16-21
16 And the Lord said to Moses, Behold, thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, and this people will arise and go a whoring after the strange gods of the land, into which they are entering: and they will forsake me, and break my covenant, which I made with them.
17 And I will be very angry with them in that day, and I will leave them and turn my face away from them, and they shall be devoured; and many evils and afflictions shall come upon them; and they shall say in that day, Because the Lord my God is not with me, these evils have come upon me.
18 And I will surely turn away my face from them in that day, because of all their evil doings which they have done, because they turned aside after strange gods.
19 And now write the words of this song, and teach it to the children of Israel, and ye shall put it into their mouth, that this song may witness for me among the children of Israel to their face.
20 For I will bring them into the good land, which I sware to their fathers, to give to them a land flowing with milk and honey: and they shall eat and be filled and satisfy [themselves]; then will they turn aside after other gods, and serve them, and they will provoke me, and break my covenant.
21 And this song shall stand up to witness against them; for they shall not forget it out of their mouth, or out of the mouth of their seed; for I know their wickedness, what they are doing here this day, before I have brought them into the good land, which I sware to their fathers.
Despite knowing what they would do, the Lord extended salvation to the children of Israel, choosing them to be a peculiar people.
Why?
Because the Lord is not willing that ANY should perish, but that ALL should come to repentance. (cf. 2 Peter 3:9)
ANY means ANY. ALL means ALL.
Including the wicked.
Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel? (Ezekiel 33:11)
In the New Testament, Peter calls those who believe on Jesus a peculiar people:
But ye [are] a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: (1 Peter 2:9)
Given that God does not change, the same conditions apply to those of us who have believed on Jesus and are chosen to be a peculiar people.
A few NT examples of first conditional sentences concerning salvation:
If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. (John 15:6)
And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight: If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven; whereof I Paul am made a minister; (Colossians 1:21-23)
But Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end. (Hebrews 3:6)
In short, we must:
- ABIDE
- CONTINUE in the faith grounded and settled
- BE NOT MOVED AWAY from the hope of the gospel
- HOLD FAST the confidence (con fide, with faith) and rejoicing of the hope FIRM UNTO THE END
If we deny these clear scriptures, we are rejecting the words of God in favour of a theological argument (man’s wisdom).
