Lectures on the Doctrine of Election

Lectures On The Doctrine Of Election by Alexander C. Rutherford is a nineteenth?century theological critique and exposition of the doctrine of election. The work surveys three broad approaches to election: an Ultra?Calvinistic theory that asserts a predestinating decree granting eternal life to some and eternal punishment to others; a Moderately Calvinistic view that limits the application of the atonement or the Spirit’s operation; and the central Biblical view that election is God’s work of separating believers from the world through the Spirit’s work, faith in Christ, and the ongoing transformative process of sanctification. Rutherford argues that the Calvinist scheme subverts the gospel’s universal offer of salvation, denies free grace, and misframes the nature of the atonement and divine foreknowledge. The text maintains that the gospel is rightly addressed to all people, and that salvation comes by grace through faith, received by means of preaching, the Spirit’s drawing, and the believer’s response. Originally delivered as lectures in Greenock and Glasgow in the early 1850s, the book presents a robust defense of universal atonement and the necessity of the Spirit’s work for conviction and conversion.