Reformed theology enthusiasts often say that each of the letters in the TULIP acronym flows logically from the “T.” Once you grasp the implications of the Bible’s teaching about total depravity, all the other doctrines of grace quickly follow.
But we can trace the roots of unconditional election further back into Christian teaching than total depravity. These roots extend beyond the consequences of the fall, beyond even our creation in God’s image. These roots begin before the beginning.
Unconditional election is God’s eternal purpose to save an untold multitude of sinners. The elect are chosen personally yet not based on anything in us or done by us but motivated by his free good pleasure. In election, God chooses to reconcile us to himself by giving himself to us in Jesus Christ.
The elect receive the gift of faith in time because the elect are a gift exchanged between the Father and the Son in eternity (John 17:6, 24). Indeed, Paul says that through election God has chosen to reveal the full breadth of his character by not only judging the deserving but displaying “the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory—even us whom he has called” (Romans 9:23–24).
This doctrine, therefore, teaches us about the character of election and about the character of the elect; but more than anything else it teaches us about the character of the electing God.
In this article, I want us to wrestle with the truth and beauty of unconditional election in our inclusive age, teasing out what election implies about God and about us. Along the way, we’ll see how biblical truth overcomes our natural resistance and fulfills our deepest longings. Because unconditional election is ultimately about the character of God, I hope you’ll see that it’s not merely accurate biblical interpretation or doctrinal information. It’s good news that draws us out of confusion and doubt toward trust and worship of the One who has given himself to us—freely, fully, personally—in Jesus.
Election and the Gospel
Our heavenly Father is good to all, pouring out his blessings on the righteous and unrighteous alike. He doesn’t delight in anyone’s condemnation or corruption, though these are the just consequences for sin and rebellion (Ezekiel 33:11). The good news of Jesus must be proclaimed freely to everyone because no one is too good to need salvation or too bad to be saved (Matthew 28:19). And the Bible teaches that “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13).
God is compassionate and patient and never delights in evil or suffering, but he’s also the perfect Judge who hates sin and delights in righteousness and holiness (Romans 2:1–11). While all creation testifies to God’s “invisible attributes” (Romans 1:20), it only leaves us “without excuse” because we refuse to listen—worshiping creatures rather than the Creator, so thoroughly that we’ve become “by nature children of wrath” (Ephesians 2:3).
The gospel is earnestly proclaimed to all, but is not earnestly embraced by all, nor can it be: “No one can come to me,” Jesus says, “unless the Father draws him” (John 6:44). No one knows the Father but the Son and all to whom the Son chooses to reveal him (Matthew 11:27). All those, and only those, who are “appointed to eternal life” are given the gift of faith through the preaching of the gospel (Acts 13:48).
Reformed theology insists we must hold all these truths together, not choosing some biblical teachings over others or interpreting certain passages in a way that undermines the Bible’s clear meaning elsewhere. For example, we should never refuse to share the gospel freely if we believe in unconditional election. Rather, we should be motivated to share the gospel freely because God has chosen to save his elect through hearing and believing the good news (Romans 10:13–17).
The same Paul who talked so often about election and predestination also felt a constant missionary burden to preach to the lost in lands where no one had yet brought the message of Jesus (Romans 15:20–21). Likewise, on the day of Pentecost when Peter announced salvation in the risen Jesus to the international crowd gathered in Jerusalem, he didn’t skip a beat between promising forgiveness of sins to “everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord … to you and to your children and to all who are far off,” while immediately adding that the promise is for “everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself” (Acts 2:21, 39).1
Objections to Election
Reformed teaching on unconditional election is difficult for many Christians to accept. It’s obviously appalling to those who reject biblical authority. But even those of us who believe struggle with unconditional election making God seem untrustworthy, arbitrary, and fundamentally unfair.
This has become a more common struggle today as our society has moved away from evaluating fairness in terms of upholding equality (by protecting equal rights and opportunities) to seeing it in terms of ensuring equity (by recognizing and countering existing inequalities among individuals and groups in the hopes of greater similarity of outcomes for all). We find it deeply unfair when we’re not included in all the advantages or privileges available to someone else.
The focus on equity over equality is not exclusively a modern problem. When Jesus tells a parable about vineyard workers who were all paid the same day’s wages even though some of them worked all day and others only a few hours, those ancient workers felt just as wronged and jealous as any of us would be. Jesus’ response to them (speaking as the vineyard owner) is no less instructive in our day: “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?” (Matthew 20:15).
I agree that God’s free election to salvation isn’t fair to us because we are not given what we deserve. All Christians should agree to this assertion. But this admission of unfairness shouldn’t lead us to begrudge God’s unconditional election. It should lead us to be eternally grateful that God hasn’t been fair to us. He’s been generous.
Inclusivity and God’s Justice
When the Bible is radically inclusive, it is often in reference to God’s justice. Think of God’s evaluation of humanity before the Flood: “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually (Genesis 6:5).” Consider also the verses leading up to Paul’s pronouncement that “all have sinned and fall short” that I already quoted from Romans 3:
None is righteous, no, not one;
no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
no one does good,
not even one. (Romans 3:10–12)
If we insist on absolute fairness, it will always lead to condemnation of all humanity. If God were to be totally and equally inclusive, he’d reject everyone, since “all have sinned and fall short” of his glory (Romans 3:23).
Yet Paul doesn’t leave us in our deserved rejection. He calls us to grasp the mystery of God’s free mercy poured out in a way that equally upholds his perfect justice. Despite what we deserve, believers are “justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus… to show his righteousness at the present time” (verse 24). Jesus’ death and resurrection on behalf of his elect simultaneously satisfies God’s justice and opens wide the floodgates of his mercy for the unjust, “so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (verse 26).
Salvation is a gift we didn’t deserve or earn. Are we then willing to complain that God is unfair to save us by grace when he rightfully should have condemned us for the payment we did earn: “the wages of sin,” which is death (Romans 6:23)? Are we outraged at the injustices we’ve perpetrated against God—not to mention our neighbors? Should we lament that God has been too reckless in his generosity toward us, giving us full and free redemption in Jesus even though we’re so often insincere and ungrateful?
The further I go down the path of demanding fairness from God, while relying upon my own corrupt sense of absolute equity, the more I will refuse to submit to God as the Lord and Judge whose prerogative is to define and defend what’s truly just because he is Justice. The more I focus on the inequity of God’s unconditional election, the more I will miss his astonishing mercy.
The Unfairness of Redemption
When we imagine unconditional election, we might naturally be tempted to think of God in eternity past casting his gaze over an endless crowd of future human beings, arbitrarily selecting certain souls from the mass to be his beloved children and others to betray coldly into the waiting hands of the Devil. Or we might think of God pitilessly neglecting those who’ve never had the chance to hear the gospel while continuing to overindulge those who are privileged to enjoy solid gospel ministry every week.
Perhaps what we should be picturing instead is an endless crowd of human beings whom God created good in his own image, who have nevertheless openly betrayed him, running eagerly (even if unwittingly) into the Serpent’s embrace. We should picture God’s free promise of the Seed committing himself to crush the snake for his people, to be faithful to us despite our continual unfaithfulness to him (Genesis 3:15).
We should picture masses of the despised and lowly of this world being welcomed into the kingdom with open arms, while many of those who received God’s rich blessings are refused entry because they enjoyed the gifts but neglected both the Giver and his call to give ourselves in mercy to others (Matthew 7:21–23; 1 Corinthians 1:26–31). We should picture “a great multitude that no one could number,” redeemed from every nation, surrounding the throne and praising God in every language because they’ve been washed in the blood of the risen Lamb who knows each by name (Revelation 7:9–17).
The wonder of the gospel is that in his mysterious good pleasure God hasn’t been fair toward us, but just and merciful nonetheless. You and I haven’t earned anything from God except condemnation. Yet we will receive Christ’s reward. You and I would have nothing if left to ourselves. But we haven’t been left to ourselves.
We’ve been freely given everything. As Christians we think of ourselves as belonging to God because he’s our Sovereign Lord and Savior who claims us as his own, and that’s certainly true. But it’s also true that God has given us claim to him as our inheritance. “The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup … indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance” (Psalm 16:5–6). As John Calvin so boldly puts it, “if we are united to Christ by faith, we possess God.”2
There’s only one thing more inclusive than total depravity: “the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God” (Romans 11:33). If election is unconditional, then it isn’t fair. But it is sure. And so, in Christ, I can be assured of the Father’s eternal purpose accomplished by his Son and applied to me by his Holy Spirit (Galatians 2:20). “All that the Father gives me will come to me,” Jesus promises, “and whoever comes to me I will never cast out” (John 6:37).
1 For examples of holding all these truths together when applied to election, see especially the “Westminster Confession of Faith” chapter 3, and the “First Main Point of Doctrine” of the Canons of Dort.
2 “Commentary on Matthew, Mark, and Luke,” vol. 1, trans. William Pringle (Christian Classics Ethereal Library, n.d.), at Matthew 1:23.
Brannon Ellis (PhD, University of Aberdeen) is executive editor for Modern Reformation. He’s currently writing a Christ-centered introduction to the divine attributes for Crossway.
Read the other articles in our Calvinism for a New Generation series here:
Perseverance in an Age of Anxiety
Irresistible Grace in an Age of Individualism
Limited Atonement in an Age of Shamelessness