Unconditional Election
The doctrine of unconditional election is a key doctrine of the Bible that tells us God is sovereign in His choosing of those whom He redeems through Christ. Theologians have defended the doctrine of unconditional election throughout church history, and it appears under the letter U in the modern acronym TULIP that is often used to present the doctrines of grace. The doctrine of unconditional election is grounded on the biblical teaching about God’s gracious and unmerited redemption of those who are dead in their sins and trespasses. The ultimate cause of God’s election of His people is God’s purpose to reveal His glory and mercy without compromising His justice. The doctrine of unconditional election does not do away with our need to have personal faith in Christ for salvation or contradict the evangelistic purposes of God in the Great Commission.
The Bible teaches that God, from all eternity, freely chose some to receive eternal life through Christ (Acts 13:48; Rom. 9:10–11; 11:5–6; Eph. 1:4–5; 1 Thess. 1:4–5; 2 Thess. 2:13). Unconditional election is a subset of God’s predestination whereby He has foreordained whatsoever comes to pass. The unconditional election of individuals in God’s eternal plan of redemption was typified in the covenantal election of Israel in the Old Testament (Deut. 7:6; 14:2; Ps. 105:43; 135:4). Old covenant Israel typified the true Israel of God, Jesus Christ, who is called God’s elect One in Isaiah 42:1 and Luke 9:35. As the last Adam and true Israel, Jesus stands as the representative of all those God chose in Him before the foundation of the world.
According to Scripture, the cause of election is only the good pleasure of God’s will (Eph. 1:5). God’s sovereign election unto eternal life is not based on anything He foresaw in those whom He chooses to save. In this sense, election may be said to be unconditional. R.C. Sproul defined unconditional election in the following way: “The Reformed view of election, known as unconditional election, means that God does not foresee an action or condition on our part that induces Him to save us. Rather, election rests on God’s sovereign decision to save whomever He is pleased to save.”
The doctrine of unconditional election accords with the justice of God. It would have been entirely just for God to choose no one for salvation, leaving all sinners to the outpouring of His eternal wrath. Instead, God graciously chose to save some through the atoning sacrifice of Christ. The Lord owes redemption to no sinner, so His election is a display of mercy toward those who deserve only His justice.
Before the Reformation, Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas both articulated the doctrine of unconditional election. In an exposition of John 15:15–16, Augustine explained, “[The elect] were not chosen because of their goodness, inasmuch as they could not be good without being chosen. Otherwise, grace is no more grace, if we maintain the priority of merit. Such, certainly, is the election of grace.” In the Summa Theologica, Thomas noted the sovereignty of the divine will in the act of election: “Why He chooses some for glory, and reprobates others, has no reason, except the divine will.”1 In other words, nothing in the elect moved God to choose them for salvation.
The Protestant Reformers embraced the biblical teaching about the unmerited, sovereign electing grace of God. John Calvin, in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, defended the biblical teaching on the sovereignty of God in election:
Scripture clearly proves this much, that God by his eternal and immutable counsel determined once for all those whom it was his pleasure one day to admit to salvation. . . . We maintain that this counsel, as regards the elect, is founded on his free mercy, without any respect to human worth.2
In the seventeenth century, the Dutch Reformed churches were embroiled in theological controversy generated by the teachings of Jacob Arminius and his disciples, the Remonstrants. The Remonstrants denied the doctrine of unconditional election, maintaining that God foresaw the faith of those who would believe in Christ and chose them for salvation based on His foreseeing that they would believe the gospel. The Synod of Dort (1618–19) answered the Remonstrants on the doctrine of election and other issues. Article 7 of the first main point of doctrine in the Canons of Dort provides a clear definition of the doctrine of election:
Before the foundation of the world, by sheer grace, according to the free good pleasure of his will, God chose in Christ to salvation a definite number of particular people out of the entire human race, which had fallen by its own fault from its original innocence into sin and ruin. Those chosen were neither better nor more deserving than the others, but lay with them in the common misery. God did this in Christ, whom he also appointed from eternity to be the mediator, the head of all those chosen, and the foundation of their salvation.
Today, many people encounter the doctrine of unconditional election for the first time under the letter U in the acronym TULIP. This acronym gives us what are known as the five points of Calvinism or the doctrines of grace, which stress the sovereign work of God in salvation.
Arminian Christians, the followers of Arminius and the Remonstrants, have sometimes asserted that unconditional election negates human responsibility and the biblical command for the people of God to evangelize the nations. Reformed theologians, however, have consistently emphasized the compatibility of the biblical teaching on God’s sovereignty and human responsibility, the role of the means of grace in the free offer of the gospel, and personal faith in Christ for salvation. God saves those whom He has chosen through the means of the preaching of the gospel and faith in Jesus Christ.
If God chooses sovereignly to bestow His grace on some sinners and withhold His grace from other sinners, is there any violation of justice in this? Do those who do not receive this gift receive something they do not deserve? Of course not. If God allows these sinners to perish, is He treating them unjustly? Of course not. One group receives grace; the other receives justice. No one receives injustice. Paul anticipates this protest: “Is there injustice on God's part?” (Rom. 9:14a). He answers it with the most emphatic response he can muster. I prefer the translation, “God forbid” (v. 14b). Then he goes on to amplify this response: “For he says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion’ ” (Rom. 9:15). Here the Apostle is reminding his reader of what Moses declared centuries before; namely, that it is God’s divine right to execute clemency when and where He desires. He says from the beginning, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy.” It is not on those who meet some conditions, but on those whom He is pleased to bestow the benefit.
R.C. Sproul
Ligonier.org
