Election vs. Predestination: Choosing, Reprobation, and Foreordination

Often the term election is used as a synonym for predestination. Technically this is incorrect. The term election refers specifically to one aspect of divine predestination: God’s choosing of certain individuals to be saved. The term election has a positive connotation, referring to a benevolent predestination that results in the salvation of those who are elect. Election also has a negative side, called “reprobation,” which involves the predestination of those who are not elect (Sproul, Grace Unknown, 141).

Foreordination means God’s sovereign plan, whereby He decides all that is to happen in the entire universe. Nothing in this world happens by chance. God is in back of everything. He decides and causes all things to happen that do happen. … Predestination is part of foreordination. While foreordination refers to God’s plan for everything that ever happens, predestination is that part of foreordination that refers to man’s eternal destiny: heaven or hell. Predestination is composed of two parts: election and reprobation. Election concerns those who go to heaven, and reprobation concerns those who go to hell. … Divine election means that God chooses some to go to heaven. Others are passed by and they will go to hell (Palmer, Five Points of Calvinism, 24-25).

The doctrine of election declares that God, before the foundation of the world, chose certain individuals from among the fallen members of Adam’s race to be the objects of His undeserved favor. These, and these only, He purposed to save. God could have chosen to save all men (for He had the power and authority to do so) or He could have chosen to save none (for He was under no obligation to show mercy to any)—but He did neither. Instead, He chose to save some and to exclude others. His eternal choice of particular sinners for salvation was not based upon any forseen act or response on the part of those selected, but was based solely on His own good pleasure and sovereign will. Thus, election was not determined by, or conditioned upon, anything that men would do, but resulted entirely from God’s self-determined purpose (Steele & Thomas, Five Points of Calvinism, 27).