God’s Choosing and Ours
Before my daughter and our new son-in-law exchanged vows last month, I challenged them from Colossians 3:12–15 and 17. Verse 12 reads,
Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience ….
The first part of that verse I applied to the bride and groom’s new identity. Our son-in-law would from that day be known as my daughter’s husband and she would be known as his wife and even take his name as her new name. But Col 3:12 reminds them that we have a far more precious and eternal identity in Christ. And it is their identity in Christ that will ultimately give stability and longevity to their marriage. Paul describes believers as God’s chosen ones, God’s holy ones, and God’s beloved ones.
Concerning that first description, God’s chosen ones, I made only a single comment. I said, “This means that you belong to God first. And that you did not choose him; he chose you.”
Well, that second statement was not entirely true. The fact is, we do choose God when we embrace the Son of God and his cross work and resurrection for our personal salvation. John 1:12 says that God gave the authority (exousia) to become “children of God” to those who “received him” and “believed in his name.” The urgency of the New Testament call to trust Christ would ring very hollow if it were not true that we could actually choose God.
Fortunately, I have close friends in the ministry who are willing to push back at me if I make a careless statement. In fact, one of them said on this occasion that people who don’t know me are going to think I’m a “Hyper-Calvinist.” That was fair. The designation “Hyper-Calvinism” has been around at least since the early nineteenth century and its precise meaning depends much on who is using the term. But Hyper-Calvinism is sometimes used to signal a theological position that so inflates the sovereignty of God in salvation that the responsibility of human beings to respond to God in faith is severely minimized. Divorced from a Scriptural context my statement could have been misconstrued to say that God saves people mechanically in a one-sided transaction.
But I wonder sometimes if, in an effort to protect the doctrine of salvation by faith, we are overzealous to guard human choice while unintentionally marginalizing divine choice. Is it not equally important not only that we chose God, but especially that God chose us?
The Word of God is crystal clear that God elects people for salvation. The apostle Paul writes, “Those whom he foreknew he predestined [predetermined, marked out beforehand] to be conformed to the image of his Son” (Rom 8:29). Paul does not say what he foreknew (using the neuter plural ἅ, as in John 18:21). Paul says whom he foreknew (using the masculine plural οὕς). In the doctrine of Soteriology, God does not foreknow things, he foreknows people. He does not look ahead in time to see an event, such as someone trusting him. He looks ahead in time and chooses people to trust him, people who are yet unborn.
Furthermore, God’s choosing is primary over our choosing him. That is why John can say that we loved him because he loved us first (1 John 4:19). He chose us before the foundation of the world” (Eph 1:4). We who were dead (Eph 2:1) God brought to life (Eph 2:5). We who were nonexistent God created (2 Cor 4:6; Eph 2:10). We who were yet unconceived God gave birth to (1 Pet 1:3). We can no more influence God’s saving work than a dead person, a nonexistent person, or an unborn person.
When I said, “You did not chose God; he chose you,” I was intending only to emphasize the fact that without God’s choosing us we would never have chosen him. This doctrine is a precious and humbling reality for all who know God. The Bible does not call God our “chosen One,” but it says that we are his “chosen ones.” And that is something to celebrate!
So what if, in my wedding address, I had referred to believers as those who have chosen to put their faith in Christ for salvation, and left it at that? What if I had mentioned human faith but did not mention God’s divine election or effectual call? Would anyone have raised an eyebrow? Would some people have felt uncomfortable because I mentioned human responsibility but made no mention of the sovereign choice of God in the matter?
I realize that to speak of God’s electing some and not others makes us feel uncomfortable. Because our brain is telling us that this cannot be fair. In fact, I have had many a conversation over the years with church members who asked nervously about Scriptures such as Ephesians 1:4, where Paul clearly states that God chose us before the foundation of the world. Yet these same believers would talk freely about “God’s chosen people,” the OT Israelites, with no equal consternation. Maybe they thought that Israel did something to merit their status as God’s chosen ones. But the Scriptures tell us only that God called to Abram, who was ostensibly a pagan in Ur for no apparent reason than that he chose him and him alone to bring salvation to the world through his obedience (Gen 12:1–2). Even when God explains to his people why he chose them as a nation, he does not say that his choice is based upon anything that they have done, but simply because he loves them and because he is sworn to keep the promise he made to their patriarchal ancestor, Abraham back in Ur (Deut 7:7–8). Both in the OT and the NT, the Bible describes for us a God who makes choices. And there is no Scriptural guarantee that we will understand all of those choices.
But the tension that we face in soteriology is not whether God elects people for salvation. He clearly does. The tension is, and always has been, how to reconcile God’s choosing us with our choosing him. Satisfying that tension is the subject for another blog post that I’m confident will never be written. Meanwhile, however, given the Bible’s clear teaching of divine election and human responsibility we dare not overemphasize or neglect either side.
