John 15:16- “You did not choose me, but I chose you
and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last.”
Does God choose us first or do we choose God in response to his work done in Christ two thousand years ago? This question is at the heart of Calvinism’s doctrine of Unconditional Election—the belief that God, before the world was created, chose only those whom he wanted to be saved and not others. This is based on God’s choosing and nothing man does or believes. His choosing is the cause of man’s belief, for no man can believe apart from God’s having chosen them in eternity past then regenerating them in the present. One of the favorite verses cited by Calvinists is John 15:16. Is this what Jesus intended when he said these words? Or was something else in his mind? Perhaps something completely different?
Answer:
Jesus did not mean that he chose them for salvation but rather for the office of apostleship. The audience of Jesus’ statement was not all believers. We should not assume ourselves as the audience of Jesus’ words there any more than we should when he was choosing the twelve disciples to become his apostles. It was the apostles whom he had chosen.
The context is the Upper Room Discourse, where the Last Supper took place, the Passover meal where Jesus washed the disciples' (i.e., apostles’) feet (John 13) then spends time preparing them for his departure (John 14-17). After educating them in John 14 about the Holy Spirit, whom he would be sending after his departure, he now exhorts them on the importance of abiding in Him.
John 15 probably happened after leaving the actual Upper Room. John 14 ends with these words: “Come now, let us leave.” It is likely that, along their way, they are passing by vineyards when Jesus refers to these object lessons to illustrate how the relationship worked between his Father, himself, and them.
He then tells them the statement under our study. He reminds them that they had not chosen him but he had chosen them. What Jesus meant was that he had chosen these disciples for the office of apostleship to be his inner circle of twelve men, future leaders of his church. He had prayed the whole night before, remember (Luke 6:12-16). In fact, we see he “called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles.” Notice that the language used here even parallels the language he used in John 15:16: chose and designated. “Designate” is similar in meaning to “appoint”. And he did not choose all of his disciples for apostleship, only these twelve. There were many other followers he did not choose for this special office.
The word “appoint” in the Bible, when used in reference to people, means to be put in charge of a special office. Most often, people were appointed to be a ruler, priest or supervisor. Here are just a few of many examples:
Exodus 18:21-22: When Jethro is instructing Moses:
But in addition, you should choose some capable men and appoint them as leaders of the people: leaders of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens. They must be God-fearing men who can be trusted and who cannot be bribed. Let them serve as judges for the people on a permanent basis.
Instead, appoint the Levites
to be in charge of the tabernacle of the covenant law—over all its furnishings
and everything belonging to it. They are to carry the tabernacle and all its
furnishings; they are to take care of it and encamp around it.
Appoint Aaron and his sons to serve as priests; anyone else who
approaches the sanctuary is to be put to death.”
[ Judges ] Appoint
judges and officials for each of your tribes in every town the Lord your God is
giving you, and they shall judge the people fairly.
be sure to appoint over you a
king the Lord your God chooses. He must be from among your fellow Israelites.
Do not place a foreigner over you, one who is not an Israelite.
When the officers have finished
speaking to the army, they shall appoint commanders over it.
So Joshua called together the twelve
men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe,
Appoint three men from each tribe. I will send them out to make a
survey of the land and to write a description of it, according to the
inheritance of each. Then they will return to me.
Jesus was not referring to salvation; they were already saved. He hadn’t chosen them for salvation but for the unique office of apostleship. He was encouraging them to persevere (abide) in his love and produce fruit just as a grape vineyard does. Branches, as the apostles are called, depend on the vine and exist for the sake of the vine, not the other way around. The reason a vineyard exists is to produce fruit. Jesus knew what was in the apostles’ hearts. He had seen them fighting to be first rather than loving one another and putting Jesus first. He knew that if they didn’t continue in the self-sacrificing love he had demonstrated and would yet demonstrate (and in this way, “abide in him”), they would not bear the fruit that was desired and that would last. Instead theirs would be fruitless efforts or maybe inferior fruit. Jesus would be departing soon and thus exhorts them to abide in his teaching and example or else all of his investment in them would not render the results the Father had planned.
Jesus tells them directly in John 16:1 why he was telling them this: “All this I have told you so that you will not fall away.” Persecution would come to them just as it was coming to Jesus, and he takes the time to prepare them for this. Rather than bolstering the apostles’ confidence in their eternal security (as Calvinists and so many conclude), he warns them that they needed to have the right mindset in order to not fall away. If his message was that he had chosen them for salvation (the Calvinist one), then why would he need to warn them about falling away? Think about it…if Jesus had told them pointedly that he had chosen them for salvation from eternity past (and they were unconditionally elected), they would have just received the most reassuring words that they could ever hear—that they would never lose their salvation-- right? If that were so, then why here would he be warning them that they could “fall away” from him and not be saved?
What are apostles? Sent ones. And as Jesus was sent from the Father, now Jesus was preparing to send them into the world after his departure. He had already been sending them out, but he was preparing them for a bigger work of testifying about him to the world. In 15:17, he tells them directly, “And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.” These eleven remaining (Judas Iscariot has been led away by the devil by this point) had been with him since he appointed them as apostles. His intent was that they would bear much enduring fruit. So now he reminds them that they didn’t choose him. Here’s what this means: He wasn’t part of their plan. They were part of his. And the plan was for them to carry the truth forward to others. He had received it from the Father and now they were to deliver it faithfully to others who would carry it on to yet others. But this was a special job assigned specifically to the apostles because they had witnessed his life and teachings from the beginning.
So the point wasn’t that he was choosing them for salvation. That is not the subject of Jesus’ teaching here, and it doesn’t fit the context of what he wants to leave them with as he approaches his departure and prepares them for what is coming. His point was that he had chosen them for this special office and role that only they could fulfill and that succeeding in it would require them to continue in what he had taught them and demonstrated by his self-sacrificing life. Now they needed to forget themselves, lay aside their lives—their agendas and self-interests—and live to promote Jesus’ agenda, even to the point of death. And, as he has reiterated many times in his teaching, death wouldn’t be the end because Jesus would raise them back up (John 5:28-29, 6:54).
Again, his message is: You did not choose me (for your agenda), I chose you (for the Father’s agenda). I’m going away soon. Don’t forget, and don’t walk away from it when I leave. Don’t start building your own kingdoms. I chose you to build mine. The Father, the gardener, desires fruit (i.e., manifestation of Christ in these apostles, as well as new believers who will see Christ in them and believe).
