From our perspective within time, God elects/chooses people for many different purposes:
- Adam & Eve to name animals
- Noah to build & captain the Ark
- Abram to be a blessing to everyone
- Moses to lead Israel out of captivity
- Aaron to lead Israel into the Promised Land
- OT Prophets to be both mouth pieces & actors in “plays”/“performance art”
- Israel to display God to the nations
- Kings/Judges to rule over Israel
- Priests to intercede for Israel/nations
- 12 Apostles to be leaders & messengers
- Christians/The Church to be messengers of the Gospel to everyone
As you can see, Election has many purposes, however the ones we will focus on are:
- to show people salvation can’t be earned
- to make Jews jealous of the Gentiles
Sometimes the election has a finite time frame, sometimes the number elected increases, sometimes it decreases.
Just because a person(s) is elected, doesn’t always exclude the non-elect at a later stage. e.g. initially only the 12 disciples where chosen, however many more were later. Initially only Israel was chosen, however that was extended to all.
I do think in this eon only some will be specially chosen to be part of the “believers” of 1 Tim 4:10. However, I think that God saves this eon’s reprobates in the next eon, so that He truly is “the Savior of all”.
From our perspective within time, there’s no point trying to work out who is “in favor” as it has a tendency to generate an “us & them” mentality & ultimately it’s actually a matter of everyone being in the “us” group!
I think it’s much better to try to love everyone as that’s what I think God does, understanding that some will unfortunately reject both my love & His, during this lifetime (I think that Hitler for example didn’t repent & accept God’s love during lifetime but will during the next.)
I believe in Predestination, both of everyone (when looking from outside time) and bit-by-bit within time (i.e. as God is in complete control, one could say Hitler was predestined to Hell. Although I think the interaction between our free will & God sovereignty is very complex, so you could also say Hitler only ended up in Hell because he chose to reject God)
