God created mankind with the ability to choose. From Adam and Eve in the Garden, to the present day, each human being has the opportunity to make choices. Some choices will be good; they will bring joy to many and will be pleasing to God. Other choices will be terrible and will bring turmoil to a multitude in various ways depending on what has been chosen. 

In the same way, God gave mankind the ability to choose Jesus Christ. The choices each one makes benefits all of human kind and most certainly are pleasing to God, his father. There is a controversy amongst religious people over who chose whom and what kind of choice each person has. Part of it is the idea that God chooses whom he will to be saved and the rest are left out in the cold. That isn’t true as will be seen by looking at the scriptures.

Paul wrote in Ephesians 1:3-6: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: 4 According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: 5 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, 6 To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.  The word predestinated causes some misunderstanding for many Bible students. They think that it means that certain ones are predetermined to be saved. Others believe that all will be saved no matter what since God loves all. The word means that God predetermined, or decided that his creation of man would be saved (if that choice is made), and set the way salvation would be given to his creation. He didn’t decide who would or who wouldn’t be saved except by the ability to choose and that ability to make choice has been given to all mankind. Even with those verses and the plain meaning of them, many find it hard to accept that God won’t save everyone. He won’t save everyone by fiat anymore than Jesus chose all to be his disciples, which many mistakenly believe.  The confusion comes from the following words of Jesus in John 15:16:  

Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you. To understand to whom Jesus was talking it is necessary to read Luke 6:12-16: And it came to pass in those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God. 13 And when it was day, he called unto him his disciples: and of them he chose twelve, whom also he named apostles; 14 Simon, (whom he also named Peter,) and Andrew his brother, James and John, Philip and Bartholomew, 15 Matthew and Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon called Zelotes, 16 And Judas the brother of James, and Judas Iscariot, which also was the traitor. Jesus called all those who were following him, and out of the multitudes, he chose twelve of them to be apostles.

 In Mark 3: 14-15 the record reflects the following: And he ordained twelve, that they should be with him, and that he might send them forth to preach, 15 And to have power to heal sicknesses, and to cast out devils: In John, the word ordain that Jesus used means to set in place or to put and in Mark it means to make, bring about or cause.  Jesus chose the twelve or put them in place and then made it possible through his power for them to preach the gospel and do miracles on behalf of the people to show that the message was from God. 

The scripture is clear that Jesus chose twelve men to do his work in the early days of the gospel message.  The Twelve didn’t choose him and that is what he meant when he said they didn’t choose him but that he chose them. The choosing didn’t include everyone because he personally chose the twelve and the twelve only. (Later the apostles chose replacements.) The apostles were to go and bring forth fruit. That fruit is new followers of Christ that come from hearing the gospel followed by obedience.

© 02-21-2004 DEC

Revised 04-14-2008

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