I read that statement recently. It was written by John MacArthur, a man with whom I agree quite often, and with whom I also sometimes disagree. Do statements ever strike you as being so outrageous they couldn’t possibly be true, but if you think about it a little they make you wonder if there is a sense in which they may be true?

Such was the case for me with this one. The more I thought about it, the more I agreed with it. Read on and I’ll tell you why…

What’s the first step toward salvation?

This post will not be a “step 1, do this; step 2, do this” type of post. Everything starts somewhere though. Such is the case with salvation, and certainly to see whether or not salvation is initiated by human choice, we need to see how it is initiated. So where does it begin?

We’re told that “faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17). So hearing the Word is the first step toward salvation.

If hearing the Word is the first step, how is that initiated other than by human choice?

That indeed is the question to answer. Could it be there are things taking place that lead to our salvation before we hear the Word? If so, then they are not actions we take, because that would be in conflict with the Word itself.

Consider:

For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Ephesians 2:10)

⁴For He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love ⁵He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will—⁶to the praise of His glorious grace, which He has freely given us in the One He loves. (Ephesians 1:4-6)

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6:44)

So we are “created in Christ to do good works”. That’s a telling fact in itself, but what’s the source of these good works? “God prepared [them] in advance for us to do.” In advance of what? Certainly in advance of us doing the good works, but I believe it means more than that. The context of Ephesians 1, and on into chapter 2, is God’s eternal plan. Thus, God prepared before creation the good works He has in store for me today.

Predestined?

What about “He chose us” and “He predestined us”? So God chose before creation who would be good and who would be bad? Who would be saved and who would be condemned? No, that can’t be the proper meaning of this passage because if it is, it conflicts with several other things God told us, not the least of which is that He is “not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).

It’s easy to read “chose” and “predestined” in Ephesians 1, and miss the critical phrase. God “chose us in Him to be holy and blameless in His sight,” meaning He foreordained that those who come to Christ in obedient faith would be “holy and blameless in His sight”. So yes, we’re predestined, but not as individuals; we’re predestined as a class of people who trust in Him.

So you see, there are many things going on in “the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 1:3) that are directed to draw us to Christ — things that indeed initiate our process of salvation long before we ever hear the Word.

What other passages shed light on this subject? I’d love to hear your thoughts.