Over the past few weeks, we have done the work of searching the Scriptures to see what the Spirit-inspired writers had to say in regards to the doctrine of election, and we have found many great truths. To recap what we covered: God has elected those whom He foreknew in eternity past, and He has predestined those whom He elected to receive the eternal blessing, all made possible through the finished work of Christ. Throughout history, God has always had His own special people on whom He lavished His lovingkindness and grace, while passing over all the others whose names are not written in the Lamb’s book of life. Election is a doctrine that many dear saints have struggled with through the centuries, including many believers today.

Towards the end of the blog titled “God’s Eternal Decree – Part 1”, I made the following assertion concerning the doctrine of election: “Once you see it in one text of Scripture, you begin to see it everywhere in the Old Testament as well as the New Testament.” Oh, how true is that statement! This was precisely my experience when I began to understand and fully embrace the Doctrines of Grace back in the mid 2010s, not long before I started attending Twin Cities Bible Church. As someone who began to see the truth and beauty of Romans 8 like never before, I began to see election not only in the pages of Romans 8, but also in Ephesians 1. But wait…there’s more! That text I used to use to vehemently defend my Arminian understanding of salvation, John 15…sure enough, I began to see election taught there as well. More and more passages followed. Before I knew it, I was seeing it all over the New Testament. I started to think about how God specifically chose the nation Israel out of all the other nations of the world, and voilà…it was all over the Old Testament as well!

Ask anyone who does not adhere to reformed theology what comes to mind when they hear the term “Calvinism”, and more often than not they will respond with, “predestination”. Predestination is certainly a vital component of the doctrines of grace, and as we began to touch on last week, it is part of God’s eternal decree. But what is it about the term predestination that causes so much dissonance among believers, and even among those within reformed circles? Why is this aspect of God’s sovereign will a cause for so much confusion, and why is it often the butt of anti-Calvinist jokes and pickup lines (i.e. “God predestined me to not be a Calvinist”)?

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