Election: God’s Choice

 Election is such a loaded word. It has created an historic divide within the church, and it creates serious problems with those outside the body of Christ as well. The basis for God’s electing power rests solely on His existence as Creator. As the potter does to the clay, so the Heavenly Creator chooses what to make of each lump of human clay. Only those jealous of God’s power question His right to exercise election by His grace. He chooses whom He will, and the chosen properly rejoice, but in humility they recognize it is by grace alone that they stand.

The resistance to or denial of God’s right to elect stems from the original sin of Adam in the Garden of Eden. God chose to give Adam and Eve all things freely to enjoy with one exception: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They were allowed to take the fruit of any tree but that one. (Genesis 3) It was necessary for God to make this Adam’s choice, for only in having a choice does freedom mean anything. Adam demonstrated the reality of human free will by choosing to rebel against God’s command; Adam chose independence over dependence. The sad result is that because of Adam’s rebellion, all humans are now independent unless their Creator graciously chooses to bring them back to the dependence of His family in Christ.

To become a part of God’s family, a new birth is required. As Jesus told Nicodemus, a second birth by the Spirit is the only way to get back into God’s good graces. We are all born of water, which is to say born of Adam, but only the chosen are born again or born from above by the Spirit. It is as Paul says repeatedly: we were dead, but God chose to make us alive in Him through Christ. The New Testament also frequently uses the metaphor of adoption to describe our situation in God’s family. Neither by birth nor in adoption does the child choose his family; the parent does.

The child in the orphanage looks at the child chosen for adoption with jealousy; it may seem unfair that one is chosen and one not. The difference with the adoption by God is that the offer of adoption is made to all. The mystery of election is that God chooses those who choose to accept His grace. Someone once explained election by imagining a sign over the entrance to Heaven. From the outside it read, “Whosoever will may enter.” Looking back from the inside it read, “Only the elect may enter.”

Some argue that this condition negates the possibility of human free will and makes us all puppets strung along by the Divine Puppeteer. This is not necessarily so. Even though I have been chosen before the foundation of the world, I do not have evidence of that choice until I begin to explore its ramifications. God may work behind the scenes, as it were, drawing me to Himself, but until I acknowledge His work, I have no proof that He even exists, let alone that He has chosen me. Prior to the moment I turn to God, the fact that Heaven knew me was unknown to me; I didn’t know my true identity.

The pages of the Book of Life are hidden to me. Before I chose to believe God and accept His grace, I had no idea if my name was in the Book or not. Now that I have turned to God, I am not without a witness to the fact that I am chosen; Holy Spirit confirms to our spirit that we are children of God. Confirmations of my status as elect of God pile up as I pursue my walk with Him. A day finally came when I was able to say that I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep me until the day of His revealing.

To me, the reality of God’s sovereign election becomes a source of great comfort. First because I know my adoption was purely by His grace and through His power, nothing can remove me from His family. Second, acknowledging God’s absolute sovereignty in personal election is linked with my belief that He is sovereign over everything. If God did not reign completely over everything, He could not promise anything, including my eventual eternity with Him. If the ancient enemy of God controlled even one thing outside of God’s permissive will, the end of the story could not be written with any certainty.

It matters if God is totally sovereign. I will give an illustration ripped from today’s headlines, as they say. I am writing this as the debate over who won the 2020 presidential election continues. People from both sides of the debate speak with certainty about their conclusions. The problem is that the two opinions are mutually exclusive. Either the election was legitimate, and Biden is the rightful winner and next President, or the election was rife with fraud and the outcome is uncertain. I chose this illustration purposely, not just because it is timely as I publish this article, but also precisely because I don’t know who will take the oath of President in January. On one level, I don’t care who is going to be President because I know who rules the universe, and He is sovereign over President Trump or Biden.

Someone may say this is irrelevant to my election to salvation, but it is not. The same God who has the right to choose who will join His family also chooses who will be President. This is the inarguable result of believing in a totally sovereign God. If the Democrats stole this election through voting fraud on a grand scale, they did it only because God allowed it. If legal cases are presented and won placing President Trump in for another term, that too is by the rule of God. I don’t see how it can be both ways having God be sovereign in the affairs of life but not in election to salvation. Either God is sovereign, or He is not.

The real mystery here is that while God is totally sovereign, humans have total free will. I am forced every day to choose what to eat, what to wear, which lever to pull in the election, and so on. The fact that God already has those decisions figured into His grand design is irrelevant to me because I don’t know what God knows. I still have to make choices. It took me years to get to that realization, but now that I am here, I am at peace. I pray you may find peace as well. Choose to hear the psalmist share God’s recommendation: “Be still and know that I am God.” Let God be god and make the best choices you know how. Then don’t fret; He’s got this.