God’s nature is immeasurably greater than ours. He is infinite, eternal and unchanging. We are finite, limited & changing. He is God the Creator and we are human creatures. As Isaiah said, “Yet, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand” (Isa 64:8). It is a humbling thing to be likened to clay and to let God alone be God. To acknowledge that he is actually the only one in ultimate control. Why is it so important to believe this? When Adam sinned, he brought sin and death to both himself and to all his descendants. As a result, all born naturally have a sinning nature. Here is the verdict: “The Lord looks down from heaven…to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God. All have turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one” (Ps 14:2-3). As Paul concluded, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23). The dilemma that our sin created was that we all became lost, absolutely incapable of saving ourselves. Praise God that he did not allow us all to go our desired way towards sin and eternal death! He had decided to show his love, making a divine choice.

He chose to reveal his way of salvation to Abraham (Gen 12:1-3) and to use the Hebrew nation to bring it about. “The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession” (Deut 7:6b).When Jesus was revealed as the Savior of the world, he also chose a small group of men saying, “You did not choose me, but I chose you” (John 15:16a). In fact Jesus declared, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” (John 6:44a). “No one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (Lk 10:22).

Sometimes this choosing of God is called “electing” and the chosen are called the “elect.”There are elect angels (1 Tim 5:21), who will gather elect humans together at the end of this age (Mk 13:27; Mtt 24:22). Peter wrote to the elect (1 Pet 1:11) and Paul endured great suffering for the sake of the elect (2 Tim 2:10). God’s election is also called predestination (Rom 8:29-30; Eph 1:5,11) or a foreknowing (Acts 2:23; Rom 8:29; 11:2; 1 Pet 1:2). The Bible clearly teaches that God knows everything, ruling and reigning over all creation. His sovereign plan is followed, yet in such a way that we all are responsible for our choices.

The NT teaches that “believers were chosen ‘before the foundation of the world’ (2 Tim 1:9; 2 Thes 2:13) in Christ (Eph 1:4) to adoption (Eph 1:5) and good works (2:10). The source of election is God’s grace, not our human choice (Eph 1:4-5; Rom 9:11; 11:5). “We love because he first loved us” (1 Jn 4:19). It would have been amazing grace for even one so unworthy as we to be saved. Yet millions believe! God orders us to share the gospel with everyone. All who reject it do so because they want to. All who accept it do so by his grace alone, not because they are better than the others. Praise God for the gift of faith!