“Can a person who is not of ‘the elect’ be saved through the preaching of the gospel?”

October 2013 – Grace & Truth Magazine

QUESTION: Can a person who is not one of “the elect” be saved through the preaching of the gospel?

ANSWER: John 3:16, that beloved and well-known verse sometimes termed “the gospel in a nutshell,” tells us: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” ( NKJV ). Please note well, absolutely nothing is said here about “the elect.” God’s invitation is to “whoever.” In the previous verses too we read of the Son of Man being lifted up just as Moses had lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, “that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (vv.14-15).

When we search God’s Word carefully we find many invitations such as these addressed to “whoever.” Romans 10:13 assures us, “For whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” And in Revelation 22:17, five verses from the end of the Bible, we find this invitation for the final time: “And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.”

Never does God appeal to the elect to be saved or limit His offer of free salvation to those who are elect. If He were to do so who would respond to His offer? Who of us would know whether or not he or she were one of the elect – whether or not he or she were truly included in God’s gracious invitation? Thank God, we do not have to determine this in order to accept His offer. So in one sense our question is totally irrelevant.

Election is really a family secret for members of the family of God. One who has accepted God’s invitation and has received His wonderful free salvation finds out that this accepting and receiving was not his own un-aided doing.

There is absolutely nothing about my salvation that I can boast of or take credit for; all is of grace, free grace. “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast” (Eph. 2:8-9). Not until a person has become a Christian does he find out that God had chosen him for this before the world’s foundation. The Lord Jesus distinctly told His disciples (after Judas, who was merely a professed one and not a true disciple, had absented himself from the group), “You did not choose Me, but I chose you ... I chose you out of the world” (Jn. 15:15,19). We are also told that we are “elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father” (1 Pet. 1:2).

God’s sovereignty in election, in choosing us, and man’s responsibility to respond to God’s invitation through the proclamation of the gospel are parallel truths. They are both equally true and are not in conflict with one another; like the two rails of the railroad track they must never be confounded. We can only know that someone is one of God’s elect when we know him or her to have received the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, when we know this person has accepted God’s marvelous offer of fully unmerited, completely free salvation.

Answered by Eugene P. Vedder, Jr.