For the last several weeks in our Sunday sermon series, we have touched on truths related to God’s sovereignty over the salvation of sinners. We have seen that all people are ultimately dependent upon God’s power to be brought from death to life. We have also heard strong exhortations to proclaim the gospel to the lost. Whether we are new to these things or have studied them for a long time, we may be susceptible either to misunderstanding or misapplying the interplay between election and evangelism. Conversations I had both before and after the most recent message underscored that danger:
“We don’t need to worry about evangelism…God will save His elect.”
“What about the chosen who never hear the gospel?”
I’ve heard these things and others like them many times. I’d like to provide—in the simplest terms I can—a way to understand how election works together with evangelism.
Election is the act of God from eternity past in which He chooses whom to save, not on account of any foreseen merit, but only because of His own gracious pleasure.* I won’t take time to defend this doctrine here. We’ve seen it many times over the years and we’ll get a generous helping in the rest of Romans. My point here is simply that election refers to God’s gracious choice. Election says nothing about the process—how or when people will be saved. God has simply chosen to save them. Surely, no purpose of God’s can be thwarted (Num 23:19; Isa 55:11), so there is every reason to believe that the elect will be saved. But election alone does not tell us how He will do that.
The gospel is the power of God for salvation. “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Rom 1:16). When one hears the gospel and responds in repentance from sin and trust in Christ, the blessings of salvation in Christ are applied to the believer. “For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved,” (Rom 10:10). “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ,” (Rom 10:17). God has chosen to save certain sinners (election). The gospel is the how. So, how will all who are saved be saved? By hearing and believing the gospel.
God has entrusted the proclamation of the gospel to His church.
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation;
19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 2 Corinthians 5:17–20.
This passage is quite clear if we take the time to follow it. God saves sinners by reconciling them to Himself through the atonement of Christ. That reconciliation is a message—the gospel—entrusted to the church. Therefore, God makes His appeal to sinners through us as we share the gospel. This means that in the salvation of sinners neither the gospel nor evangelism are expendable elements. The gospel is the how; evangelism is the delivery mechanism.
There is no biblical way to say, “Evangelism doesn’t matter; God will save His elect.” We ought rather say, “Evangelism is of paramount importance…it is precisely how God appeals to all sinners, including His elect.”
Will God save His elect outside of their hearing the gospel? Romans 10:14-15 seems to rule that out, as Paul writes, “How are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?” I am aware of no passage in the Bible suggesting that God has an alternate way of saving outside of gospel proclamation.
God has predestined His elect. This may sound like a redundancy. We tend to use the concepts of predestination and election synonymously. However, they are distinct. If election is the who and the gospel is the how, predestination is the what. Predestination is concerned with “what is the guaranteed ultimate outcome for the elect?” The NT gives us several specifics. Believers are predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ (Rom 8:29). They are predestined to become His inheritance (Eph 1:11). They are predestined to adoption by God (Eph 1:5). In other words, election is God’s determining who will be on the ship; predestination is His mapping out the coordinates beforehand so that the ship safely arrives at its destination.
Romans 8:30 teaches that this predestination is then brought to fruition by God’s calling the sinner, justifying them, and glorifying them. That is, this sovereign God who saves through the proclamation of the gospel accomplishes His predestination by bringing the gospel to bear on His elect.
Therefore, there are no elect people who do not hear the gospel. If they are elect, God has predestined them to salvation. He only brings about salvation through gospel proclamation.
A glorious depiction of these truths comes together in Acts 18. Paul came to Corinth to preach the good news. He was met with opposition and reviling, but “the Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, ‘Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people,’” (Acts 18:9–10). The context clarifies that the many belonging to God in the city were as yet unconverted. They had not yet believed, and yet God said, “I have many in this city.” That is election language. “Go on speaking and do not be silent,” said the Lord. Why? God saves through gospel proclamation. Election alone doesn’t save. One must hear and believe the good news.
And did God leave it to chance that those belonging to Him in Corinth would hear the gospel? No, He appeared to Paul in a vision and commanded him to continue preaching there. In other words, God saw to it that His elect heard the gospel that would save them.
God elects. He saves through gospel proclamation. He commands us to evangelize. He accomplishes His predestined work by making sure His own hear His good news.
So what should we do? Share the good news far and wide, expecting that He will bring His own to Himself!
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*Grudem, Wayne. 2020. Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine. Second Edition. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic.
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