I want to begin with an introduction to the doctrine of unconditional election. Before we can do that it would benefit us to examine conditional election first.

Conditional election teaches that God makes salvation possible for all people but that they must meet certain conditions to receive it. These conditions use to be faith and repentance.

Unfortunately repentance is lost in most churches today or reduced to being a reference to the sinners prayer. So in most churches that teach conditional election faith is the only condition one must meet.

This faith comes from us. We decide to have faith in and of ourselves and then God grants us salvation. Unconditional election teaches that God brings us to faith without anything from within us.

This means the faith and repentance we express is given to us by God. There are two verses that come to mind.

“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:Not of works, lest any man should boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)

This passage clearly teaches that the faith is a gift of God not of works or not from within us. I have heard some say that the gift of God is the grace but since grace means unmerited favor it doesn’t make sense to say “and that not of yourselves.” Grace by nature is not of us but from outside of us.

“In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth.” (2 Timothy 2:25)

God gives repentance. Let me give you one more.

“According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue.” (2 Peter 1:3)

If faith and repentance pertain to life and godliness then they have been given to us.

I want to look at conditional election to start and to see how this election is played out. There are typically two ways to teach this. The first is to say that God looked into the future, saw who would believe and elected those people based on what is called foreseen faith.

They get this primarily from one text.

“Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied.” (1 Peter 1:2)

Elect according to the foreknowledge of God. In other words God looked into the future, saw who would believe and elected them. The word, “Foreknowledge” that we see here literally means, “knowledge beforehand.”

In relation to God, this is the knowledge that belongs to His omniscience. He knows everything and learns nothing. This is a function of his rule over the course of events as they unfold in the world.

God knows all things, all events, all history ahead of time, because he has determined the course of events, history unfolds according to the counsel of his will. The word does not mean He learned something intellectually.

We can see that from passages such as Matthew 7:23 where Jesus tells people, “I never knew you.” It’s obvious Jesus knows who they are and that they exist. This speaks to a special relationship He doesn’t have with them.

It also has the sense of planning ahead. To foreknow is not to just have knowledge of it but to plan it like we see in Acts 2:23.

“Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain.”

God didn’t simply look into the future and see they would crucify Jesus then make His plans around that. He determined for it to happen.

“For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together,For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done.” (Acts 4:27-28)

In addition to planning ahead the term “foreknowledge” may also carry the idea of “love.” Many times in the Bible, the word for knowledge is used to convey intimacy, affection, and a deeper relationship.

Let me give you an example, it is often used as a euphemism for the sexual relationship. In Genesis 4:1 we are told that Adam knew his wife Eve, and she conceived their son Cain.

In Amos 3:2 God tells His people, “you only have I known of all the families of the earth,” God can’t be speaking of intellectual knowledge or we would have to say God didn’t know other nations existed.

He knows about every nation, but He knew Israel alone. This means He loved Israel, He chose Israel, and he brought her into covenant with himself. In that sense he knew her as he knew no other nation on earth.

There are two major problems that I want to outline with this view of foreknowledge.

The first is the idea that God looks into the future and learns something. In other words God doesn’t know something.

The second is that from this perspective salvation is entirely on us. If God chooses us based on our actions in time then we are the ultimate cause of our salvation. You can’t honestly say that God didn’t save you because of you. He actually did do that.

I heard a pastor preach one time and in the same sermon he taught this view then said later that God saved him based on nothing good in him. That’s illogical and irrational. God saved him entirely based on the good in him.

The second way conditional election plays out is through what’s called corporate election. This basically teaches that God didn’t elect individuals but a means of salvation.

They get to this through verses like Ephesians 1:4-5.

“According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will.”

They would say that God chose for all who believe to be in Christ but we choose whether to believe. He predestinated us to be adopted but we choose to be saved then all those who are saved are adopted.

This is a dishonest use of the text. The “us” He chose were the people. Paul was one of them, I am one of them. God chose us to be in Christ.

He predestinated us unto adoption. He didn’t predestinate adoption and then all who choose to be adopted are adopted. The Bible says that He chose us, that is the individual people who are adopted.

“Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.” (John 15:16)

Some argue that the choosing here applies only to the apostles and not to others. The problem is consistency. Does the promise that whatever we ask in His name only applies to them as well? Of course not.

What about the rest of what He says in that chapter?

“This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.” (Vs. 12)

Do only the apostles need to love one another? We can hate each other.

“These things I command you, that ye love one another.” (Vs. 17)

Aren’t you glad that this command doesn’t apply to us? You have to be wildly inconsistent to apply a passage that way.

The Bible tells us that our loving Him is based on His loving us. This means that His action came before ours.

“We love him, because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19)

Another text they use is Romans 8:29.

“For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.”

They would argue the predestinating was not to salvation but to being conformed to Christ. We choose to be saved and if we choose to be saved then we are predestinated to be conformed to Christ.

We can clearly see that the predestintion was not a corporate thing but a personal thing by looking at the verses around it. Look at verse 30.

“Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.”

He didn’t predestinate that a nameless, faceless group be conformed to the image of Christ. Instead He predestinated people to be conformed to the image of Christ.

We know this because in these verses we have an unbroken chain of events. Look at verse 28.

“And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.”

All things word together for individuals. How can we be sure that all things work for our good? He explains in verse 29 We know this because those He foreknew (loved, called into special relationship with Himself) He also predestinated them to be conformed to the image of Christ.

This is why all things work together for our good because they all work to conform us to Christ. Then in verse 30 Paul gives the moreover or he says something like it gets even better. Those He predesinated He also called, those He called He justified and those He justified He also glorified.

Everyone who is predestinated is called, everyone who is called is justified. Let me pause there. If you are honest with the text then you are left here with either election or universalism. Then he says those He justified He also glorified.

Whether you take the position God learns the future and bases His plans on that or whether you believe that God only chooses the means both of these are attempts to find any answer except God’s sovereignty.

Two keys to understanding Scripture are keeping it in context. This means reading a single verse in light of the verses around it, the chapter or the book as a whole.

It also means interpreting Scripture with Scripture. So often people focus on words like world and all men. Does this mean every individual or is there an emphasis in Scripture on Jew and Gentile or every nation of man?

People will grab concepts like God telling men to choose but then the Bible says God works in us to will. These aren’t contradicting each other instead they are defining each other.

Paul says Abraham was justified by faith then James says he was justified by works. The context James is giving is that faith that doesn’t produce works is dead so then he is saying that Abraham’s works justified his profession of faith.

They will latch onto verses that say you are saved if you continue in the faith. Then they teach if you don’t continue you lose your salvation. The Bible also says you can have false faith or as Paul puts you could have believed in vain.

Those who continue demonstrate the reality of their faith while those who turn from the truth demonstrate they were never a new creature at all. John says of those who leave that if they had been saved there is no doubt they would have continued.

The other key is not misquoting Scripture. Leaving even a single word out can alter the entire meaning of the verse. Let me give you an example.

“So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God…”

I heard a pastor in person and one online quote this just as I read it. They both applied this to finding God’s will for our lives. It’s not up to us but up to God what His will is for our lives. Is that the context?

Look at the whole verse.

“So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.”

The very context is election. One more.

“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus…” (Romans 8:1)

There you go says the easy believism crowd. All who are in Christ regardless of how they live are saved. Now read the whole verse.

“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”

Now have have a verse that says those who are saved or in Christ walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. It’s describing the truly saved person.

I don’t believe the doctrine of conditional election can be arrived at when using the Scriptures honestly and in context. It’s important that we believe what the Bible teaches not squeeze the Scripture to fit our teaching.

There are things the Bible teaches that make us uncomfortable or hurt our ego. There are mysteries we can’t fully grasp with our finite minds. Our job is not to fully understand everything the Bible teaches but to by faith believe everything the Bible teaches.