Needless Consternation Over Election

Calvinist or Reformed thinkers, theologians, and believers are accused of stealing man's free will and making us puppets, automatons, robots, even pets of God. Election is a kind of determinism, but it's not determination or coercion.   We are free agents, but free will is not a biblical doctrine but a Romanist one; it's nowhere mentioned in Scripture.  What I mean by free will is not the power to make choices, but the independent power to receive faith and salvation apart from God's grace and influence.  Jesus said, "Apart from Me you can do nothing" [evidently not even believe].

He also said that believing in Him is the work of God (cf. John 6:29). Why election, that He chose us from the beginning, is so important is that it's the overture to our salvation--the first step in our salvation.  What Calvinists believe is that our salvation is not our wills ultimately to decide, but God working on our wills.

When we say that God knows who will be saved and elects those He foreknows, it's not referring to the prescient view that God elects us because we will have faith--leading to the narrative of merit in our salvation, but that God elects us unto faith--He decides in whom He will work the miracle of regeneration in.  Some people say that this is unfair that everyone should have an equal chance, but if we were all left alone to ourselves by God, none of us would come to Him in faith and repent.  If God is to save anyone it must be by election according to His purpose and will.  Indeed He regards the salvation of the elect more important than not interfering with their wills, and His glory more important than the salvation of everyone.

The result of God's holiness and justice, which require punishment for sin and evil, eternal damnation in hell must exist.  If God knows our destiny, it must be determined; and if determined, we must ask by whom?  God doesn't play dice with the universe of souls and also isn't pleased in the death of the wicked nor rejoice in their punishment, it is justice meted out in mercy but due justice not more than required without any cruelty 

This is the crux of the matter:  human choice doesn't mean without any influence from God to be free.   No one can say they came to God entirely on their own initiative without any grace leading them to God known to some as the wooing of the Holy Spirit--those who claimed they did, probably left Jesus without His grace too.  NB:  God determines our nature and nurture, circumstances, and events, or character and innate righteousness, our contribution to God is nothing--that's why we must be saved by grace--that means very little of our decisions ultimately depends upon our wills and choices.   But God does promise to give us a choice and even the non-elect have made choices against God, not for Him.

But God has determined to save His sheep or the elect, just like he chose the elect angels, He chooses us, we don't choose Him.   "The elect obtained unto it..." (Cf. Rom. 11:7).    We are elect according to His purpose and grace, since God will have mercy on whom He will and no one can resist God's will, being more powerful than ours (cf. Rom. 9:19).   God is totally able to influence our wills to do something of His will voluntarily--He can make the unwilling willing!   But at no time are we forced to do something we don't want to against our wills.  We cooperate all the way with God's sovereign will willingly and voluntarily and not by compulsion or impulsion.  Remember:  "As many as were ordained to eternal life believed" (cf. Acts 13:48).

The questions posed are:  Why are some saved and others not?  Does God woo all equally?  If so, why do some respond and others don't? Does man need free will?  If it's determined, do we have a choice?

If God woos all equally, and some do respond; therefore, it must be by human merit or inherent goodness and wouldn't be unconditional, and if God doesn't woo all equally, as He doesn't, then that means the ultimate destiny of man is in God's hands, meaning God decides who gets wooed and by how much.  It's a fact though that some are saved and others not because God cannot save all and salvage His justice and maintain holiness and the purity of heaven--He must judge sin and has no pleasure in the death of the wicked.  But God is unjust to no one, salvation is not justice, but a form of non-justice known as grace and mercy.  If God had to save anyone at all, it would be justice!

We are not born free but in bondage and slavery to sin. We don't need free wills to be saved but wills made free!   Our wills are stubborn and need saving too, they are not righteous and able to make free choices:  Augustine of Hippo said, we are "free but not freed," meaning that we've lost our liberty like a man in prison who is still human with a will.  If God left it up to us, no one would be saved because we're all stubborn.  God gives us a choice to make and no one has an excuse or can charge God with wrong for how His Maker made him or Potter molded him; however, we're all culpable for the choices (cf. Josh. 24:15) we make throughout our adult life after the age of accountability (cf. Deut. 1:39; Isa. 7:15).

In sum, we must all give God the glory in our salvation, which is "of the LORD," not mankind, and the only plan giving Him all the glory (Soli Deo Gloria!) is for it to be unconditional election by grace through faith.  No one will have any basis of boasting in God's presence.    Soli Deo Gloria!

Closing The Deal

"Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed--not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence--continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose" (Phil. 2:12-13, NIV). 
[Note that God is able to mold us like clay in a potter's hand (Isa. 64:8)!]

"[Who] have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father..."  (1 Pet. 1:2, NIV).  [Note that we did not merit our election or it would be conditional, and we would have place to boast in God's presence.]

Salvation is like a done deal, but not to the highest bidder, but to the lowest! He came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance (cf. Luke 5:32; Matt. 9:13).  Jesus said that healthy people don't need a doctor by analogy, but sick people do (cf. Matt. 9:12).   Remember, religion says "do" while Christ says "done." If we think we are worthy, we're not.  Some believers actually are under the delusion that they cooperated with God for their salvation, and thus did some presalvation work in preparation.  God works grace in our hearts to make us willing and able to believe, known as special grace (common grace is given to all for general blessings and gifts according to Psalm 145:9).

The better we think we are, the less qualified we are.  Someone who thinks he is someone must become humble like a child (cf. Matt. 18:3) to enter the kingdom of God.  The only qualification for salvation, then, is to realize your need for God (to be "poor in spirit"), and your spiritual bankruptcy.  We have nothing but brokenness and strife to offer Him, according to the song.  Sometimes God has to bring us to an end of ourselves as He did to Nebuchadnezzar, and actually break us before we are willing to believe in Him.

Regeneration is God's work of grace, and its fruit is repentance and accompanying faith (call it either penitent faith or believing repentance, if you will!).  We are saved via sanctification of the Spirit (comes first or preceding faith, according to 2 Thess. 2:13 and 1 John 5:1 in ESV), and belief in the truth (coming afterward or post-regeneration and sanctification).  God actually quickens faith within us or awakens our spirit to the truth, and knowing the truth sets us free per John 8:32.  Charles Swindoll says, people are addicted to doing something for their salvation; the Philippian jailer asked what he must do, and the Jews asked Jesus what they must do to do the works of God ("this is the work of God:  to believe in the One whom He has sent," cf. John 6:29).  We must realize faith as a gift of grace and not a work of merit, for that would be meritorious salvation and we would have reason to boast. Salvation is not according to any work we did (cf. Titus 3:5).

God alone controls and is in charge of our destiny--it's in His hands!  He chose us and we didn't choose Him, according to Jesus in John 15:16. Note also that "many are called, but few are chosen," according to Matt. 22:14.  Salvation then is not some deal we make with God or something God owes us because of our faith--that would be justice if God had to save us and not grace.  God owes no one salvation and doesn't have to save anyone!  Salvation, then, is not a tradeoff, or something we give to God, namely faith, in return for salvation!  If we are already changed people we don't need salvation; we come to Christ for a changed and new, transformed life, we don't offer or give Him one in exchange for salvation--that's not grace!  We come as we are, but don't remain that way!  FAITH IS RECEIVED, NOT ACHIEVED, AS THE UNMERITED GIFT OF GOD (GRACE), and we didn't conjure it up of ourselves or our effort, but faith comes by the preaching of the Word  (cf. Rom. 10:17).

There are several proof texts that demonstrate that faith is a gift (Rom. 12:3;  Acts 16:14; Acts 18:27; Eph. 2:8-9; 2 Pet. 1:1; Phil. 1:29; John 6:29), but when you understand grace and are grace-oriented it just makes sense that this has to be and the only way for God to get all the glory (sola gratia, Soli Deo Gloria).  Keep in mind that our salvation cannot be earned, isn't deserved, and cannot be repaid.  When a child is born, by analogy, he can take no credit for cooperating, in fact, he fought it!

God doesn't ask our permission before working on our hearts (He's determined to save us as the "Hound of Heaven" dogs us), He sovereignly chooses to save us and woos (the actual word in Koine is elko, which means to drag, like to drag into court).  We don't meet God's standard for salvation either--all have fallen short and all our works are as filthy rags (Rom. 3:23; Isa. 64:6)--in that our election unto faith is unconditional--without meeting conditions in any way, including faith and repentance as prerequisites; they are the fruit of regeneration.  In sum, this is God's way of making believers out of us--the beauty of it all is that we are made to want and desire Him (He turns hearts of stone into hearts of flesh--cf. Ezek. 36:26), and apart from grace no one would; we have truly "believed through grace" (cf. Acts 18:27), and have received our faith (cf. 2 Pet. 1:1), which was granted to us as a privilege (cf. Phil. 1:29).

One of Jesus' hard sayings was that no one "can come to Him," unless it has been "granted of the Father" and the Father "draws him" (cf. John 6:44, 65).  We aren't saved because we were wiser, smarter, more virtuous, more disciplined, more successful, nor more popular, but because of God's "good pleasure," "will," "purpose and grace" (cf. Eph. 1:5; Eph. 1:11; 2 Tim. 1:9). It wasn't anything we did at all!  We are not elected because we will believe or that God foresees us as believing (cf. that's the beginning of merit and is called the prescient view).  However, we are elected unto faith and repentance and so our destiny is ultimately in God's hands and He chooses, if God weren't in charge and sovereign, He wouldn't be God--for what kind of God isn't sovereign?  God is not one who reigns but doesn't rule like the do-nothing sovereigns of GB. In short, God's sovereignty is not limited by our freedom--it's total and complete!

When understanding God's freedom, note that He is not free to sin, and yet He is totally free.  We will enjoy this kind of freedom in glory, but now we are limited and fallen and are unable to do good or please God in the flesh (cf. Isa. 64:6; Rom. 3:11; Rom. 8:7-8)--our freedom is limited this side of glory.   We are only able to sin before salvation, and after we have the ability to sin, and not to sin, while Christ was totally unable to sin!  The will is stubborn (cf. Jer. 5:23; 1 Sam. 15:22-23; Rom. 1:32; Psalm 81:12; Jer. 18:12; Isa. 63:17), and needs to be converted as well as the rest of us, we are in a state of rebellion before salvation.

That's the nature or essence of sin:  Man's "Declaration of Independence" form God! Man goes his own way (cf. Isa. 53:6).   In acknowledging God's sovereignty and lordship, He has reserved the right and power to have mercy on whom He will have mercy, and to harden whom He will harden (cf. Rom. 9:18).  The elect will attain unto it, while the rest will be hardened (cf. Rom. 11:7).  Only those appointed unto salvation will believe (cf. Acts 13: 48).   Soli Deo Gloria! 

By The Grace Of God

"[H]e predestined us ... according to the purpose of his will"  (Ephesians 1:5, ESV). 

Paul would not boast, but in the Lord, but he was forced to tell of his sufferings for Jesus (cf. 2 Cor. 11) as if they were the marks of Jesus, a crown, and not just a feather in his cap.  Jesus warned him of the great things he must suffer for sake of His name upon his salvation experience in Acts 9:16.   We are all that we are by the grace of God, not just Paul. "By the grace of God, I am what I am..." (cf. 1 Cor. 15:10).   George Whitefield said, upon seeing a man dragged to the gallows, what he thought:  "There but for the grace of God, go I." That's humility, thinking of others rather than yourself, (if God were to withdraw His restraining grace from us, we'd be all worthy of prison or worse!), and thinking of your unworthiness compared to the grace of God.

None of us was elected conditionally, but unconditionally, and not according to anything we did or didn't do, or any work or righteousness in the flesh.  "Grace reigns through righteousness." (Cf. Rom. 5:21), and that means that grace is sovereign and when God decides to send grace it's irresistible and effectual in its purpose according to the will of God. God's sovereignty is over everything and absolute and is not limited by our freedom--what He says and decrees will happen according to plan! We have "believed through grace" (cf. Acts 18:27), and God quickened faith within us, as we received faith or were given it,  and didn't achieve it--it's a gift, not a work!  If it were a work we would have merit to boast of.  Merit is opposed to and counter to grace; we cannot earn salvation, didn't deserve it, and can never pay God back for it.

It is important to be grace-oriented to get away from the paralysis of legalism and the mentality that we have a performance-based faith and works earn favor with God or that we can ingratiate ourselves with Him.  "The faith you have is the faith you show, they say in theology.  Christians aren't saved by good works, but unto them and in order to do them as a result of gratitude and a changed heart.  We are indeed saved by faith alone, as the Reformers taught, but not by a faith that is alone!  Faith without works is dead, according to James 2:17 and we are not saved by them, nor without them, for they prove our faith as fruit--as a sign of a good tree.  (Ephesians 2:10 says we are "saved unto good works, which God ordained beforehand, that we should walk in them.")   God's providence guides us to a productive life of good deeds and works.

We cannot believe, except by grace, because Jesus said that we can do nothing apart from Him:  "Apart from Me you can do nothing"  (cf. John 15:5).  Every good thing comes from God, the Ultimate of Goodness or Supreme Good (of Plato), and source of all blessings; and every perfect gift is from grace to us to be stewards of.  Our righteousness, then, is not a gift or offering to God, but His gift to us!  "Who makes you to differ?  What do you have that you didn't receive?"  (Cf. 1 Cor. 4:7).  If left to ourselves, none of us would've chosen Christ (cf. Matt. 22:14, "Many are called, but few are chosen" and cf. John 15:16, "You did not choose me, but I chose you"). We weren't inclined to come to Him, and our destiny is ultimately in the hands of God, not ours!

The good works we do are God working through us as vessels of honor doing His bidding and will.  "I will not venture but to speak of what Christ has accomplished through me"  (cf. Romans 15:18).  "... you have done for us all our works"  (Isa. 26:12, ESV).  Our fruit is from God per Hosea 14:8 and the fruit of the Spirit is God's blessing on our lives as He cultivates us and causes us to grow; gifts are given, fruits are grown.  We don't automatically exhibit all the fruits as infant believers, but must grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord, as 2  Pet. 3:18 exhorts.

Understanding grace is paramount to comprehend that salvation is all grace  (the work of God according to John 6:29, ESV, which says, "... This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent..!) and not our work:  "Salvation is of the LORD," according to Jonah 2:9 and that means it's not synergistic or a cooperative venture with God, nor a work of man alone apart from God's aid, but wholly accomplished by God;  salvation is the accomplishment of God, not the achievement of men, which is religion trying to gain the approbation of God and reach out to Him--Our God took the initiative and reached down to us in grace, seeing our hopelessness, and desperateness without His intervention.  He called us, not because of our works [of righteousness or pre-salvation works], but according to His purpose and grace (cf. 2 Tim. 1:9).  Works say "Do," while God says, "Done."

 No one can pat themselves on the back or give themselves kudos for achieving salvation as if they were wise, good, virtuous, or even intelligent!  It remains a mystery why God chooses some and not others ("the elect obtained unto it and the rest were hardened" according to Roman 11:7 and Acts 13:48 says that "as many as were appointed unto eternal life believed."

The Golden Chain of Redemption from Romans 8:29-30 makes it patent that God loses no one in the shuffle from foreknowledge to glorification--all who are called are justified, not some lucky ones who endure through trials or don't "lose their salvation." These verses militate against the prescient view that God elected us because we had or would have faith, instead, we are elected unto faith, not because of it--there is no room for any merit in our salvation.  You must distinguish between the inward call of God, which is always effectual, and the outward gospel call given by us to the lost to exhort them to repent and believe in Jesus, which can turn on deaf ears and be ineffectual.

And so none of us has the right to get a big head, even Paul had a thorn in the flesh to keep him from getting one, and we are all one in Christ, with no elite believers who are privileged or especially blessed--God is no respecter of persons and shows no partiality (cf. Rom. 2:11; Acts 10:34).  If we think we came to Christ on our own and by our own ability without being wooed, we probably left alone too and don't have the Spirit.  If we don't need regeneration or grace to believe, what good is it and who needs it?  The only ones who get the call are the ones the Father grants can come to Him and the ones He draws or woos (elko or to drag in Greek--implying force). 

There is no second blessing, or higher life, or work of grace, as some holiness-movement believers (Neo-Pentecostal or charismatics) will have you believe--nowhere are we commanded or exhorted to seek the "baptism" of the Spirit.  "We are all baptized into one body by the Spirit"  (cf. 1 Cor. 12:13).  There is one Lord, one faith, and only one baptism according to Eph. 4:4!  Soli Deo Gloria!  

The Few, The Chosen

Christian theologians don't have any problem realizing that God chose Israel, or even that He only saved a remnant that He preserved; however, they have consternation over believing that God can choose Christians and predestine their salvation.  We were not chosen because of our works, but according to the purpose of His will (cf. Eph. 1:5).  It wasn't anything in us that merited salvation--it was grace all the way, from beginning to end.  Jesus said in John 15:16 that we didn't choose Him, but He chose us.  Matt. 22:14 says:  "Many are called [the outward gospel call], but few are chosen [elected]." This is so we have no basis of pride! 

People generally believe they are protecting God's reputation by denying predestination, because they perceive it as making God out as a despot.  We are elect according to the foreknowledge of God, which means God loved us personally before salvation. We are elected unto faith, not because of faith (which is the prescient view that Romans 8:29-30 militates against).  Election must be unconditional or it opens the door to merit, it had to be by grace alone and God saw nothing good in a totally depraved man.  We were not inclined to come to Him but only came because of the wooing of the Holy Spirit ("No man can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draws him," John 6:44).

Yes, this does mean our ultimate destiny is in the hands of God and God left nothing to chance or out of His sovereignty (Jonathan Edwards said he liked to assign absolute sovereignty to God):  This means there isn't even "a maverick molecule in the universe!"  Grace is sovereign because it is irresistible according to Reformed tradition--this is stated in Romans 5:21, where it says "grace reigns through righteousness."

Who is the promise of salvation designated for, then?  "For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself"  (Acts 2:29, ESV). There are two callings here:  The outward call that we announce to the world of sinners and the inner calling that is effectual that God does.  "Who has believed our report, and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?"  (cf. Isa. 53:1).  Doctor Luke says, "as many as were appointed to eternal life believed" (Acts 13:48, ESV).  God does reserve the right to have mercy on whom He will (Rom. 9:15,18).   God quickened or kindled faith within the elect so that they got born again and exercised faith and repentance unto salvation. If left to ourselves, none of us would come to Christ or believe in Him.

Philippians 2:13 says that God is at work within us both to do and to will of His good pleasure--God woos us and works on our hearts to make believers out of us and turn hearts of stone into hearts of flesh, because He is the Potter and we are simply clay in His hands. God can make the "unwilling" willing or the unbelieving believe!   God has given man a choice, but we do not have the ability to respond favorably to the gospel message apart from the grace of God working in our hearts ("Apart from Me you can do nothing," says John 15:5), and grace prevails over our reluctance.

No one is able to resist God's will according to Romans 1:19 and God has mercy on whomever He wills and hardens whomever He wills (cf. Rom. 9:18). We have a destiny:  "For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Thess. 5:9, ESV; cf. Jude 4; 1 Pet. 2:7).  Note the order of God's sanctification prior to faith:  "[Because] God chose you as the first-fruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth" (2 Thess. 2:13, ESV).  Who got saved? "What then?  Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking.  The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened [blinded]" (Rom. 11:7, ESV).

We don't necessarily need free wills to be saved then, but wills made free!  "If the Son shall set you free, you shall be free indeed." (John 8:36).  We are not born free and innocent but enslaved to sin and totally depraved.  Only the Son can set us free and the truth is the agent.  There is temporal will like what foods you like and you do have the power to choose them, but spiritual and/or moral freedom is not granted--Adam had it and lost it and we are in Adam, our representative who lost it for us before salvation, when we are in Christ and set free.  John 6:44 says that no one can come to the Father unless He draws him and v. 65 says it must be granted by the Father.

Apart from Christ, we can do nothing (cf. John 15:5).  If left to ourselves, none of us would've chosen Christ!  No one can resist God's will according to Romans 9:19 and our salvation doesn't depend upon human will according to Romans 9:16. ("It is not of him who wills.....").  God's sovereignty is not compromised nor sacrificed because of our wills--He remains 100 percent in control of all events and things per Ephesians 1:11 (ESV), which says God "works all things according to the counsel of his will."

The only way our will could be considered free is that we feel no outside force and never do anything we don't want to do--God doesn't coerce us against our wills but makes the unwilling willing.  We are never forced to do what we do not want to do.  We do make choices but God decides what the choice is and He knows how we will respond and can manipulate or orchestrate whatever events He wills to precipitate His divine, decreed, sovereign will. Free will must be seen only as the ability to make choices based on our desires uncoerced. 

In sum, our salvation does not depend upon our wills (they are so little of the equation that depends on God being sovereign anyway--as He orchestrates all events providentially):  "So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy" (Romans 9:16, ESV).   Soli Deo Gloria!

Why the Consternation About Election?

Americans like to think like William Ernest Henley in Invictus that we are the "captain of our souls and the master of our fates."  To think that God is ultimately in control of our destiny is like making God a despot. The Bible teaches that God chooses some to salvation, and not because of anything in them, (merit) or of anything they have done, but "according to His good pleasure." I have heard it said that God gives everyone an equal chance; that He is equal opportunity, as it were. (Did God give Pharaoh the same opportunity as Moses, or Esau as He did to Jacob?) Then some are better qualified to be saved than others; however, the chief qualification to be saved is to realize you don't deserve to be.

If God did give everyone an equal chance and woos everyone the same, then why do some respond positively? Are they better than others? Do they have more inherent virtue? Faith is not a work and therefore non-meritorious. The Bible teaches that faith is a gift and not something we conjure up ("Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God," according to Rom. 10:17).
We are elected unto faith, not because of faith.

This is the so-called prescient view that God just sees ahead who will believe and chooses them. However, the election is unconditional, and not because we deserve it--we are in no superior or more virtuous than others who don't happen to believe because it is grace all the way. If mercy is deserved, it is no longer mercy, but justice. Jesus said that we are unable to come to Him and only when the Father "draws" us ("No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him...") can we respond to the gospel message (cf. John 6:44; 65).

Sometimes the gospel falls on deaf ears because God hasn't worked in their hearts to prepare them. We do naught to prepare ourselves unto salvation. There is an inward call of God and a general call that we do by preaching. Then who believe? "The elect attained unto it, and the rest were hardened," says Rom. 11:7. Acts 13:48 declares, "As many as were appointed unto eternal life believed." According to Rom. 8:30, everyone whom God calls gets saved. Left alone, none of us would've chosen Christ. We love Him because He first loved us. "No one seeks for God," says Romans 3:11.   Soli Deo Gloria!

Is God Equal Opportunity?

In America we are obsessed with the Jeffersonian ideals of equality and that God created all men equal--this is our American way of thinking. This works fine for the government to give liberty, justice and equal rights to all, but God doesn't work that way--sorry to say. Do you think that the aborigine in Australia has the same opportunity as an American to hear the gospel? "How can they believe if they haven't heard?" says Paul in Romans 8. The clearly says in Rom. 1:20 that they are without excuse whoever they are-they have enough light in creation itself to condemn them and they also knowingly go against their own conscience, being self-condemned.

Did Sodom have the same chance as Capernaum which saw many signs and miracles? No. Did everyone at the time of Abraham in Ur have equal opportunity to respond to God's call, or did God single out him and call him in a special way as his chosen one? Evangelicals who believe in a chosen people (Israel) have a hard time admitting that God can choose individuals as well and that we are elect or chosen even before we are born. Did Esau have the same opportunity as Jacob whom God loved before he was born, while He hated Esau?

Revelation 3:20 is often quoted to say that God is standing at the door (i.e., of everyone's heart) and knocking for permission unto salvation. Let's look at the other verses in the letter to Laodicea while we quote this verse as it is often quoted out of context. Actually, Jesus says, "As many as I love I rebuke and chasten, be zealous therefore, and repent." Doesn't this mean Jesus discriminates? He is standing at the door of the church to read it in context and is addressed to the lukewarm believer who is out of fellowship--just being saved doesn't mean fellowship!  Jesus has no fellowship with unbelievers either, so the "cold" person may not refer to an unbeliever, but to a believer distancing himself from Christ. Do Christ and Belial have anything in common that they should fellowship? The believer that offends Christ is the lukewarm, complacent one. Jesus said to one inquirer, "You are not far from the Kingdom of God." Psalm 119:155 says, "Salvation is far from the wicked...." If salvation is far then how can they have equal opportunity with those to whom it is near? [A paradox!]

The "whosoever" of John 3:16 is often cited out of context as evidence that anyone can get saved. Actually, Christ said that "No one can come to the Father unless it has been granted him of the Father" (John 6:65). And "the Father draws [the wooing of the Holy Spirit] him" in John 6:44. You see, if God does woo all people the same, then the only way to get saved is by being better than someone else (But Scripture says in 1 Cor. 4:7, "Who makes you to differ? What do you have that you didn't receive?" Jonah says, "Salvation is of the Lord." This means it is not a cooperative venture where we do our best and God helps us. It's all grace and God gets all the glory. Soli Deo Gloria. This implies no merit system.

 Does anyone still not believe that the Holy Spirit doesn't take many times to sink in? The "whosoever" implies that anyone who believes will be saved but it doesn't say all can believe. "If anyone wills to do His will he shall know of the doctrine..." (John 7:17). Ultimately, our salvation is in God's hands and He chose us--we didn't choose him. ("I chose you and you didn't choose me..." as Jesus says in John 15:16.) (Cf. Eph. 1:5,11 [predestination] and Rom. 8:29-30.)   Soli Deo Gloria!

Who Chose Whom?

The question is whether we chose Christ first before God chose us, or that God chose us because He saw that we would choose us (called the prescient view); the former being that we become the elect when we get saved, instead of being born elect, and the latter that God merely saw something meritorious in us that prompted election (which would be the beginning of salvation by works). The election is unconditional, meaning that there was nothing in us that God saw to make Him elect us. The answer is that God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world and that we were elect and predestined from our conception to be saved. "For the elect obtained unto it, and the rest were hardened...." Christ said, "You did not choose Me, but I chose you... [John 15:16]."

 Fact is, we never would've chosen Christ if He hadn't intervened and poured out His grace on us to make us willing (yes, God can make us willing to do His will--see Psa. 110:3 and Phil. 2:13). The miracle is not that all don't get saved, but that anyone gets saved--if God would've chosen to save only one He would've been justified.

Jesus said in John 15:5 that without Him we can do nothing. That means that we couldn't even choose Christ apart from grace. The doctrine of total depravity or total inability attests to this fact--all of our nature is infected and depraved with sin, and we are as bad off as we can be. God gives us all a choice, but that does not mean we can choose without grace. Pelagius, the heretic, argued that God can only hold us responsible for what we can do, and this is what people are saying when they say that if the non-elect can't choose, that they have an excuse (that they were on the wrong list). The Word says in Rom. 1:20, "...They are without excuse." The blame is theirs, not God's. Romans 9:20 says, "O man, who are you to reply against God...?" God is no man's debtor, says Luther; and He didn't have to save anyone, just as He did not spare the angels who sinned. "...Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?" (Gen. 18:25).

Some say that election makes God look like the worst of despots--meaning the condemned never had a chance. John 5:40 says that "you were not willing." Do you remember the old poem Invictus by William Ernest Henley? "I am the captain of my soul, I am the master of my fate." Well, sorry to say that God is the master of your destiny and the conqueror of your soul if you are saved." God never gives up His sovereignty in order to get someone saved. "Many are called, but few are chosen." Acts 13:48 says, "For as many as were ordained to eternal life believed."

One of the slogans of the Reformation was soli Deo Gloria, which means "to God alone be the glory." If we choose Christ on our own ability, apart from God's help, then we get some of the glory--but God wants all the glory. It all depends on whether you see salvation as a human achievement or divine accomplishment.

In summary, we owe our faith to our election, not our election to our faith.

SOLI DEO GLORIA!