Election to salvation in the OT and New is by faith.
Can you show me "Election to salvation in the OT"?
The only verse I know of that even hints of "election unto salvation" is 2 Thess. 2:13.
"But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth:"
Election in the OT is nothing more than God saying "I have chosen you,". There was no promise of salvation just because they were chosen, otherwise there would have been no need for the Torah.
Jesus sets forth the same principle in the Gospels:
"Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you," -Jn. 15:16 (KJV)
But all that is "smoke and mirrors" according to those who don't agree with Calvinist theology.
My biggest problem with Arminian theology, is the "I" principle its so well known for.
No matter how small. No matter how insignificant it might be, according to Arminian theology, man has to claim some part, no matter how small or insignificant, in bring about his own salvation.
I cite:
"ARMINIANISM is a teaching regarding salvation associated with the Dutch theologian Jacob Arminius (1560-1609). The fundamental principle in Arminianism is the rejection of predestination, and a corresponding affirmation of the freedom of the human will.
Philip Schaff in his
Creeds of Christendom gives a very full discussion of the Arminian controversy, and although he is not entirely in sympathy with the articles of Dort, he rightly observes that "Calvinism represented the consistent, logical, conservative orthodoxy; Arminianism an elastic, progressive, changing liberalism." (1) He sums it up well when he describes Arminianism as a "moderated semi-Pelagianism" (2) Semi-Pelagianism was an ancient heresy which held that man out of his own free will takes the first step in salvation, and is then assisted by God. The Arminians merely reverse the order, saying that man must respond out of his own free will after God first prompts him with "prevenient grace." In both, the decisive thing is the will of man, not the will or decree of God."
1.
The Creeds of Christendom, with a History and Critical Notes, sixth edition (New York, 1931), vol. 1, p. 509.
2.
ibid., p. 516. Defenders of Arminianism have raised objections against this use of the term
Semi-Pelagianism as a description of their doctrine, but these objections have no more merit than the objections of Roman Catholic writers when Protestants describe the doctrines enforced at the Council of Trent as a species of Semi-Pelagianism. Cf. the Presbyterian theologian Charles Hodge, who writes: "It is an undeniable fact of history ... that in the Latin Church, Augustinianism, including all the characteristic doctrines of what is now called Calvinism, was declared to be the true faith by council after council, provincial and general, and by bishops and popes. Soon, however, Augustinianism lost its ascendency. For seven or eight centuries no one form of doctrine concerning sin, grace, and predestination prevailed in the Latin Church. Augustinianism, Semi-Pelagianism, and Mysticism (equally irreconcilable with both), were in constant conflict; and that, too, on questions on which the Church had already pronounced its judgment. It was not until the beginning of the sixteenth century that the Council of Trent, after long conflict within itself, gave its sanction to a modified form of Semi-Pelagianism." (
Systematic Theology, vol. 1 [New York: Charles Scribner and Co., 1871], p. 124.) Pelagianism and its (largely cosmetic) modifications seems to be a perennial heresy that keeps springing up in different times and places whenever it can find an opening; and, if it is not rooted out, it flourishes and eventually chokes out the biblical teaching on salvation. As it happened in Judaism in ancient times, and in Roman Catholicism during the middle ages, so also it has now happened in the Protestant denominations. The "five points of Calvinism" were designed to suppress it when it recrudesced in Reformed churches during the seventeenth century.
Source
And no matter what, there is at least one verse in the Old Testament that tears up the Arminian argument to shreds.
"Blessed is the man whom thou choosest, and causest to approach unto thee," -Psa. 65:4 (KJV)
Argument over!
God Bless
Till all are one.