# Etenally elected but Justified only at point of conversion?



## thistle93 (Apr 17, 2012)

Hi! I think that the Bible is pretty clear that those who are elected by God unto salvation are eternally elected even before they existed but that even the elect are children of wrath up until the point of conversion and are only then justified. Correct? Where do people get eternal justification from in the Bible? Is this primary a hyper-calvinists notion? Thank you! 

For His Glory-
Matthew


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## Contra_Mundum (Apr 17, 2012)

John Gill is supposed to be an advocate of eternal justification; and certainly it is possible to find in his commentary phrases to this effect. For example,


> On Tit.3:7
> The justification here spoken of is a declarative one, which takes place in regeneration; and which that is in order to, as here expressed, "that being justified": regeneration does not justify any, but *makes the justified to appear to be such*; justification is an act of God's gracious will *conceived in his mind from eternity*, by which he wills not to impute sin to his people, but to Christ their surety; and that they should be accounted righteous through the righteousness of his Son; in which act of his will the whole essence of justification in his sight lies: this was pronounced on Christ, as their head and representative at his resurrection, when he, as such, was justified, acquitted, and discharged, and they in him; and this is declared in the conscience of a sinner, by the Spirit of God, at his regeneration, when he passes from death to life; and this declaration is here intended, and which is the same with justification by faith; and is here said to be by the grace of God, as justification in every view is, and stands opposed to works of righteousness done by men, by which no man can be justified in the sight of God; in what sense justification is by the free grace of God.


This statement, taken in abstraction from anything else he may have said elsewhere mitigating the language of "appearance" as it relates to justification, certainly sounds supportive of the view that the elect have all their blessings granted immediately, in eternity, with Christ's appointment as Surety. So it is, that justification _proper_ is not assigned to the historic declaration--whether of Christ at the resurrection, the individual at his regeneration/conversion, or at the Last Day's acknowledgement; but to the eternal conception of God.

Hopefully, without imputing to Gill (who is generally thought of as fairly orthodox) a too-strong view that he might repudiate, it could be the case that some, through an overemphasis on the "logic" of redemption, have missed the "transition from wrath to grace in history."


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## Stargazer65 (Apr 17, 2012)

Eph 2:3 says that we were all formerly children of wrath like the rest of mankind.


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