In love he predestined us for adoption.
—Ephesians 1:5
In Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, Portia delivers this soliloquy:
Though justice be thy plea, consider this:
That in the course of justice none of us
Should see salvation. We do pray for mercy.
The doctrine of election—that God “predestined us for adoption”—is admittedly difficult to comprehend. We would all be condemned if confronted only by justice, for “all have sinned . . . There is no one righteous, not even one” (Rom 3:10, 23).
God did not choose us because of anything that is good in us but because of love that is in him: “He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. . . . so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3: 5, 7).
He chose you before you chose him.