em He also called;
and whom He called, them He also justified; and whom He justified,
them He also glorified." This passage is one of the strongholds of
the view we contend against; but if it prove eternal election, it
will also prove much more than this. If the persons spoken of were
eternally elected, then they were also eternally called, and
eternally justified, and eternally glorified. They would thus be
justified before they sinned, and glorified before they had a being.
The verbs are all in the aorist tense, and what is true of one verb
is true of all the others. An interpretation burdened with such
consequences cannot be true.

Dr. Payne has very few remarks on the passage, but they are emphatic
enough. "The passage is so conclusive," he says, "that it scarcely
seems to require or even to admit of many remarks," and he does not
give many. The simple question is this: does this passage prove
unconditional election? Is there anything in the context to prove
the reverse? We think that there is. In the twenty-eighth verse the
apostle says, "And we know that all things work together for good to
them that love God, to them that are the called according to His
purpose." He is thus writing of a certain class of persons, or of
persons in a certain moral state, that moral state being that they
were lovers of God, as he expressly states in verse 28. He does not
say that they were visited by a special and irresistible influence
bestowed on them and withheld from others. He simply asserts that
those lovers of God had all things working for their good; that they
were called or invited to glory, as (in 1 Peter v. 10) it is said,
"But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto His eternal glory
by Christ Jesus." And having intimated their call, Paul goes on to
show what was the destiny awaiting the believer. He says, "For whom
He did foreknow," and when he said this he could not mean the mere
knowledge of entities, or of persons, for this reason, that God
knows the finally lost as well as the finally saved. The apostle
therefore could only mean that God, knowing beforehand those who
would love him, fore-appointed or decreed in eternity that those who
possessed this moral state should be conformed to the image of His
Son, or personal appearance of Christ (1 John iii. 2). Those lovers
of God thus predestinated are invited to heavenly bliss, and will be
ultimately justified before the world, and glorified. The twenty
-eighth v