God has called all to repentance and all have rejected.
If God chooses people based on what they do (those that chose Him), then you have a works based salvation where God responds to what the man does and then chooses them for salvation.
Scripture reveals God chooses us while we are still rejecting Him, from the kind intention of His will, through the power of God Holy Spirit and we respond to God’s work in our lives with faith in Jesus..
That is grace based salvation
Peace to you
Actually the bible is clear that God has chosen the whole world while we are still sinners.
Joh 3:16 "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
Joh 3:17 "
For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world,
but that the world through Him might be saved.
Note it is not just a select few that God wants to be saved but the whole world
1Jn 2:2 And He Himself is the
propitiation for our sins,
and not for ours only but also for the whole world.
Here we see that the death of Christ covered the sins for the whole world.
Joh 12:32 "And I, if I am lifted up from the earth,
will draw all peoples to Myself."
Now here we see that Christ draws all people not just some.
1Ti 2:3 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior,
1Ti 2:4
who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
We see that God has provided the means and actually desires that all would be saved so the question, why are not all saved?
According to calvinism it is because God picked out a select group and only they could be saved. But that does not agree with the biblical text and God's stated desire. So they must be another reason that only some are saved and the rest lost.
Rom 1:16 For I am not ashamed of
the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.
So we see that one has to believe prior to being saved.
Rom 10:9 that
if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus
and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead,
you will be saved.
So it is the individual that has to do freely do this
Rom 10:13 For "
whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved."
And anyone call do so, it is not limited to a select group.
Eph 1:13 In Him
you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also,
having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise,
So we see the order of salvation clearly stated here, we hear, we believe and then we are sealed.
Some have called our faith a work but is this the biblical view?
Eph 2:8 For
by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,
Eph 2:9
not of works, lest anyone should boast.
Rom 11:6 And
if by grace, then it is no longer of works;
otherwise grace is no longer grace.
But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work.
So we see that faith is not a work but it is the stated requirement of our salvation.
