Can anyone explain the concept of "election"

Dave RP said:

I listened to the sermon at my partners church the other day and the subject of election was being debated. The speaker seemed to be saying that god "chooses" the people who will be believers and therefore saved BEFORE they are born as part of his master plan. Hence, no matter what is said to me (for example) or any other non believer, unless god has pre-chosen us for belief we were always doomed to eternal death?

This seemed a little unfair to me, and called into question the whole point of evangelical conversion.

What is any is the consensus on election, and god "choosing" his followers?

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The idea of "election" or "the elect" is found mentioned all through the new testament. And Jesus said "no on can come to me unless called by the Father". We could go on and on about the meaning of election.

But you hear it most often in Calvinists churches whose beliefs center on the strictest of predestination, meaning that God chose before eternity who would be saved and who wouldn't. And as you point out, it wouldn't matter how much anyone preached to you, if you are not one of the elect they aren't going to change your mind.

I personally don't believe in predestination. I wouldn't go so far as to say that I am an Open Theist, I just think the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

Dave RP said:

I listened to the sermon at my partners church the other day and the subject of election was being debated. The speaker seemed to be saying that god "chooses" the people who will be believers and therefore saved BEFORE they are born as part of his master plan. Hence, no matter what is said to me (for example) or any other non believer, unless god has pre-chosen us for belief we were always doomed to eternal death?

This seemed a little unfair to me, and called into question the whole point of evangelical conversion.

What is any is the consensus on election, and god "choosing" his followers?

Click to expand...

My view is that God elects ... to bring all to Him ... who will come to Him ...

Free will vs. predestination is a fundamental debate within Christianity. The Bible alludes to both and we non-extremists conclude that it is indeterminably somewhere in the middle.

Instead of trying to nail that down, first, it is better if we just share the Gospel with whomever we can and invite them to come to Jesus.

Dave RP said:

This seemed a little unfair to me, and called into question the whole point of evangelical conversion.

Click to expand...

To that extreme, it IS unfair, which causes many of us to question it.

Dave RP said:

I listened to the sermon at my partners church the other day and the subject of election was being debated. The speaker seemed to be saying that god "chooses" the people who will be believers and therefore saved BEFORE they are born as part of his master plan. Hence, no matter what is said to me (for example) or any other non believer, unless god has pre-chosen us for belief we were always doomed to eternal death?

This seemed a little unfair to me, and called into question the whole point of evangelical conversion.

What is any is the consensus on election, and god "choosing" his followers?

Click to expand...

Yep, that's Calvinism. Salvation not by faith, but by a pre-birth election. Thus people's fate is determined before they are born, condemned before they are actually guilty of sinning, (Calvinism preaches imputed guilt, which makes God out to be unjust) and faith having no effect on a person's salvation status, which is contrary to the gospel itself.

Calvin's view of "election", which he got from Augustine, should be discarded as simply unsupported in scripture, though there are passages misread to support it while ignoring other passages.

Dave RP said:

I listened to the sermon at my partners church the other day and the subject of election was being debated. The speaker seemed to be saying that god "chooses" the people who will be believers and therefore saved BEFORE they are born as part of his master plan. Hence, no matter what is said to me (for example) or any other non believer, unless god has pre-chosen us for belief we were always doomed to eternal death?

This seemed a little unfair to me, and called into question the whole point of evangelical conversion.

What is any is the consensus on election, and god "choosing" his followers?

Click to expand...

Well God is certainly eternal and outside of time and therefore can speak about "eternal" things that are beyond our context of mutable time. He foretells the end from the beginning and all that will transpire within the domain of time. Even leaving the theological realm, any physicist can tell you time is but a physical property. So when the physical universe was born, by the hand of the Creator, time was also born. Conversely when the physical universe expires, time itself shall expire. When Moses asked God who He should tell the Israelites was sending him, He stated His identity "I AM THAT I AM". He always WAS, IS and forever SHALL BE. When He speaks of the elect therefore it is from the eternal perspective and foreknowledge by which God speaks to us. What happens in time, all of it", is already known with respect to the eternal perspective and this includes when God is speaking of His elect. Yet, while necessary, this is only one aspect or factor of election that aids our understanding of it.
The 2nd aspect is choice and who does the choosing. It is quite easy to state dogmatically that of course God does the choosing. After all He created everything and the Bible teaches it was for the purpose of displaying Goodness. Each created God Day, no matter how long we speculate that Day is, ends with "and God saw that it was good", except the 6th Day in which God made mankind in His own image for on that Day He said,

• Gen 1:31 Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

So clearly His intent was to create beings which would care for His creation in the same way He did; for He empowered them with reasoning, the ability to love, to cherish and to delight in all His works. If we are indeed made in His image it follows then that we were also indeed free to choose; for God also does this. As long as a plant or flower remains in the soil it draws its life from the soil and from the heavenly rains from above. Mankind is also is dependent upon its Source for life, which is the pure, holy and sacred heart of God. Remove the flower from it source and it dies. Oh it may look great in that glass vase for a few days but it does not have the life to sustain itself and wilts. Conversely mankind in choosing by self will to go against God extricated themselves from unity with God the source of life. Our sins have separated us from God and in choosing our own way forward we have abandoned His Way and have walked away from the Truth of God's love. One reaps what they sow and the consequences of this are readily apparent on the 6 o'clock news every day. We are terribly broken without God and without His intervention we are destined to extinguish ourselves by our own hand.

So what did God choose to do with the creation that He saw as very good? Did He abandon us to forever go deeper in our sin and corruption until we perish without hope? No, He did not but instead shows us that He loves mercy and made a Way Himself when there was no way to fix ourselves. "For God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." - Romans 5:8
Now perhaps some who have experienced mortal combat might know firsthand of a brother or perhaps a sister that gave their life for them. Certainly we do know of men who have covered a grendade with their own body in order to save their brothers. This has als happened in mass killing where people covered their loved one with their own body to protect them from the fatal rounds that took their own lives. So Jesus spoke truth when He said, “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends." - John 15:13

This indeed is higher love and one who has come through that fire will not soon forget the meaning of sacrificial love in the many forms sacrificial love can manifest itself to us. Now Christ came to save our dying race and save it He did. He who was just died for us the unjust. He who was without sin, pure and undefiled, died for us all; despicable sinners who have managed to corrupt ourselves with every sort of sin against what is sacred and holy in God. So when we think of love, mercy and fairness we would do well to remember that God's mercy and justice goes far beyond our own sense, just as His love goes far beyond our own domain of understanding.

“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” Mark 10:45
Now Jesus said many are called but few are chosen.

• BLB: NKJV

So yes we are chosen of God but we need to understand our response in obeying the Gospel is part of receiving that wedding garment.

• Luke 11 (Blue Letter Bible: NKJV - New King James Version)

We are called to follow Him and are not coerced, as if you could ever force someone to love you in the first place, and this is simply the way God is freely offers His love to everyone of us. Repenting and believing brings about the conception of God's new life by Christ within us but it doesn't end there for we follow Christ in us who is with us even to the end of the age. We continue then to grow in God's grace after the Holy Spirit is conceived in us, which is why 2nd Peter explicitly exhorts those who have received Christ by faith "

• .. add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins. Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble." BLB: NKJV

Election and God's choosing must therefore be understood in the light of all that God has revealed to us in Scripture, including verses like this:

• The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. - 2Peter 3:9
• 1Timothy 2:3-4 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

While we do not yet know the eternal state of our contemporaries we do know that only Christ has the power to redeem us and save us from our corrupt and sinful nature. By His death on the cross and by His resurrection He has given us all the opportunity to receive Him but it is on His terms and not our own. Therefore we preach the Good News to every tribe, tongue and nation; though we know that not all will come to receive it. However, we still do pray that those God puts in front of us will as He calls us to love all and bring the benevolence of His rain to all. As the Father sent Him so He has sent His Church to be on mission with Him to the end of the Age.

• But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: John 1:12

In Christ, Patrick

George MacDonald put it this way: “Election: a doctrine which in the Bible asserts the fact of God’s choosing certain persons for the specific purpose of receiving first, and so communicating the gifts of his grace to the whole world.”