If all of us are so depraved that we cannot come to God without being born again by the irresistible grace of God, and if this particular grace is purchased by Christ on the cross, then it is clear that the salvation of any of us is owing to God’s election. He chose those to whom he would show such irresistible grace, and for whom he would purchase it.
Election refers to God’s choosing whom to save. It is unconditional in that there is no condition man must meet before God chooses to save him. Man is dead in trespasses and sins. So there is no condition he can meet before God chooses to save him from his deadness.
We are not saying that final salvation is unconditional. It is not. We must meet the condition of faith, for example, in Christ in order to inherit eternal life. But faith is not a condition for election. Just the reverse. Election is a condition for faith. It is because God chose us before the foundation of the world that he purchases our redemption at the cross, and then gives us spiritual life through irresistible grace, and brings us to faith.
Election Prior to Faith
Acts 13:48 reports how the Gentiles responded to the preaching of the gospel in Antioch of Pisidia. “And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.” Notice, it does not say that as many as believed were chosen to be ordained to eternal life. It says that those who were ordained to eternal life (that is, those whom God had elected) believed. God’s election preceded faith and made it possible. This is the decisive reason some believed while others did not.
Similarly Jesus says to the Jews in John 10:26, “You do not believe because you are not among my sheep.” Notice again, he does not say, “You are not among my sheep because you do not believe.” Who the sheep are is something God decides before we believe. It is the basis and enablement of our belief. “You do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep.” We believe because we are God’s chosen sheep, not vice versa. (See also John 8:47; 18:37.)
Unconditionality in Romans 9
In Romans 9, Paul stresses the unconditionality of election. In verses 11-12, he describes the principle God used in the choice of Jacob over Esau: “Though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad, in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of his call, [Rebecca] was told, ‘The elder will serve the younger.’” God’s election is preserved in its unconditionality because it is transacted before we are born or have done any good or evil.
I know that some interpreters say that Romans 9 has nothing to do with the election of individuals to their eternal destinies, but only deals with corporate peoples in their historical roles. I think this is a mistake mainly because it simply does not come to terms with the problem Paul is addressing in the chapter. You can see this for yourself by reading the first five verses of Romans 9. When Paul says in Romans 9:6, “But it is not as though the word of God has failed,” what is clear is that something has made it look as though God’s promises have fallen. What is that?
The answer is given in verses 2 and 3. Paul says, “I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.” The deepest issue Paul is addressing is not why Israel as a nation has this or that historical role, but that individuals within Israel are accursed and cut off from Christ. In other words, individual eternal destinies are indeed at stake. And the nature of Paul’s argument confirms this, because the first thing he says to confirm that the word of God has not failed is: “For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel” (Rom. 9:6). In other words, the individuals in Israel who perish were never part of the true Israel. Then he moves on to show how God’s unconditional election was at work within Israel.
The unconditionality of God’s electing grace is stressed again in Romans 9:15-16: “‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.’ So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.” The very nature of the mercy we need is willawakening, will-transforming mercy. We saw in the chapters on irresistible grace and total depravity that we are unable to love God or trust God or follow Christ. Our only hope is sovereign mercy, irresistible mercy. If that is true, what Paul says here makes sense. We are in no position to merit mercy or elicit mercy. If we are to receive mercy it will be at God’s free choice. That is what Paul says: “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
In Romans 11:7 Paul underlines again the individual nature of election within Israel: “Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened.” So throughout Romans 9–11 Paul assumes that election deals with individuals and with eternal destinies, and that it is unconditional. There is, I believe, a divine covenantal commitment to corporate Israel, but that does not contradict or annul the individual, eternal thrust of Romans 9. The principle of unconditionality is seen most clearly in Romans 9:11. God elects this way so that “though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad, in order that God’s purpose of election might continue.”
Another Powerful Statement of Unconditionality
Ephesians 1:3-6 is another powerful statement of the unconditionality of our election and predestination to sonship.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace.
Some interpreters argue that this election before the foundation of the world was only an election of Christ, but not an election of which individuals would actually be in Christ. This simply amounts to saying that there is no unconditional election of individuals to salvation. Christ is put forward as the chosen one of God, and the salvation of individuals is dependent on their own initiative to overcome their depravity and be united to Christ by faith. God does not choose them, and therefore God cannot effectually convert them. He can only initiate conviction, but finally must wait to see who will provide the decisive impulse to quicken themselves from the dead and choose him.
This interpretation does not square well with verse 11 where it says that “we were predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.” Nor does it fit with the wording of verse 4. The ordinary meaning of the word for “choose” in verse 4 is to select or pick out of a group (see, for instance, Luke 6:13; 14:7; John 13:18; 15:16, 19). So the natural meaning of verse 4 is that God chooses his people from all humanity, before the foundation of the world by viewing them in relationship to Christ their redeemer. This is the natural way to read the verse.
It is true that all election is in relation to Christ. Christ was in the mind of God crucified before the foundation of the world (Rev. 13:8). There would be no election of sinners unto salvation if Christ were not appointed to die for their sins. So in that sense they are elect in Christ. But it is they who are chosen out of the world to be in Christ.
Also the wording of verse 5 suggests the election of people to be in Christ, and not just the election of Christ. Literally, it says, “Having predestined us unto sonship through Jesus Christ.” We are the ones predestined, not Christ. He is the one that makes the election and predestination and adoption of sinners possible, and so our election is “through him,” but there is no talk here about God having a view only to Christ in election. Christians come to faith and are united to Christ and covered by his blood because we were chosen before the foundation of the world for this destiny of holiness.
Perhaps the Most Important Text
Perhaps the most important text of all in relation to the teaching of unconditional election is Romans 8:28-33.
We know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.
Often this text is used to argue against unconditional election on the basis of verse 29 which says that “those whom he foreknew he also predestined ….” So some say that people are not chosen unconditionally. They are chosen on the basis of their foreknown faith, which they produce without the help of irresistible grace and which God sees beforehand.
But this does not work with the way Paul develops his argument. Notice that Romans 8:30 says, “And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.” Focus for a moment on the fact that all whom God calls he also justifies.
This calling in verse 30 is not given to all people. The reason we know it’s not is that all those who are called are also justified. There is an infallible connection between called and justified. “Those whom he called he also justified.” But all people are not justified. Therefore all are not called. So this calling in verse 30 is not the general call to repentance that preachers give or that God gives through the glory of nature. Everybody receives that call. The call of verse 30 is given only to those whom God predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son (v. 29). And it is a call that leads necessarily to justification: “Those whom he called he also justified.”
We know that justification only happens through faith. “We hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law” (Rom. 3:28; cf. 5:1). What then is this call that is given to all those who are predestined and which infallibly leads to justification? We have seen this before in chapter 4 when discussing irresistible grace. It is the call of 1 Corinthians 1:23-24, “We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” In other words, the calling is not the preaching, since that is done to all the Jews and Gentiles. Rather, the calling happens through the preaching in the hearts of some of the listeners. It wakens them from the dead and changes their perceptions of the cross so that they embrace it as God’s wisdom and power. In other words, the calling of Romans 8:30 is irresistible, faith-creating grace.
Now consider the flow of Paul’s thought again in Romans 8:30. “Those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.” Between the act of predestination and justification, there is the act of calling. Since justification is only by faith, the calling in view must be the act of God whereby he calls faith into being. And since it always results in justification (all the called are justified), it must be sovereign. That is, it overcomes any resistance that gets in the way. So the calling of verse 30 is the sovereign work of God which brings a person to faith by which he is justified.
Now notice the implication this has for the meaning of foreknowledge in verse 29. When Paul says in verse 29, “Those whom he foreknew he also predestined,” he can’t mean (as so many try to make him mean) that God knows in advance who will use their free will to come to faith, so that he can predestine them to sonship because they made that free choice on their own. It can’t mean that because we have just seen from verse 30 the decisive cause of faith in the justified is not the fallen human will but the sovereign call of God.
God does not foreknow those who come to faith apart from his creating the faith, because there are no such people. Whoever believes has been “called” into faith by the sovereign grace of God. When God looks from eternity into the future and sees the faith of the elect he sees his own work. And he chose to do that work for dead and blind and rebellious sinners unconditionally. For we were not capable of meeting the condition of faith. We were spiritually dead and blind.
So the foreknowledge of Romans 8:29 is not the mere awareness of something that will happen in the future apart from God’s predetermination. Rather, it is the kind of knowledge referred to in Old Testament texts like Genesis 18:19 (“I have chosen [literally, known] him [Abraham] that he may command his children … to keep the way of the Lord”), and Jeremiah 1:5 (“Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations”), and Amos 3:2 (“You [Israel] only have I known of all the families of the earth”). God “knows” all the families of the earth in one sense. But the meaning here is; You only, Israel, have I chosen for my own.
As C. E. B. Cranfield says, the foreknowledge of Romans 8:29 is “that special taking knowledge of a person which is God’s electing grace.” Such foreknowledge is virtually the same as election: “Those whom he foreknew (i.e., chose) he predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.”
Therefore, what this magnificent text (Rom. 8:28-33) teaches is that God really accomplishes the complete redemption of his people from start to finish. He foreknows (that is, elects) a people for himself before the foundation of the world, he predestines this people to be conformed to the image of his Son, he calls them to himself in faith, he justifies them through that faith alone, and he finally glorifies them. And nothing can separate them from the love of God in Christ forever and ever (Rom. 8:39). To him be all praise and glory!
If you are a believer in Christ, you have been loved by God from all eternity. He set his favor on you before the creation of the world. He chose you when he considered you in your helpless condition. He chose you for himself unconditionally. We may not boast in our election. That would be a profound misunderstanding of the meaning of unconditionality. When we had done nothing to commend ourselves to God in any way, he set his favor on us freely.
It was with us the way it was with the election of Israel: “It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you … but it is because the LORD loves you” (Deut. 7:7-8). Read that carefully: he loves you because he loves you. He chose to do that in eternity. And because his love for you never had a beginning, it can have no end. What we are studying in this book is simply the way God works out that eternal love in history to save his own and bring us to the everlasting enjoyment of himself. May God take you deeper and deeper into the experience of this amazing sovereign grace.
Knowing 