Anyone who is a believer is so because he is one of the elect. However, you can be one of the elect BEFORE salvation - not meaning that you are saved before you are saved but that you have been chosen to be saved at some point in time in your life before death. Only God truly knows who is saved and who is not and I do think that there are those who "play Christian" yet who are not saved.
But, think about it, Ann.
If the cross is past, and the blood has flowed in atonement and redemption, and Christ is seated in heaven, and the next agenda is His coming execution of the judgment meted at the cross, then there is no one of the elect whom He bled for who is not saved, although not all are believers, have become believers, or are decreed to be believers, in time.
Definitely, Paul is elect, and Peter, and John, and James, and Mark, Luke, Timothy, Lydia, and Naomi, Timothy's grandmother, Barnabas, Cornelius, and all of those New Testament saints who were named in Scripture along with those of the Hebrews Faith chapter.
But, chronologically speaking, there are those of the 3,000 first and then the 5,000 in the Book of Acts who lived in the same time frame that Paul and the rest of the above-named NT saints lived in who migrated back to their countries of origin whom Paul and Barnabas never got to visit.
In fact, studying the book of Acts, we see these countries named but when we go to geography, we see that Paul's 3 "missionary" journeys hardly touched the tip of the iceberg which is the known world of that time, as well as the nationalities mentioned during the day of Pentecost.
In our time we call "believers" those who call Christ their Lord and Savior and then we slice this down some more to those who adhere to certain sets of Christian doctrines, and then Baptists tone these down some more to those who hold to certain distinctives and further down the line these are shaved a little more until we come to a branch that started with a 6 inch diameter and end up with one whittled down to almost just an inch.
So, how can all the elect be believers, and which believers are actually true believers and how do we know a true believer ?
I am not trying to make anyone's head spin, just making a point of how ridiculous it is to pin any one title, creed, religion, theology, and such on the multitude of elect people from all nations, tongues, kindred, and people.
I believe that the elect of God existed in all ages, even the time of the flood, among all people, even among those drowned and destroyed in the flood, so that pinning the title "believer" on anyone is erroneous except for the qualifying "not all believers are elect".
