How could He love Everyone, but only choose Some?
The idea that God chooses or “elects” people is taught in many Scriptures (Rom 8:29-30; Eph 1:4; 2 Thes 2:13; 1 Pet 1:2). People struggle with this concept. Doesn't that make the whole thing unfair? Isn't it unjust to choose people for salvation? Surely it is then all a stacked-deck, with people nothing more than robots, with no freedom of choice? With these doubts, some people throw out the idea of election altogether, saying it is unbiblical. “God could not love everyone and only choose some”, they say. Some even claim that election is a doctrine invented by faulty human reason, attempting to apply logic to what cannot be understood by reason, resulting in absurd claims. But election is not an abstruse conclusion after convoluted rabbinic reasoning: it is stated in unambiguous, straightforward language. God chose people for salvation.
As much as there are questions raised by this, election is actually implicitly believed by all, and explicitly believed by some. Often people who reject the idea of God's choosing simply haven't thought about what they presently believe. Often they already believe in election, without realising it. For example, try answering these three yes/no questions.
1) Does everyone get saved?
2) Do you believe God is in control of His universe?
3) Could God have created a universe which everyone was saved?
If you answered no to the first, and yes to the last two questions, then you already believe in election, though you may have been taught some false or misleading things about what it means. Here's why…
We all know the answer to the first question is no: not everyone gets saved. If you answered yes to the second, then you believe God is in control of the universe and has both the right and might to rule everything in the universe. If you consequently answered yes to the third question, then you also believe that God could have created a universe in which everyone is saved, but chose not to, then you agree that God chose to not save everyone. Something other than the salvation of every human being motivated God to create. If the thing God wanted most was the salvation of every human ever born, He could have set that world up, and made that world, and not the one we are in. But God did not. He made this world, in which not everyone is saved.
But, says the objector, “God couldn't make that world and still create creatures with free will! As soon as God gave His creatures free will, they had the possibility to sin. God wanted willing, free creatures, not robots. So He couldn't create a world where everyone is saved! If He wanted a world populated by humans made in His image, then some of them falling into sin and condemnation was part of the risk.”
Okay, for the sake of argument, let's agree that God couldn't simultaneously have a world of free beings and a world where everyone is saved. Let's assume the only world God could make with free beings was this one. Here's the problem: God still knew that fact before He created, didn't He? He knew what His creatures would do with their free will. He knew they would fall, and condemn themselves. If God knew that in advance, why did He still create the world, knowing that so many of His creatures would send themselves to Hell? In order to then save them from Hell, He could have simply not created them, or not brought this world into being, right? He could have elected, or chosen to not create them, correct?
There are only two possible answers to this dilemma of why God made a world in which people use their freedom to go to Hell. The first is, God didn't know what would happen. God had no knowledge of the future, because it didn't yet exist. Most people who believe the Bible will reject this answer. If you believe God is sovereign, you also believe He has infinite knowledge of the past, present and future. A god without foreknowledge is not the God of Scripture.
The second possible answer to the question of why God created this world is because God desired something other than (and more than) than the salvation of every human being. If you accept the premise that God is sovereign and omniscient, and agree that not everyone is saved, then even if you believe in an extreme view of human free will, you have to agree that God wants something other than, or more than, universal salvation.
Once you agree with that, then you have, in principle, agreed with the idea of election: that God has chosen to bring into existence a world where some will be saved and some will perish. You might object strenuously that the saved and the lost are saved and lost by their own choice, but you still haven't escaped the issue: God knew all choices in advance and allowed them to come into being, with their foreknown consequences. Even if you insist that we are saved or lost entirely by our own choice, you have to agree that even the existence of human choice is there by God's prior choice. Creating you and giving you permission to use your free will is still a choice God makes. If God makes the choice to create you with full foreknowledge that you will use your free will to reject him, then He has, permissively, ordained that you should go to hell. If I know without any doubt that when I place a gun into your hand, you will kill yourself, then by giving you that gun, there is a level of responsibility I share. I am not responsible for killing you in the way that you are, but neither am I totally passive. I know what you will do with the weapon. God knew what each human would do with the weapon of free choice.
If God chose not to save you from your own damning choice by not creating you in the first place and instead creating you and letting you reject him, we are very close to saying that God did not elect you. You might be uncomfortable with that, but that is the inevitable conclusion with even the most libertarian reading of free will that still retains a view that God knows the future and is in control. In other words, the only way to escape the dilemma of saying that God has ordained the destinies of His creatures is to make God into a lesser god, by removing foreknowledge and omniscience from Him. That “excuses” and “absolves” God from being complicit in the eventual destruction of so many of His creatures. Unfortunately, this effort to uphold God as loving and fair only demotes Him into a finite being who is learning and growing as much as we are.
The biblical alternative is to admit that something other than universal salvation was in God's mind when creating. Something bigger and greater than no universe at all, or a universe without free beings, was “worth” the loss and condemnation of millions of beings. Both Calvinists and Arminians have to admit that this is what Scripture and reality teach us. Yes, we can all agree that there is difficulty in these truths. We can agree that no one can resolve perfectly the tension between divine sovereignty and human responsibility. What we cannot do is insert the word “mystery” whenever we encounter a truth we are uncomfortable with. When Scripture and reason lead us to a difficult conclusion, we had rather say, “I find it difficult to accept”, rather than “It's a mystery”. The one is an honest admission of our finitude before God, the other is pretending that the whole thing is shrouded in an impenetrable fog that prevents anyone from drawing conclusions. The doctrine of election is difficult and we certainly don't know all we would like to know. But it is not some untouchable area of knowledge with the sign “Keep Out” posted above it. God would not have put it in the Bible had He not wanted us to believe and accept what He says about election.
So what does He reveal about this doctrine?
Nine Biblical Truths Regarding the Doctrine of Election
1. God does not wish anyone to be lost.
The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. (2 Pet. 3:9)
God delays the day of final judgement precisely because He does not wish anyone to be lost. He expresses grief over the judgement of unbelievers. "Say to them:`As I live,' says the Lord GOD,`I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?' (Ezek. 33:11)
If God delays His judgment, it is because He does not wish anyone should perish. He wants to allow lots of opportunity for everyone to come to repentance.
2. God wishes everyone to be saved.
For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior,who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time, (1 Tim. 2:3-6)
Paul tells us that God desires all men to be saved. Verse 6 tells us that Christ has provided atonement for all men. This provision is not applied to all men, but it has been provided for all (John 1:29; 1 John 2:2, Heb 2:9). This universal provision is one of that statements of God's desire for all men to be saved. It appears that in God's cosmos, certain ends that are incompatible with certain others. As God sovereignly chooses one end, He eliminates others and chooses some of the things that go with that chosen end.
When the Suez Canal was built, 120 000 men died in its 11-year construction. The builders of the canal did not desire those deaths, but they knew that the choice was either no canal and no deaths, or a canal with the accidental deaths that construction brings. Some argue, “if God knew a group of people could be saved, then He would make sure those circumstances would take place for them to be saved”. But Scripture actually contradicts this idea.
"Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. "But I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you. "And you, Capernaum, who are exalted to heaven, will be brought down to Hades; for if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. (Matt. 11:21-23)
Jesus rebukes the Jewish cities of Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum, saying that had the Gentile cities of Tyre, Sidon and Sodom received the Gospel witness that those Jewish cities had received, those Gentile towns would have believed and been saved. In other words, the Incarnate Son knew of an alternate history, of a different circumstance, in which many thousands of people would have been saved. But God did not choose that world, or that timeline. He chose the world in which most of Tyre, Sidon, and Sodom perished. Even though God knew a way for them to be saved (namely have Christ be among them performing those miracles), He did not ordain that to be. God chose the timeline in which Christ would be in Capernaum, Chorazin and Bethsaida, which meant the loss of the people in those Gentile towns. Why God chose a handful in Galilee over multitudes from Sodom is not revealed to us.
This also flatly contradicts the foresight view of foreknowledge. The foresight view states that God looked ahead in time, saw who would respond positively to the gospel, and then chose those people. But Christ's words show us the opposite. God could have looked into the future before the foundation of the world, and seen this situation: where the people of Sodom, Tyre and Sidon responded positively to the gospel. If foreseeing a positive response constitutes election, then Sodom, Tyre, and Sidon were all elect, but also condemned: a contradiction if there ever was one.
3. No one seeks after God.
There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. (Rom. 3:11)
The human race is not naturally open to persuasion about God. Humans have a vested interest in avoiding God. People are free, but a free person is still going to choose on the basis of what he knows and loves. And if what he knows and loves is selfish and idolatrous, his free choices will refuse God, 100% of the time. Left to themselves, people will not choose salvation. Election represents God's intervention, not God's passive observation. God seeks man, so that man will seek God.
4. Certain people were given to Christ by the Father.
• All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out. (Jn. 6:37)
• My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father's hand. (Jn. 10:29)
• …as You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him. (Jn. 17:2)
• I have manifested Your name to the men whom You have given Me out of the world. They were Yours, You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word. (Jn. 17:6)
• Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are. (Jn. 17:11)
• Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world (Jn. 17:24)
One gets the clear impression that there are specific individuals whom God the Father has given to Christ: not categories of people, not groups of people, but specific individuals.
5. God chooses individuals, and not merely a group or category.
For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified. (Rom. 8:29-30)
Here is a clear, unbreakable chain of cause and effect. The called (of verse 28) are the individuals whom He foreknew. All the individuals foreknown (no more and no less) are the individuals predestined to Christlikeness. All the individuals predestined to Christlikeness (no more and no less) are the individuals called. All the individuals called (no more and no less) are the ones justified. All the individuals justified (no more and no less) are the ones glorified. What is true at the beginning of the process is true at the end of the process. Clearly, we are justified and glorified individually and not by participation in a group. This is a clear, straightforward declaration of individual election. Nor are we chosen merely for service. We are told explicitly that election is for salvation:
But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth, (2 Thess. 2:13)
6. These individuals, we are told, are chosen in Christ,
• …just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, (Eph. 1:4)
When Paul says that God has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that means that God not only determined who would be saved, but He also chose them in view of the plan of salvation and what Christ would do to get them saved. Christ is the salvific lens through which God could foreknow and choose. He could see us in Christ, see us clothed in Christ and love us and choose us.
7. The ultimate goal of God’s choice is the individual’s glorification, not simply the individual’s justification.
• For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified. (Rom. 8:29-30)
No justified person will fail to be glorified. God is focused not merely on saving people from Hell, but on ultimately beautifying them with His own glory, so that He might enjoy them forever.
• …having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He has made us accepted in the Beloved. (Eph. 1:5-6)
• …that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. (Eph. 5:27)
8. These individuals were chosen before the foundation of the world.
• …(for the children not yet being born, nor having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of Him who calls), (Rom. 9:11)
The point of Paul's illustration here is to show that God's choice is not based upon something foreseen in the individuals. Jacob was chosen before they were born. God chose Jacob over Esau prior to birth that it might be perfectly clear that His choice had nothing to do with any amount of work or merit that might seem to pertain to one child or the other. This choice was made to exclude the possibility of anyone thinking God inspected the children, decided who was better and which one He liked. Thus, in making His choice prior to their birth, His choice was demonstrated to be an unconditional choice.
If God were electing based on His foresight, that would come out just the same as if God waited for the moment to see who would come out with the right response and then chose that person. The notion that we are chosen before the foundation of the world works against a conditional view of election. God is not choosing us based upon something He knows we will do, otherwise it is rather irrelevant to say God chose us before the foundation of the world. One may as well then say that God chose us the moment we chose Him. In placing the choice before our existence, the Bible is excluding us and our behaviour as a basis for the choice.
9. These individuals were chosen according to God’s foreknowledge.
• For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. (Rom. 8:29)
• …elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace be multiplied. (1 Pet. 1:2)
Everyone in the Calvinist-Arminian debate admits that election is according to foreknowledge. The question isn’t whether foreknowledge is the basis of election, the question is, what is foreknowledge? Unfortunately, we don't have a biblical definition. The previous point has shown why it is unlikely that foreknowledge is simply the foresight of what people will do. Indeed, the fact that no one seeks after God means that pure foresight would be God seeing all of the human race choosing to perish.
The pure foresight view of election also creates some logical problems. Let's imagine we have three positions in time: #1 God before the the foundation of the world #2 The world God foresees people believing and chooses them #3 The world which now is, where the elect are those God saw believing.
The logical problem is position #2. Who was in control of that world, where people believed, and God observed them believing? If God passively observed that world and saw people believing, and then retroactively chose them for world #3, who operated and controlled world #2? Were people autonomous in that world? Were events self-caused in that world? If people don't come to God on their own, by by divine drawing, was that operative in world#2? If so, then God was not simply observing world #2, but planning it and shaping it, which really amounts to eliminating world #2.
God is either shaping and causing a world, or He is passively observing it. A world passively observed by God is a world not ruled by Him, which could not exist. Foreknowledge, when used of Christ does not simply mean passive observance.
• He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you (1 Pet. 1:20)
Here it must mean an act by which God chose the Son to do the redemptive work. Since Scripture does not explain what foreknowledge is, we can only speculate. Foreknowledge could mean God's “fore-love” of the elect. Foreknowledge could mean “God's fore-choice” of the elect. Foreknowledge could mean God's knowing the outcome of all possible worlds and choosing the one with the maximum number saved. We could speculate that the elect make up for the number of fallen angels. We could speculate that it includes the world in which the Bride of Christ has a particular make-up of all nations. It could refer to those people whom God knows would freely choose Him, even in eternity. But it would be speculation, in the end.
What is not speculation is that God has good reasons for His choice. We are told that God chose “according to the good pleasure of His will” (Eph. 1:5). What pleases God is what is good, right, just, and kind. All His works are done in wisdom. Shall not the Judge of All the Earth do right? We must not suspect God of that which He condemns, nor imagine He fails at the judicial sentiments He created within us. We must confess ignorance in ourselves, not assume guilt or wrongdoing in God.
It is understandable that we might wrestle with the doctrine of God's choice, just as we wrestle with the problem of evil. What we cannot do is deny that Scripture teaches election, or re-make God into a lesser God to suit our sense of fairness.
David de Bruyn