​“What if they are not elect?”

“If God has already chosen who will be saved, why should I pray for someone’s salvation? What if they’re not elect?”

That question comes up a lot for us reformed folk.

But before I try and answer it directly, I think it will be helpful to look at the alternative that many people assume makes more sense.

The failure of free-will theology

That alternative is simple. Salvation ultimately comes down to man’s free will decision. God may invite, persuade, and draw, but the final say rests with the sinner.  

At first glance, that actually seems to make prayer more meaningful. If people are free to choose Christ, then surely praying for them matters. But if you follow that line of thinking all the way through, it starts to fall apart.
Because now you have to ask a very simple question. What exactly are you asking God to do when you pray?
Are you asking Him to persuade them a little more? To make the gospel clearer? To arrange better circumstances?

Even if He does all of that, the final decision still does not belong to Him. It belongs to the sinner. God can bring someone right up to the edge, but He cannot ensure that they will step across. And once you see that, prayer starts to feel a bit thin, doesn’t it?

It becomes something closer to hopeful wishing rather than confident pleading because no matter how much you pray, the decisive factor still sits outside of God’s control. So, again, I ask, If the decision is ultimately man’s decision then what are you asking God to do in prayer?

And perhaps without even noticing it, if this view is embraced, the salvation of others starts to feel tied to you. To your clarity. To how compelling you are in the moment when you present the gospel. If someone responds positively, you are tempted to think, “That went well. I handled that conversation properly.” But if they do not respond well, anxiety begins to bubble up. “What did I do wrong? Should I have said more? Said it differently? perhaps I was too aggressive”

If you really believe that someone’s eternal destiny hangs, even partly, on your shoulders, it will either puff you up with pride when people respond well or slowly drag you into discouragement and even despair when they don’t.

The problem is that this whole way of thinking does not actually match what Scripture says about the human condition. The Bible does not describe sinners as neutral people calmly weighing their options and merely in need of a compelling argument.

It says we are dead in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1).
It says we are blinded to the truth (2 Corinthians 4:4).
It says we cannot come to Christ unless the Father draws us (John 6:44).

If someone is dead, persuasion alone cannot bring them to life. If someone is blind, no argument, no matter how clear or compelling, can make them see. The problem is not that people need a better presentation of the gospel. The problem is that they need a miracle.

God must open the heart.
God must give life.
God must grant faith.

And that is exactly why prayer makes sense. When you pray for someone’s salvation, you are not asking God to assist their decision-making. You are asking Him to do what only He can do. To bring life where there is death and ro bring sight where there is blindness. In other words, you are asking Him to save. This is why the Arminian free-will position falls flat.

The Reformed position

Now let me address the question again from a reformed perspective. In case you forgot, this is the question: If God has already chosen who will be saved, why should I pray for someone’s salvation? What if they are not elect?

You Do Not Know Who the Elect are and that’s a good thing

“The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever” (Deuteronomy 29:29).

God has not given you access to His secret decree. Election belongs to God and not to you. If God had revealed who the elect are, what would you do with that information?

I suspect your prayers would shrink, your evangelism would narrow and your compassion would be selectively applied only to the elect. But God, in His wisdom, has hidden this from you. Why?

So that you will pray for all.
So that you will plead with all.
So that you will hope for all.

Your ignorance of who the elect are is the very thing that keeps your heart alive.

When you look at a lost person, you are not looking at someone marked “elect” or “non-elect.” From your perspective, they are simply a sinner who may yet be saved. That means every prayer you offer for them is meaningful and every call to repentance is real.

You do not need to figure out who the elect are before you pray. You are not called to read God’s hidden will. You are called to respond to His revealed will and His revealed will is clear. Pray for sinners and plead with them so that they may come to Christ.

Remember that you are not responsible for saving anyone. God is. That means you can pray with hope, because God can change the hardest heart and you can endure rejection and hostility, because God is still at work.

This is exactly how the apostle Paul lived.

“Therefore, I endure all things for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory” (2 Timothy 2:10).

Paul did not know who the elect were yet he endured suffering, hardship, and opposition. Why?

Because he knew they were out there. And he knew God would bring them in through the means He had appointed. Election was the fuel that drove Paul to the work of missions.

Consider also Gods encouragement to Paul in Corinth: “Do not be afraid, but speak, and do not keep silent; for I am with you… for I have many people in this city” (Acts 18:9–10 ).

Before they believed, God called them “My people.” That is the doctrine of election annd what did it produce in Paul? continued preaching, continued pleading, continued hope.

Hear Pauls heart In Romans 10:1:

“Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved” (Romans 10:1). In Romans 9, Paul affirms election clearly. In Romans 10, he prays earnestly for the lost. Because he does not know who the elect are, he prays for all. Your ignorance into the deep mysteries of God is a grace. It keeps you hopeful and it keeps you dependent on Gods mercies.

God Ordains Both the Ends and the Means

God does not only ordain who will be saved. He ordains how they will be saved. The end is salvation. The means He uses include our prayers and our preaching.   When you pray for someone’s salvation, you are participating in God’s plan. Scripture makes this clear in the simplest of ways: “You do not have because you do not ask” (James 4:2).

God has ordained that asking is the means by which we receive and this principle extends even to salvation.

God has determined the harvest, and He has also determined the prayers that will bring the rain. This should deeply affect how you pray. When you pray for a lost friend, a child, a parent, or a neighbour, you are speaking to the sovereign God who has not only decreed the end, but also the pathway to that end. It may be that God has purposed to save that person through years of persistent prayer, tears, and faithful pleading.

And if you neglect to pray, you are neglecting one of the very means God has appointed.

This adds weight to your prayers, doesn’t it? Now your prayers actually matter. Now your prayers are meaningful. Now let’s be careful here, your prayers are by no means attempts to force God’s hand, but they are part of the way God moves His hand.

It is important that we grasp this as this also protects us from fatalism.

Fatalism says, “If God has decided, nothing I do matters.” but the Bible says, “Because God has decided, what you do matters deeply.” Because God ordains the means, your prayers are woven into His plan. They are instruments in the hands of a sovereign and merciful God.

Conclusion

So, what if they are not elect?

​That question, though it sounds weighty, is actually the wrong place to focus. God has not called you to figure out who the elect are but He has called you to pray, to plead, and to proclaim. And here is the comfort: if salvation ultimately depended on human will, your prayers would always be uncertain but because salvation belongs to the Lord, your prayers have real power and real hope.

You pray because God uses means.
You pray because you do not know who the elect are.
You pray because God delights to save sinners.

And you pray with confidence, knowing this: no prayer offered in faith is wasted, and no soul is beyond the reach of the sovereign grace of God. So do not hold back because the God who ordains the end has also ordained your prayers as part of the means and He is mighty to save.

Does this even matter?

For many Christians, election feels like a controversial corner of theology best left unexplored.
On one side, you’ve got folks screaming but “muh free will”, assuming that if God chooses, then man must be reduced to a puppet or a robot of sorts. On the other side, there are those who don’t argue so much as sigh. They hear the word “election” and feel the onset of theological exhaustion, as though we’re about to split hairs that don’t matter.

I was reminded of this just yesterday in a WhatsApp conversation with a friend. In his words, the doctrine of election felt “pointless” and like an “endless rabbit hole”. Now I think that a large part of the problem lies not in the doctrine itself, but in the way we have handled it.

Think back to the surge of the Young, Restless, and Reformed movement. Many of us, full of zeal and newly awakened to the sovereignty of God, charged into conversations with Romans 9 ready to destroy anyone who would argue with us. Perhaps we even had a Paul Washer sermon memorized in case of emergency. This is what James White famously called “cage stage Calvinism”.

Now if we are honest, it was not always a love for God or a love for his people that drove us into these arguments. It was the love of being right. There was a kind of theological chest-thumping. We argued intensely and we pronounced ourselves the victors with great arrogance, but we rarely asked the most important question: Why does election matter? Our doctrine, as it were, never quite hit the road. And that is why some now dismiss election as pointless. Not because it is, but because they have only seen it handled poorly and turned into a debate club topic.

Now what is election?

The 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith gives a careful and God-exalting definition of election, especially in Chapter 3 (“Of God’s Decree”) and Chapter 10 (“Of Effectual Calling”).

In essence, the Confession teaches that:

Election is God’s eternal, sovereign, and gracious choice of certain individuals to salvation, not based on anything foreseen in them, but solely according to His good pleasure.

Now importantly and this is where the Confession is so helpful, it insists that election is not meant to be a speculative rabbit hole, but a deep well of comfort.  In other words, election is not given so that we can endlessly debate it. It it is given to make us worshippers.

Let me briefly state 4 reasons why election is something that we ought to treasure:

Why election matters?

1. It Secures Our Salvation
Because God has chosen a people and given them to the Son, our salvation doesn’t rest on the wobbly legs of our own faithfulness. Jesus said His will is to lose none of those the Father has given Him, but to raise them up on the last day (John 6:39). Our perseverance is ultimately His work. We are held not by our grip on God, but by His grip on us. Romans 8:30 traces an unbreakable chain: those God predestines, He calls; those He calls, He justifies; those He justifies, He glorifies. Not one link fails. Add to this Jesus' promise that no one can snatch His sheep from His hand (John 10:28), and the result is an assurance that no circumstance, no failure, and no enemy can finally undo.
 
2. It Calls Us Toward Holiness

Some fear that the doctrine of election breeds passivity. If God has already determined the end, then human effort becomes irrelevant, they say but this objection misunderstands both the nature and purpose of God’s decree. Scripture never presents election as a barrier to human effort, but as the very ground of it. Paul writes that God chose to save His people “through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth” (2 Thessalonians 2:13). In other words, election does not bypass means; it ordains them. The same God who appoints the end of salvation also appoints the means of faith, repentance, and ongoing holiness.

Far from producing complacency, election secures transformation. It guarantees that God will not abandon His work halfway. Romans 8:29 makes this explicit: those whom God foreknew; He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son. This conformity is the very goal of election. This means that holiness is not a condition we meet to become elect, but the inevitable fruit of being chosen. To say it differently, election fuels effort rather than nullifies it. Because God is at work within us, we are empowered to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. Divine sovereignty does not weaken human responsibility but rather, it establishes it, ensuring that our striving is never in vain but always upheld by grace.

3. It Fuels Passion for Evangelism

Far from dampening the urgency of mission (as is often the charge), election gives it a sure foundation. When the apostle Paul was tempted to fall silent in Corinth, the Lord told him: “Do not be afraid… for I have many in this city who are My people” (Acts 18:9–10). That is a remarkable statement, isn’t it? God had people there before Paul had even preached to them. The mission, then, was not a shot in the dark but a divinely guided rescue operation.
Scripture reinforces this again and again. “As many as had been appointed to eternal life believed” (Acts 13:48), and Paul endures all things “for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 2:10). Election does not eliminate the need for evangelism, but it guarantees its success. The gospel call is the means God uses to gather His people.

And here is where this doctrine protects the evangelist’s heart from despair. If conversion ultimately depended on our eloquence or our persuasiveness, we would either burn out or give up. But because salvation belongs to the Lord, we are freed from both pride in success and despair in apparent failure. We sow, we speak, we plead but God only gives the increase (1 Corinthians 3:6–7).So,we share his word confidently knowing that God is already at work and that somewhere, even now, there are those who will hear His voice and come.

4. It Produces True Worship

Perhaps the most profound fruit of understanding election is worship. When we grasp that God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world “to the praise of His glorious grace” (Ephesians 1:6), pride is absolutely shattered. We begin to see that our salvation was never rooted in our wisdom, our will, or our worthiness, but entirely in God’s sovereign mercy. This should humble us deeply and lifts our hearts in awe. Because of Gods mercy, we ought to stand amazed that God set His affection on us. Salvation, from beginning to end, is of the Lord. And so, we boast in nothing but Him.

As A. W. Pink reminds us, “He foresaw my every fall, my every sin, my every backsliding; yet, nevertheless, fixed His heart upon me.”

Dear friends, this kind of mercy ought to cause us to fall on our knees in wonder and worship.

​Conclusion:
So perhaps the problem has never been election itself, but what we have done with it. We made it a point of contention so as to congratulate ourselves for our theological superiority, when it was meant to humble us into the dust and lift our eyes to heaven.

 The Danger of Judaizing: Embracing the Fullness of the New Covenant

In a world that often looks back to the past, it's easy to find ourselves drawn to the shadows of the Old Covenant, long after the reality has arrived in Christ. The Passover, with its rich history and symbolism, is one example of a shadow that pointed forward to a greater deliverance through a greater Lamb—Jesus Christ. Yet, some today are eager to return to these Old Testament rituals, believing that observing feasts like the Passover brings spiritual benefit or obligation. This is not a small matter. In fact, it is a serious issue that has deep implications for the purity of our worship and the sufficiency of Christ's work.

Christ, Our Passover Lamb

The Passover was a glorious symbol, pointing to the future salvation that would come through Christ. But now that Christ has come, the Passover has been fulfilled in Him. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 5:7, “For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.” His blood has been poured out, His work is finished, and the deliverance He provides is greater and final. The Lamb of God has come to take away the sin of the world (John 1:29), and through His sacrifice, we are freed from the bondage of sin and death. There is no need to return to the shadow when the substance is here. Yet, some today are tempted to turn back to these old observances, believing that somehow these rituals can provide something spiritually necessary. They are drawn to the Passover, the ceremonial laws, and the feast days, thinking that by observing them, they are somehow honoring God or gaining spiritual benefit. But the Bible warns us against this tendency.

The Warning from Galatians
In Galatians 4:10–11, Paul offers a stern warning to those who would revert to the old ways of the law: “You observe days and months and seasons and years. I am afraid for you.” Paul’s concern is not merely about preferences but about the sufficiency of Christ’s work and the danger of returning to a works-based righteousness. To Judaize—returning to these Old Covenant laws and rituals—is to deny the centrality of Christ and His finished work. It is to say, in effect, that what Christ has done is not enough, and we must add something to it.
This is a dangerous place to be. To look back at the shadows of the Old Covenant is to diminish the glory of Christ and the fulfillment He has brought. It’s as if someone, having received the fullness of light, chooses to return to the darkness.

The 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith: A Clear Testimony

The 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith provides a helpful reminder of the nature of Christian worship in the New Covenant. In Chapter 22.7, it states that under the gospel, worship is no longer restricted to specific places or rituals: “God is to be worshiped everywhere in spirit and in truth… as He has appointed in His Word.” Worship in the New Covenant is not about observing feasts or following ceremonial laws. It is about worshiping God in spirit and truth through the person of Jesus Christ. The Confession also affirms in Chapter 7.1 that the Old Covenant has been fulfilled and replaced by the New Covenant, which brings with it a new way of relating to God—through Christ, not through external rituals. The Old Covenant rituals, including the feasts and ceremonies, were shadows of the greater reality to come in Christ. Once Christ has come, those rituals are no longer necessary because they have been fulfilled in Him. As the Confession states in 19.3, “All which ceremonial laws are now abrogated, under the New Testament.” The Lord’s Supper has replaced the Passover as the meal of the church, the sign and seal of the New Covenant, designed to nourish our faith and point us again and again to Christ crucified, risen, and reigning.

The Danger of Legalism: Turning Liberty into Bondage

When we begin to reintroduce Old Covenant practices into our worship, we risk undermining Christ's work. The gospel is a message of grace, and salvation is based on the finished work of Christ alone—His life, death, and resurrection. The New Covenant frees us from the law of the old covenant and invites us into a relationship with God through faith in Christ. To return to Old Covenant laws is to confuse the nature of Christian liberty with legalism. The apostle Paul addresses this very issue in Colossians 2:16–17, saying, “Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.” To impose these Old Covenant practices on Christians today is to take away their freedom in Christ and replace it with an unnecessary burden.

The Church and the New Covenant Meal

The church, as the body of Christ, has been called to celebrate the Lord’s Supper, not the Passover. The Lord’s Supper is the New Covenant meal that points us to the body of Christ, broken for us, and the blood of Christ, poured out for us. It is a meal of grace, given to nourish our faith, reminding us of the full sufficiency of Christ's sacrifice. The Passover, as an Old Covenant feast, pointed forward to Christ, but now that Christ has come, it is the Lord’s Supper that we are to observe as a sign of the New Covenant.
To return to the Passover or any other Old Covenant ritual as a requirement for spiritual growth is to miss the point of the gospel. It is to look back at the shadow instead of embracing the reality of Christ. As John Owen wisely said, “Christ is the substance of all the Old Testament institutions; and where the substance is come, the shadow must vanish.”

The Heart of the Issue: Christ Is Enough

The issue at the heart of Judaizing is the sufficiency of Christ. To Judaize is to deny that Christ has fulfilled the law and the prophets. It is to say that Christ’s work is not enough to make us right with God. The gospel is clear: Christ is the fulfilment of all the Old Testament institutions, and He has brought us into a new covenant through His blood (Luke 22:20). In Christ, we have everything we need for life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3). We do not need to return to the shadows; we need to walk in the light of the New Covenant.

Conclusion: Let the Shadows Vanish

As believers, we are called to celebrate Christ, our Passover Lamb, who has been sacrificed for us. We do not need to observe Old Covenant rituals to be spiritually enriched. Instead, we have the broken bread and poured cup of the Lord’s table, which point us to Christ crucified, risen, and reigning. Let us reject the shadows and embrace the fullness of the New Covenant. In Christ, we have the substance, and where the substance is, the shadows must vanish. Celebrate the Lamb, reject the shadows, and worship in the light of the New Covenant.

​Definitions matter.

​Whenever you bring up the controversial subject of spiritual gifts, one feels the need to rush into the cessationist and continuationist debate but before we get there, we need to stop, and press pause. It is not all the gifts of the Sprit that are up for debate, it is in particular the sign gifts of the Holy Spirit that is hotly contested. The sign gifts (Heb 2:3-4) are the gifts of prophecy, tongues and healings.

Before we ask the question as to their relevance for us today and whether or not the church has access to such gifts, we must define these particular gifts. Definitions matter.
 

What is prophecy?

1. Prophecy is spontaneous truth delivered by God.
This means that prophecy is not preaching. At least nor from a written text. Prophecy is to be distinguished from teaching although there is some overlap. The spontaneous nature of prophecy can be seen in 1 Corinthians 14:29-33 which reads:

Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said. 30 If a revelation is made to another sitting there, let the first be silent. 31 For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all be encouraged, 32 and the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets. 33 For God is not a God of confusion but of peace.
​
Notice the sudden nature of revelation. As one prophet speaks, a sudden revelation is given to another prophet. The first prophet needs to sit down and allow the second prophet to speak so that the words can be weighed. This is spontaneous truth delivered by God to the prophet without a written text. The same can be seen with Agabus in Acts 11.

2. Prophecy is predictive.
Prophecy is often predictive. In Acts 11, the nature of Agabus’s prophecy is clearly predictive as he sees great danger lying ahead for the Apostle Paul. A good word to use here is the word “foretelling”. Prophecy often foretells the future.

3. Prophecy is not always predictive.
Although prophecy is often foretelling, it is not exclusively so. Prophecy is also forth-telling (or circumstantial).  In 1 Corinthians 14:24-25, we see the forth-telling element. We read that when one prophecies, he/she may say something that reveals “the secrets of the heart”. This indicates that divine truth was revealed from God about someone who was present in the assembly. This was not a foretelling but a forth-telling. 
These are basic and succinct definitions that will help us going forward. Our next article will address the question of whether New Testament prophecy contains error and whether the gift of prophecy is still with us today.

Introduction

​One of the questions I often asked about is the question regarding spiritual gifts. People ask:
“Are you a cessationist?”
“Do you believe God still heals?”
“Do you believe in prophecy?”
Coupled with these questions, people make remarks such as the following:
“We must not limit the work of the Holy Spirit?”

These questions deserve an answer. Comments like this requires clarity.
​
Undoubtedly, the Holy Spirit and his work have received considerable attention with the rise of the charismatic movement, and this is no bad thing. As we confess in the Nicene creed “We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life. He proceeds from the Father and the Son, and with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified.” It is only right that God the Holy Spirit, along with the Father and the Son be glorified for he richly deserves it.

Now call me cynical, if you wish, but I believe that one of the reasons for our obsession with the Holy Spirit has nothing to do with him and everything to do with us.
​

Gifts for the Spotlight?

​When I started to think through the gifts of the Holy Spirit. I was not all that concerned with who God the Holy Spirit is and what He does. I was interested in how he had gifted me. Mind you, I had no interest in having the gift of administration (1 Cor 12:28). The gift I wanted was something more spectacular. I wanted to dream dreams and interpret them for others. I wanted to have visions of the future. I wanted something for the spotlight. Perhaps this was because it seemed as if all my friends seemed to have these sorts of gifts. They claimed that they had the gift of tongues, the gift of prophecy, and worship leading. Interestingly, all of their gifts demanded that they be in the spotlight.

In fact, I remember a time when people had to fill in a sheet to find their spiritual gifts. Again, everyone who filled this sheet in ended up having some gift for the spotlight. The number of apostles and prophets has risen considerably since those sheets were filled in.

To this day, I have never met anyone who joyfully claims to have the gift of administration.


Gifts of the Spirit?

​In the next few weeks, I will seek to bring clarity to the person and work of the Holy Spirit but before I do that, at the very outset, I want to state that our desire for understanding must be fuelled by humility. This is not about your glory. It is about Gods. Everything God does is for his own glory and for the good of his people.

The very gifts of the holy Spirit are given to us not so that we might be in the spotlight or gain an audience. The purpose is to glorify God as his people are edified.
​
“When Christ ascended on high, he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men (Eph 4:8)”…why? To build up the body of Christ (Eph 4:12)

One of the more controversial aspects of historically reformed worship in our modern world is that of children being present in what some call “big church”.
​
The reason for this practice is rooted in the biblical pattern, as the psalmist says “ We will not hide them from their children (the works of the Lord), but will tell a future generation the praiseworthy acts of the LORD, his might, and the wondrous works he has performed (Ps 78:4).
​
This means young and old, and all in between belong in the church. For many people, this practice is the hardest to adapt to since most people are used to some form of “kids’ church” or “Sunday school” that takes place during corporate worship.
​
Why, then, would we insist on having kids in worship?