Divine Election in the Old Testament

Abstract: a discussion of divine election as it first appears as a concept in the Old Testament, first with Abraham, and later with the nation of Israel, and how this concept should relate to our understanding of the election passages in the New Testament. It appears clear from the Old Testament record that divine election was always predicated on faith, and that while it was unconditionally effective for the group as a whole (the nation of Israel), individuals were given the responsibility of remaining within the covenant and could fall away from it.

It is important to recognize, when dealing with the subject of divine election, that the concept does not originate in the New Testament. When the New Testament writers--primarily Paul--discuss our election in Christ, they are not coming up with a new concept, but rather are applying an Old Testament concept to New Covenant believers. In order to understand what they mean, it is necessary to go back to the Old Testament and see how those concepts were introduced.

Election in the Old Testament begins with Abraham. (Cases could be made that it begins with Adam, or Abel, or Enoch, or Noah, but the election of Israel as a nation that is taken up in the New Testament begins with Abraham.) Genesis 12:1-3 records God's call of Abraham:

The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you.
I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you;
I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you."

Scripture does not record why Abraham was chosen. Joshua 24:2-3 records that Abraham's father "worshiped other gods"; it is probable that in his early life, Abraham had done so as well. However Nehemiah 9:8 suggestively says "You [God] found his [Abraham's] heart faithful before you, and made with him the covenant." At any rate, Abraham was chosen.

Genesis 12:7 and 13:14-17 reaffirm God's promises to Abraham, and chapter 15 records God's covenant with him. It is a covenant of promise, also called an unconditional covenant: there are no stipulations upon Abraham for receiving the covenant. God stipulates Himself to essentially three promises in chapters 12-15:

Descendants: Abraham will have a child, and through that child, a nation of descendants that are uncountable.
Land: Abraham's descendants will inherit the entirety of the land at that time known as Canaan.
Blessing: Abraham and his descendants will be blessed; more importantly, the rest of the nations of the world will be blessed through him.

It is in this context that we read the crucial verse which Paul quotes in support of justification through faith (Rom. 4:3; Gal. 3:6): "Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness" (15:6). God makes no stipulations upon Abraham to receive the promises of the covenant, but Abraham's faith is credited as righteousness.

In chapter 17, God adds the stipulation of circumcision to the covenant. This is not a "work" in the sense of earning the blessings of the covenant--most of Abraham's descendants would be infants at the time they were circumcised, and have no choice in the matter--but it is a "work" in the sense that Paul later uses the term: a mark of identification by which one may be recognized as being in the covenant. The New Perspective suggests that first-century Jews never imagined that circumcision earned their way into the covenant; but circumcision and other aspects of the Torah that separated Jews from Gentiles--dietary laws and feast days being two others--identified them and marked them as being part of the covenant. Paul makes the point that since righteousness was credited to Abraham before he received the sign of circumcision, it is not dependent upon circumcision (Rom. 4:9-12). It is rather dependent upon faith: simply believing the promise that God made to Abraham.

As we interpret Paul's writings regarding the divine election, it would be wise to recognize how central the example of Abraham is to him: the fact that Abraham is first called upon to believe an unconditional promise, and only later is called upon to take actions that reflect the faith he already has. This pattern will be recapitulated in the history of Israel as a whole.

Divine Election and the Nation of Israel

If you had to describe the significance of the nation of Israel in the Old Testament, it would be hard to do it better than with the simple phrase, "chosen people." Israel is not represented as superior to other nations either militarily, intellectually, or in any other way. Even morally, the history of Israel makes clear that they were much more interested in emulating the immorality of the cultures around them than following the Law that God had given them. The significance of Israel is simply that they are chosen by God, and the reason that they are chosen is because of God's love for them and for their forefathers, beginning with Abraham. Deuteronomy 7:6-8 is a clear statement of this:

For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession. The LORD did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the LORD loved you and kept the oath he swore to your forefathers that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

It is sometimes said that Abraham's descendents inherit the promises God gave to Abraham; it might be more correct to say that they are included in those promises. God promised Abraham descendents, land, and blessing; the land and the blessing were explicitly to be given to Abraham's descendents, so the descendents receiving land and blessing is not so much a matter of God fulfilling a promise to them as God fulfilling a promise to Abraham.

It should be clear from the foregoing that Israel was chosen as a nation; that is to say, as a group, based on the criterion of descent from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The Hebrew word bachar is used of God's choice of Israel as a nation, Jerusalem as the place of sacrifice, and David as God's choice as King of Israel. However, despite the fact that Israel is chosen, it is possible both for individual Israelites to be cut off from the covenant people (Gen. 17:14; Ex. 30:33, 38; 31:14; Lev. 7:20-27; 19:8; 23:29; Num. 9:13; 15:30) and for outsiders to become a part of the covenant people (Ex. 12:48-49; cf. Matt. 23:15; Acts 2:11; 6:5; 13:43). In other words, "Israel" is not a static category of individuals: it is rather a dynamic category defined by God's gracious favor and the people's faithfulness to the covenant.

This fact was implicitly acknowledged by Calvin. In Institutes 3.21, he argues for his doctrine of election by appeal to the Old Covenant election of Israel. He writes, “The prophets remind the Jews of this election by way of disparagement and opprobrium, because they had shamefully revolted from it” (Inst. 3.21.5). Israelites, evidently, could revolt against their election. Similarly, he writes

I admit that it was by their own fault Ishmael, Esau, and others, fell from their adoption; for the condition annexed was, that they should faithfully keep the covenant of God, whereas they perfidiously violated it. (3.21.6)

So Calvin acknowledges that while the election of Israel as a whole was unconditional, individuals within Israel were required to keep God's covenant in order to remain within its blessings, and the history of Israel shows that the majority of them did not remain within the covenant.

Calvin distinguishes this type of election from “the case of single individuals, to whom God not only offers salvation, but so assigns it, that the certainty of the result remains not dubious or suspended” (3.21.7). In other words, Calvin is forced to recognize two types of election: one in which whole nations are chosen, but in which individual participation is conditional and based on keeping the covenant; and another in which individuals are chosen and salvation is assigned to them with an absolutely certain result. But throughout Institutes 3.21, Calvin has been demonstrating individual election—election of the second type—by appeal to the Old Testament election of Israel, which is clearly election of the first type. If Calvin now wants to make a distinction between these types of election, he undercuts his whole preceding argument. The only thing he has positively demonstrated is election of the first type—that is, unconditional sovereign election of a group, in which individual participation is conditional, which is precisely what the Arminian believes. When Calvin applies this to individual unconditional election, he does so by mere assertion.

The main point of this essay is not a wholesale rebuttal of Calvin's argument. It is simply to demonstrate how the doctrine of election is presented in the Old Testament, and therefore what the concept was that Paul was appealing to in his letters. It is, of course, possible that Paul modified the concept and used it in the way that Augustine and Calvin thought he did. But this would have to be demonstrated by the New Testament election passages themselves. Otherwise, one must assume that the original readers of the New Testament would have had in mind the Old Testament concept of election: the election of a group, in which individual participation in the covenant is required.