A couple years ago, my wife and I visited the Grand Canyon. It’s a sight to behold, whether at sunrise when the dawn slowly lights up the cold canyon, during the day as its scope can be appreciated, or at night when countless stars fill the sky.
We enjoy hiking, and even though it had recently snowed, we wanted to descend into the canyon. (It’s estimated that only five percent of the more than six million annual visitors go below the rim.) The path along the canyon’s rim is a peaceful place to enjoy the view, but you get to behold the sheer size and beauty of the canyon in a whole different way when you walk down into it. Your eyes are caught by the layers of rock, each offering its own shade and color. You feel your smallness and the canyon’s enormity beneath the rim’s surface. After a couple miles, especially when slowed by trekking through snow and ice, you look up thinking you’ll be further into the canyon only to realize it’s bigger and deeper than you imagined. But whether it’s looking down from above or scanning the canyon from inside, the more you see the layers within the canyon the more in awe you will be of the Grand Canyon as a whole (and its Maker).
When I think of these stunningly layered rock formations, it reminds me of words and truths in Scripture. Whether it’s a metaphor like God is our refuge (Ps. 46:1), or a doctrine like our redemption through Christ’s sacrificial death (Eph. 1:7), or a word brimming with meaning, like being “sealed” by the Spirit (Eph. 1:13), there are layers to these truths. They are theologically loaded because when an author uses one of these words or images, there’s a richness and complexity underneath that he draws upon and has in mind. The more a reader knows the Scriptures, the bigger and more beautiful a word becomes to them. The layers within a biblical truth are part of its loveliness.
To use a quick example, in Galatians 4:5, Paul says that in Christ we “receive adoption as sons.” The word “sons” has a rich background. One of my professors in college, Dr. Trevor Burke, wrote an entire book called The Message of Sonship. Adam, Abraham, and Israel were all to be God’s sons, someone chosen by God to reflect God and His kingdom in the world, receiving both the blessings and responsibilities that come with the role. Jesus is obviously the true and perfect Son, and we become sons of God only by being in the Son. When Paul uses the term, he also has his Roman historical context in mind. Often a person—which could be a man or woman—who was not a biological child would be adopted as an heir (and so much is in that word too). Wrapped up in “adoption” is the Old Testament background, Paul’s historical context, what it means to be heirs, and the richness of salvation in Christ that makes us sons and daughters of God who receive the care, love, blessings, and responsibilities that come with such a status. It speaks to our newfound identity in a family, our role to fulfill as those who represent and reflect the family’s values and priorities, as well as our security and future inheritance.
The point is that many words in the Bible, like “adoption” and “sons,” contain strata of meaning and significance. These biblical words are not “simple” words that refer to just one idea or that have just one connotation, but they bring together several streams of thought into one pounding waterfall of a word.
This is true of words like “chosen” or “elect” in the New Testament. When we read about those chosen by God (Eph. 1:4) or His elect exiles (1 Peter 1:1), we can sometimes simplify a word and miss the layers of significance within it. Too often, when we read about God’s people being chosen ones or elect, we miss the theological beauty and practical significance of what is present in the words because we are too preoccupied with the questions we want answered, which might not be present in the word or passage itself. Much ink has been spilled in books and articles and a lot of airwaves in podcasts and sermons have been sent out covering what election or to be chosen means. My goal here isn’t to rehash old debates or to provide a full treatment of these words, but instead, I want to highlight a few of the theological and historical layers that undergird the meaning of “chosen” and “elect.”
The language of chosen or elect seems to suggest at least the following:
- God’s mercy and grace as the initiator and securer of our salvation
- God setting His favor and affection upon a people
- Their belonging to God through His covenant and with His full commitment
- Their calling to holiness as God’s people
- Their mission to represent and reflect God to the world.
Elect and chosen are deeply theological and covenantal words referring to God’s graced, treasured, called, sanctified, and sent people who belong to Him and exist for His purposes. There’s more to the word than that, and an author might have one of these connotations more in mind than the others when it’s used in a specific context, but to be “chosen” or “elect” carries these layers of meaning and significance. Like a park ranger pointing out the geological layers of a canyon, let me highlight five theological layers underneath the words chosen and elect.
1) God’s unmerited, undeserved, and sovereign grace in our salvation.
Who we now are in Christ, and everything we have in him, is solely due to God’s grace, initiative, accomplishment, and gift. To be chosen is to be graced, and to be graced is to be given something you neither deserved nor brought about. When an author used words like “chosen” or “elect,” they intended our first response be gratitude and awe because of God’s kindness and love. These words convey the pleasing aroma of God’s generosity, goodness, and grace to people wholly undeserving.
While in Genesis 11, mankind seeks to make a name for themselves and make their way to God in their own efforts (rejecting God’s prior commands to multiply and fill the earth rather than remain in one place), Genesis 12 begins a new chapter of the Bible as God chooses a man (Abraham) and a people from him (Israel) to bestow His covenant, promises, favor, blessings, care, and commission upon. While those at the tower of Babel want to make a name for themselves through their accomplishments and initiative, God calls Abraham to Himself and says He will make Abraham’s name great, He will bless and multiply Abraham, and He will use him to bless the nations (Gen. 12:1-3). This is the beginning of Abraham’s story and Israel’s story. There is no prior record of anything Abraham has done, sought, or asked for, and yet, God graciously chooses this man (and people) to accomplish His purposes in His world. Throughout Israel’s history, God reminds them that He chose them not because of anything He saw in them, since they were few in number and weak compared to others, but it was according to His plans to set His love upon them and His divine purposes for them to be His people (Deut. 7:6-8). It’s a testimony to God’s grace and mercy.
This same language is true in the New Testament when Jesus and his apostles talk about those in the Church who have been chosen by God. It’s not according to anything worthy in them or that they’ve done, good or bad (Rom. 9:11), but it’s according to God’s merciful and gracious purposes. Ephesians 1 emphasizes this uninitiated and undeserved grace of God, not just in calling those chosen by God (Eph. 1:4) but also in Paul’s repetition of God’s divine purposes:
- “in love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose [or pleasure] of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace” (1:4-6)
- “according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time” (1:7-10)
- “in him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will” (1:11)
Paul repeats himself to elevate the grace and the glory of God because our salvation—and all the blessings we now have in Christ—have nothing to do with us and everything to do with God’s mercy, grace, love, kindness, purposes, and plans. The language of God choosing a people for Himself is meant to humble us and remove any ground of boasting in ourselves or of trusting in ourselves. This gospel should stir up great gratitude to God. We don’t earn it, pay for it, deserve it, initiate it, accomplish it, secure it, or keep it. God initiate, accomplishes, and fulfills the work of salvation toward sinners.
That means there is no self-made man in God’s kingdom but only those utterly dependent on God’s grace in calling, saving, and keeping them. We are not forging our own identity and working to secure our blessings, but we are children graciously blessed by the Father. I think it’s interesting that chosen and elect show up in so many openings of letters, meaning the apostles wanted Christians to connect their identity, their blessings, and endurance or assurance, not to anything in themselves but in who they are as a graced, chosen people—and all that this then entails (including in the following points)
Because we are God’s chosen people, we are a humble, graced, and grateful people.
2) God’s generous and free favor, blessing, and love upon a people.
All these points are connected as one magnificent theological rock and yet each individual layer pops on its own. The fact that we are graced people is closely and clearly linked to God showering kindness and favor upon a people. Passages that use language of God’s chosen ones, elect, or those He foreknows often sing out the blessings that are bestowed on His people.
Again, the blessing and favor is not only not because of anything in us—initiated, merited, or accomplished—but it’s inherently found in who we belong to and what we have in Him. By being chosen to be God’s people, we are blessed. We are blessed because we belong to the blessed One. Before Paul gets to us being chosen by God in Ephesians 1:4, he writes, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.” Being chosen is the first spiritual blessing Paul mentions, but it all points back to verse three and how the overarching blessing is life with God.
Like the language of salvation or redemption, what’s in mind isn’t merely escape from hell and judgment, victory over eternal death, or even forgiveness of sins (though these are blessings), but both salvation and being chosen have in mind God setting His love upon us, entering into a relational covenant with us where He takes our care and welfare upon Himself, where He adopts us into His family (chosen and adoption are often linked, as they are in Eph. 1:4-5), and giving us everything we’ll ever need for life and godliness. There’s debate about whether “in love” from Ephesians 1:4 should primarily go with what precedes it (God’s election of us and for the purpose of our holiness) or what follows it (being predestined for adoption), but it likely connects both ideas, since our being chosen by God to be set apart to Him and our being predestined for adoption to Him are both rooted in and an expression of God’s steadfast love.
But notice a couple of other examples of how the language of chosen is linked to the language of God’s rich love, mercy, and kindness.
- “For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you” (1 Thess. 1:4)
- “But we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God chose you” (2 Thess. 2:13)
- “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” (1 Peter 2:9-10)
- “And because he loved your fathers and chose their offspring after them and brought you out of Egypt with his own presence, by his great power,” (Deut. 4:37)
- “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, 8 but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers,” (Deut. 7:6-8)
- “Yet the Lord set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day.” (Deut. 10:15)
The language in the New Testament letters was also meant to encourage the readers to consider themselves as they are in God’s eyes and not in the world’s eyes. Most of the early Christians were a marginalized group of outcasts, if not exiles being persecuted. Take for example, Peter’s first letter. 1 Peter is a letter written to exiles and sojourners (2:11), people on the run, pushed to the side, and being persecuted for their faith in Christ. Peter begins this letter by calling them “elect exiles” (1:1), which is quite the combination. A verse later he adds in that they are elect exiles “according to the foreknowledge of God the Father” (1:2). Why does Paul call them not just “exiles” but “elect exiles”? Yes, from the world they have been rejected, exiled, looked down upon, and unloved, but that is not the whole story or even the real story of their lives. What really matters—now and for eternity—is that they are elect exiles. Whatever they might be to the world, God has chosen them. God set His love upon them. God has purposes for them even if the world doesn’t. Their rejection and the many trials they endure in this life are meant to be countered by the love, kindness, care, blessings, plans, and purposes that God has for them as His chosen or elect people. Peter puts this at the front of his letter to bolster them with confidence, encouragement, strength, and the hope of endurance they have all because they are God’s chosen people.
One last way we see God’s election of a people and God’s extravagant love to that people is evident in the language of foreknowledge (see 1 Peter 1:18-20; Rom. 8:29-30; 11:2). God foreknows His people in love and with intimacy, care, and steadfastness (see Gen. 4:1; 18:19; Ex. 33:17; Jer. 1:5; Hos. 13:5; Amos 3:2; 1 Peter 1:20). Foreknowledge means much more than mentally knowing things in advance, but it has to do with affectionately or lovingly knowing beforehand. For God to “foreknow” His people means He loved us beforehand. His love doesn’t originate in us or when we’re born or even when we come to Christ; it originates in His eternal love for us. Wow. This is why these words were meant to stir up love and awe to God, not to be loved by God but in return for His great love. I. Howard Marshall writes, ‘It is generally agreed that the ‘knowing’ in this verb (proginiskō) must be understood in the Hebraic sense of fixing one’s loving regard upon a person’ (Kept by the Power of God, 1969). Indeed, throughout the Bible we find ‘know’ (yada in Hebrew; ginoskō in Greek) as a word used of personal intimacy.”[1] To be chosen and to be foreknown is to be loved, loved in the deep biblical sense of the word where God’s mercy, kindness, commitment, care, presence, faithfulness, and favor are all showered upon us.
Because we are God’s chosen people, we are a favored, cared for, and blessed people. To be chosen by God is to be treasured by God and loved by God.
3) God’s commitment to those who belong to Him.
This could fall under the category of what it means for God to “love” His people, but it’s worth identifying on its own so we don’t miss it. When God chooses a people for Himself, He sets them apart to Himself. He enters into a covenant with them and makes promises to them, and He is always faithful to His covenant, promises, and commitments. When biblical authors speak about God’s people about being chosen, they did so to give them confidence and assurance that no matter what trials they endured, no matter how much opposition they received, or even no matter how imperfect and small their faith, if they belonged to God, they would be upheld and kept. God would not let anything get in the way of the promises and plans He has for His people. Because He chose them out of His good, wise, and gracious purposes, they could be sure that God would remain faithful to them, that He would keep every promise, and that He would bring His purposes in their lives to pass.
Since God chose to set His love upon us not because of anything good in us, choosing us despite our sin and weakness, that means He won’t turn on us or give up on us when we fail to impress Him, when we’re weak, when we stumble and stray, and even when we fall into sin. He knew who we were and would be, and He loved us anyways…and He still loves us anyways.
Even our assurance of salvation, the truth that all those truly in Christ will be kept as they persevere in faith by God’s preserving grace, is bolstered as we consider that the God who began our salvation will complete it (John 6:37, 39, 44; Phil. 1:6; Deut. 7:6-8). He who initiated and started the good work will be faithful to complete it. Those He sets His love upon and brings into covenant with Himself can rest confidently knowing God’s continued watchful care will never leave them. We are God’s people and He is our God, both now and forever.
Ephesians 1:3-14 is one long sentence summarizing the blessings we have in Christ, beginning with God choosing a people to Himself (1:4) and ending with the promise that God seals and keeps all who are His (1:13-14). The God who pursues us is the God who preserves us. The God who gifts us with faith and salvation (Eph. 2:8-10) is the God who makes sure those gifts are not lost. In Ephesians 1, our past, present, and future are all securely in God’s hands. Our hope and confidence aren’t in our commitment to God but His commitment to us, not in our goodness but His grace, and not in our strength to endure but in His strength to keep us.
God’s love for us is tethered to God’s commitment to us, and both are part of the layers underneath the word “chosen.” The beloved passage of Romans 8:28-39 connects God’s choosing of us to His love for us in a beautiful way. While verses 8:29-30 begin with God’s gracious election of a people, verses 31-39 are written to assure Paul’s readers that this means nothing can separate them from God’s love. Since God’s love didn’t begin with them but with God’s purposes (8:29-30), nothing will get in the way of God’s love or keep them from God’s love (8:31-39).
“For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified….No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom. 8:29-30, 37-39)
We can know God is for us, and will forever be for us, because we are chosen in Christ and according to God’s gracious purposes. We are His, and will forever be His, not because of anything in us that created or keeps this relationship, but because God chose us to belong to Himself…forever. God is fully committed to His chosen ones, and they are fully safe and cared for by the One who chose them.
Because we are God’s chosen people, we can rest in God’s steadfast faithfulness and precious promises to us.
4) Chosen displays God’s plan to set apart a holy people who reflect Him.
When we learn that we belong to God, and that we are set apart (from our sin, past, self, and the world) to God, it’s a reminder that God’s election of us includes His purposes to make us holy. Our holiness, or our transformation and maturity to become more like Christ, is never the ground or basis of God choosing us but it is one of the goals and results of God choosing us. Our sanctification by God and to God includes not only that we are His and belong to Him, but because we are His, He will work in us so we aren’t left in our sin but are gradually conformed to the image of His Son.
We see these connections not only in how language of election is connected to sanctification but also adoption. Adoption not only communicates many of the things I’ve already mentioned (God’s love and commitment given to us) but it also conveys that we now are in God’s family and called to represent the Father. As we are transformed into the image of the Son by the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:18; 4:4; Col. 3:10), we reflect the Father. We reflect who He is, His will, and His heart. As our next and final point will show, when God chooses us, He does so to change us. And He changes us in part so we can be His ambassadors who reflect the Father’s kingdom and invite others into that kingdom.
Notice some of these overlapping connections again between our election, adoption, and sanctification.
- “even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ” (Eph. 1:4-5)
- “To those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, 2 according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood” (1 Peter 1:1-2)
- “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience” (Col. 3:12)
- “But we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth” (2 Thess. 2:13)
- “Yet the Lord set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day. 16 Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.” (Deut. 10:15-16)
We not only receive the blessings and favor that come from being chosen and adopted, but we also receive the responsibilities and opportunities. Because we are God’s chosen ones, we should live like it. It should change how we live because of who we belong to, whose family we are in, and what our new identity is now in Christ. This tends to be something we neglect, but it’s clear in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. God chooses a people to Himself and intends to set them apart and make them holy. The New Testament makes it clear we never become sinless or holy in the same degree as God is, but we become gradually more like Jesus over time. God chooses a people to love but also to love into maturity, transformation, and holiness.
Because we are God’s chosen people, we are to live accordingly and to reflect our Father.
5) Chosen displays God’s purpose that His people would be a blessing to the world.
God rarely has one purpose at work. When God chooses us and makes us holy, He does so in part for His glory, in part for our growth, and in part for the good of the world. By making us more like Him (in our thoughts, desires, values, relationships, and lives), we bear God’s image to those around us. We display more and more of who God is and what He’s like so others might see Him. God has a missional purpose in choosing a people to Himself. He wants our lives, the unity and love of His people, and the gospel message they proclaim to bless the nations and draw people to Him.
God chose Israel to be set apart to Himself, to know and then reflect a holy God, as a means of being a light to the nations (which they failed at). God chooses us to be His adopted children, in part so we can be remade into His image and reflect Him and live out God’s purposes and calling in our life.
In John 15-17, Jesus talks about the fruit we will bear in him as well as Christ’s purposes in keeping us in the world but set apart from the world so we can be a light to the world. Included in this larger passage he says, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you” (John 15:16). God chooses us not so we can be a “holy huddle” who keep to ourselves and pursue our own desires (like comfort and ease) but so we can pursue what God desires, that we bear fruit and make disciples
Notice again that in Peter’s letter to the elect exiles, the ideas of our election, our holiness, and our mission are all present in 1 Peter 2:9-12.
“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. 11 Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. 12 Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.”
We are God’s elect exiles and a chosen people so we can be a holy people. We’re brought into light so we can proclaim the excellencies of the God who brought us out of darkness and into light. In both 1 Peter 2:9-12, and its Old Testament backdrop of Exodus 19:5-6, to be chosen involves both God treasuring us and setting His love upon as His people but also being a holy nation and a kingdom of priests so we can be on God’s mission of being a light to the nations. To become God’s people is to become God’s agents living out His purposes in the world, which for us today includes making disciples of all nations and bearing the image of Christ (imperfectly) in our deeds, words, and relationships. With our status, both as those chosen and those adopted, comes both new blessings but also new privileges.
Because we are God’s chosen people, we are called to God’s good purposes of us blessing the world and bringing light to the nations.
Footnotes
[1] I. Howard Marshall, Kept By the Power of God (Eugene: Wipf and Stock, reprinted 2008), 102.
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