Does God choose?
“Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth.” ( Romans 8:33 ) The doctrine of election is a key doctrine of Scripture, but it is also controversial, so any discussion of it should, mostly, let the Scriptures speak for themselves. The Greek and Hebrew words for the “elect” are the same as for the “chosen,” and it is clear that whenever the elect are mentioned, it is God, not man, who has done the choosing. For example, Christ elected the twelve to be His apostles of His own volition. They are called, in fact, “the apostles whom he had chosen” ( Acts 1:2 ). The Scriptures also speak of “the elect angels” ( 1 Timothy 5:21 ) and even of Christ Himself as being the “chief cornerstone, elect, precious” ( 1 Peter 2:6 ). Most often, however, the term is applied to those who have been saved through faith in Christ and His substitutionary death, and they are said to have been “chosen . . . in him before the foundation of the world” ( Ephesians 1:4 ). Ha...