Do I chose God?
Some Arminians will reply to my treatment of this text with indignation. They agree that the passage teaches a strong view of divine sovereignty. Their objection will focus on another point. They will insist that Paul is not even talking about the predestination of individuals in Romans 9. Romans 9 is not about individuals but about God’s electing of nations. Paul is here talking about Israel as God’s chosen people. Jacob merely represents the nation Israel. His very name was changed to Israel and his sons became the fathers of the twelve tribes of Israel.
That God favoured Israel over other nations is not in dispute. It was out of Israel that Jesus came. It was out of Israel that we received the Ten Commandments and the promises of the covenant with Abraham. We know that salvation is for the Jews.
That much is indeed true of Romans 9. We must consider, however, that in the electing of a nation God elected individuals. Nations are made up of individuals. Jacob was an individual. Esau was an individual. Here we see clearly that God sovereignly elected individuals as well as a nation. We must hasten to add that Paul extends this treatment of election beyond Israel in verse 24 when he declares: “even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles.”
UNCONDITIONAL ELECTION
Let us return for a moment to our famous acrostic, TULIP. We have already quarrelled with the T and the I and changed it to RULEP. Though I prefer the term sovereign election to unconditional election, I will not damage the acrostic further. If we changed it to RSLEP it wouldn’t even rhyme with TULIP.
Unconditional election means that our election is decided by God according to his purpose, according to His sovereign will.
It is not based upon some foreseen condition that some of us meet and others fail to meet. It is not based on our will or on our running, but upon the sovereign purpose of God.
The term unconditional election can be misleading and grossly abused. I once met a man who never darkened the door of a church and who showed no evidence of being a Christian. He made no profession of faith and was engaged in no Christian activity. He told me that he believed in unconditional election. He was confident that he was elect. He did not have to trust Christ, he did not have to repent, he did not have to be obedient to Christ. He declared that he was elect and that was enough. No further conditions for salvation were necessary for him. He was, in his opinion, saved, sanctified, satisfied, and Sanforized.
We must be careful to distinguish between conditions that are necessary for salvation and conditions that are necessary for election. We often speak of election and salvation as if they were synonymous, but they are not exactly the same thing. Election is unto salvation. Salvation in its fullest sense is the complete work of redemption that God accomplishes in us.
There are all sorts of conditions that must be met for someone to be saved. Chief among them is that we must have faith in Christ. Justification is by faith. Faith is a necessary requirement. To be sure, the Reformed doctrine of predestination teaches that all the elect are indeed brought to faith. God ensures that the conditions necessary for salvation are met.
When we say that election is unconditional we mean that the original decree of God by which he chooses some people to be saved is not dependent upon some future condition in us that God foresees. There is nothing in us that God could foresee that would induce him to choose us. The only thing he would foresee in the lives of fallen creatures left to themselves would be sin. God chooses us simply according to the good pleasure of his will.
IS GOD ARBITRARY?
That God chooses us not because of what he finds in us, but according to his own good pleasure, gives rise to the charge that this makes God arbitrary. It suggests that God makes his selection in a whimsical or capricious manner. It seems like our election is the result of a blind and frivolous lottery. If we are elect, then it is only because we are lucky. God pulled our names out of a celestial hat.
To be arbitrary is to do something for no reason. Now, it is clear that there is no reason found in us for God to choose us. But that is not the same as saying that God has no reason in himself. God doesn’t do anything without a reason. He is not capricious or whimsical. God is as sober as he is sovereign.
A lottery is intentionally left up to chance. God does not operate by chance. He knew whom he would select. He foreknew and foreloved his elect. It was not a blind draw because God is not blind. Yet we still must insist that it was nothing that he foreknew, foresaw, or for loved in us that was the decisive reason for his choice.
Calvinists do not generally like to speak of luck. Instead of wishing people “good luck,” we prefer to say, “Providential blessings.” Yet if we were to speak of our “lucky day,” we would mark that day in eternity when God decided to choose us.
Let us turn our attention to Paul’s teaching on this matter in Ephesians:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He has made us accepted in the Beloved (Ephesians 1:3-6).
According to the good pleasure of his will. This is the apostolic statement that seems to suggest divine arbitrariness. The chief culprit is the word pleasure. In our vocabulary, the word pleasure is often charged with the meaning of wild, reckless abandon. Pleasure is that which feels good, something that has sensual and emotional overtones. We are aware of vices that bring wicked pleasure to us.
When the Bible speaks of God’s pleasure, the term is not used in such a frivolous manner. Here pleasure means simply “that which is pleasing.” God predestines us according to what pleases him. The Bible speaks of God’s good pleasure. God’s good pleasure must never be mistaken for an evil pleasure. What pleases God is goodness. What pleases us is not always best. God never takes pleasure in wickedness. There is nothing wicked about the good pleasure of his will. Though the reason for choosing us does not lie in us but in the sovereign divine pleasure, we may rest assured that the sovereign divine pleasure is a good pleasure.
We remember also what the apostle instructed the Philippian Christians. He said to them: “… work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure” (Phil. 2:12, 13).
In this passage, Paul is not teaching that election is a joint enterprise between God and man. The election is exclusively the work of God. It is, as we have seen, monergistic. Paul is speaking here about the outworking of our salvation that follows our election. He is specifically referring here to the process of our sanctification. Sanctification is not monergistic. It is synergistic. That is, it demands the cooperation of the regenerate believer. We are called to work to grow in grace. We are to work hard, resisting sin unto blood if necessary, pummeling our bodies if that is what it takes to subdue them.
We are called to this sober work of sanctification by a divine summons. The work is to be carried out in a spirit of fear and trembling. Our sanctification is not a casual matter. We do not approach it in a cavalier manner, saying simply, “Let go and let God.” God does not do it all for us.
Neither, however, does God leave us to work out our own salvation by ourselves, in our own strength. We are comforted by his sure promise to be working in us both to do and to will what is pleasing to him.
I recently heard a sermon by the great Scottish preacher, Eric Alexander, in which he stressed that God is working in us for His good pleasure. Paul does not say that God is working in us for our good pleasure. We are not always entirely pleased by what God is doing in our lives. Sometimes we experience a conflict between the purpose of God and our own purpose. I never choose to suffer on purpose. Yet it may well be within the sovereign purpose of God that I suffer. He promises us that by his sovereignty all things work together for good for those who love him and are called according to his purpose.
My purposes do not always include God’s good. I am a sinner. Fortunately for us, God is not a sinner. He is altogether righteous. His purposes are always and everywhere righteous. His purposes work for my good, even when his purposes are in conflict with my purposes. Perhaps I should say, especially when his purposes are in conflict with my purposes. What pleases him is good for me. That is one of the most difficult lessons Christians ever learn.
Our election is unconditional except for one thing. There is one requirement we must meet before God will ever elect us. To be elect we must first be sinners.
God does not elect righteous people unto salvation. He does not need to elect righteous people unto salvation. Righteous people do not need to be saved. Only sinful people are in need of a saviour. Those who are whole have no need of a physician.
Christ came to seek and to save people who were really lost. God sent him into the world not only to make our salvation possible but to make it sure. Christ has not died in vain. His sheep are saved through his sinless life and his atoning death. There is nothing arbitrary in that.
Author Sproul, R. C.
