Not only is it a biblical doctrine and a big doctrine, but it is also a beautiful doctrine. It can so often be caricatured as nothing more than a cold and lifeless calculus. But what does Paul say in Ephesians 1? That it was in love he predestined us (Eph. 1:4-5)! Thus, it has been said that election is based on affection. It is God’s love for us that causes him to ordain us to everlasting life.

Editor’s note: This article is adapted from The Christian’s True Identity: What It Means to Be in Christ (Reformation Heritage Books, 2019) by Jonathan Landry Cruse.
A hurdle many Christians cannot seem to get over is accepting and embracing the doctrine of election, or predestination. By nature, we don’t like the fact that God is the one who does the choosing. We want to be the masters of our fate and the captains of our soul. Yet Paul seems to make the case very clearly in Ephesians 1:
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, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ.” (Eph. 1:3–5; emphasis added)
What brings Paul to doxology is distasteful to many. R.C. Sproul accurately describes the feeling of most people towards the concept:
The very word predestination has an ominous ring to it. It is linked to the despairing notion of fatalism and somehow suggests that within its pale we are reduced to meaningless puppets. The word conjures up visions of a diabolical deity who plays capricious games with our lives.[1]
Yes, this is a hard truth to come to terms with, but such a fatalistic view tragically eclipses the beauty of God’s work for undeserving and incapable sinners like you and me. To help us grapple with and grow to love this essential aspect of the gospel, consider the following three points about election. 
1. Election Is a Biblical Doctrine
First, the doctrine is biblical. This should seem evident enough, as it is clearly spelled out in the section of Ephesians 1 quoted earlier. Nor is this the only place we run up against the concept in Scripture. Just a few verses later on Paul will say—even more bluntly—that we have been “predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Eph. 1:11). In Romans 8:29-30 we read,
For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he predestined, these he also called; whom he called, these he also justified; and whom he justified, these he also glorified.” 
These are places in which these theological terms are used explicitly, but if we broaden our radar to also pick up allusions to and themes of choosing, predetermining, and electing, the list gets longer.
There are some out there who have a false notion of predestination and election, namely, that it was the invention of some ancient French madman named John Calvin. No doubt, Calvin would mourn the fact that history has dubbed this doctrine “Calvinism,” as though it somehow belonged more to him than to God.
Others who are more informed would recognize that the idea of election is not strictly Calvinist and is in fact a scriptural concept. Indeed, Catholics, Lutherans, Methodists, and so-called Calvinists all hold to different nuances of predestination. But even then, the most common view is not the biblical one; that is, while God does choose some to salvation. 
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In Christ, we are loved by God with an everlasting, never-failing love, because everything worthy of love in Christ is everlasting and never-failing. The thing that many people seek and never find has found us: true love, “with which [God] has blessed us in the Beloved” (Eph. 1:6). Our “in Christ” identity is also formed by this declaration: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). Without this reality, life is but an extended stint on death row before the inevitable judgment. It’s being in Christ that alone frees us from the prison of sin, death, and hell. When Christ stepped out of the grave, He took us with Him. Our sins are forgiven, our debt is paid, and our guilt is removed.

In Christ. This tiny two-word phrase contains all the comfort, security, peace, and hope that a Christian could ever need. It is the key that unlocks the New Testament’s teaching on the blessings and benefits of salvation. Once you start looking for it, you will find it all over the place—“in Christ” (or its variations, such as “in him” and “in the Lord”) occurs more than 150 times in the New Testament. It is the Apostle Paul’s favorite way of describing our redeemed status, and if you’ll allow it to, it’s a phrase that will shape your identity.
By “identity” I mean the way that you see yourself and how you live in light of it. Of course, the most important thing isn’t how we see ourselves but how God sees us. In fact, the Christian’s aim is to conform his perspective to God’s. We want to share God’s view in all things, including what He has to say about our personal identity. In an individualistic age such as our own, this is becoming increasingly difficult. In recent decades, the world is suggesting subjective and plastic answers to those big questions in life, such as “Who am I?” and “What am I here for?” But in response to the modern and muddled “I identify as” way of thinking, we must assert a definitive “my identity is” mindset informed by the Scriptures.
Here is where our two-word phrase comes into play. The Scriptures attest, over and over, that God views or considers the believer as being “in Christ.” When we understand, believe, and live out what God says is true of us in Christ, we will find objective, unshakable answers to those big questions in life. We will find a true, pure, and satisfying identity—one that isn’t found in us at all, actually, but is found in the person of Christ Jesus.
Union with Christ
Before we unpack exactly what it is that is true of us in Christ, we should ask how it is true of us. How can God view us through the lens of the person and work of Christ? How can Christ’s accomplishments be credited to us? The answer is found in our union with Christ, a mysterious work of the Holy Spirit (Eph. 5:32). As the Apostle John writes, “By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit” (1 John 4:13). The Westminster Shorter Catechism explains that the Holy Spirit applies “to us the redemption purchased by Christ, by working faith in us, and thereby uniting us to Christ in our effectual calling” (Q&A 30, emphasis added). It’s a profound reality: through Spirit-wrought faith, all that is true of Christ—even Christ Himself—comes to us. We are so united to Christ that there is actually a mutual indwelling: He in us and we in Him.
John Calvin, in his comments on Ephesians 3:17 (“that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith”), made this jubilant observation:
What a remarkable commendation is here bestowed on faith, that, by means of it, the Son of God becomes our own, and “makes his abode with us!” By faith we not only acknowledge that Christ suffered and rose from the dead on our account, but accepting the offers which he makes of himself, we possess and enjoy him as our Savior!
The Christian actually possesses Christ and all His benefits. To be united to Christ, therefore, is the sum and substance of our salvation.
Although this union is mysterious, we should stress that it is not speculative or merely intellectual and cognitive. It is actual and vital. Believers live in Christ the way a fish lives in water or a bird in the air—we have no life apart from being in Christ (Col. 3:4). Admittedly, our union might not feel as natural as that. At times, the Christ in whom we live and move and have our being feels distant. Our objective union in Him is not met with an equally fervent communion with Him. When that happens, we search for meaning and build identities on things other than Christ: career, fame, sexual expression, our children—all things that will leave us empty if we try to find ultimate meaning in them. To quote Calvin again: “Our whole salvation and all its parts are comprehended in Christ. We should therefore take care not to derive the least portion of it from anywhere else.”
An “In Christ” Identity
This means that for a lasting identity, we need to return to the sufficiency of our Savior, basking in the truth that all He is He is for His people. There is nothing that I need that I don’t have in Christ.
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In prayer the Spirit perfects our requests, petitions, and praises and brings them to the Son, who in his authority as the righteous Son of God has access to the throne of the Father, where he makes our prayers his own.

Prayer is an essential means by which we can commune (fellowship) with God—and not just God as an abstract being, but God as a personal Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Each member of the Trinity gives himself to us in the work of prayer. Indeed, prayer wouldn’t even be possible if not for the Trinity.
Theologian Carl Trueman writes,
The New Testament makes it quite clear that the human act of prayer is intimately connected to the trinitarian actions of God and is in fact enfolded and subsumed within that larger divine action.[1]
We wouldn’t even pray at all if it were not for the Spirit.
Thus, in Romans 8:26 Paul declares that the Spirit intercedes for believers in their weakness, when they do not know what they should pray for. Even more fundamentally, we wouldn’t even pray at all if it were not for the Spirit. Prayer is a discourse not simply between us as creatures and God as our creator. Prayer is a discourse between us as children and God as Father. And we would not be able to recognize God as our Father if it were not for the Spirit:
For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God (Romans 8:15–16).
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Embracing the truth of God found in Jesus Christ sets us free from ourselves. We are the worst wardens of our soul. We choose paths that are bad for us and hurt us. When we buy the lie of the serpent, and think that God is not good, and that maybe he is not even God at all, we confine ourselves to live out a pathetically lonely and futile existence—always trying to assert our way over everyone else’s and yet somehow never arriving at the happiness we thought a “my truth” kind of life would offer. The truth of Christ sets us free from the rat race, from works righteousness, from depression, from loneliness. 

It’s official: Truth is dead. Facts are passe.” So declared The Washington Post back in 2016 when they reported on Oxford Dictionary’s decision to select for their international word of the year: “post-truth.” The official definition reads: relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.
Well, that definitely sounds like today, but it also pre-dates 2016 and our modern era of post-truth and post-everything else. In fact, that definition is a fairly good summary of the beginning of Genesis 3 and the Fall. The objective fact (“you shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil”) becomes less influential in shaping the public opinion—namely of Adam and Eve—than an appeal by the serpent to Eve’s emotions and belief. And he makes this appeal with a question: “Did God really say….?”
The Ancient Question
It’s the first question mark in the Bible. Fitting that the curving and slithering serpent is the first to form that sly punctuation mark. It’s an insidious question. Derek Kidner says the question is “disturbing and flattering: it smuggles in the assumption that God’s word is subject to our judgment.” This is patently false, of course, but it’s a new concept to Eve. The thought had never even occurred to her or her husband before to question God. Maybe “his truth” wasn’t the only truth out there.
The serpent thereby introduced two disastrous lies to Eve in this one seemingly innocent question. The first is that maybe God isn’t that good after all. The implication is that what God has instructed Adam and Eve regarding trees in the garden is cruelly restrictive. He asks, “Did God really say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? This God that made you, Eve, did he really prohibit your enjoyment of any tree in this beautiful and luscious garden?” God did not say that, of course. In fact, he said the opposite. He said to Adam and Eve, “You may surely eat of every tree in the garden” with only one exception (2:16). He was completely generous in his provision to them. But Satan introduces the idea of “divine stinginess.”
The serpent’s first lie is that God is not good. The second is that God is not God. That is to say, he gets Eve to buy into this idea that whether God’s prohibition is cruel or not, he doesn’t have the ultimate say in the situation. Eve is able to make her own law. She is the master of her fate, the captain of her soul. God’s position of authority is not exclusive to him, but something that she herself could be promoted to: “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God” (4–5). Apparently, Eve didn’t need to wait to eat the fruit to think she had become like God. Verse 6: “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food…” Sound familiar? The author is intentionally drawing us back to chapter 1 where we heard the constant refrain: “And God saw that it was good.” Now the woman becomes the surveyor and the determiner of what is good or not. The creature is trying to overthrow and rebel against the Creator. She is living out her truth: “I can do whatever I want.”
The Ancient Question Alive and Well Today
These twin lies are the bedrock of the devil’s initial temptation: God is not good, and actually he is not God at all. This is what the devil has done from the beginning, and he has been doing it ever since (John 8:44). When we sin against God’s commands it is because we have accepted that lie that 1) God is not good, and 2) God is not God—or at least, not the only god. In other words, we tell ourselves that God’s commands are restrictive and cruel. Not only do we believe we have a better plan for our life, we convince ourselves that we have the authority to act on it. We elevate ourselves to the position of God. And that’s how you get a world in which phrases like “your truth” and “my truth” make total sense; a world in which “live your truth” is a slogan for self-empowerment.
While I was typing out that previous sentence an ad came up on my Spotify playlist that wanted me to pay for premium membership so that I could “stay true to you.”
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God’s choice is not arbitrary, cold, cruel, or foolish. God chose what was best, because he chose his Son. True, there is no lovableness in us. But when God set his affection on us, he did so by selecting us in his Son—his beloved Son, with whom he is well pleased (Matt. 3:17). And that makes us beloved sons as well, for what he saw in us was everything that Christ one day would do for us.

“In Him.” In my estimation, these are the two most important words for understanding the Christian life. These words teach us that union with Christ—being spiritually one with him—is what makes all the difference for the Christian. All that is Christ’s becomes mine. Every blessing I have I must understand through the lens of my union to Christ. And this is fundamentally and foundationally true of election.
We can’t make sense of election without union with Christ.
Paul writes in the opening of Ephesians,

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, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world. (Eph. 1:3-4; emphasis added)

We can’t make sense of election without union with Christ, because there is nothing inherent within us that would make us desirous to God. There is nothing in us worth choosing. But when we are united to Christ, it all starts to make a little more sense.
When Paul tells us that this choosing took place “before the foundation of the world,” he sends us into the marvelous and mysterious eternal counsel of the Godhead. More specifically, Paul refers to what theologians call the Covenant of Redemption. A covenant is a binding agreement between two or more parties. The Covenant of Redemption teaches us that the Trinity made a binding agreement before time began that the Father would send the Son who, equipped by the Spirit, would redeem the elect.
Christ came to the world with a purpose.
While it might sound overly heady and perhaps even speculative, the Covenant of Redemption can be understood quite simply by stating it this way: Christ came to the world with a purpose. He had an agenda. He had a particular people in mind to save. The redemption of sinners was not wishful thinking on his part, nor were the saved selected by lottery. Jesus speaks of this intention in John 17, in what is known as the High Priestly Prayer:

Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You, as You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him. And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do. And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.” (John 17:1–5)

Jesus came to give eternal life to all whom the Father had given Him. This is the mission Jesus was on, or as he says, “the work that you gave me to do” (see also John 6:37-39).
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Jesus gives us an explicit reason for his coming to earth in John 10:10. It is in his great lesson on the sheep and the Good Shepherd, and he says, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” His purpose was to give us something: life. But note, it’s not just any kind of life. It’s an abundant life. Whether we are consciously aware of it or not, we are all on a search for “the good life.” We are all after that person, place, or thing that will make us satisfied, someone or something that will give us meaning in this world.

The entire life and ministry of Christ was one of apparent weakness, and this began at his birth. The King of the universe born in a cattle stall? That’s a hard sell. Therefore, the great question posed to the human race has always been: Do we have the faith necessary to rest in such a Savior? Do we trust that a strong and sure salvation can come from one who seems so small and so inadequate?
Tragically, the majority report on the answer to that question has been “no.” It’s especially tragic this time of year to see the whole world searching for some kind of happiness and fulfillment and love, and yet they look right past Jesus who alone is able to provide all of those things in the fullest. 
Are You Looking Past Jesus for Your Happiness and Fulfillment?
Dare we do the same? As we look through the pages of Scripture, we know that Christ is not small or inadequate in the least:
He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. (Heb. 1:3)
He is, as Samuel Rutherford puts it, “bottomless and boundless.” Even when Jesus was a helpless infant, the government rested on his shoulders (Isa. 9:6). So we are to look past the apparent weakness and see the underlying glory and wonder that is our Savior. Thus, Rutherford writes:
O, pity for evermore that there should be such a one as Christ Jesus, so boundless, so bottomless, and so incomparable in infinite excellency, and sweetness, and so few to take Him!
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He is a sovereign God, and yet also a saving God. Some people might tend to pit John’s “God is love” (1 John 4:16) against Paul’s predestination. But they go hand in hand. If God were not love, we would be lost. Yet while we were still sinners, God loved us—God chose us.

A hurdle many Christians cannot seem to get over is accepting and embracing the doctrine of election, or predestination. By nature, we don’t like the fact that God is the one who does the choosing. We want to be the masters of our fate and the captains of our soul. Yet Paul seems to make the case very clearly in Ephesians 1:

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,even as he chose us in himbefore the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In lovehe predestined usfor adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ.” (Eph. 1:3–5; emphasis added)

What brings Paul to doxology is distasteful to many. R.C. Sproul accurately describes the feeling of most people towards the concept:

The very word predestination has an ominous ring to it. It is linked to the despairing notion of fatalism and somehow suggests that within its pale we are reduced to meaningless puppets. The word conjures up visions of a diabolical deity who plays capricious games with our lives.[1]

Yes, this is a hard truth to come to terms with, but such a fatalistic view tragically eclipses the beauty of God’s work for undeserving and incapable sinners like you and me. To help us grapple with and grow to love this essential aspect of the gospel, consider the following three points about election.
1. Election is a biblical doctrine.
First, the doctrine is biblical. This should seem evident enough, as it is clearly spelled out in the section of Ephesians 1 quoted earlier. Nor is this the only place we run up against the concept in Scripture. Just a few verses later on Paul will say—even more bluntly—that we have been “predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Eph. 1:11). In Romans 8:29-30 we read,

For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he predestined, these he also called; whom he called, these he also justified; and whom he justified, these he also glorified.”

These are places in which these theological terms are used explicitly, but if we broaden our radar to also pick up allusions to and themes of choosing, predetermining, and electing, the list gets longer.
There are some out there who have a false notion of predestination and election, namely, that it was the invention of some ancient French madman named John Calvin. No doubt, Calvin would mourn the fact that history has dubbed this doctrine “Calvinism,” as though it somehow belonged more to him than to God.
Others who are more informed would recognize that the idea of election is not strictly Calvinist and is in fact a scriptural concept. Indeed, Catholics, Lutherans, Methodists, and so-called Calvinists all hold to different nuances of predestination.
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There is no statute of limitations on being an encouragement. Each day think of someone who might need a supportive word—perhaps a note, a visit, a phone call. Don’t wait then. Do it. Satan never stops his attempts to discourage the people of God; therefore, we should never stop in our work of comforting and encouraging and exhorting.

But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. — Hebrews 3:13

In this verse, the writer of Hebrews is encouraging the church to be the church. That is, he is telling us something of what it means to live in a community with brothers and sisters in Christ. There is a responsibility that is laid upon all of us once we join the family of faith. Here we learn what it is, when we’re to do it, and why it’s so important.
The What of Exhorting One Another
First, the “what.” The Greek word translated “exhort” (parakleite) is the word of strong encouragement. Maybe you recognize it from the word Paraclete, an older term referring to the Holy Spirit and referred to by Jesus as “the comforter” or “the helper” (John 14:16). This word is often used in secular Greek literature of the naval or military commander putting strength into his sailors or soldiers.
Thus, believers are expected to exercise a daily, cheering ministry to other Christians. We are not meant to be a burden: nitpicking at all the things we think people are doing wrong or could be doing better. We are not meant to sit in judgment over others either. We are called to be cheerleaders. We are to mimic those traits of the Holy Spirit and be a help and an encouragement.
The When of Exhorting One Another
In his commentary The Message of Hebrews, Raymond Brown writes,

It is never fitting for believers to adopt the depressing pessimistic outlook of a godless world. (p. 88)

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There is great theology about our great God behind the brief stanzas of the Lord’s Prayer. By providing an opportunity for that to seep into our minds, we provide one more way for believers to learn about their heavenly Father’s power, provision, and protection—and thus the need to pray to him often.

We know prayer is a “must” of worship. Yet, even with something as “safe” as the Lord’s Prayer, we need to think, “Can we do this?” And if so, “Why should we do it?”
Here are three reasons why we should say the Lord’s Prayer in our church services:
1. Jesus told us to use it.
Jesus, in instructing his disciples on the basics of prayer, uses the imperative and tells them to “Pray in this manner!” (Matt. 6:9), going on to then give what we know as the Lord’s Prayer. This has been taken to mean—and rightly so—that the Lord’s Prayer should be used as a template for prayer, that we are to pray like this. This is true. Yet, in Luke’s account, Jesus’ words are slightly different: “When you pray, say this…” (11:2). This shows us that the Lord’s Prayer is not just a guiding principle, but rather a model prayer which should be constantly used.
We can be so easily distracted and misguided in our prayers, and what better way to protect against this than by using words Jesus himself composed for our communication with the Father! As John Calvin noted, “We know we are requesting nothing absurd, nothing strange or unseemly—in short, nothing unacceptable to him—since we are asking in his own words” (Institutes, 2.20.34).
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We can learn from the Bereans in the authority over men that they recognize in God’s Word. The Bereans “examined the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.” What “things”? Paul’s preaching. Even someone like the great Apostle is not over or above the Bible.

On his second missionary journey, Paul made a sudden detour to Berea after the fledgling Christian church in Thessalonica was violently threatened. While Paul’s plan may have been disrupted, his pattern of ministry was not: in Berea he continued his established method of reasoning from the Scriptures in the synagogues with Jews and other God-fearers. There is not a lot told to us about the people of Berea except that they were “more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so” (Acts 17:11).
Luke clearly admired their enthusiasm for the Word, and Christians for centuries after have admired the same. To this day, it is not odd to find their name adopted by congregations. In my own city, we have a Berean Baptist Church. Colleges have taken on these Berean Jews as their namesake, and settlers in Kentucky hundreds of years ago named their small village Berea—now it’s the fastest-growing city in the state. While we don’t know a whole lot about this group of God-fearers in Berea, we know enough to model ourselves after them in at least three ways.
The Attitude We Have toward the Word
First is in the attitude that we give to Scripture. The Bereans “received the word with all eagerness.” The Greek word here, prothumia, means “readiness of mind.” It doesn’t mean that they were naive, willing to accept anything. But they were leaning in and expecting something great to come from God’s Word. They anticipated that it would speak to them, guide them, and not fail them.
We struggle with that eagerness, don’t we? Often, we approach the Scriptures like a child approaches the spoonful of cough syrup being offered to her. But we should approach the Word with the joy of the psalmist, who said it is “sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb” (Ps. 19:10). The Bereans viewed God’s Word as a great gift. That’s why they “received” it—they took what was given them. They received with a thankful, eager, and expectant attitude because what comes from God’s hand is always good. If we come to God’s Word with eager expectation, we will not treat it flippantly.
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