ELECTION: God chose individual people,
not PROFILES of people,
Mark Green,
Many people claim to believe in the doctrine of Election: it is undeniably in the Bible, so if they claim to believe the Bible they must say they believe that doctrine. However, what they believe is often far from what the Bible teaches.
Some view election as the choice of a class of individuals – believers – with their inclusion in the umbrella of election being contingent upon their faith and obedience. In other words, God did not choose to save you or me particularly, but to save believers, whoever might ultimately fall into that category.
The Scriptures teach that election is God’s choice of particular and specific individuals unto eternal salvation. He did not choose “a believer,” but He chose me, I trust, and any belief that I may possess or may have exercised is the result of His choice and not the cause of it. Paul said, “And the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Ga. 2.20).
Paul said that God loved him. God’s love for individual human beings is His foreknowledge, and all our blessings flow from God’s foreknowledge. We are elected according to God’s foreknowledge, Peter tells us. God chose us because He loved us. If Peter had wished to tell us that God loved us because of our foreseen faith, this would have been the perfect place to do it, but he does not say that.
God predestinated us to be conformed to the image of Christ because He loved us: “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son” (Rm. 8.29). God determined that we would ultimately be conformed to Christ’s image. Our conformity results from God’s determination; it is not the cause of it. If our conforming ourselves to Christ’s image was the cause of God’s determination to save us, Paul would not have expressed it as he did.
Paul did not say that God loved and chose nameless, faceless slots within the plan of salvation which were to be filled by believers because of their belief. Paul said that God loved people.
He was also very careful to point out specifically that God did not elect Jacob instead of Esau, because Jacob had been or would be good in some respect, but says that they had not yet been born and had done neither good nor evil, “that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth” (Rom. 9.11).
Paul defines for us what he means when he says that election was before the twins were born. He means that election was “not of works.” If election were because of foreseen faith or works, there would be no reason to emphasize when election took place, since God knew what the twins would do before their acts, and thus to mention the time frame would be irrelevant.
God loved Jacob and elected Jacob. God loved Paul and elected him. I trust He has manifested His love toward me, and thus I am the object of His election. Saying that God loved a believer is not nearly as personal and real as saying that He loved me. If He did love me and I am one of His elect, I know from personal experience and from an acquaintance with my own vile nature that His choice could not have been because of my goodness nor faithfulness. – Editor