Calvinists teach that God has divided all the people of the world into “the elect” who will be saved and others who will not. All have sinned; God will have mercy only on “the elect” and condemn the others to the eternal punishment their sins deserve.
One of the main Bible passages used to support this idea is Romans 9-11. But in fact here Paul is teaching something quite different: in the end both “the elect” and the others, those who are “hardened”, will be saved – at least among the ethnic Israelites whom he has in view here. This becomes clear when one reads this section of Romans carefully, as I did when preparing my post Restoring the Kingdom to Israel.
Paul starts this section by making a distinction among the descendants of Abraham between “the children of promise”, the true Israel chosen by God, and the descendants of Ishmael and Esau who were not chosen (9:6-13). I don’t see this passage as about eternal salvation at all, but about being called for God’s purposes. More to the point, it is not really about believing and unbelieving Jews in Paul’s time, although it is building the background for Paul’s discussion of this matter.
Paul first brings up the idea that only some Israelites will be saved with a quotation from Isaiah (9:27-28). He moves into explaining how Gentiles and Jews are saved on the same basis, their confession of faith (10:12-13). Then he comes back to the question of whether God has rejected his original chosen people – to which his answer is an unambiguous “By no means!” (11:1, NIV). He teaches that
at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. 6 And if by grace, then it cannot be based on works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace.
7 What then? What the people of Israel sought so earnestly they did not obtain. The elect among them did, but the others were hardened …
Romans 11:5-7 (NIV 2011)
Now at first sight this looks like strong support for the Calvinist position, that God has chosen by grace an elect remnant, and “the others”, like Pharaoh (9:17-18), are hardened beyond recovery and so bound for eternal punishment. However, Paul is quick to reject this understanding. After quoting the Hebrew Bible to show that “the others” have stumbled, he writes:
Again I ask: Did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all! Rather, because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious. 12 But if their transgression means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their full inclusion bring!
Romans 11:11-12 (NIV 2011)
Paul explains his enigmatic hint about their “full inclusion” (Greek pleroma, “fullness”) a few verses later:
Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in, 26 and in this way all Israel will be saved.
Romans 11:25-26 (NIV 2011)
Thus he makes it clear that, at some future time, the hardening of “the others”, the Israelites who have stumbled, will be reversed, so that these people, as well as “the elect” in Israel, will be saved.
Now when Paul says “all Israel will be saved”, I don’t think we need to assume he means every individual. This is not universalism of the kind that Rob Bell was unjustly accused of. More likely “all” here means large numbers from all groups, including “the others” as well as “the elect”. Does it mean that Jews who died as unbelievers will have another chance to believe after death? Possibly. But what is very clear is that exclusion from the original group of “the elect” does not imply eternal damnation.
Calvinists like to quote this verse from early in Paul’s argument, as if it proves their point that God hardens the hearts of some people so that they will not be saved:
God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
Romans 9:18 (NIV 2011)
But, after showing that hardening does not imply eternal damnation, Paul ends his argument with the other side of the same picture:
God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.
Romans 11:32 (NIV 2011)
So what does it mean to be among “the elect”? As I quoted Chris Wright in my March post Election: not to be saved but to save others:
If we are to speak of being chosen, of being among God’s elect, it is to say that, like Abraham, we are chosen for the sake of God’s plan that the nations of the world come to enjoy the blessing of Abraham.
In other words, when Paul writes of the elect in Israel, they are those Jews like himself who were chosen by God to bear witness to the Gentiles. And when he writes of God’s elect or chosen people without specifying Jews (8:33, 1 Corinthians 1:27-28, Ephesians 1:4, Colossians 3:12 etc), he is referring to all who are called to bring God’s message of salvation to the world. Now by that he intends all Christian believers. But, as is clear from the example of the Jews, that by no means implies that others will not subsequently believe and be saved.
I read these posts as a reminder of the issues you cover that I rarely consider any more. But, this particular issue is merely a temptation with no helpful use as far as I can see. The truth is that we must assume that any one we meet can be saved and work to help bring that about. If there is an election (and there probably is [the verses that speak to me are Romans 8:28-31]) that is God’s problem and way above my pay grade. When I was speaking to church groups desperate for relevance about the spiritual benefits of LSD as a flower child and Leary disciple in the late 1960s there was no indication that I was savable. But my father never quit praying and God was merciful.
Thank you, David. I agree that these matters don’t have all that much practical effect. And I don’t expect to win any arguments with Calvinists. But the Bible does encourage us to oppose false teaching by teaching the truth. And I might bring back some wanderers from the way of error (James 5:19-20). It is in that spirit that I put forward this correction to Calvinist misunderstandings of the Bible.
Peter,
I really appreciated this post. I’ve been trying to research Calvinism some to refute it. Calvinism just never seemed ‘quite right’ to me, but at the same time, some of it seemed to really make sense (at least at surface value). I appreciate this post because it helps to ‘explain away’ some of what I would call biblical Calvinist strongholds. Thanks! I’d love to see more posts like this.
Rhea, thank you. My position is rather similar although I wouldn’t use the same confrontational language. I’ll consider more posts showing up weak points in the Calvinist system. Meanwhile you should find several in my archives for the category Calvinism.
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Rhea election doesn’t seem quite right to anyone because it forces us to turn from our man centred perspective that is convinced we could possibly play a part in our salvation and forces us to accept that we are in a more hopeless situation than we could possibly understand and that God is bigger than we could ever comprehend. The reason some of it does seem right is because (imo) lots of the OT and NT make no sense without believing God’s complete sovereignty in all things.
On the contrary to Peter I think a correct view of God’s sovereignty in salvation is important because 1) it provides a big view of God and a small view of humanity and 2) because it is a tremendous motivation to evangelise.
I’d recommend God’s sovereignty and evangelism by J.I Packer for a short, ‘calvinistic’ understanding of this stuff, if you want to see both sides of the debate anyway.
Joel, I can of course only agree that “a correct view of God’s sovereignty in salvation is important”. But that correct view is the one which we find in Romans, and in the rest of the Bible, and not the one which you imagine must be there because it fits your theological presuppositions. If you disagree with that, then please do me the courtesy of answering some of my arguments, rather than just asserting “You are wrong.”
I don’t have time to refute everyone’s theological arguments on the internet Pete, if I have time I’ll write a bit about it tomorrow.
Also, I got my view of God’s sovereignty from the Bible. In fact, I believed in predestination before I even understood what ‘theology’ really meant and who John Calvin was. I’m sure I’d heard teaching about it in church but I didn’t care too much about teaching in church back then, I just knew I’d read bits of the Bible before that didn’t make sense unless God chose people to go to heaven. Since then of course my theology has developed and I’ve become ever more convinced that total depravity, unconditional election, irrestible grace and perseverance of the saints are to be found in the Bible. It’s tiresome when “arminians” accuse “calvinists” of getting their view of God’s sovereignty from their “theological presuppositions”, if you actually talked to any of them you’d know that many, many, many of them got their “calvinism” from the Bible. It couldn’t really be any other way to be honest when for so much of the last century, in so many places, Reformed theology was dead in the water.
Thank you, Joel. I could argue that the recent revival of Calvinism has been a deliberate plot by certain people. There has certainly been a deliberate strategy to revive evangelicalism here in England by a group dominated by Calvinists, of which I was once a member. Of course that doesn’t say whether it is right or wrong, but it undermines your argument that people got their Calvinism straight from the Bible. As for yourself, I suspect you internalised more of that church teaching than you realise.
Don’t feel you have to reply in more depth, but if you do find time I would be interested to read and respond to it.
The elect are those chosen to do a specific job for our Lord Jesus Christ to glorify Him and bring many others to Him. God guides them, throughout their lives to Him for His Purpose. He chooses them.
This does NOT mean all others are damned. Those chosen by His Sovereign Will help to bring others to salvation. Brother Peter Kirk is correct in his analysis.
This, by no means, makes His elect special with regard to sin. We all sin and fall short of the Glory of God. They are merely chosen, for His reasons unbeknownst to us, to bring Glory to Him and save those who are not saved. Well written article Peter.
Thank you, “nobody”.
I would also like to add one more type of elect. The previously mentioned ones would be those sovereignly selected by God thus displaying certain qualities even as a young child. The other type is the saved. After the Holy Spirit enters you He never leaves so in revelations when it is spoken of those being deceived (even the elect if that were possible) it is speaking of all those with the Holy Spirit indwelling within them. It is impossible to stray farther than God can save those with the Holy Spirit. I hope this adds insight. May God bless you Peter.