Did God choose you or did you choose Him?

Did God choose you or did you choose Him?
Contra Unconditional Election, part 1

If you have not read the previous article on Contra Irresistible Grace, then go back and read that first because it is a prerequisite to this discussion, along with the acronyms and discussion there in the page Deconstructing Calvinism. In this article, we will cover the choose and chose passages in the gospels of Luke and John.

How many times have you heard from another Calvinist like Paul Washer that “you didn’t seek God. God wasn’t hiding or lost. You were and He found you”? Then you’re like “amen, amen,” *applause* applause. But then what do you do with passages like Acts 17:27, noble-Berean? It says, “His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him—though he is not far from any one of us” (NLT).

If humanity is incapable of seeking or finding God, then why does this passage say that they can? Why did God place people on this earth in particular positions and situations for the very purpose that it would cause them to seek out and find the truth about God? If, as you say, they cannot seek God and would never want to seek after God? The only thing that God determined was “their appointed times” and “the boundaries of their habitation,” but He did not determine that they would seek God and nor did He determine that they would find Him. That’s the responsibility of the seeker. Yet God has made Himself close enough to us so that He may be found, as it says, “He is not far from each one of us.” Furthermore, we are not even told explicitly in which manner or method God determined those previous things and in which logical order He did it. However, we are inclined to believe that it has something to do with “and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth.” This may not be speaking of each individual person on earth but rather, people as a whole, and the logical point of determination seems to point back here where God set things into motion when He made the “one man.” Within His foreknowledge, He selected certain predetermined means that would later come down the road of time so that those means would be available for people to seek after God and find Him. It is speaking of the “nations” here, the “Gentiles,” as a collective whole and the past tense of them having been in sufficient circumstances so that they could seek God and find Him. Paul probably has Romans 1 in mind. There is also a deeper connection here with Acts 17:30, but we will not go there today.

We might be able to say that God determined which nations would become nations and where those nations would be located on the earth and at what time those nations would rise or fall. However, to make this interpretation any more specific, is just not hermeneutically sound. But the main point of the text and what it is essentially saying is, God had a plan to provide salvation to the Gentiles from the very beginning of creation and He desires them to be reconciled to God and to be saved. He did not create them for the sole purpose of perishing, for that would be to undo His own work.

Of course, Paul is speaking here to Gentiles informing them about who the true God is so that they might believe in Him, He wasn’t necessarily giving a theology lesson on God’s sovereignty. But nonetheless, “appointed times” could be translated as “ordered times,” “assigned” or “prescribed” time, and the “boundaries” are about the limits of where they can live. But within those boundaries, we can logically deduce that there is freedom. Since Paul is speaking about nations and not individuals, this is by no means a defense of some kind of meticulous sovereignty where God controls every molecule and atom. Having “determined” the extent to which we can interpret this passage (pun intended), we come to the conclusion that after God had determined previous things to occur, now it is the responsibility within man’s free-will to seek God and find Him. It says, if perhaps they may find Him, not, because they were determined to find Him or else prove themselves to be reprobates since they were not determined for salvation.

“But hold on,” you may say, “doesn’t the Bible say that we didn’t choose God but He chose us?” John 15:16 says, “You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.” Well then, we are at a very difficult position if we think this passage is talking about us and the Calvinistic doctrine of election because if it is, then Acts 17 and John 15 contradict themselves and perhaps the Bible may not be infallible after all. Or, we could take another look at this text to see what it really means. Who is Jesus speaking to? The disciples, right? So then, you and I are not the intended audience but rather, Jesus’ disciples were. Remember the very basics of Bible interpretation. The Bible wasn’t written to you—but it was written for you. In this passage, Jesus is not saying that He chose you, He is saying that He chose the disciples. But this was not a limited and restricted choosing people unto initial salvation. Jesus is referring to choosing the disciples to be of service to Him, to be in His inner group of the twelve main students so that He could train them for ministry to be the apostles and foundation of the early church. Of course, it was still an unconditional choice because these men didn’t have any extravagant resumes or qualifications going for them—they were just ordinary folks. And so Jesus extended His grace to them so that they could turn around to bring salvation and blessing to all the other nations. But this was a selection for service, not salvation.

In Luke 6:13 it says, “And when day came, He called His disciples to Him and chose twelve of them, whom He also named as apostles.” Just because Jesus chose twelve disciples, that doesn’t mean He reprobated the rest of them. They were still “His disciples.” We even see some of these disciples show up later and Jesus endowed them with power for ministry, sending out seventy of His disciples to proclaim the kingdom of God, to heal, and cast out demons (Lk 10:1). Jesus may have even had more disciples than this who followed Him but didn’t serve in that kind of ministry training role. There were other times when Jesus chose someone to follow Him, saying, “Follow Me” but they choose not to follow Him. From a Calvinistic perspective, was Jesus just rubbing it in their face, just to show how totally depraved they were in their sin that they would not follow Him? Was He teasing them to come, knowing full well that unless God irresistibly draws them, it would not be possible for them to obey His command?

But here is where Calvinism and Lordship Salvation intermingle. They think this is about Jesus calling people to salvation when in reality, Jesus is just calling people to be students and ministers. We have to keep in mind, the audience Jesus is speaking to is Jewish and they already believed in Yahweh and so the situation is quite different than how we might have originally conceived it to be in our minds. The words “disciple” and “believer” are not synonymous. A disciple is a sub-category of a believer of which all believers are disciples and their level of commitment and service varies from person to person. I have articles on my website about that subject, so I will not say much more here. But when Jesus says, “follow Me,” it is about making a commitment to the ministry of discipleship for serving God, not about becoming saved.

In Luke 9:59-60 Jesus was walking along a road and said to someone, “Follow Me,” but the man replied, “Lord, permit me first to go and bury my father.” Then Jesus said to him, “Allow the dead to bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim everywhere the kingdom of God.” So Jesus chose this guy but he gave an excuse like all the other people who said they would follow Him. But the man’s failure to rise to this level of commitment was not something Jesus condemned him to hell for. What actually happened was that Jesus lowered the standard for this man for Jesus calling him to ministry so that instead of him having to leave everything at that moment to follow Jesus, Jesus instructed him to instead proclaim the kingdom of God everywhere. But if he were not a genuine believer, why would Jesus tell him to do that? He would not, because belief in Jesus would have to come first. You can’t proclaim the message of something you don’t believe in, right? And so because of this and because of what Jesus does not do in inviting him to believe, and because he was already willing to follow Jesus, we can logically assume that he was a genuine believer before Jesus asked him to follow Him. For this reason, the terms and phrases of “discipleship,” “follow Me,” and “chose you,” cannot be interpreted to mean salvific belief in God. This puts more suspicion into this belief of salvific Unconditional Election. Additionally, we have also established that Jesus chose some people yet those people whom He chose did not come to Him like He originally asked them to, further putting suspicion into the doctrine of Irresistible Grace.

Did you know that our Father in heaven elected Jesus? In Luke 9:35 a voice came out of the cloud and said, “This is My Son, My Chosen One; listen to Him!” Chosen One! Did you hear that? Chosen. But chosen for what? Was Jesus elected to be saved? Of course not. We need to evaluate every text individually to interpret it and not just assume certain words mean something because we carry with us presuppositions from our system of theology. Jesus was chosen to be a Servant according to the prophecy of Isaiah 42, “Behold, My Servant, whom I uphold; My chosen one in whom My soul delights. I have put My Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the nations.” Since He is called “Servant” and because the result and purpose of this servant ministry is to bring forth justice to the nations, the “chosen one” is the one selected for service. Therefore, to be chosen is to be a servant and to be a servant is to be chosen. They are virtually synonymous terms. In John 17:18 Jesus said to His Father, “As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.” So the Father chose Jesus as His Servant and now Jesus chooses His disciples (who were already with Him at this time) to be His servants and messengers. They were chosen for service.

John 6:70 Jesus answered His disciples, “Did I Myself not choose you, the twelve, and yet one of you is a devil?” Jesus was talking about Judas here who later betrayed Jesus and whom Jesus later called as “lost,” “perished,” and “the son of perdition” (Jn 17:12; 18:9). Actually, it is interesting to note here that right after Judas betrayed Jesus, He says, “Of those whom You have given Me I lost not one.” In this context, the “lost” is not referring to the loss of salvation but about the loss of physical life since Jesus nicely asked that all these Romans soldiers to let His disciples go away unhurt or without arrest. But nonetheless, at this point the devil had already entered Judas and he had apostatized by his conscious and deliberate betrayal. So in that sense, he was “lost” but he actually wasn’t “lost” according to this context because he didn’t physically die. But nonetheless, Judas was among those whom Jesus said “Of those whom You [the Father] have given Me” (18:9).

In John 17:1-2 Jesus prays, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You, even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life.” It would be helpful to read and meditate on the whole chapter and notice every time Jesus says “given Me” and what that is connected to. What I noticed is that 19 times in this chapter, the word “world” is mentioned and I think verse 6 is key, “I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world; they were Yours and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word.” And verse 8, “they received them [the words] and truly understood…” The ones whom the Father “gave” to Jesus are the ones who “received,” “understood,” the “words,” and the knowledge of God (v. 6 “manifested Your name”). They were the ones who came “out of the world.” Why? Because they received Jesus as the Messiah and believed in Him. But why does it say that the Father gave them to Jesus? Because the Father directed them towards Jesus through the illumination of the Scriptures, the testimony of His works, His words, and the testimony of the Spirit. They believed through these common means of grace which were sufficient to believe.

I think there are two other possible understandings here to interpret “they were Yours” (v. 6). First of all, the Father is the Creator of all things and He is the Father of all. He made each and every person and in this way, they belonged to the Father and the Father entrusted these people into the Son’s stewardship. Second, they were worshipers of God the Father and then when they were introduced to Jesus, they also acknowledged Him as God. And so, they no longer belonged exclusively in their devotion to the Father but now in their devotion to Jesus as well. It may even be a combination of these interpretations. But in the case of Judas, it’s debatable whether or not he was justified by faith to begin with or not. But I personally don’t think he was.

Putting it all together, the Father as Creator of all those He made, directed the right people to Jesus or the Father directed Jesus to the right people to call them to follow Him to be His disciples so that they would receive eternal life and also be used of service to Him. The Father and the Son chose these disciples out of the group of other disciples to be Their specific messengers and apostles for the church as Jesus said, “As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world […] so that the world may believe that You sent Me” (v. 18, 21). Jesus obviously wants more people to believe the truth about Him and so His selection of the disciples is not meant to be a particular or limited redemption but rather, to be extended provisionally for the whole world.

Jesus was given authority from His Father to give eternal life to whomever He wished (v. 2) and He wished to give eternal life to all those who came to Him and believed in His name (Jn 6:37; Mt 11:28). The Father also wanted the same thing (Jn 6:40). The disciples “believed” that the Father sent Jesus and so now were devoted to not just the Father, but Jesus as well. Once they believed, they came “out of the world.” This could mean from the world populace and earthly realm (as they left everything to follow Him), or it could mean out of the world unto eternal life (as they believed upon the Son), or it could mean out of the world in dedication to Jesus as holy servants unto Him (as in sanctification and ministry). Perhaps it was a combination of things but in how the word world is used in closest proximity to verse six, it is just the general earthly realm. When Jesus says in verse 11, “I am no longer in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world […] I come to You.” He is praying a prayer as if He is already glorified and has left the earth probably because the prayer was mainly intended for the edification of His disciples for later on. Also, since He would be in too much suffering to pray many words later on, He prays them now and verbally transfers the disciples back into the stewardship of His Father’s care since when He dies, He will no longer be physically with them. From this definition of world, the most likely definition in verse 6 is the earthly realm in general. So they came out of from among the rest of all the peoples.

Let’s read it again, “I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world; they were Yours and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word” (v. 6). The word “men” is used instead of disciples and so Jesus is mainly speaking about the people who came to Him in more of a general sense, were convinced of who He was as the Messiah and the Son of God through everything that testified about Jesus. From the context combined with the Greek text word “gave,” the understanding of this word would be “to entrust to one’s care.” And so the Father entrusted the care of these people to Jesus and now Jesus is praying to the Father to give that responsibility back to the Father. That responsibility from the Father originally had to do with their physical care (since He created them), their spiritual care (since they were devoted to the Father and Jesus at one point or another and still needed to be sanctified), and for the Father to generally watch over them for anything they needed.

Because of all these things, “gave” is not referring to specific individuals that were predetermined to be saved before coming to Jesus. This passage along with these disciples, is not referring to the Calvinistic understanding of “the elect.” You have to understand that to make such an assertion is to insert your own theological and philosophical bias into the text. But it is not there. I know it is hard to not see it there but it is not there.

To not muddy this term “elect” with Calvinistic soteriology, I will simply call their understanding of “elect” as “the preemptive elect,” since preemption means, “a prior seizure or appropriation: a taking possession before others” (Merriam-Webster). That’s how they understand elect, it’s like a done deal before the deal is even made. It’s like they’re pre-saved but not saved but potentially savable while also definitively going to be saved. They are bought or redeemed before they are actually saved. Thus, the preemptive elect. They have this idea where the preemptive elect are secured in the Father’s care and then given into salvation from the Father’s sovereignly ordained will and predetermined plan before the beginning of time to be saved and so this is basically their spiritual awakening and blooming from the seed of predetermination. But all those extra ideas are not in the text.

Just consider this possibility: God’s providence does not have to do with or need to do with preemptive election. God can providentially take care of them as His earthly creation which He loves and who now belong to God in a more particular way since they have eternal life. But before they had justification or eternal life (to whomever that may have been the case), God still cared for them providentially to take care of their earthly needs, as He cares for all His creation (Mt 5:45; Lk 12:7, 22-34). Again, going back to chapter 18, Jesus fulfilled the word He previously spoke, “Of those whom You have given Me I lost not one” (v. 9), clearly indicating not physically losing anyone by their death since the ministry of Jesus was very dangerous and so many people had wanted to kill Him all the time and probably also His disciples. Jesus was very compassionately concerned for their physical safety when He would be gone. Therefore, contextually, the giving from the Father to the Son and the Son to the Father is mainly about stewarding these people provisionally in a physical way as the Father who made them and the Son who looked after them. Of course, now that they have eternal life, it would involve the keeping of that too.

If God’s choosing of individuals necessarily means preemptive election, then what does that mean for Judas? Jesus literally chose him. His apostasy is a flaw within the framework of preemptive election and God’s choice. You might say he was an exception to the rule but since there is no substantial evidence for the rule in the first place, this specific idea of election further undoes itself. Therefore, the choosing Jesus did for the disciples were about choosing them for service, not salvation. And the giving over of these men to Jesus from the Father relates to divine providence in stewardship primarily in the earthly sense, but certainly takes a turn for their spiritual provision as well that the Father would take care of once Jesus has left the earth. By no means does this giving over exclude the disciple’s personal responsibility of believing in Jesus, receiving Him, and understanding the truth. If they had not done that, they would not have been given over to Jesus in the first place.

Another way to understand this giving over is through Psalm 2:8 of which the Father says to His Son, “Ask of Me, and I will surely give the nations as Your inheritance, and the very ends of the earth as Your possession.” The word “nations” is a very inclusive term and does not indicate only peculiar individuals. After the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, all the earth belongs to Him, and all authority was given to Him (Mt 28:18). Jesus received the nations as His inheritance through the means of their believing in Him so that all who come to Him, even the Gentiles, are offered life.

As I have previously mentioned, in Jesus’ High Priestly prayer, He speaks of things as having already occurred like Him being out of the world when He was still in it. He speaks this way also of Judas before he had betrayed Him and before he had hung himself and died. Jesus says:

I am no longer in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We are. While I was with them, I was keeping them in Your name which You have given Me; and I guarded them and not one of them perished but the son of perdition, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled. (John 17:11-12).

Here, one may be puzzled to think if Jesus is speaking about eternal life that was lost (or not attained), or if He is speaking of the physical life of Judas that will be lost when he hung himself. And the answer is yes. When Judas hung himself, he did not obtain immortality. He perished in both senses. He forfeited it all and this is eternal ruin. Which, for me, as an annihilationist, these two things are virtually the same sense. To perish means to die, and that’s what happened. All the disciples except for Judas were kept in the name of the Father and of the Son, within the umbrella of their Oneness. They were protected by the life of God, by abiding in Him through faith. Judas did not abide in the life of God and so he forfeited his life. He did this of his own free-will and was not forced by God’s determination to do it. He had equal opportunity to believe and be saved by Jesus as the rest of the disciples. But God, foreknowing that Judas would never have believed in the true divinity of Jesus in whatever circumstance he would find himself in, chose Judas to be a disciple of Jesus so that the plan of redemption would be fulfilled by the betrayal. God did not violate anybody’s free-will in His predetermination. Judas had more than sufficient means of grace to believe in Jesus but he rejected Jesus instead.

According to John 15:19, “of the world” is contrasted with “out of the world.” Jesus says, “If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you.” The definition of world in this context is the evil system and people of which the disciples came out of to follow Jesus. Since following Him, they have been hated and persecuted, and they were hated because they did not conform to the ways of the world but lived holy. Jesus chose them out of this evil world to be holy people unto Him. Jesus said, “come follow Me,” and they came. They decided to follow Jesus. They did not come to Him as robots as if they were pre-programed to follow Him but they came freely, both in their believing and in their continuing to follow and spiritually grow as His disciples. The choice of Jesus does not of necessity cancel out the choice of mankind. We might say that Jesus chose them first but choosing them first does not of necessity make this irresistible grace or preemptive election. Jesus’ choice of them does not imply determination. If I invited you to go somewhere and you said, “okay,” and followed me to the place, did my initiation irresistibly determine your choice? No, of course not. Jesus may even have had a conversion with some of these disciples before He asked them to follow Him. Even John says that there were many other things that Jesus did that not enough books could be written about it (Jn 21:25). Therefore, it would be faulty to assume that “follow Me” was the only thing that Jesus said to them before they came and followed. We just don’t know. Jesus was also speaking to His disciples specifically, not to you and I. Also, “follow Me” is not synonymous with “believe in Me.” We cannot assume that this was about them being justified by faith because if that were the case, were the disciples of John the Baptist not justified by faith before their coming to follow Jesus? How much sense does that make?