Equipping University

A survey of the BIble reveals that God is a choosing God. God has pleasure in the doctrine of election and election brings glory to God. If that is so, why do we not focus on this vital doctrine more often? From the beginning, God had a plan to redeem mankind. This plan was made certain "before the foundation of the world" (Eph 1:4). From the beginning, God set apart a people for Himself and His infinite glory - a people we now see includes both Jews and Gentiles. It is this setting of His divine love and choice on a certain people that we know as "election." In election, God saves men and women in accordance with a plan formulated in eternity past. The events we see unfolding in time are not chaotic but the divinely ordained means that God uses to bring His plan to fruition. In fact, "this world and all that is in it exist primarily as the means to the fulfillment of a divine purpose, 'to unite [or, consummate] all things in him [Christ]'" (Eph 1:9-10).

A survey of the BIble reveals that God is a choosing God. God has pleasure in the doctrine of election and election brings glory to God. If that is so, why do we not focus on this vital doctrine more often? From the beginning, God had a plan to redeem mankind. This plan was made certain "before the foundation of the world" (Eph 1:4). From the beginning, God set apart a people for Himself and His infinite glory - a people we now see includes both Jews and Gentiles. It is this setting of His divine love and choice on a certain people that we know as "election." In election, God saves men and women in accordance with a plan formulated in eternity past. The events we see unfolding in time are not chaotic but the divinely ordained means that God uses to bring His plan to fruition. In fact, "this world and all that is in it exist primarily as the means to the fulfillment of a divine purpose, 'to unite [or, consummate] all things in him [Christ]'" (Eph 1:9-10).

A survey of the BIble reveals that God is a choosing God. God has pleasure in the doctrine of election and election brings glory to God. If that is so, why do we not focus on this vital doctrine more often? From the beginning, God had a plan to redeem mankind. This plan was made certain "before the foundation of the world" (Eph 1:4). From the beginning, God set apart a people for Himself and His infinite glory - a people we now see includes both Jews and Gentiles. It is this setting of His divine love and choice on a certain people that we know as "election." In election, God saves men and women in accordance with a plan formulated in eternity past. The events we see unfolding in time are not chaotic but the divinely ordained means that God uses to bring His plan to fruition. In fact, "this world and all that is in it exist primarily as the means to the fulfillment of a divine purpose, 'to unite [or, consummate] all things in him [Christ]'" (Eph 1:9-10).

A survey of the BIble reveals that God is a choosing God. God has pleasure in the doctrine of election and election brings glory to God. If that is so, why do we not focus on this vital doctrine more often? From the beginning, God had a plan to redeem mankind. This plan was made certain "before the foundation of the world" (Eph 1:4). From the beginning, God set apart a people for Himself and His infinite glory - a people we now see includes both Jews and Gentiles. It is this setting of His divine love and choice on a certain people that we know as "election." In election, God saves men and women in accordance with a plan formulated in eternity past. The events we see unfolding in time are not chaotic but the divinely ordained means that God uses to bring His plan to fruition. In fact, "this world and all that is in it exist primarily as the means to the fulfillment of a divine purpose, 'to unite [or, consummate] all things in him [Christ]'" (Eph 1:9-10).

If we are as desperately lost as the Bible indicates, then we must acknowledge and hold to what the Bible teaches about our condition. We cannot come to God, choose God, or believe in Jesus Christ on our own. This is a matter of ability as well as desire - which speaks of our will. Many people are troubled by the Calvinistic understanding of man's free will because it does not seem consistent with what they know of their natural and usual ability to choose what they want to choose and reject what they want to reject. We can just examine our own lives and the lives we see lived around us and see clearly that man enjoys a very real measure of freedom of choice. Is it possible for man to be free and God to be sovereign? One position makes the best sense of that seeming contradictory position.