Callousness and Election

What is Election?

I don’t know about you, but I’ve always had trouble finding a theological label that I fit neatly into. Sometimes I feel like a four-point Calvinist or Amyraldist. I believe in libertarian free will, or the view that human beings have actual freedom to make actual choices. At other times, I call myself a Molinist. But despite my discomfort with theological labels, there are certain doctrines that I hold fast to with clarity and conviction.

One of those doctrines is the doctrine of unconditional election. There is no doubt in my mind that unconditional election is a biblical teaching. There are simply too many strong supporting texts to leave any room for doubt on this matter.

“There is no doubt in my mind that unconditional election is a biblical teaching.”

Unconditional election teaches that God chooses some people over others to receive His grace and mercy and be granted salvation through no merit of their own. It is 100% God’s sovereign choice. Some who are elect may seem more “worthy” in our eyes than others, but when it comes down to it, all elected individuals are completely undeserving of God’s grace and receive salvation as an unmerited gift.

This doctrine is seen clearly from the beginning of the Bible to the end. For instance, in Deut. 7:6-8, Moses tells Israel:

For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

It was nothing that Israel had done, nor any characteristic they bore, that made them worthy of election as God’s chosen people. In fact, God seems to imply the opposite, that He chose them despite their being more insignificant than other nations.

Paul teaches unconditional election with a stark metaphor. In Romans 9:19-22, he writes:

You will say to me, therefore, “Why then does he still find fault? For who resists his will?” On the contrary, who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? Will what is formed say to the one who formed it, “Why did you make me like this?” Or has the potter no right over the clay, to make from the same lump one piece of pottery for honor and another for dishonor? And what if God, wanting to display his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much patience objects of wrath prepared for destruction?

There is power, beauty, and mystery in the doctrine of unconditional election. It reminds us that God is God in heaven and we are but small created beings on earth. However, as with anything good and true, this doctrine can be abused. A twisted understanding of unconditional election can lead to unbiblical attitudes and practices.

A Wrong Application

One danger of the doctrine of unconditional election is falling into a form of spiritual callousness toward the lost. If it is God’s will for some to be saved (and, by implication, some not to be), then who are we to stand in the way of God’s will? This callousness can take a hard form or a soft form.

The hard form is to reject all efforts at evangelism and outreach. This extreme callousness almost wishes for the lost to remain lost so that God’s will can be carried out. Of course, from a human standpoint, it’s impossible to know who is elect and who isn’t, which is one of many reasons this hard form of spiritual callousness is untenable. It’s just as much God’s will for us to preach the good news to one and all (Rom. 10:14-15) as it is to elect some over others.

“Any theology that does not lead to a greater love for God and for people is a suspect theology.”

The soft form of spiritual callousness makes room for evangelism and outreach, but does not lament over people’s decision to reject Christ’s lordship. It’s an attitude of the heart that’s a bit too quick to “shake the dust off their feet” and move on to more open listeners. If we share the gospel with a friend, and that friend isn’t convinced after the first conversation, our love for that friend grows cold because we start to see them as being in that “other” group. “God must not love that person very much,” we subconsciously think to ourselves.

If spiritual callousness stemming from a misapplication of election is left unchecked, the danger is that we will lose genuine love and concern for people, we will forget what it means to weep over the lost as Jesus did (Luke 13:34), and we will see people only as projects to be accomplished rather than as beings to be valued and cherished (John 3:16).

Conclusion

Any theology that does not lead to a greater love for God and for people is a suspect theology. If any doctrine causes us to support or approve of the destruction of non-believers, we need to jettison that broken doctrine and find our way back to the truth that points toward God’s heart. One way to do that is to take the whole counsel of Scripture into account when examining biblical topics. In this case, passages such as 1 Tim. 2:3-4 would serve as an effective counterbalance to an extreme, callous form of election:

This is good, and it pleases God our Savior, who wants everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Let’s have the same heart and learn to love, cherish, and even weep over the non-believing people in our lives, just as Jesus did.