Before the creation of the world God elected or selected a group of people to accept His offer of salvation. This, after all, has been His plan for all eternity, to save some out of fallen humanity, and give those He had saved to the Son as a bride, thereby glorifying Himself in the best possible way.
“And we know that for those that love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom He predestined He also called, and those whom He called He also justified, and those whom He justified He also glorified.” (Romans 8:28-30)
“. . . even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will . . .” (Ephesians 1:4)
In order to understand unconditional election it is imperative that you realize this simple fact: God has no obligation to save sinners. As fallen creatures, all men have sinned against a holy God by not giving Him the glory that He rightly deserves. They have cut themselves off by turning their backs on Him and trying to create another Him out of something artificial, like making cheerios out of Styrofoam. And left to themselves, depraved men will always make cheerios out of Styrofoam. God is perfectly just and right to punish each one as they deserve.
If you’re a Calvinist and you’ve ever discussed this issue with someone who doesn’t hold to your viewpoint, you know that the first thing they say is, “God is love. So He can’t purposefully send people to hell.” Well, that God is love is undeniably true. But, that God is other things, like righteous, just, and wrathful, is also true. If God cannot punish sinners, how do you explain all the punishment in the Bible? I mean, just try reading Amos. You see if God is not righteous, then God is not God. Also, God showing His wrath as well as His mercy glorifies Himself more than only showing his mercy.
“What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles.” (Romans 9:22-24)
The second thought that an Arminian usual has is this: “maybe God elects based of a foreknowledge of how people will respond to the gospel.” I say that if you believe in foreknowledge you have to believe in predestination as well, because they are, in a sense, the same thing. For example, God knew that you were going to read the word BLOGSPOT at the exact moment that you just did, and there is no possible way that you could not have read that word. Likewise, if God knew that a person would reject salvation, there is no possible way he could accept it. Besides, it seems absurd to say that God would ordain something that would happen whether He ordained it or not.
