God Chose You Before You Chose Him: Understanding Election and Salvation
How Sovereign Grace, Predestination, and the Lamb’s Book of Life Prove Salvation Is God’s Work, Not Yours
The doctrine of election confuses people.
Not because Scripture is unclear, but it destroys our self-reliance on salvation. Additionally, most churches won't even touch it, and many who do get it wrong.
Let me walk you through it gently.
Your name is permanently written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.
Revelation 21:27 – "But nothing unclean will ever enter it [New Jerusalem, the holy city], nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those [believers] who are written in the Lamb's book of life."
Revelation 3:5 – “The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.”
That your name will never be blotted out is your guaranteed assurance of salvation.
You Were Dead in Your Sin
Here’s why this is important.
Ephesians 2:1 – “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins.”
Romans 5:12 – "Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man [Adam], and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned."
Not wounded. Not on life support. Spiritually dead.
Dead people can’t make choices.
Paul Washer explains in his sermon series on regeneration: “The natural man is not able to choose God because he is spiritually dead. His will is in bondage to sin” (The Gospel’s Power and Message).
We can’t choose on our own, so God chose us first.
A corpse cannot make decisions. You must be alive before you can choose anything.
God Makes You Spiritually Alive
This is the key point many miss.
Ephesians 2:4-5 – “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.”
God made you alive FIRST.
Then He draws you, enabling you to believe.
John 6:44 – “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him.”
John 6:65 – “This is why I told you that no one can come to Me unless it is granted him by the Father.”
John MacArthur writes in his systematic approach to salvation: “Regeneration precedes faith. God must first give spiritual life before a person can exercise saving faith” (The Gospel According to Jesus).
You Participated in Your Spiritual Birth as Much as You Did Your Physical Birth
Here's where people struggle; they still want to be responsible for their own salvation.
John 3:3 – “Jesus answered him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.’”
Jesus uses the analogy of being “born again” for a reason.
Think about your physical birth.
Did you choose to be born? Contribute to your conception? Will yourself into existence?
No. You were utterly passive.
Your parents decided. You were the result of their union.
The analogy fits with salvation. God decides. You’re born again by His will, not yours.
John 1:13 – “Who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”
Paul Washer states in his teaching on the new birth: “A man contributes nothing to his regeneration any more than a baby contributes to his physical birth” (Ten Indictments).
God decides. You were born again by God’s sovereign will, not your own.
The Free Will Confusion
Now many will say: “But I did made a decision out of my own free will!”
Yes, you did.
But only AFTER God gave you the faith to make it.
Even that faith was a gift.
You didn’t manufacture it.
You received it freely and responded willingly.
But the ability to respond came from Him; before that you could do nothing.
A.W. Pink explains in his exposition of divine sovereignty: “Faith is not a work that earns salvation; it is a gift that receives salvation” (A.W. Pink, The Sovereignty of God).
If You Save Yourself, God Isn’t Sovereign
Here’s the problem with autonomous free will: if you ultimately decide your salvation, then YOU are responsible for it, not God.
But Scripture is clear.
Romans 9:16 – “So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.”
If salvation depends on your will, God is not sovereign over salvation.
That contradicts everything Scripture teaches.
God Doesn’t Just Ratify Your Choice
Many try to soften election by saying: “God just looks into the future and ratifies the choice of those who will eventually choose Him.”
God is omniscient and He certainly can see into the future. But that would make God a passive observer, not an active Savior. It would also make you your own savior.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones writes in his Romans commentary: “The biblical doctrine is not that God foresaw who would believe, but that He determined who would believe” (Romans: An Exposition of Chapter 9).
2 Timothy 1:9 – “Who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of His own purpose and grace, which He gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began.”
Before time began, He purposed to save you.
Not based on foreseen faith.
Based on His sovereign pleasure.
Why Did He Choose You?
Not because you’re special.
Not because you’re smarter, more spiritual, or better than others.
Romans 9:15 – “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
James White states in his defense of Reformed soteriology: “Election is not based on anything in the creature, but solely on the good pleasure of the Creator” (The Potter’s Freedom).
He chose you because He wanted to.
What About Those He Didn’t Choose?
Then, is God responsible for those who aren’t saved?
No!
Interestingly, this is where free will actually DOES come into play.
Every non-believer freely and completely denies Christ.
John 3:19-20 – “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.”
John 5:40 – “Yet you refuse to come to Me that you may have life.”
They LOVED darkness.
They REFUSED to come.
God doesn’t force anyone to reject Him.
He simply leaves them in their freely chosen rebellion.
Romans 1:18-20 – “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For His invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.”
They SUPPRESS the truth.
They EXCHANGE the glory of God for idols.
They are WITHOUT EXCUSE.
Even in the book of Revelation, after personally experiencing God’s judgment, non-believers persist in their rejection.
Revelation 9:20-21 – “The rest of mankind, who were not killed-by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk, nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts.”
Revelation 16:9 – “They were scorched by the fierce heat, and they cursed the name of God who had power over these plagues. They did not repent and give Him glory.”
Revelation 16:11 – “And cursed the God of heaven for their pain and sores. They did not repent of their deeds.”
After all the horrific judgments, they still CURSED God.
They DID NOT REPENT.
Their rejection is willful, deliberate, and without coercion.
John MacArthur explains in his teaching on divine sovereignty: “God’s sovereignty in election does not violate human responsibility in rejection. The unbeliever sins freely and willfully; his damnation is entirely his own doing” (The Gospel According to the Apostles).
God doesn’t need to harden a heart that’s already stone cold.
He simply leaves it in its chosen condition.
The lost perish because they love their sin more than they love God.
I Don’t Fully Understand It
Do I understand why God chose me and not someone else?
No.
Isaiah 55:8-9 – “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.”
God’s ways are infinitely higher than mine.
But I don’t need to understand divine sovereignty to appreciate grace.
What I Know
I know I was spiritually dead.
I know I couldn’t choose God of my own free will.
I know He chose me before the foundation of the world according to the kind intention of His will and without any merit on my part.
I know my name is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life and will never be blotted out.
I know He made me alive, gave me faith, and drew me to believe in Christ.
I know I responded willingly and freely after He gave me new life.
I know I participated in my spiritual birth as much as I participated in my physical birth; it was entirely His work.
I know those who reject Christ do so willingly, freely, and without excuse.
I know my salvation is secure because HE holds me, not because I’m holding on.
I know these truths fill me with eternal gratitude.
I know one final truth, if you’re not saved but the least bit curious, your name may also be written in the Lambs Book of Life.
To His Glory,
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Today's effort was THE best delivery I've ever heard on the topic. You made some great analogies and, as you noted, you walked the reader through it slowly. It was like learning to change a tire for the first time... this has to happen, then this, then this, because the tire doesn't change itself and if things don't go in this manner other problems will occur.
Thank you! Love the book of Romans but it's all new to me. 💕💕