Category: T.U.L.I.P

It follows from what we saw in the last chapter that the people of God will persevere to the end and not be lost. The foreknown are predestined, the predestined are called, the called are justified, and the justified are glorified (Rom. 8:30). No one is lost from this group. To belong to this people is to be eternally secure.

 But we mean more than this by the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. We mean that the saints will and must persevere in faith and the obedience which comes from faith. Election is unconditional, but glorification is not. There are many warnings in Scripture that those who do not hold fast to Christ can be lost in the end. 

The following eight theses are my summary of this crucial doctrine.

1. Our faith must endure to the end if we are to be saved. 

This means that the gospel is God’s instrument in the preservation of faith as well as the begetting of faith. We do not act with a kind of cavalier indifference to the call for perseverance just because a person has professed faith in Christ, as though we can be assured from our perspective that they are now beyond the reach of the evil one. There is a fight of faith to be fought. The elect will fight that fight. And by God’s sovereign grace they will win it. We must endure to the end in faith if we are to be saved. 

In 1 Corinthians 15:1-2 Paul shows the necessity of perseverance: “Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.” This “if you hold fast” shows that there is a false start in the Christian life. Jesus told the parable of the soils to warn against these kinds of false beginnings: 

As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away. As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. (Matt. 13:20-22)

 In other words, there is, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:2, a “believing in vain”—which means a false believing, a coming to Christ for reasons that don’t include a love for his glory and hatred for our sin. The evidence, Paul says, that our faith is genuine is that we “hold fast to the word”—that we persevere.

 Similarly Paul says in Colossians 1:21-23: “And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel.” And again in 2 Timothy 2:11-12: “The saying is trustworthy, for: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him.”

 Paul is following the teaching of Jesus in these words. Jesus said in Mark 13:13, “The one who endures to the end will be saved.” And after his resurrection Jesus said to the churches in Revelation, “To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life” (Rev. 2:7). “Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life” (Rev. 2:10; cf. 2:17, 25-26; 3:5, 11-12, 21). This is what we mean by the necessity of perseverance— the statement that we must persevere. 

But a clarification is in order. Persevering in faith does not mean that the saints do not go through seasons of doubt and spiritual darkness and measures of unbelief in the promises and the goodness of God. “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24) is not a contradictory prayer. Measures of unbelief can coexist with a true faith. 

Therefore what we mean when we say that faith must persevere to the end is that we must never come to a point of renouncing Christ with such hardness of heart that we can never return, but instead only prove ourselves to have been hypocrites in our professed faith. An example of such hardness is Esau. 

See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; … that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it [repentance] with tears. (Heb. 12:15-17) 

Esau became so spiritually hard and calloused in his love for this world that when he tried to repent he couldn’t. All he could do is weep over the consequences of his folly, not the true ugliness of his sin or the dishonor he had heaped upon God in preferring a single meal to his entire God-given, God-accompanying birthright.

 On the other hand the New Testament is at pains to make sure we do not despair thinking that backsliding and waywardness in sin is a one-way street. It is possible to repent and return. That process of wandering and returning is included in “the perseverance of the saints.” For example, James says, “Whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins” (James 5:20). And John says, “If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life…. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death” (1 John 5:16-17). John’s aim here is clearly to give hope to those who might be tempted to despair, and to those who love them and pray for them. John began his letter the same way he is ending it: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:8-9). 

So when we speak of the necessity (and certainty, see below) of perseverance we do not mean perfection. And we do not mean that there are no struggles or serious measures of unbelief. We must keep in mind all that we have seen so far in this book. Belonging to Christ is a supernatural reality brought about by God and preserved by God (Jer. 32:40). The saints are not marked most deeply by what they do but by who they are. They are born again. They are a new creation. They do not go in and out of this newness. It is God’s work. And it is irrevocable. But the fruit of it in faith and obedience is a fight to the end. And perseverance says: The fight will be fought and will not be finally lost. 

2. Obedience, evidencing inner renewal from God, is necessary for final salvation. 

This is not to say that God demands perfection. It is clear from Philippians 3:12 that the New Testament does not hold out the demand that those who are justified in Christ Jesus by faith be sinlessly perfect in order to be finally saved. “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own” (see also 1 John 1:8-10, and Matt. 6:12). But the New Testament does demand that we be morally changed and walk in newness of life. 

For example: 

• “Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.” (Heb. 12:14) 

• “If you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” (Rom. 8:13) 

• “Now the works of the flesh are evident: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” (Gal. 5:19-21. See also Eph. 5:5 and 1 Cor. 6:10.) 

• “And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says ‘I know him’ but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.” (1 John 2:3-

• “So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, ‘If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples.’” (John 8:31. See also Luke 10:28; Matt. 6:14-15; 18:35; Gen. 18:19; 22:16-17; 26:4-5; 2 Tim. 2:19.) 

Again let there be a caution lest anyone take these texts in a perfectionistic direction. John’s First Epistle is written to help us maintain our biblical equilibrium here. On the one hand it says, “No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God” (1 John 3:9). But on the other hand it says, “If we say we have (not “had” but present tense, “have”) no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). And: “I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 John 2:1). 

The perseverance of the saints is not the guarantee of perfection, but rather that God will keep us fighting the fight of faith so that we hate our sin and never make any lasting peace with it. 

3. God’s elect cannot be lost. 

This is why we believe in eternal security—namely, the eternal security of the elect. The implication is that God will so work in us that those whom he has chosen for eternal salvation will be enabled by him to persevere in faith to the end and fulfill, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the requirements for a new kind of life.

 We have seen before the ironclad chain of divine work 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.” What is evident from this verse is that those who are effectually called into the hope of salvation will indeed persevere to the end and be glorified. There are no dropouts in this sequence. These are promises of God rooted in unconditional election in the first place and in the sovereign, converting, preserving grace that we have seen before. The links in this chain are unbreakable, because God’s saving work is infallible and his new covenant commitments are irrevocable.

 Again, Paul is following the teachings of his Lord Jesus: 

“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” (John 10:27-30; see also Eph. 1:4-5.) 

We saw before that being a sheep of Jesus means being chosen by God and given to the Son. In other words, the promise of Jesus never to lose any of his sheep is the sovereign commitment of the Son of God to preserve the faith of the elect for whom he laid down his life.

4. There is a falling away of some believers, but if it persists, it shows that their faith was not genuine and they were not born of God. 

1 John 2:19 says, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.” Similarly, the parable of the four soils as interpreted in Luke 8:9-14 pictures people who “hear the word, receive it with joy; but these have no root, they believe for a while and in time of testing fall away.” 

The fact that such a thing is possible is precisely why the ministry of the gospel in every local church must contain many admonitions to the church members to persevere in faith and not be entangled in those things which could possibly strangle them and result in their condemnation. Pastors do not know infallibly who of his listeners are the good soil and who are the bad. His warnings and exhortations to persevere are the way he helps the saints endure. They hear the warnings and take heed and thus authenticate their humble and good hearts of faith. 

5. God justifies us completely through the first genuine act of saving faith, but this is the sort of faith that perseveres and bears fruit in the “obedience of faith”. 

The point here is the emphasis above on the necessity of persevering faith and obedience does not mean God is waiting to observe our perseverance and obedience before he declares us completely righteous in union with Jesus Christ. Romans 5:1 says that we “have been justified by faith.” It is a past act. The first time we believe in Jesus we are united to Christ. In union with him, his righteousness is counted as ours, at that moment. Paul says that he aims to “be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith” (Phil. 3:9).

 The ground of our acceptance with God is Christ alone—his blood and righteousness. “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21). “By the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous” (Rom. 5:19).

 The role of our faith is not to be a performance of something virtuous that God rewards with salvation. The point is that faith is a receiving of Christ who performed what we could not, a punishment for our sin and provision of our perfection. Faith is not the ground of our acceptance but the means or the instrument of union with Christ who alone is the ground of our acceptance with God. The role of the obedience in our justification is to give evidence that our faith is authentic. Deeds of love are not the ground of our first or final acceptance with God. Their function is to validate, and make public, the sovereign work of God giving us new birth and creating the new heart of faith. Paul puts it this way: “In Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love” (Gal. 5:6). What counts with God in justification is the kind of faith that works through love. It is not our love that causes God to be 100 per cent for us. It is God being 100 per cent for us through faith in Christ that enables us to love. Love is a fruit of the Spirit. And we have received the Spirit by our first act of faith (Gal. 3:2). 

Therefore, the necessity of perseverance in faith and obedience for final salvation does not mean he waits till the end before he accepts us, adopts us, and justifies us. We do not fight the fight of faith in order to make God be 100 per cent for us. That happened in our union with Christ on our first act of faith. Rather, fight because he is 100 per cent for us. Paul put it like this: “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own” (Phil. 3:12). Christ has made us his own. That is how we fight on. In the final judgment according to works (not on the basis of works), the point of those works in the divine courtroom in relation to justification will be as public evidence of unseen faith and union with Christ. Christ will be the sole ground of our acceptance then as now. 

6. God works to cause his elect to persevere. 

We are not left to ourselves in the fight of faith, and our assurance is rooted in the sovereign love of God to perform what he has called us to do. The texts that follow here are all expressions of the new covenant that we discussed in chapter 5. Jesus purchased for us all the promises of God when he shed his blood (Luke 22:20; 2 Cor. 1:20). 

One of the most precious of all those promises relates the new covenant to God’s absolute commitment to cause us to persevere: “I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me” (Jer. 32:40). This promise recurs in many wonderful expressions in the New Testament:

 • “By God’s power [we] are guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” (1 Pet. 1:5) 

• “Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.” (Jude 24-25)

 • “May the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.” (1 Thess. 5:23-24: 

• “I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” (Phil. 1:6)

 • “[Jesus Christ] will sustain you to the end; guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” (1 Cor. 1:8-9) 

• “Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.” (Heb. 13:20-21) 

I sometimes ask people: Why do you believe you will wake up a Christian tomorrow morning? Why do you think you will have saving faith tomorrow when you wake up? I ask this to test what sort of view of perseverance someone has. The biblical answer is not: I know I will choose to believe tomorrow morning. I am committed to Jesus. That is very fragile confidence. 

The answer is found in all these texts. God is faithful. God will work in me. God will keep me. God will finish his work to the end. The answer is God’s ongoing work, not my ongoing commitment. When I ask this question I am fishing to see if anyone has the view that eternal security is like a vaccination. We got our vaccination when we were converted and can’t catch the disease of unbelief. That is a misleading analogy because it implies that the process of preservation is automatic without the ongoing work of the great physician. Perseverance is not like a vaccination, but like a life-long therapy program in which the great physician stays with you all the way. He will never leave us (Heb. 13:5). That is the way we persevere. That is the way we have assurance. 

7. Therefore we should be zealous to confirm our calling and election. 

The book of 2 Peter 1:10-11 says, “Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” Peter’s point is not that our calling and election are fragile and need to be propped up. We have seen plainly, for example, from Romans 8:29-30 that calling and election are the most solid realities under God. They are links in a chain of salvation that cannot be broken.

 What Peter means is: be zealous to maintain your assurance of them and to confirm them continually by walking in the joy of them. He explains in the preceding verses that God, by “his divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence” (2 Pet. 1:3). He has not left us to ourselves to confirm our calling and election. 

By his divine power we then grow in faith and virtue and knowledge and self-control and steadfastness and godliness and brotherly affection and love (2 Pet. 1:5-7). In other words we make eager efforts to trust the promises and power of God so deeply that sin is put to death in our lives by the Spirit and the goal of love is joyfully pursued. Faith working through love (Gal. 5:6) is the way we make our calling and election sure. 

8. Perseverance is a community project.

 God never meant us to fight the fight of faith alone. We are to fight for each other. One of Paul’s most remarkable statements about the perseverance of the elect is 2 Timothy 2:10, “I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.” To many this is astonishing. Isn’t it already sure that the elect will obtain salvation in final glory? Yes it is. Those whom he justified he glorified.

 But the question betrays an assumption that this last point is meant to remove—the assumption that certain outcomes imply that there’s no need to press on toward them. That is a mistake. Salvation is certain for God’s elect. It cannot fail. But the way God has ordained to make it certain is by means of empowering human partnership in the fight of faith. Paul sees his ministry of the word as essential to the perseverance of the elect. 

Take a simple example. Suppose God has predestined that a nail be in a two-by-four with its head flush with the surface of the board. It is certain that this will happen. God is God and he has planned it. Does that mean he is indifferent to hammers? No. In fact God has also ordained that the way the nail will get in the board is by being struck with a hammer. 

Similarly, the elect will certainly be saved in the end with eternal glory. Does that mean God is indifferent to the ministry of the world in getting them there? No. God has made it essential. And the reason that does not undermine the certainty of salvation is that God is just as sovereign over the means as he is over the ends. 

We see this truth applied to all of us in Hebrews 3:12-13, “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” God will not let any of his elect “fall away” into destruction. But the way he will keep us from falling (Jude 1:24) is by mutual exhortation of other believers in our lives. This is one of the highest tributes that could possibly be paid to the church. God ordains the body of Christ as the means of his infallible keeping of the elect. 

We close this chapter with the hope and prayer that you will go deeper into the grace of God’s persevering grace. If you linger over this truth and let it sink in, you will find that the certainty of God’s covenant-keeping grace to you, is a far greater and stronger and sweeter ground of your assurance than any view of eternal security that makes it more impersonal and automatic like a vaccination. To know that God chose you, and God called you, and God gave you faith, and will never leave you, and will preserve you, and present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy—that assurance brings an invincible joy and strength and courage into your life. May God take you down ever deeper into the divine grace of perseverance.

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.