Then there are some who claim that God arbitrarily elects some for salvation, and others for damnation (which would be a violation of the character of God as well as a travesty of the Gospel). Therefore we need to be clear from Scripture are to what exactly is the Gospel, and how God saves sinners purely by His grace.
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Hi Nehmiah,
I'm one of those who believes that it is God is the One who is doing the saving and that by His Sovereign choice. Since everyone is a sinner and deserves death, God is not being unfair by His decision of predetermining to save some and not others. God could have decided to not save anyone and He would be perfectly righteous in His judgment, because all have sinned. Below are some examples of God's Sovereign choice:
Not only that, but Rebecca’s children were conceived by one man, our father Isaac.
11Yet before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad,
in order that God’s plan of election might stand, 12not by works but by Him who calls, she was told, “The older will serve the younger.”
13So it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
14What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Certainly not!
15For He says to Moses:
“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
16So then, it does not depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.
17For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: “
I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”
18Therefore God has mercy on whom He wants to have mercy, and He hardens whom He wants to harden.
19One of you will say to me, “Then why does God still find fault? For who can resist His will?”
20But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to Him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?”
21Does not the potter have the right to make from the same lump of clay one vessel for special occasions and another for common use?
22What if God, intending to show His wrath and make His power known, bore with great patience
the vessels of His wrath, prepared for destruction? 23What if He did this to make the riches of His glory known to the vessels of His mercy, whom He prepared in advance for glory—
24including us, whom He has called not only from the Jews, but also from the Gentiles?
In the context above, Paul is providing examples of God’s Sovereign choice regarding those who are saved and those who are not, referring to loving Jacob and hating Esau before either one of them had been born or done anything good or bad. In the same way, he refers to Pharaoh of whom he said, “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”
Likewise, in the scripture above, Pharaoh did not have a choice in the matter, but God raised him up for the purpose of displaying His power and that His name might be proclaimed in all the earthe. As an example of this, we read that every time Moses performed a miracle, it states that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart.
"No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day.”
The scripture above infers that the Father does not draw everyone, but only those whom He has chosen according to His will.
To you who believe, then, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,” and, “A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.”
They stumble because they disobey the word—and to this they were appointed.
The scripture above is self explanitory in that, it states that those who stumble in disbelief do so because they were appointed to stumble, i.e. to not believe.
And we know that God works all things together for the good of those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose.
29For those God
foreknew, He also
predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers.
30And those
He predestined,
He also called; those He called,
He also justified; those He justified, He also glorified.
“For
He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in His presence. In love
5He predestined us for adoption as His sons through Jesus Christ,
according to the good pleasure of His will,
6to the praise of His glorious grace, which He has freely given us in the Beloved One.
In Him we were also chosen as God’s own, having been predestined according to the plan of Him who works out everything by the counsel of His will,
12in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, would be for the praise of His glory.
Strong's Concordance
proorizó: to predetermine, foreordain
Original Word: προορίζω
Part of Speech: Verb
Transliteration: proorizó
Phonetic Spelling: (pro-or-id'-zo)
Definition: to predetermine, foreordain
Usage: I foreordain, predetermine, mark out beforehand.
Strong's Concordance
proginóskó: to know beforehand
Original Word: προγινώσκω
Part of Speech: Verb
Transliteration: proginóskó
Phonetic Spelling: (prog-in-oce'-ko)
Definition: to know beforehand
Usage: I know beforehand, foreknow.
HELPS Word-studies
4267 proginṓskō (from
4253 /pró, "before" and
1097 /ginṓskō, "to know") – properly,
foreknow; used in the NT of "God pre-
knowing all choices –
and doing so without pre-
determining (requiring) them"
The beast, which you saw, once was, now is not, and yet will come up out of the Abyss and go to its destruction. The inhabitants of the earth
whose names have not been written in the book of life from the creation of the world will be astonished when they see the beast, because it once was, now is not, and yet will come.
And all who dwell on the earth will worship the beast—
all whose names have not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain. – Rev.17:8
The two scriptures above demonstrated that those who will worship the beast, will be those who names were not written in the book of life, where said writing took place before the beginning of the world. It also infers that those whose names were written in the book of life was done so before the world began. This shows that those who are saved throughout history was forknown and predetermined before the world even began.
Regarding God's Sovereign election, "GotQuestions" gives the following explaination:
The most common objection to the doctrine of predestination is that it is unfair. Why would God choose certain individuals and not others? The important thing to remember is that no one deserves to be saved. We have all sinned (
Romans 3:23) and are all worthy of eternal punishment (
Romans 6:23). As a result, God would be perfectly just in allowing all of us to spend eternity in hell. However, God chooses to save some of us. He is not being unfair to those who are not chosen, because they are receiving what they deserve. God’s choosing to be gracious to some is not unfair to the others. No one deserves anything from God; therefore, no one can object if he does not receive anything from God. An illustration would be a man randomly handing out money to five people in a crowd of twenty. Would the fifteen people who did not receive money be upset? Probably so. Do they have a right to be upset? No, they do not. Why? Because the man did not owe anyone money. He simply decided to be gracious to some.
