Answering the Key Questions About the Doctrine of Election

Interview with John MacArthur

PHIL: John, several years ago we offered everyone on the Grace To You mailing list a free copy of a message you taught on the doctrine of election.  And the response to that was huge.  It was one of the biggest offers we've ever had.  And the topic generated a lot of conversation and response and some questions.  So we wanted to kind of follow up on it.  The fact is, election is one of those doctrines a lot of people have a strong response to, some people hate it, some people love it.  And that's why we want to talk about it.

Do you get a lot of questions about the doctrine of election?

JOHN: I don't think I ever do question and answer session anywhere in the country or in other parts of the world that somebody doesn't ask about the doctrine of election.  It's a very, very common question.

PHIL: It's usually one of the first questions...

JOHN: Yeah, if not the very first, it's near the front and it's always basically the question of how can the doctrine of election relate to human choice, or free will, as it's often called by people?  So it's not just the doctrine of election itself, but how it connects with human responsibility.

PHIL: Good, well we'll talk about that.  We'll talk about that in a little bit of depth over the next two days and we'll do that in a kind of novel sparred fashion.  We'll let you say whatever you want to say.

JOHN: You mean I don't normally do that?

PHIL: We're counting on you.

JOHN: Are you going to keep the scissors off of this tape? PHIL: I think so.  I think so.  So we'll devote the next two broadcasts to some of the hard questions about election.  Questions...some of these questions will make us feel uncomfortable.  Some questions that stretch our ability to think and to understand, but this is a subject about which the Bible has a lot to say and we want to be like the Bereans.

JOHN: Yeah, and I think at that point, if I can jump in and say, I understand all those hard questions.  They're equally hard for me.  And they're equally hard for you.  To say I believe in the doctrine of election does not solve all the problems, it simply admits to what the Bible teaches.  I cannot resolve all the problems, I have all the same questions that everybody else has.  I don't think you're going to in this life get perhaps the final answer to all of those dilemmas but becoming content and committed to and faithful to what the Scripture says about the doctrine of election is the issue.

PHIL: Good, we'll hold on to that thought because at the end I want to ask you a bit about how you came to your convictions on this and some of the questions you grappled with.  But let's start just by talking about the term election for people who have heard that word and aren't sure what it means.  Let's start with the basics.  What is the doctrine of election?

JOHN: Well, it simply means to be chosen.  We would use the word election in our own culture to refer to someone being chosen.  When someone is elected, they are chosen for a specific purpose.  And that's exactly what it means.  It comes from a Greek verb, eklego, which means to pick out, to choose out.  And it is the doctrine that says God chooses those who will be saved.  And He does so sovereignly, according to His own will and His own purpose, uninfluenced by any other person, or by anything anyone does.  That is to say the choice is apart from any action on the sinner's part, which might render that sinner worthy or deserving of that choice.

PHIL: For our listeners, if you're interested in what John just said and want to hear it again, we're going to make today and tomorrow's entire interview available to you free of charge, so just send us your name and address and mention the word "Election Interview."  Our e-mail address is letters@gty.orgor call us at 1-800-55-GRACE.  Outside the U.S. you can contact your local Grace To You office.

John, is the debate about election a matter of differing traditions, or is this a debate that flows out of Scripture?

JOHN: It is a debate that has to be resolved in the Bible.  But certainly there are differing traditions.  There is the classical tradition that is often called Calvinism, although that's a little bit too narrow a definition because this kind of teaching was not exclusively John Calvin's teaching.  So there is a tradition of teaching firmly and strongly on the doctrine of election that comes long before John Calvin and continues today even outside of classic Calvinism.  There are believers all over the world who view the Bible as teaching the doctrine of election.  There is also historically the idea that man has a free will and that he is free to choose and God only chooses man when man first chooses Him.  The worst form of that has been called in the past Pelagian, a little less severe view of that is called semi-Pelagian and then it sort of migrates up the ladder a little to Arminianism.  But all of it comes down to the idea that God does not in the end determine who is saved, the sinner himself determines that by an act of his own will with which God cooperates.  So those are traditions that have been around a long time.

I think you can make a case classically, however, for the doctrine of sovereign election right straight back to the Apostles, as being the truest and purest reflection of what Christians have always believed. 

PHIL: And as a matter of fact, it goes even further back than that because it permeates the Old Testament.

JOHN: It does.  "Israel, Mine elect," says God in referring to Israel.

PHIL: Well I mentioned earlier that this doctrine of election is one of the most hated and by some people one of the most beloved doctrines in all the Bible.  I teach sometimes, too, and I've noticed that people tend to bristle when you bring up this subject.  Some people do, some people love it.  Why is it that some people despise this doctrine if it is in Scripture?

JOHN: You know, I think in some ways it's sort of an American thing, sort of a cultural American thing to be free and have free will.  I don't even think societies in the past in Europe that were monarchies that knew what it was to be under a sovereign had as big a problem in dealing with the fact that there was such a thing as a sovereign person who did things based upon his own will and his own purpose and made determinations without the consent of the people who were under him.  But I think in our culture in America, most of the reaction has come here.  The greatest reaction to the doctrine of sovereign election that I can see historically has sort of been Americanized.  We're in to freedom, we're in to making our choices, personal autonomy is a big deal to us.  And so I think it's just part of the way American people think, that we ought to have the right to choose our own destiny.  That's the way it should be because that's the way it is in America.

But I do think also beyond that, and that may be a small element of it, beyond that, fallen human nature bristles, to use the word that you used, bristles at the idea that it isn't in charge of its own destiny.  It's the old invictus(?) thing, I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul, I will determine my own destiny.  This is all part of fallen human pride, that you're in charge of everything and you have the right to make every call and every decision.  You hear that reflected in the silly stupid talk on the man on the street interviews today, this is my life and this is how I live it and you can take it or leave it, it's my life and blah, blah, blah.  That...that's the...that's the basic idea of human freedom gone amok that wants no restraints.  Well that's coming right out of the fallen human heart that reacts against any infringement upon its own personal freedoms and rights to choose its own destinies.  So I think the combination of the kind of culture we have lived in and the reality of the fallen human heart with its flawed reason and its rebellious independence makes it hard for the average sinner to acknowledge the truth of this great doctrine.

PHIL: In a way, that pride you described is...is rooted in sin itself.  I mean, Satan's fall stems from his desire to usurp God.  Eve fell when Satan promised her she would be like God.  There's a sense in which that pride is the very essence of sin.

JOHN: Exactly, exactly what it is, it is the essence of sin and as you put it, Satan wanted to be sovereign and he wanted to replace God and he wanted to be sovereign.  God said, "Don't do that."  She said, "I will do that.  I'll usurp sovereignty over my own life and make my own choices." And that's the fabric of human fallenness.  So when you come along and say God is absolutely sovereign, you know, that's like putting your fingers down a blackboard, your fingernails down a blackboard to the sinner because he believes so strongly in his own right to choose.

PHIL: If that's the case and resistance to the sovereignty of God is rooted in sin, that means as a theological issue goes, this is a very important one and if you resist the sovereignty of God, that's about as serious a theological error as you can make.

JOHN: It is absolutely right because you're striking a blow at the very heart and soul of everything in Christian theology and that is the character and attributes of God Himself.  That's why you see in the Garden the great fall of humanity came in a usurping of God's sovereignty, a denial that God had any right to tell Eve what to do or not to do.  That was essentially what brought the whole race down and that is still the battleground.  I guess the irony of that is, however, among Christian people that they hold on to that, that Christian people who have crushed in their own sinfulness, broken, humbled...to borrow the language of James 4, humble yourselves, you know, because God gives grace to the humble.  They have come humbled and broken and crushed at the foot of the cross to be redeemed, to be saved, they have fled for God to forgive them and give them grace and redeem them and now that they are saved, they want to hold on by virtue of that remaining fallenness, they have this irrational, spiritually irrational idea, they want to hold on to their own autonomy as if this decision belonged to them and not to God.  And yet if you talk to a Christian, they're going to tell you that God did the work in their lives.  When you tell someone that someone is lost, what do they do?  First thing they do is pray for that person.  What is that?  That is an acknowledgment of the sovereignty of God over that person's soul.  They plead with God to save that individual.  So we're caught in a trap where we understand spiritually, we have to understand that God is doing this miracle, that He's in charge of it.  That's the way we come to the foot of the cross, pleading for His mercy and His salvation.  That's the way we pray.  And yet we still can't let go of this idea that we're in control of our own destiny.

PHIL: I think most Christians feel that tension all the time and you can't study Scripture very far without running into it.  The doctrine of election has to do with God's choosing people for salvation in particular.  Where would you go in Scripture to establish that doctrine?  What are the key passages?

JOHN: Well there are many, many passages.  You can go back in to the Old Testament, the book of Deuteronomy, where God talks about choosing Israel.  In the prophets He calls Israel "Mine elect."  Perhaps a passage that we've been studying recently in our series on the radio is a good starting point and it's found in the words of the Apostle Peter who in the most, I guess, obvious sort of simple normal way introduces an epistle and doesn't make a defense of this doctrine but in just a very, very simple straightforward way says this, "Peter an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who reside as aliens scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who are chosen." There's no defense.  There's no, "Well, ah, here's what I really meant by that.  Oops, sorry, I hope I didn't offend anybody."   "And they are chosen according to God's predetermination by the sanctifying work of the Spirit to obey Jesus Christ."  And then he goes into the benediction, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again."  Not only do you have the choosing, but you have the effecting of that choice.  He not only chose us, He caused us to be born again.  That's...that's an analogy that is a very important analogy.  Nobody causes his own birth.  The Lord picked that analogy because it's so air tight.  You can't cause your own birth.  You show up because of choices and decisions made by someone other than you.  I was born into this world with no contribution to that fact.  And that is the very reality that our Lord uses to refer to the new birth, it is a being born again.  We have no power to do that.  And Jesus said that, I love that in John 3, this is another key passage.  Nicodemus comes to Jesus and he says, "What do I do to...what do I do to enter the Kingdom?  What do I do to receive eternal life?" This is the question of his heart, not what's on his lips.  Jesus reads his heart and He said, "You must be born again."  And he said, "Well, what do I...how do I get in to my mother's womb and get born all over again?"  I don't think he was being silly or superficial, I think he was picking up the analogy and saying, "How do I do that?  You're telling me I need to be born again, facetiously he says, Well how do I get into my mother's womb?  How do I do that?"

And Jesus' answer is not this, He doesn't say, "Well here are the three steps to being born again.  Pray this prayer, say these words, bow your head."  He didn't say that.  You know what He says, it's astonishing what He says.  He says,"Well, the Holy Spirit is like the wind, He blows where He will.  And you hear the sound of it but you don't know where it comes from and where it's going."  And His answer is, "Nicodemus, that 's the work of the Holy Spirit.  And He comes when He will and does what He will when He wills."

That's not an answer that would satisfy an Arminian.  That's not an answer that would satisfy a contemporary evangelist.  You say, "How do I...how do I become born again?"  And the answer is, "It's a work of the Holy Spirit, and it's a sovereign work and He'll do it when and where and with whom He chooses to do it."  But it involves believing on the Lord Jesus Christ.  And, of course, we add the gospel because it doesn't occur apart from the gospel.

Another important passage along this line would be Ephesians chapter 1 which is an inescapable statement concerning the doctrine of election...which says to us, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ just as He chose us in Him, that is in Christ, before the foundation of the world."  That's pretty clear.

You have it also, and I love to go to this particular text because I think its escaped a lot of people, but it's at the beginning of Titus as Paul writes his letter to Titus.  He says, "Paul, a bondservant of God and an Apostle of Jesus Christ, for the faith of those chosen of God."  In other words, he says I preach the gospel so that those who are chosen can hear it and believe.  That's just as simple as it can be.  And this is a divine work of God which He grants to those for whom He has purposed to grant it, that's what it means to be chosen.

The Apostle Paul again doesn't make some kind of explanation when he says this.  Second Timothy 1:8, "Do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord or of me," Paul writes Timothy, "his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose." And again, you're right back, this is God's purpose upon which He based His own election, predestination, calling conversion.

PHIL: That's an interesting array of answers you've given me.  And our listeners would be interested to know you did that without notes.  Nobody prompted you on what these questions would be, it's the first time you heard the question.  You went through and you gave examples from Peter, from Jesus, from Paul, really you cold cite almost any New Testament author all teaching the same truth.

JOHN: Then there's...and the thing that is about it, so important about it is it's without pretension, it's without explanation, it's without the um, ahh, I know this is hard to swallow.  It was assumed.  It was, and you mentioned that earlier, I think it was so crystal clear in the Old Testament that God had chosen Israel and that God did His work through His people and that as it says in Isaiah 46, God does exactly what He purposes to do.  They knew that.  That wasn't some strange new doctrine injected into their lives, the doctrine of election didn't come sort of in a vacuum, this was something they could readily understand because of what they knew about God from the Old Testament.  God does exactly what He wills.  Listen to this, "I am God, there is no other...Isaiah 46...I am God, there's no one like Me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times thing which have not been done saying My purpose will be established, I will accomplish all My good pleasure." And Psalm 135 says, "God does whatever He pleases."

Now how could God determine the end of human history, the end of His creation from the beginning of it if He wasn't in control of it?  And so this, I think, is part and parcel of the very nature of God which was clearly revealed in the Old Testament so that this was no surprise to anybody who had a Jewish background and an understanding of the Old Testament that God was in charge of everything.  Listen to Psalm 33:11, "The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of His heart from generation to generation."  His plan, His purpose working its way through human history, He chooses.  He chooses in the Old Testament, Israel Mine elect, He even calls Christ My elect.  And He chooses Christ as His chosen one, He chooses believers today and through all of redemptive history as His own.

PHIL: And, you know, as I study the gospel, no body stressed this more than Jesus and He made it very personal with the disciples in John 15 when He said, "You didn't choose Me, I chose you."

JOHN: Absolutely right.  He walked up to them in the midst of their life, that's one of the wonders of it, when I wrote the book Twelve Ordinary Men, it was so startling to think that Jesus would have chosen the ones that He did, the no-name, anonymous, unimportant typical working type people and He picked them out all the way along the line.  He just selected them, selected them, collected them, collected them, collected them, trained them and sent them out into the world.  And, of course, it's all summed up in what He said, "You didn't choose Me, I chose you."

PHIL: All right, in a sense though they might have said, "But we did choose you," because there was a choice they made, right?

JOHN: Yes, but before they could make the right choice, God already had made the choice of them.  Then the second thing that had to happen was God had to transform their lives to make them respond to Him. 

PHIL: So they chose Him because He chose them.

JOHN: That's what John said.  We love Him because He first loved us.

PHIL: That's exactly right.  So you could add John to the list of New Testament writers who affirmed this truth.

JOHN: Absolutely.

PHIL: Well we hear a lot about the idea of free will.  You mentioned it earlier.  Is that a biblical concept at all?

JOHN: Yes, I think it is, but I think there's a way to understand free will that is very important.  Man's will is free to choose the form of sin that most appeals to him, but that's the limit of his freedom.

PHIL: Because we're in bondage to sin.

JOHN: Well yeah, I mean, we're going to...we're sinful.  We're depraved.  We are...our nature is fallen, it is dead, we are blind, we are alienated from God.  We do not possess the life of God.  We are...we are dead in trespasses and sins, to borrow the language of Ephesians chapter 2.  But within the framework of our sinfulness we could pick our poison.  When you talk about free will, we're talking about the freedom that the sinner has to choose his iniquity.  That's what his freedom is, that's the sum and substance of his freedom.  The one thing he's not free to do is to choose salvation, or to choose righteousness, or to choose holiness, or to choose God, or to choose Christ unaided and on his own.  The natural man understandeth not the things of God, they are foolishness to him, the preaching of the cross is foolishness to those that are perishing.  The Jews are looking at it and it's a stumbling block and it's folly and foolishness to the Gentiles.  All that the Bible says about the fallen man is that this man has no capacity to make the righteous choice.  So free will as I see it and I think this is what Jonathan Edwards is talking about in The Bondage of the Will, the will is bound by sin so that mingling around in the reality of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, you can pick your sin.  But the one thing you can't do is extricate yourself from that condition of sin and death.

PHIL: Yeah, actually I rarely get to correct you but Jonathan Edwards book was titled The Freedom of the Will, Luther wrote The Bondage of the Will...

JOHN: Yeah, it was Luther who wrote The Bondage of the Will.

PHIL: And it's interesting...

JOHN: And they were saying the same thing.

PHIL: Opposite titles but they said the same thing.  And Edwards said the will is free but fetter because of our bondage to sin.  And so we're free to choose according to our nature, but our nature is bent toward sin.  And yet, John, I know you teach that the gospel offers salvation freely to all, you preach it that way.  Why is that?

JOHN: Because that's what the Bible says.

PHIL: What do we do with the whosoever passages in the Bible?

JOHN: I think we preach them.  I think we preach whosoever will may come.  I think we preach Isaiah 55, everyone that thirsts, come, come.  Jesus says, "Why will you die?  Why won't you come?"  Jesus weeps, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often I would have gathered you, you that kill the prophets and stone those that are sent to you, how often I would have gathered you as a hen gathers her brood, but you would not and now your house is left to you desolate."  Jesus pleading, Jesus weeping.  Jeremiah 13, God weeps in Jeremiah 13, shedding tears over Israel's apostasy and unbelief and disobedience and defection from the truth.  And the heart of God is broken and the prophet says God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked.  So I...I see clearly that the Bible holds the sinner responsible.  The Bible calls the sinner to repent and believe the truth. 

PHIL: Second Corinthians 5 gives us the duties ambassadors to plead with people to be reconciled with God.

JOHN: Yep, we are to beg them, be reconciled to God, as it says, though God were begging through you.  That's exactly the language there.  As though God were begging through you, be reconciled to God, go into all the world, preach the gospel to every creature, make disciples of all the nations.  We have the responsibility to take the gospel to the ends of the earth to every creature.

PHIL: Well Scripture says the gospel is the power of God unto salvation.  Does that then mean that those invitations and pleas and beseechings are the instruments that God uses to call those to whom...

JOHN: That's exactly what it means.  It means people are saved, 1 Peter 1, they're begotten again by the word of truth, or Romans 1:16, they are begotten again by the power of the gospel to save Jew and Gentile.  So the power of salvation comes to the sinner in two ways.  It comes directly from God when God by sovereign power gives life to the dead, when God by sovereign power awakens the sleeping sinner, when God by sovereign power gives spiritual sight to the one who was blind and simultaneously the sinner is empowered to understand and believe the gospel.  So it comes apart from the Scripture in one sense, it comes from God into the life of the sinner to give him life and at the same time through the Scripture because salvation comes by hearing the truth concerning Christ, Romans 10.  And so it is that conflux of God giving life to the sinner and awakening the sinner so that through the sinner's understanding now of the word of the gospel, salvation can occur.  And it can never happen, salvation can never happen apart from the regenerating work of God which is the sovereign work of God and at the same time the believing of the sinner who embraces the truth of the gospel.

PHIL: So the gospel offers salvation freely to all.  It pleads with people to be reconciled with God.  It beseeches the sinner to repent.  As you say, begs us to be right with God.  Is that an expression of the true heart of God toward the sinners?

JOHN: It is absolutely the true heart of God otherwise God would be some kind of an actor, God would be some kind of a hypocrite.

PHIL: Then does the Bible give us any insight as to why God chooses some and passes over others?

JOHN: First of all, He's God and He has a right to do whatever He wishes to do.  The question of why God does anything is the ultimate question that is generally not answered except to say this.  Since right is whatever God does because God is the definer of what is right, shall not the judge of all the earth do right?  I mean, we can't call that into question.  So God only does what is right and what God does is what right is.  And so, God does what He does because it's right to do it.  If you're going to ask well why would God want to send anyone to hell?  Why would God not choose everyone?  The answer would be because it glorifies Him, cause that has to be the answer to everything, it glorifies Him.  That's why Romans 9 says,"What if God desires vessels of wrath?  What if...do you have a right to question God?  Shall the clay tell the potter how the potter is to behave and what he is to do?  Whom he is to shape?"  If God is glorified in His wrath, as well as in His grace, then He has a right to that.  So the ultimate answer to that question is, God does what He does because it's right and He does what He does because it brings Him glory.

PHIL: That stretches my brain, John.  These are important issues, obviously.

JOHN: Well and I think, Phil, just to help because it stretches mine.  I'm in the same boat anybody is.  I can understand somebody's listening and saying, "This is really difficult."  I just want you to know, that's exactly how I feel, but I'm not the resolution.  I'm not the guy to say,"Hey, here's the little two-step way to resolve all this."  I...I have the same problem that a baby Christian who doesn't know much who is listening to this discussion is immediately having.  I have the same problem the guy in the Q & A on a college campus has when he asks me this same question.  I have all those problems.  But I'm content to say that's not a problem for God.  If it's in the Scripture, I take it at face value.  I cannot harmonize it all.  I cannot resolve it all anymore than you can.  I have a finite pea brain just like everybody else, just like all the rest of us humans.  God is infinite.  It's not a dilemma to Him.  There are no apparent paradoxes to God, He has no dilemmas.  There is no confusion.  There are no unresolved issues.  I...I think it's a great testimony to the fact that God wrote the Bible because if a committee had written the Bible, they wouldn't have allowed for such impossible tensions to exist.  They would have fixed them.  You know, you're an editor, you fix everything.  So...but the fact that it's there means the book is transcendent.  These things are not resolved.  And I rest in the perfections of God, in the perfect wisdom of God, the perfect justice of God, the perfect righteousness of God and I give Him all the glory for the salvation for all who are redeemed, and I give Him all the glory to be displayed in His wrath because He is a God who will receive all glory and only glory for all that He does is glorious.

PHIL: Now at the same time these are practical and not just theoretical issues, and that's one of the things we want to talk about in the second half of this interview.  If you're interested in hearing the entire interview covering today and tomorrow's Grace To You broadcasts, we're going to be making it available to you free of charge.  Just send your name and your address and mention the election interview and our e-mail is letters@gty.org or call us at 1-800-55GRACE, or outside the U.S., contact your local Grace To You office.