Election is God’s way. He chooses some and rejects others. To our puny little mind this may seem terrible and unfair. Isn’t God a God of love? How can He send people to hell?
God, first of all, is a Covenant God. He made a Covenant within the Godhead (Father, Son and Holy Spirit)Â (Heb. 6:13) that He was going to create a world and a creature (mankind) for His glory (Rev. 4:11). This may seem strange to us today, specially because the human mind has been corrupted by psychology for a long time.
God is Sovereign. He is immortal. He is pure light. He dwells in light that no man can approach unto (1 Tim 6:16) No man can see Him, and no man know Him unless God reveals Himself to him.
He created man for the purpose of having communion with him. God prepared the fall of man to bring about the work of Redemption by Jesus Christ, because man could not remain with God or go back to God, on his own. He needed -and still needs- God’s help.
This universe and everything that is in it, including mankind, was designed by this Creator, who reveals Himself in the Scriptures. And here is were election starts.
In His Book, the Bible, God declares how He created this world and how He made mankind. He tells the story from the beginning, but He didn’t tell His story to everyone He ever created.
Before the flood, God revealed Himself to certain individuals, who are referred to as “Sons of God” in Genesis 6. These were the descendants of Shem, the son God gave to Adam in place of Abel. Contrary to many false opinions, these “sons of God” were not angels (how absurd) or giants, or any other extinct species. These were men who like Enoch, the seventh from Adam, walked with God and knew Him.
God’s purpose for His creation was mainly to have a relationship with man. Very early in the history of humankind, man is already corrupted and running away from God. After almost six thousand years from creation, the Earth is full of violence, and God destroys that first world with the flood. Only Noah “found grace in the eyes of the Lord”. In other words, God elected Noah and his family to be saved.
This is the story God tells, not to everybody, but to Moses. Moses wrote from God and he communicated this revelation to the “people of God”, the Jews, only. God did not tell it to the Egyptians, or Babylonians, but to the Hebrews alone. The rest of the world lied in complete darkness.
After the cross, God took His Word from the Jews and delivered it to the elect in all the nations of the world. At first, the truth of God went out from Asia Minor, but these churches became apostate not too long after.
Paul, the Apostle, was sent to Macedonia to bring the Gospel of Christ. It was to this hellenistic world that God sent His Word. Again, it was not the whole world. There were many in the East and other remote and unknown places who were left in darkness.
Today, we have the Word of God translated into most of the languages of the world. Still we see that “all have no faith”. Many enemies of Christ have prospered with false religions that mimic the truth but are not true.
Then, if it were not that God elected some to salvation, if it was left to man to seek the way of life, there would be no hope for anybody. But God in His Mercy and Love elected some to salvation before He created the world. That is His election of Grace. (Rom. 9)