Chapter 8
Who Chose Whom?
The Bible teaches clearly that the Father chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world according to the good pleasure of His will. (Eph. 1:4-5) However, the free will salvation view tries to modify this biblical view. To make God seem fair, this view says that God based His choice on what He foresaw people would do in their lives. In other words, God looked down through the tunnel of time, before the foundation of the world, and, in His omniscience and foreknowledge, He knew who, of their own free will, would choose Him or reject Him. So, on the basis of His foreknowledge of what people would do with the gospel, God chose them. Those that He foresaw would accept Christ, He chose or elected them. Those He foresaw would not accept Him, He passed over. Let’s examine some of the biblical passages used to support this view.
God’s Foreknowledge
Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To the pilgrims of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, 2 elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: (l Peter 1:1-2)
There is no question that verse 2 states the “...elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father…” What does foreknowledge mean? The word foreknowledge simply means to know beforehand. The next question we have to answer is what is it that the Father knew beforehand? Although God knows everything that is going to happen in the future, nowhere in this verse does it say that the elect were chosen according to God’s foreknowledge of what they would do in their lives. It just simply says the elect according to the foreknowledge of God. Now, let’s think this through. Wouldn’t God have had to know beforehand who these individuals were if He was going to elect them before the foundation of the world? Here the words elect according to the foreknowledge of God simply mean God knew beforehand the individuals He was going to elect. He knew who they were; He knew their names in His foreknowledge. In other words, God’s foreknowledge in this passage had only to do with knowing people. Nowhere does it say here that God elected anyone based on His foreknowledge of what they did in their lives.
29 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)
Again, this verse simply says that those God predestined (chose or elected before time) He knew who they were beforehand. The key word in verses 29 and 30 is “whom” which is a personal pronoun and refers to people not to actions. Notice this personal pronoun is used four times in these verses. God had to have this knowledge of who people were beforehand to be able to choose them from the beginning. There is nothing here that says God based his choice of particular persons on His foreknowledge of what they did in their lives. His foreknowledge here again has to do with people. There are significant problems with the free will view as to why God chose the elect.
First, if God chose people based on what they did in their lives, salvation is a reward for what they did. It turns the grace of God into a salvation based on the merits or actions of men. If God does His part, and man does his part, God rewards man with salvation. This is not the salvation plan of the Bible.
Second, it takes away from God some of His glory in the salvation of man. Whatever man claims for himself, his free will leading to his salvation, then an equal amount is taken away from the glory of God.
Therefore, this free will view of the foreknowledge of God that bases election and thus salvation on the foreseen actions or merits of men is unscriptural and not true. The true and scripturally correct view is the free grace view of salvation.
According to the Good Pleasure of His Will
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 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, 5 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 made us accepted in the Beloved. (Eph. 1:3-6)
11 In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, (Eph. 1:11)
The words in the previous verses explain how God chose us in Christ. He didn’t choose us based on His foreknowledge of our merits, actions, or decisions. He chose us based on the good pleasure, purpose, and counsel of His will. This is all God tells us and is all we are allowed to know. These words prove that salvation is by the free grace of God and not according to our wills. If it is by our wills, then our salvation is a reward and not a gift.
However, we know that salvation is a free gift from God.
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast. (Eph. 2:8-9)
We can boast in rewards, but if salvation is by free grace we have nothing of which to boast. We have to humbly accept the fact that we did absolutely nothing to merit our salvation from God. He chose us simply because He loved us before the foundation of the world.
So, the free will view puts the cart before the horse. It turns the free grace of God in His election of His people into a decision by God based on the actions of men. Who determines man’s salvation in the free will view? Is it God or the spiritually dead unsaved sinner? Who chose whom? Notice a verse Jesus spoke to His disciples.
You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. (John 15:16)
We know that the biblical answer is God chose man first and enabled those chosen ones to come to Him. The saved man thinks he chose Christ, and he did, but only after and because God first chose him.
26 For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. 27 But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; 28 and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, 29 that no flesh should glory in His presence. (1 Cor. 1:26-29)
As stated previously, God has always been in the choosing business. We see here that God has called and chosen the brethren, those who are and will become believers. However, God’s ways are different than man’s ways. God doesn’t choose on the same basis that man would choose. He often does the opposite. He may choose some of the most unlikely people so that no flesh would glory in His presence. This was what He did when He chose the twelve disciples. They were common, ordinary men who were uneducated and not eloquent. They would be considered lower class persons. Some were fishermen, and one was a hated tax collector. God chose these people so that He would get all the glory and credit in their success. They could not glory in it, for they knew it all came from God.
The proper order is that God chose an elect people in the beginning according to His secret good pleasure and the purpose of His will. Those chosen then chose Christ at the appointed time after they experienced the new birth. God did not use His foreknowledge of the actions of men to elect them for the Bible says none seek God or do good deeds that please God. (Rom. 3:10-11) He simply foreknew who they were and then chose those individuals based on His unconditional love for them. All to the praise of His glory and grace!
The Blowing Winds of the New Birth
Before closing this chapter, let’s go back to Jesus’ meeting with Nicodemus to learn more of the unconditional nature of God’s electing love.
7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:7-8)
Nicodemus was confused about the new birth so Jesus here explains this to him in more depth. How is the new birth, being born again, or being regenerated by God, just like the wind that blows this way and that way? One cannot ascertain where the wind comes from or which way it is going. The wind has a random nature to it. This is exactly like the new birth in God’s grace. God bestows the new birth on those to whom He has chosen to give it, not according to their works, merits, faithfulness, or actions. To us it appears that God’s grace is randomly given to some, His elect, and not to others. It just looks random from our view point, but Scripture states God based His choice or election of individuals according to the good pleasure and purpose of His will. (Eph. 1:3-5, 11) God has His own reasons why He chooses some and not others. He does not reveal those reasons to us. This is unconditional grace because it is not based on what we did in our lives. This keeps our salvation as grace and not a reward for past accomplishments. It keeps us from bragging, for we have nothing in our lives to brag about.
So, in summary, all Christians must believe in God’s election and His elect for there are just too many verses to deny it. Therefore, each Christian is left with two choices regarding election. Conditional election, the free will view, teaches God chose us before the foundation of the world based on the condition of what we would do in our lives with our will. Unconditional election, the free grace view, teaches that God graciously chose us before the foundation of the world according to the good pleasure of His will and not according to what we would do in our lives. Therefore conditional election is reward salvation and unconditional election is grace salvation. There is no middle or moderate position. To try to somehow take a middle or moderate position by holding on to free will in any way is to mix the work of God and the efforts of man. To do so again takes from God what is rightfully His and injects some form of merit into the salvation of man.
We chose Christ only because the Father first chose us!