On the criterion of "election"

David, that's because you're reading the text with Calvinistic glasses. That's what happens.
Please, please, take them off for a moment, and even if you disagree with me, try seeing what I'm seeing, then disagree with me, ok?

Rom 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
Rom 8:29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

God predestinated that would-be believers (not predestinated to make believers of some people by an eternal random decree) would end up having a resurrection body like unto Christ's (already discussed). Predestination here becomes operational after salvation. God is predestinating those people who are getting saved to getting a new body like his Son's. Paul fleshes out that very concept next:

Rom 8:30 Moreover whom he did predestinate,

i.e. before God fixed your destination of getting a new body like Christ and going to heaven he first had to call you:

them he also called: and whom he called,

then he had to justify you

them he also justified: and whom he justified,

and had to glorify you

them he also glorified.

in order to make you worthy of such a destination as having a body like Christ's in heaven.

Nothing there said that in eternity past God predestinated some people unto justification.

 

I grew up as a 4-point Calvinist

I find that the constant hiccup is this, not so much scripture but this: the idea that if a man is free to believe of himself in the Lord Jesus Christ, then that's a works-based salvation. It's that notion that colours the Calvinist's view of everything he reads, even though the scriptures repeatedly defined faith as a non-work (Romans 4:5, etc in the above posts).

 

Sure it can. The suffix "pre" simply means "before". It doesn't have to be "before the foundation of the world" in every case.
Either way, I've already conceded that it can be such, but it's simply that God pre-destinated, i.e. pre-set the destination of every would be believer as obtaining a new house/body like unto Christ's in heaven.
What's wrong with that scripturally?

 

Ok whatever, that's how I grew up and that's what the pastor and elders of the church were. That's a different issue now.

 

I don't know what you mean or what I'm making.

 

You can't invent a doctrine. You need verses that say that. And there aren't any. You just interpret more-or-less 3 obscure passages that way against the overwhelming light of the rest of the easier scriptures.
That's how heresies thrive: interpret the easy in the light of the hard, rather than the other way around.

 

What did I make of faith? where? how?

 

It did not say that some people were predestinated to be justified.
It said some people were predestinated to end up having a body like Christ's.
Those some people, God predestinated to such a blessed adoption of body, because he had first called them, and justified them when they believed the gospel.
And that simply jives with tons of scriptures.
And it's what you get when you take off Calvin's glasses.