Attempting to understand what the Biblical authors mean by the term election, we did a thorough investigation of Old Testament patriarchal history. From that study, and the use of the term in the New Testament, I submit that the words elect or election refer to those who believe in Christ as being in a special relationship with God akin to the relationship God had with Israel as his elect people in the Old Testament. The nature of that special relationship stands in continuity with the special relationship God had established with the patriarchs and Israel in the Old Testament. The important thing to grasp, therefore, is that the terminology of election refers to the transfer of a concept to Christians, not a divine decision by which particular individuals have been unconditionally chosen to be saved. As Israel was a people or nation that God both created and chose to be his very own, not with respect to their individual salvation but to service and witness to other peoples and nations as we discovered in our study of Genesis, so too, the believer in Jesus, whether Jew or Gentile, as one who is trusting in “the chosen One,” also becomes one of God’s very own people. They obtain the designation “people of God.” Peter makes this clear about both Jew and Gentile Christians when he writes,
“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” (1 Pet. 2:9-10, NIV / cf. Dt 7:6; 10:15; Is 43:20 LXX; Ex 19:6; 23:22 LXX; Is 61:6; Ex 19:5; 23:22 LXX; Dt 4:20; 7:6; Is 43:21 LXX; Is 42:12; 43:21)
J. B. Phillips expresses well the transfer of the Old Testament terminology to those who now believe in Jesus. He also correctly expresses the sense of the controversial passage in this context about those who “stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.” (1 Pet. 2:8, ESV) This verse has nothing to do with people being predestined by God to stumble. Phillips writes,
“To change the metaphor, you come to him, as living stones to the immensely valuable living stone (which men rejected but God chose), to be built up into a spiritual House of God, in which you, like holy priests, can offer those spiritual sacrifices which are acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. There is a passage to this effect in scripture, and it runs like this: ‘Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect, precious, and he who believes on him will by no means be put to shame’.
7 It is you who believe in him that he is “precious”, but to those who disobey God, it is true that: ‘The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone’.
8a And he is, to them, ‘a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence’.
8b-10 Yes, they stumble at the Word of God for in their hearts they are unwilling to obey it—which makes stumbling a foregone conclusion. But you are God’s “chosen generation”, his “royal priesthood”, his “holy nation”, his “peculiar people”—all the old titles of God’s people now belong to you. It is for you now to demonstrate the goodness of him who has called you out of darkness into his amazing light. In the past you were not “a people” at all: now you are the people of God. In the past you had no experience of his mercy, but now it is intimately yours.” (1 Pet. 2:4-10, JBP)
Peter also indicates the new way of life in Christ compared to the “empty way of life inherited from your ancestors.” He also mentions the role of God’s foreknowledge, which here refers to salvation in Jesus Christ, who has now been revealed. Peter writes,
“For you know that you were redeemed from your empty way of life inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of an unblemished and spotless lamb. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was revealed in these last times for you. Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.” (1 Pet. 1:18-21, CSB)
Peter also give us insight into the meaning of election at the beginning of his epistle when he writes, “To God’s elect, exiles…” (1 Pet. 1:1, NIV) and “…who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father…” (v. 2, NIV) As stated above, this foreknowledge refers to the salvation planned in Jesus from before the foundation of the world.
Therefore, “God’s elect…who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God” refers to the believers in Christ, or the Christians, both Jews and Gentiles, scattered throughout the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. They obtain this designation as a group associated with the salvation that came in Jesus through God’s chosen people, Israel. As Israel was the elect people of God, presently, Christians can be described as chosen…according to the foreknowledge of God,” (1:1) that is, according to the salvation that was brought about in Jesus who was “foreknown before the foundation of the world” (1:20). Hence, elect or election is a designation for believers in the salvation that God brought to pass in Jesus. Now, the term can also apply to individual believers, but in the same conceptual way, not in the Calvinistic way of unconditional election to salvation. This is why there need be no qualms about speaking of “individual election.” When understood correctly, it need not be pitted against “corporate election.” The reason for this is that neither of these is about the eternal destiny of individuals being predetermined by God. Since Christians, as a community, are properly described as the elect in continuity with the election of Israel, the term can be used of the individual without deteriorating into meaning God’s predetermination of that, or any, individual’s eternal destiny.
Furthermore, it would be an unnecessary concession to Calvinism if either the individual or corporate view of election were thought of as God foreknowing who will believe and thereby choosing or electing them for salvation. This requirement that God must choose or elect people to salvation is an unbiblical concession to the Calvinists’ definition of deterministic election. Election in the Bible is not defined as God choosing who will be saved. Sinners need not be chosen by God for salvation. Rather, sinners are confronted by God in the gospel message. That message is the God-ordained means of salvation. God predetermined that by believing the “good news” about Jesus’ death and resurrection, our sins can be forgiven. We can be reconciled to God and have eternal life. Any sinner can be saved if they choose to humble themselves and believe this gospel message.
Therefore, according to Scripture, election is distinguishable from unconditional election or predestination. Although in Calvinism, they are practically synonymous, biblically, they do not have the same meaning. Predestination refers to what God has in store in the future for those who believe. It refers to “being conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.” (8:29, ESV) God has blessings in store, or pre–destined, for those who have put their trust in Jesus. The fact that God has pre-planned and purposed that these blessings should be for those who believe is a source of confidence and assurance for them, especially in times of personal difficulty, suffering, or persecution, as is the context in this Romans 8 passage. The term predestined assures that conformity “to the image of his Son” will occur. Those who continue in the faith will receive what God has purposed to give them, which includes their justification and glorification (8:30). All this will come to pass for the one who trusts Christ for salvation. Therefore, Calvin completely misunderstood predestination when he defined it as follows:
“We call predestination God’s eternal decree, by which he compacted with himself what he willed to become of each man. For all are not created in equal condition; rather, eternal life is foreordained for some, eternal damnation for others. Therefore, as any man has been created to one or the other of these ends, we speak of him as predestined to life or to death.”1
Reformed scholar James Daane provides a biblical definition of ‘predestination.’ He also explains why the Calvinists’ theistic determinism, or “whatsoever comes to pass,” is incoherent with the biblical meaning of the word. He writes,
“The word “predestination” refers to something’s destiny being determined before it is reached. Divine predestination means, then, that God determines the destiny of whatever is predestined before that destiny is reached. So the pre in predestination includes whatever is prior to the destiny; it therefore includes God’s priority over all created historical reality – which is an expression of God’s freedom – and no less over whatever in the created and fallen world God in his freedom wills to bring to a particular destiny.
Since predestination refers to the final destiny of whatever is predestined, it cannot be defined in terms of “whatsoever comes to pass.” …When predestination is defined as God’s eternal determination of “whatsoever comes to pass,” the dimension of the historical, which is of the very fabric of Christianity, is lost. Predestination defined in terms, not of what God in his freedom achieved by and through what comes to pass, but in terms of whatever comes to pass, cannot carry the meaning of biblical history and eschatology.
Paul provides the classic biblical definition of predestination in the latter part of Romans 8. Two features of Paul’s definition are especially noteworthy. First, he defines predestination without any mention of God’s creation of the world or man’s fall into sin. Thus the classical biblical definition of predestination is without reference to “whatever comes to pass.”
Second, instead of defining God’s predestination in terms of “whatsoever comes to pass,” Paul urges that God can and does make all things work for the good of those who love God, that nothing that comes to pass – whether tribulation, anguish, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword, death, life angels, principalities, things present, things to come, powers, height, depth, or any other creature – can separate us from God’s love or thwart God’s predestined purpose. Why not? Because in all these things we are more than conquerors through Christ.
Predestination is not definable in terms of “whatsoever comes to pass.” On the contrary, Paul defines predestination without reference to some things that have come to pass – namely, creation and the fall – and in reference to Christ’s conquering much that has come to pass that is contrary to what God has predestined for all those who love him.”2
Do you understand what Daane is saying? First, the Calvinists’ divine eternal decree or universal divine causal determinism cannot be true because Paul does not define predestination in reference to creation. That was a free decision of God, not something God was ‘predestined’ to do. Also, regarding Romans 8:28, if God works all things together for good to those who love him, this presupposes that there is a list of bad things that may happen to those who love God. But God does not ‘predestine’ the bad to do the good. That would be unbiblical nonsense. Paul is assuring believers that God is working all things together for their good, not that God is working to guarantee that only good things will happen to believers. Paul’s view is eschatological. He has the big picture for believers in mind, as verses 29-30 indicate. These verses are not about God having predestined certain individuals to salvation, but that those who do believe “be conformed to the image of his Son.” (ESV) Paul then reflects on what these believers, who are predestined to be conformed to Jesus’s image, further experience in God’s salvific purposes. They are called (by the gospel), then justified, and then glorified. Why is there no mention of faith on the part of the sinner who has become a Christian believer? Why is there no mention of the key doctrine of salvation by faith alone? Because that is not Paul’s emphasis here. Paul is emphasizing the broader elements of God’s part and purposes for believers in their salvation. They are all God’s promises to believers. They are given in this context to comfort believers who are suffering as Christians for Christ. As believers, they can be confident of all this because God is faithful and will do it. God called them by the gospel; he justified them upon hearing and believing the gospel, and he will one day glorify them, whether by his coming or in their death. The stress here is on the elements of salvation from God’s point of view, not what sinners must do upon hearing the gospel to be saved, which is to believe it.
So, Paul is not teaching us about ‘Calvinistic predestination.’ That is, that only certain elect individuals have been predestined to salvation. Calvinists claim that God only effectually or irresistibly calls certain people to be regenerated, and then believe. Only these are then justified and will also be glorified – what Calvinists have called “the golden chain.” We can see that this is not what Paul means to tell us, given the immediate context and certainly what he does instruct us about salvation in the broader context of the whole epistle to the Romans.
Daane goes on to show how the Calvinist doctrine that God has ordained “whatsoever comes to pass” is incompatible with the Calvinists’ own definition of predestination. Daane reasons that,
“Decretal theologians cannot take seriously the term “come to pass.” For if every event is in itself destiny, then nothing moves toward a destiny, and nothing comes to pass in the historical sense. If everything in history is destiny (destination), then there is no historical datum that moves towards its destiny. If the future is now, then there is no predestination, and every man and institution may face the future either with proud defiance or despairing hopelessness, whichever his present status allows.
In an authentic view of predestination there is an inherent reference to the future. The term is essentially an historical one. As such it is open to preaching, for preaching also is oriented toward the future.”3
Return to Chapter 16 – Election – The Doctrine of Election According to Scripture
Footnotes
The Truth of the Gospel 