Last week we looked at the non-rivalrous, non-competitive posture the church is to have to the world. The church is called to be for the world not against it.

In 1 Timothy 2:1—5 Paul says that there is one mediator, Jesus Christ, who died for the entire world, and it is through this mediator that the church is called to make petitions, prayers, intercession, and thanksgiving for all people. Why? Because “God wills that all people be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.”

But this focus on the universality of God’s desire for all people to be saved seems to bump up against another idea in the Pastoral Epistles—namely, that God has an elect group of people, the church, and he has chosen them before the beginning of time.

2 Tim. 2:8–10

8 Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David—that is my gospel, 9 for which I suffer hardship, even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But the word of God is not chained. 10 Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, so that they may also obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory.

Why does Paul use the word “elect” here instead of “the entire world”? The word “elect” means chosen. It carries a notion of choosing among options—this one instead of that one. Think of being at the grocery store picking out produce. Election seems to be opposed to universality. Does God will that all people should be saved or does he actually have a special group of chosen people?

Does God preordain the destinies of individuals? Does he have a group of people he has chosen to save and another group he has chosen not to save?

My hunch is that many of us don’t really know what to do with the election or predestination passages in Scripture. Th thought of God choosing some people for salvation and others for damnation doesn’t sit well with most of us. But those passages are there and occupy a central place for Paul. Here’s just one example:

Ephesians 1:4–5

4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. 5 In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will.

What jumps to mind for most people is the specter of Calvinism and Double Predestination.

John Calvin

Calvin’s doctrine of election arises from his observation that not everyone in the world has the gospel preached to them, and even of those that do, many do not respond in faith. He combines that observation with his interpretation of Scripture and comes to the conclusion that from eternity God has predestined some to salvation and others to destruction.

“All are not created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation; and, accordingly, as each has been created for one or other of these ends, we say that he has been predestinated to life or to death.” (Calvin, Institutes, III.21)

God’s predestination is done by God’s “Absolute Decree.” God doesn’t choose people based on his foreknowledge of their merit or the works that they will do. If he did, it would not be a free gift of grace but something we earned. This is why election takes place “before the foundations of the world” (Eph. 1:4). As Paul says in 2 Tim. 1:9 “[God] saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace, and this grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began…”

There is no distinction, then, between those individuals elected to salvation and those predestined for destruction. It is based solely on God’s omnipotent, free will.

This seems to make God into an arbitrary tyrant. Calvin deals with these problems by saying that God’s will, by the fact that he wills it, is good and right. In other words, what right does the clay have to say to the potter, “Why have you made me like this?”

Karl Barth

The Swiss theologian Karl Barth introduced a major corrective to the Calvinist doctrine of election. In short, Barth’s doctrine of election is radically christocentric—everything centers on Christ.

“The doctrine of election is the sum of the Gospel because of all words that can be said or heard it is the best: that God elects man; that God is for man…It is grounded in the knowledge of Jesus Christ because He is both the electing God and the elected man in One. It is part of the doctrine of God because originally God’s election of man is a predestination not merely of man but of Himself.” (Barth, Church Dogmatics, II.2, p. 3)

Barth insists that the doctrine of election must be understood as gospel—as good news. He rejects any understanding of the doctrine of election that isn’t grounded in the knowledge of Jesus. If the gospel is central to understanding God’s election, then we have to begin with Jesus if we want to think rightly about election.

For Barth, we have a true view of God only when we get to know him in the face of Jesus. If you want to know who God is—and therefore what election means—you have to look to Jesus. There is no God behind the back of Jesus of Nazareth.

In other words, the God who elects is fully revealed in Jesus. Jesus Christ is the God who elects. There’s no other hidden, unknown God above or higher than Jesus that does the electing. If we are talking about God we are always also talking about him. He is the image of the invisible Father. Iff anyone has seen him, they have seen the Father. No one has seen the Father, but Jesus, God’s one and only Son, has made him known. Jesus is the “Electing God.”

But—and here’s the key—Jesus is not only the God who elects, he is also the one elected. He is both the “Electing God” and the “Elected Man.” He is both truly God and truly human.

For Barth the problem with Calvin’s understanding of election is that it is too abstract. The God doing the electing is an abstract, hidden, and unknown God. But God is not abstract. He is perfectly revealed in the life of Jesus of Nazareth.

The image of the potter and the clay has to be completely reworked now in light of the Incarnation. Jesus is both the potter and the clay in one person. He’s the potter who has become the clay in order to save it.

Jesus For Us and With Us

I think Barth’s doctrine of election helps us make more sense of our seemingly conflicting passages in 1 and 2 Timothy. Is election God arbitrarily choosing ABC but rejecting XYZ? Or should we begin our thinking about election by talking about God’s choice made in Jesus Christ to be for all humanity?

If Barth is right, then God has elected all humanity in the act of the Incarnation. By becoming human, God has united himself with the entire human race. Christ is the elected human being and “in him” we are also elected. Jesus is the man who so radically joined himself with sinners like you and me that for the Father to raise Jesus from the dead he would have to take us along with him.

With this in place let’s reconsider a few passages:

2 Timothy 1:9–10

[God] saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace, and this grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time…

The grace was given to us where? In Jesus Christ.

When was it given? Before the beginning of time. Put otherwise, before the beginning of time God decided (elected!) to be God this way. He elected to God for us in Jesus Christ, laying his life down for the sake of the world. That’s God’s election.

Ephesians 1:4

For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.

Chose us where? In Christ. This isn’t a blind, arbitrary choice made above or behind Jesus. Election happens in Jesus, not simply for him.

When was it given? Before God created anything he elected to be the God revealed in Jesus of Nazareth.

1 Timothy 2:3–4

This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wills all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.

God has elected to be the God who loves all people to the point of death on a cross. In Christ—the one elect man—God wills the election of all humanity. Robert Jenson, summarizing Barth, puts it like this: “God has chosen and determined Himself from all eternity to be man for [all] men.”

As Paul says in 2 Timothy 2:13 “…if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.”

Your election is sure precisely because it does not depend on you, but it is made “in Christ.” Our salvation depends not on our faith but on God who is faithful even when we are faithless.

Paul gives us this striking line: “for he cannot deny himself.” This means two things. First, God in his character and nature is faithful to the faithless. He can’t deny this about himself. This is who he has elected to be. For him to act unfaithfully would be for him to deny himself.

But second, and more mysteriously, if God denied us he would be denying himself because he is the one who has elected to be joined to us from before the beginning of time. We are his body and he is our head. If he denied you—even if you were faithless—he would be denying himself.

I’ll leave you with Barth at his best:

“God is none other than the one who in his Son elects himself. And in and with himself elects his people.” (Barth, Church Dogmatics, II.2)

In other words, Jesus refuses to be God without you. That’s good news.

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