If God's sovereign election is true, then why preach the gospel?

How does a proper balance of the Bible's teaching regarding God's sovereignty and man's free will in salvation affect our view of the gospel?

Election is the sovereign choice of God (Eph 1:4) and should never be weakened to say that God foreknew who would believe, and on the basis of His foreknowledge, chose them. The election of God is never for condemnation, no soul is chosen to be damned. All are perishing and from them God snatched many to be saved.

Election and predestination are different. Election involves persons (Titus 1:1), predestination is purpose, that is, what God predetermined for those who are saved (Rom 8:29).

Does this mean that God determines who will be saved and man has no choice in it? No, the Lord Jesus said, -He that rejecteth Me and receiveth not my words... the word... shall judge him in the last day" (John 12:48)." "We have turned every one to his own way" (Isa 53:6) means that every man is a moral creature with a choice.

Is this a contradiction? The difficulty is in our minds. The truth has in both extremes, not in any logic that attempts to reconcile them. Can we not admit that God understands truth that transcends our minds? Even in physics, light is made up of waves, yet it is particles. This is a contradiction, but a scientist uses both definitions because both are true.

Those who are eternally lost, "received not the love of the truth that they might be saved" (2 Thess 2:10). "God will have all men to be saved" (1 Tim 2:4). Preaching that weakens the "whosoever" of John 3:16 or the "whosoever will" of Revelation 22:17 reveals a wrong view of election.

N. Crawford

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