(See Part 1 here)
As noted in Part 1, the answer to this question is simple, but also quite challenging. Quite simply, elect as a noun means chosen, selected, preferred or spared. The challenge is to perceive accurately how this term is applied, and is to be understood across the ages and pages of The Bible. This book was written over a span of several millennia, an untold number of cultures, and against the backdrop of God’s grand, eternal, redemption strategy for humanity. Across this span, there are several nuanced meanings of this very broad term, elect, not just one.
Perhaps the best meaning of elect may well be:
A person or people in a particular age of God’s plans whom He selected, or will select, who selected, or will select Him.
Across six of the seven ages during which God is dealing with humans, I believe some people will come to know Him by faith, and will, therefore, factor in His ‘elect group’ (saints)for that age. However, there is one unique group of people to which I perceive the term, ‘elect’ applies, but who will only believe after their stark encounter with The Lord while they are alive. This I believe is the group of sinful, mortal Jews who will survive the seven-year tribulation and the Armageddon War. (See Part 1)
Discussions of the term, elect, in Christian circles may ultimately settle on two key question, about which there are many opinions:
(1) Who are the people referred to as Earth’s harvest in Revelation 14:14-16, whom Jesus will ‘spiritually reap’ from Heaven?
(2) Who are the ‘elect’ in Matthew 24:31, whom angels will ‘physically gather from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other’?
In Revelation 14:14-16, Jesus, in Heaven, personally reaps Earth’s harvest prior to the final half of the tribulation period, known as the great tribulation:
Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and on the cloud sat One like the Son of Man [Jesus], having on His head a golden crown, and in His hand a sharp sickle. And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to Him who sat on the cloud, “Thrust in Your sickle and reap, for the time has come for You to reap, for the harvest of the earth is ripe.” So He who sat on the cloud thrust in His sickle on the earth, and the earth was reaped.
Scholarly Bible commentators are figuratively ‘all over the map’ about who constitutes this harvest! Theories include notions that this harvest refers to:
(a) The advance spiritual slaying of all Jesus-rejecting sinners who would later be physically slain in the 1st War of Gog and Magog sometime during the great tribulation or the Armageddon War at the end of the great tribulation. This notion is very similar to the very vivid depictions in Joel 3:12-13, and especially in Ezekiel 9. (See: Mind Blowing or Opening??) But it naturally raises the question why use the word, harvest, to refer to something undesirable, and not intended to be kept? Curious. Also, this Scripture makes NO reference to ‘the elect’, so it would be erroneous to just assume it refers to the elect, as many people do.
(b) Possibly a mid-or-post-tribulation rapture and resurrection of God’s Church Age elect. This notion is discredited in that it infers a distinct overlap of the last ‘week of seven years’ in God’s declared strategic calendar for Israel, with His apparent strategic calendar for Gentiles during the Church Age. (Daniel 9:24) To my knowledge, The Bible does not support any such overlap, but seems to segregates these two calendars. This notion is further discredited in that Paul predicts The Church will be caught up (raptured), not ‘harvested with a sickle’ (1 Thessalonians 4:17) BEFORE the anti-Christ is revealed! Carefully reading through The Bible reveals many rather unique word choices that make me slow down and think, rather than assume.
(c) Possibly the resurrection and rapture of all saints martyred in the tribulation. See the references to two groups in Revelation 7 and 14:
(1) the 144,000 Jewish witnesses who will testify of Jesus in the tribulation,
(2) people, Jews and Gentiles, who presumably will come to faith as a result of these testimonies.
I believe Revelation 14:14-16 refers to item (a) above, which is the advance (pre-enacted) spiritual slaying of all Jesus-rejecting sinners who will be subsequently physically slain during the great tribulation, when the last of God’s judgments will be poured out (i.e., the 7 bowl judgments in Revelation 16). It is also possible Revelation 14 refers to Jews referred to in Zephaniah 3:12, perhaps those who will be killed in the Armageddon War at the end of the great tribulation. This view is in sync with Joel 3:12-13 and also Jeremiah 51:33. It also strategically comports with The Lord’s modus operandi in Ezekiel 9. Selah!
In Matthew 24:31, Jesus dispatches angels from Heaven to gather a targeted elect at the end of the tribulation:
Immediately after the tribulation of those days …He [Jesus] will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
Please note the strategic word choice here – gather together. I do not believe this infers ‘resurrection or rapture into Heaven’, yet many Christians the world over believe, in this verse, Jesus was referring to saints from The Church Age. They conveniently ignore that fact that Jesus had a ‘double barrel’ ministry during His life on Earth. First, He physically ministered to ancient Israel, who largely rejected Him. Second, He spiritually ministered to all who would come to faith in Him during The Church Age. He laid the foundations for our faith. Our failure to ‘rightly divide The Word of Truth’, as Paul admonishes us to do in 2 Timothy 2:15, results in erroneous interpretations of The Word, in general, and The Gospels, in particular. 1
I believe this gathering action in the above verse may represent either (1) the advance, spiritual election of ALL sinful Jews who will have survived both the tribulation and the Armageddon War, (2) their physical gathering into the land of Israel, or (3) both. These people will have designated roles and functions in a blended nation of Israel during the Millennial Reign of Christ. This rather unique group of mortal Jews will embrace Jesus as the Messiah, not by faith, but only when they see Him. (Zechariah 12:10-14) Apart from this ‘elect group’, I understand all other references to the term, elect, clearly refer to people who embrace God, by faith.
I trust this is sufficiently clear, though somewhat challenging to understand. The backdrop of this review is my search for deeper insights into God’s strategic, multi-millennial plan for the redemption of humankind, promised in Genesis 3:15 and fulfilled in The Lord Jesus Christ.
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1 There are several core aspects of ‘dividing The Word of Truth’, including but not limited to:
A. perceiving the shifting socio-cultural times across which The Bible was written;
A. perceiving the shifting socio-cultural times across which The Bible was written;
B. perceiving B.C. versus A.D. perspective shifts;
C. understanding what aspects apply to Israel versus The Church versus the un-saved world; and
D. perceiving the seven different ages in which God is dealing with humanity: (1) pre-flood, (2) post-flood-pre-cross, (3) post-cross (Church Age), (4) tribulation period, (5) Millennial Reign, (6) post-Millennial Reign, and (7) eternity. From each of our first six ages, The Lord is harvesting ‘saints fruits’ for our seventh age.
