These quotes are all from Gordon D. Fee, The Kingdom of God is Among You: Lectures to My Students on New Testament Theology (Cascade Books, 2025), p. 270:
“The biblical teaching about God’s holy people in both the Old and New Testaments is specifically that they are an elect people. However, election is not about God choosing individuals, selecting a few children out of the human family, and imprinting them as believers. Individuals are part of the whole of God’s people and are therefore part of the elect, but election is never expressed individualistically. In both the Old and New Testaments, election has primarily to do with God choosing a people for his name with whom to enact covenantal relationship for the sake of the whole world.”
‘If you might ask Paul, “Is Priscilla elect?”; or “Is Phoebe elect?”; or “Is Barnabas elect? Paul would in turn ask, “Are they in the church?” If you answered, “Yes,” then Paul would have said, “Well, then, of course they’re elect.” If you answered, “No,” Paul would have said, “Well, go bring them in! Election happens in the church. That’s the only election there is. It’s where covenant relationship is enacted.’
“In the New Testament, election is always understood after the fact. Never do we find in Scripture that language of election seeking to anticipate who might be chosen to enter the divine economy. When Scripture uses the language of election, inevitably it’s looking back at and reflecting corporately on the people of God.”
