Unconditional Election

What is Unconditional Election? Well, to elect is to choose. We are familiar with this, living in a democracy as we do. Unconditional means simply that - that there are no conditions that we have met to be chosen by God.

Now some will undoubtedly say that God, in His foreknowledge, looked down the “corridors of time” and knew who would choose Him on their own. There are some problems with this view. First, whenever God foreknows, He foreknows people, not events or facts. It is true that He knows fact and events beforehand, but that is not how “know” is used of God in the Bible. For example, in Matt. 7:23 Jesus says “I never knew you, depart from Me”. Amos 3:2 says, “You only have I known of all the families of the earth…” Surely God knew all families, but He “chose”, or “loved” Israel.

Romans 8:28-30 - And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

This is the Golden Chain of Redemption. First Christians were foreknown, then predestined, then called, then justified, then glorified. So if God foreknows everyone, then all must also end up being glorified. This would be universalism, which can’t be true because we know some people end up in Hell. Being foreknown, or being “known” by God is more like being “fore-loved” as some commentators have noted. Note that we are passive in all of these things. God is doing all of these things to us. It is personal. God did not merely choose “to save” as some believe.

Also, what would God have seen if He looked down the corridors of time? Eph 2:1-10 tells us that we were dead in trespasses and sins, and were by nature children of wrath just like everyone else. But God made us alive even when we were dead. Re-read the post on Total Depravity if you need a refresher on how bad things were. Before God changes our hearts of stone to hearts of flesh (the natural man can’t receive the things of the Spirit of God - 1 Cor. 2:14) we were enemies of God and had no interest or ability to come to Him (Rom. 5:10, 8:7).

Pastor Sullivant has taught that we become one of the elect at the moment we believe, but the Bible does not support this. That would take all meaning out of the word elect, which means chosen. We become the chosen once we choose God?? Out of our own corrupt nature and free will??  Eph. 1:4 says “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him.” In 2 Tim. 2:10 Paul writes “Therefore I endure all things for the elect's sakes, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.” They are elect before they obtain salvation, chosen before the foundation of the world, just as the Bible consistently says.

All of this does NOT mean that someone could genuinely desire to be saved, and yet find God unwilling to save that person simply because they are not one of the elect! The fact is that if someone is convicted of sin and cries out to be saved, this is evidence that they are indeed one of the elect. And contrary to what some would say, we do still have to believe. It’s just that we know that God first has to “grant us repentance” 2 Tim. 2:25. Even our faith is a gift from Him. The natural man can’t receive it.

This also does not mean that we do not preach Christ to people. The Great Commission is clear that we need to preach the gospel to everyone. We don’t know who the elect are. We simply do what is commanded of us (preach the gospel to everyone) and we know that Christ will build His church. Rom. 10:14 says “how will they hear without a preacher?” The elect will respond, and the rest will probably make fun of us and our God. 1 Cor. 1:18 – “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.”

We can be confident that if our message is clear and true, that God will perform the work that only He can do within the hearers. And if people don’t believe, we do not resort to emotionalism, or clever sales tactics, or whatever to get more “converts”. We don’t lose sleep over those who don’t believe in the sense that it’s our fault that people end up in Hell. We do pray for them earnestly, and ask God to work within them as He has worked within us. Calvinism doesn’t destroy evangelistic zeal, it is the source of it because we know that the elect will respond to God’s truth. He has chosen the “foolishness of preaching to save them that believe” - 1 Cor. 1:21.

Of course there are those that merely profess faith, but are really tares among the wheat, as the parable says. Their fruit will reveal this in time. Remember, tares are very hard to tell apart from the real wheat.

By the way, most Arminians pray like Calvinists. They pray God to change people’s hearts, or have someone share the gospel with them, which is right, but they believe in a “free will” in the sense that God will not impose Himself on them or override their free will. They believe God is already doing everything He can to convince these people to believe, so what more could they ask God to do? Calvinists are not inconsistent here, because we know God is the one Who changes hearts.

Well how can God choose some and not others? Some would say that’s not fair! I would reply that if you want fair, all would be condemned. It is God’s love and grace that keeps any of us from suffering what we deserve. If it is God plus our decision, we would have reason to boast because we were better than those who were too stubborn, right? And don’t we love people in different ways too? I love my wife and children in a different way than I love your wife and children, and that is a good thing. Don’t we allow God to make these distinctions? Read Rom. 9:6-24. You have probably never heard these verses read across a pulpit in Winkler, but the undeniable sovereignty of God in salvation is demonstrated here. So is there unrighteousness with God? “God forbid, may it never be!”

Search the Scriptures. Look up the Bible references, and see whether these things are true. Then thank God for saving you, if you are saved. If you aren’t, bow before your Creator and ask Him to have mercy on you because of the finished work of Jesus, Who bore the punishment that we as sinners deserve.