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!

Are Some Reprobate?

When Jonathan Edwards preached "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" to bring on the Great Awakening in 1741, his text was Deut. 32:35 as follows: "Their step shall slip in due time; the day of their calamity is at hand."

Reprobate means condemned beforehand. (Those that believe not are condemned already.)  Paul calls them vessels of wrath as opposed to vessels of mercy. It's God's call who we are. Even our niceness is God's gift to us, not our gift to God. God doesn't actively force a person to reject Him or disobey Him--He does it on his own accord. Jean Calvin called this doctrine the "horrible decree." The opposite of reprobation is an election which is clearly mentioned in Titus and 1 Peter. I don't believe in double-predestination or that God makes some reject Him--that is called hyper-Calvinism and Calvin didn't believe that. "To the elect...." If you can prove reprobation which is a doctrine with much consternation like predestination (nobody likes to talk about it), you can by default prove election.

In my view, God passes over the non-elect (known as preterition) and lets them go their own way, but all of us would reject God if He hadn't had worked in our hearts and wills to make us willing to do His will (cf. Phil. 2:13). Compare John 6:44 and 6:65 which say that one cannot come to Jesus unless it has been granted him and the Father draws him (woos him--elko, the Greek word actually means to drag).

Three verses stand out to be brought to our attention.  [All verses in NKJV.] Jude 4 says, "For certain men have crept in unnoticed who long ago were marked out for this condemnation...." 1 Peter 2:8 says, "They stumble, being disobedient to the word, to which also they were appointed." And finally 1 Thessalonians 5:9 says, "For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ." These verses are pretty straightforward and don't need commentary. [All italics are mine.]

Is not God the potter and we the clay; cannot God do with us as He sees fit, whether for common or for honorable use. How then can God blame us if He chooses? This is the question that Paul anticipates in Romans 9:19, "You will say to me then, 'Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?'" If you can answer this you deserve a doctorate in theology. Nota bene:  Paul knew ahead of time that people would wonder about the election and try to reconcile it with free will. The fact is, is that we cannot resist God's will--He always gets His way. NB: REBROBATE IS A BIBLICAL TERM FOUND IN 2 COR. 13:5FF.    Soli Deo Gloria!