Episode 69: Predestination: The Comforting Doctrine of Election

Pastor James Preus| Trinity Lutheran Church| August 20, 2026

Heavenly Father,

May the doctrine of election taught, in Holy Scripture drive us closer to Jesus through the ministry of the Holy Spirit in Word and Sacrament, so that we may be evermore confident in our eternal salvation, because you chose us in Christ Jesus from before the foundation of the world. Amen.

Scripture

Matthew 22:14: “For many are called, but few are chosen.”

Matthew 24:31: “And He will send out His angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.”

Matthew 25:34: “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”

John 15:16: You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in My name, He may give it to you.

Ephesians 1:3-14: ³ 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, ⁴ even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love ⁵ He predestined us^[b] for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, ⁶ to the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the Beloved. ⁷ In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, ⁸ which He lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight ⁹ making known^[c] to us the mystery of His will, according to His purpose, which He set forth in Christ ¹⁰ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth in Him.

¹¹ In Him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, ¹² so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of His glory. ¹³ In Him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, ¹⁴ who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of His glory.

2 Thessalonians 2:13-14: ¹³ But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth, ¹⁴ to which He called you by our gospel, for the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. (NKJV)

1 Thessalonians 1:4-5a: For we know, brothers loved by God, that He has chosen you, ⁵ because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction.

Summary

• God chose the elect from before the foundation of the world to be saved through faith in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 1 above)
• This does not mean that God chose some from the foundation of the world to go to hell.
  • ⁴¹ “Then He will say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. Matthew 25:41
    • “If men go to hell, they go to a place originally not prepared for them. ‘Hell was originally not built for men.’” Pieper, III:498.
  • How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! Matthew 23:37
  • “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.” Romans 10:21 (Isaiah 65:2)
  • “What if God, desiring to show His wrath and to make known His power, has endured with much patience (longsuffering) vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of His glory for vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory.” Romans 9:23-24.
  • Compare Acts 13:46 and 13:48.
• The doctrine of election regards only the elect to salvation, not those who go to hell.
• Election can never be removed from Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection nor from the means of grace, God’s Word and Sacraments, nor from faith in Christ through the ministry of the Holy Spirit through the Word and Sacraments. See Third Article of the Apostles Creed in Small Catechism.
• The doctrine of election protects the doctrine of justification by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone, apart from our works.
  • ⁴ But what is God’s reply to him? “I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” ⁵ So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace. ⁶ But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace. Romans 11:4-6.
• The doctrine of election affirms universal grace and grace alone.
  • Universal grace is the doctrine that God sent Christ to die for the sins of the whole world, that Christ made atonement for all sins, and that God desires all people to be saved.
    • John 3:16: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.
    • 1 John 2:1-2And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. ² And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.
    • 1 Timothy 2:3-4: For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, ⁴ who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
    • 2 Peter 3:9: The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.
    • Ezekiel 33:11: ‘As I live,’ says the Lord God, ‘I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?’
  • Grace alone means that only those chosen by God and led by the Holy Spirit can persevere in the faith and be saved.
    • John 6:44: “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.”
    • Acts 13:48: And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.
    • 1 Corinthians 12:3: no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit.
    • 1 Corinthians 2:14: The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. 
• The seeming conflict in these two doctrines, universal grace and grace alone, cannot be reconciled through human reasoning. Scripture does not reveal to us why the damned refuse God’s grace while others are saved by God’s grace.
  • Romans 11:33-35: 33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
    34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord,
        or who has been his counselor?”
    35 “Or who has given a gift to him
        that he might be repaid?”
  • Isaiah 55:8-9: For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
        neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
    ⁹ For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
        so are my ways higher than your ways
        and my thoughts than your thoughts.
• This doctrine comforts Christians who trust in the Gospel, yet also warns those who would forsake the means of Grace, God’s Word and Sacraments, or who would continue in sin as if it doesn’t matter. (2 Peter 1:10)
  • 31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;

    we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:31-37

See also John 10:29 and Matthew 16:18

Formula of Concord

Epitome

• “To begin with, the distinction between God’s foreknowledge and His eternal predestination ought to be kept accurately.” 2.
  • “God’s foreknowledge is nothing else than this: God knows all things before they happen, as it is written in Daniel 2:28, ‘But there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries…’ This foreknowledge extends over the godly and the wicked alike. … it is not what causes people to do wrong… Nor does it cause their ruin, for which they themselves are responsible. But foreknowledge only regulates this and fixes a limit on their ruin….” 3.
  • “Predestination, or God’s eternal election, covers only the godly, beloved children of God. It is a cause of their salvation, which He also provides. … Our salvation is founded so firmly on it that the gates of hell cannot overcome it. (John 10:28; Matthew 16:18)” 5.
  • “It is not to be investigated in God’s secret counsel. It is to be sought in God’s Word, where it is revealed. God’s Word leads us to Christ, who is the Book of Life, in whom all are written and elected who are to be saved in eternity. For it is written in Ephesians 1:4, ‘Even as He chose us in Him [Christ] before the foundation of the world.’” 6-7.
• “Christ calls all sinners to Himself and promises them rest. He is eager <seriously wills> that all people should come to Him and allow themselves to be helped.” 8.
• “We should not reach conclusions about our election to eternal life based on reason or God’s Law.” 9.
• “The true judgment about predestination must be learned alone from the Holy Gospel about Christ, in which it is clearly testified, ‘For God has consigned all to disobedience, that He may have mercy on all [Romans 11:32]; not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance’ [2 Peter 3:9, and believe in the Lord Christ. (See also Ezekiel 18:23; 33:11, 18; 1 John 2:2.)” 10.
• The Proper Order of Looking at Predestination.
  • “Now, let whoever is concerned about God’s revealed will act on the order that St. Paul has described in the Epistle to the Romans. Paul
    • First directs people to repentance [Romans 1-2],
    • (2) to knowledge of sins [Romans 3:1-20],
    • (3) to faith in Christ [Romans 3:21-5:21],
    • (4) to divine obedience [Romans 6-8).
    • (5) Then he speaks of the mystery of God’s eternal election [Romans 9-11].
  • This doctrine is useful and consolatory to the person who proceeds in this way.” 11.
• “However, ‘many are called, but few are chosen’ [Matthew 22:14]. This does not mean that God is unwilling to save everybody. … There wickedness is responsible for this<that they perish>, not God or His election (2 Peter 2:1-3; Luke 11:49-52; Hebrews 12:25-26) 12.
• “A Christian should concern himself <in meditation> with the article about God’s eternal election only as far as it has been revealed in God’s Word. His Word presents Christ to us as the Book of Life, which He opens and reveals to us by the preaching of the Gospel, as it is written in Romans 8:30, ‘And those whom He predestined He also called.’ In Him we are to seek the eternal election of the Father, who has determined His eternal divine counsel [Ephesians 1:11-12] that He would save no one except those who know His Son Christ and truly believe in Him.” 13.
• “In other words, we know that out of pure grace, without any merit of our own, we have been elected in Christ to eternal life. No one can pluck us out of His hand [John 10:29]. He has not only promised this gracious election with mere words, but has also certified it with an oath and sealed it with the Holy Sacraments.” 13.
• “Out of pure mercy alone, without any of our merits, He saves us according to the purpose of His will. No reason is given to anyone for despair or a vulgar, wild life.” 15.
• “Therefore, we reject the following errors: 16.
  • God is unwilling that all people repent and believe the Gospel. 17.
  • When God calls us to Himself, He is not eager that all people should come to Him. 18.
  • God is unwilling that everyone should be saved. But some—without regard to their sins, from God’s mere counsel, purpose, and will—are chosen for condemnation so that they cannot be saved. 19.
  • Something in us causes God’s election—not just God’s mercy and Christ’s most holy merit—because of which God has elected us to everlasting life. 20.
    • This statement precludes intuitu fidei, “in view of faith,” which teaches that God chose us according to His foreknowledge that we would have faith in Christ.

Solid Declaration

• “First, the distinction between God’s eternal foreknowledge and the eternal election of His children to eternal salvation is to be made carefully.” 4.
  • “Foreknowledge or prevision means that God sees and knows everything before it happens.” Cites Matthew 10:29; Psalm 139:16; Isaiah 37:28
  • “God’s eternal election, or predestination, means God’s preordaining to salvation. It does not include both the godly and the wicked, but only God’s children, who were elected and ordained to eternal life before the world’s foundation was laid.” Ephesians 1:4-5
• “God’s foreknowledge foresees and foreknows what is evil, yet not in the sense that it is God’s gracious will that evil should happen. Everything that the perverse, wicked will of the devil and of people wants and desires to try and do, God sees and knows before it happens. His foreknowledge preserves order also in wicked acts or works, since a limit and measure is fixed by God for the evil that God does not will. He limits how far it should go, how long it should last, and when and how He will hinder and punish it.” (Psalm 103:19; 1 Corinthians 2:7) 6.
• “The beginning and cause of evil is not God’s foreknowledge. (For God does not create and do evil, neither does He help or promote it.) The cause of this evil is the wicked, perverse will of the devil and of people,” (Hosea 13:9; Psalm 5:4) 7.
• “God’s eternal election does not just foresee and foreknow the salvation of the elect. From God’s gracious will and pleasure in Christ Jesus, election is a cause that gains, works, helps, and promotes our salvation and what belongs to it.” (Matthew 16:18; John 10:28-29; Acts 13:48) 8.
  • This too precludes intuitu fidei, that God chose us because he foresaw our faith.  
• “In this matter we should not judge according to our reason, or according to the Law or from any outward appearance. Neither should we attempt to investigate the secret, concealed depth of divine predestination. Instead, we should listen to God’s revealed will. For He has made ‘known to us the mystery of His will’ (Ephesians 1:9) and made it clear through Christ so that it might be preached (2 Timothy 1:9). 26.
• “This is revealed to us in the way Paul says ‘those whom He predestined [elected and foreordained] He also called’ (Romans 8:30) God does not call without means, but through His Word.” (Luke 24:47; 2 Corinthians 5:20; Matthew 22:2-14; Matthew 20:3-6) 27.
• “Just as the preaching of repentance is universal, so also the promise of the Gospel is universal, that is, it belongs to all people.” (Luke 24:47; John 3:16; John 1:29; John 6:51; 1 John 1:7; 1 John 2:2; Matthew 11:28; Romans 11:32; 2 Peter 3:9; Romans 10:12; Romans 3:22; John 6:40; Mark 16:15) 28.
• “If we abide by this teaching and cling to it, it is a very useful, saving, consoling teaching. It establishes very effectively the article that we are justified and saved without any works and merits of ours, purely out of grace alone, for Christ’s sake. Before the time of the world, before we existed, yes, even before the foundation of the world was laid—when, of course, we could do nothing good—we were chosen by grace in Christ to salvation, according to God’s purpose (Romans 9:11; 2 Timothy 1:9). Furthermore, all opinions and erroneous teachings about the powers of our natural will are overthrown by this. God in His counsel, before the time of the world, decided and ordained that He Himself would produce and work in us by His Holy Spirit’s power. Through the Word, He would do everything that belongs to our conversion.” 43.
  • Again, refutes intutitu fidei.
• “No injustice is done to those who are punished and receive the wages of their sins.” 61.
• “As soon as [Paul] comes to the point where he shows what God has reserved for His hidden wisdom about this mystery, he suppresses and cuts it off with the following words, ‘Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and how inscrutable His ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord?’ [Romans 11:33-34] In other words, we cannot know about matters outside of and beyond what God has revealed to us in His Word.” 64.
• “This eternal election of God is to be considered in Christ, and not outside of or without Christ. For ‘in Christ,’ the apostle Paul testifies, ‘He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world,’ as it is written, ‘He has blessed us in the Beloved’ (Ephesians 1:4, 6).” 65.
• ‘“No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him.’ (John 6:44) However, the Father will not do this without means, but has ordained His Word and Sacraments for this purpose as ordinary means and instruments. It is not the will of the Father or of the Son that a person should not hear or should despise the preaching of His Word and wait for the drawing of the Father without the Word and Sacraments.” 76.
• “Every poor sinner should therefore attend to the Word, hear it attentively, and not doubt the Father’s drawing. For the Holy Spirit will be with His Word in His power, and will work by it. That is the Father’s drawing.” 77.
• “The reason why not all who hear the Word believe, and some are therefore deeply condemned, is not because God had begrudged them their salvation. It is their own fault.” 78.
• “God punishes sin with sin.” 83.
• “God did harden Pharaoh’s heart. In other words, Pharaoh always sinned again and again and became more hardened the more he was warned. That was a punishment of his earlier sin and horrible tyranny that in many and various ways he acted inhumanly toward the children of Israel against his heart’s accusations. God caused His Word to be preached and His will to be proclaimed to Pharaoh. Nevertheless, Pharaoh willfully stood up immediately against all rebukes and warnings. Therefore, God withdrew His hand from him, Pharaoh’s heart became hardened and stubborn, and God executed His judgment on him.” 85.
• Therefore it is false and wrong when it is taught that not only God’s mercy and Christ’s most holy merit, but also something in us is a cause of God’s election, on account of which God has chosen us to eternal life.” 87. Romans 9:11-13
• “If anyone presents the teaching about God’s gracious election in such a way that troubled Christians cannot get comfort out of it, but are pushed to despair; or if anyone teaches it so that the impenitent are confirmed in their sinfulness, then it is undoubtedly sure and true that such a doctrine is not taught according to God’s Word and will.” 91.

Christian Dogmatics, by Francis Pieper

• “Christians can and should know and be certain of their eternal election.” III:481.
• “No one can have any assurance of eternal election so long as he in one way or another limits universal grace.” III:482.
• “Every poor sinner, therefore, who keeps his faith focused on the Gospel, without any side glances in the direction of the Law, is eo ipso believing in his eternal election. In short, the recognition of one’s election and faith in the Gospel are identical.” III:483.
• Romans 8:32-33. “And only this fact, that the knowledge of one’s election coincides with faith in the Gospel, explains the other fact, that Scripture addresses the believers in the Gospel as the elect.” III:483.

Intuitu fidei

(Lat. “in view of faith”). Phrase often used in the Predestinarian* Controversy that burst upon conservative Lutheranism in Am. ca. 1880. The expression had been adopted by Luth. theologians chiefly through influence of A. Hunnius.* In opposing the Calvinistic view that the election of God is absolute, Hunnius and others taught that divine election is not absolute, but that God chose people for eternal life “in view of faith.” The term may have the meaning that God, in electing people to salvation, included faith in the decree of election, resolving to lead men to heaven through faith. But it came to mean that God chose certain people for salvation because of the faith which He foresaw they would have; in this view, faith is a cause of election, the factor which “explains” the mystery of predestination*; this contradicts complete and free grace. The terra fell into disuse in the Missouri Synod as a result of the Predestinarian Controversy. There is no Scripture warrant for it, and though the phrase is capable of correct interpretation, it can be seriously misunderstood. The Chicago* Theses, in the 1928 revision, opposed use of the term, as did the 1938 Declaration of the Representatives of the Am. Luth. Church (see American Lutheran Church, V). The Brief* Statement of the Doctrinal Position of the Missouri Synod, par. 36: “Nor does Holy Scripture know of an election ‘by foreseen faith,’ ‘in view of faith,’ as though the faith of the elect were to be placed before their election; but according to Scripture the faith which the elect have in time belongs to the spiritual blessings with which God has endowed them by His eternal election.” https://cyclopedia.lcms.org/definitions?filter=INTUITU%20FIDEI&mode=filter&page=0&definition=1197DF84-B266-EE11-9148-0050563F0205

• “On the relation of faith to election there has been much dissension since the end of the sixteenth century. … We must distinguish between the relation of faith to the eternal decree of predestination and the relation which Scripture assigns to faith in the execution of this decree in time.” Pieper, III:485.
• “Later Lutherans and Calvinists miss the mark. The former (later Lutherans) regard abiding faith, as logically preceding the eternal election and as its cause, for they teach that God chose those persons of whom He foresaw that they would remain in faith to the end (election intuitu fidei finalis). The latter (Calvinists) date faith, even in eternity, after the election, claiming that faith, like Christ’s merit, is solely a part of the execution of the absolute predestination. Over against both these positions it must be maintained that in electing the Christians, God resolved to favor them with the gift of faith in the Gospel and thus to single them out of the world.” Pieper, III:485.
• “God chose them by deciding to bless them by faith. Accordingly, God did not choose them absolutely, that is, without means, but, ‘through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth’ (2 Thess. 2:13).” Pieper, III: 486.   
• https://jackkilcrease.com/justification-after-the-formula-of-concord/#0bfa8054-8edd-4d5a-957c-5e90edb3e406-link

Conclusion

The doctrine of election is the biblical teaching that God chose us in Christ Jesus to have faith in Him through the ministry of the Holy Spirit through the Gospel and Sacraments. This doctrine maintains universal grace and grace alone. It does not explain why some are not elect. It is supports and reaffirms the Gospel, and so gives great comfort to those who believe the Gospel.