Grace and Election Bible Trivia Questions

Easy Doctrine — Grace & Election

According to the doctrine of total depravity, what is the condition of every person apart from God's grace?

1. AWeakened by sin but able to seek God
2. BDead in sin and unable to choose God on their ownCorrect
3. CMorally neutral until they hear the gospel
4. DSinful only in outward actions, not inwardly

Answer: Dead in sin and unable to choose God on their own

Ephesians 2:1 · ESV

Paul's chosen image in Ephesians 2:1 is death, not illness. A sick man may still call for help; a dead man cannot. The same picture runs through 1 Corinthians 2:14, where the natural person is not merely unwilling but unable to receive the things of the Spirit, and Romans 8:7-8, where the mind set on the flesh cannot submit to God. Grace has to give life before there is anyone alive to respond.

Ephesians 2:1-5; 1 Corinthians 2:14; Romans 8:7-8.

Why not this one. This is the most attractive of the wrong answers because it feels honest about experience: people do seem partly good and partly ruined. It is the semi-Pelagian picture of a patient rather than a corpse, and it cannot account for the verb Paul actually uses when he describes what we were before grace.

Medium Doctrine — Grace & Election

When Reformed Baptists say regeneration precedes faith, what do they mean?

1. AFaith is possible before regeneration if the sinner is sincere enough
2. BBaptism precedes regeneration and so enables faith
3. CGod must first give new spiritual life (regeneration) before the dead sinner can exercise saving faithCorrect
4. DRegeneration and faith occur simultaneously with no logical order between them

Answer: God must first give new spiritual life (regeneration) before the dead sinner can exercise saving faith

1689 London Baptist Confession, Chapter 10 · ESV

The priority is logical rather than chronological. As far as anyone can observe, the new birth and the first act of faith happen in the same instant. But the order of dependence matters: 1 John 5:1 puts believing in the present and being born of God in the perfect tense, and in Acts 16:14 the Lord opens Lydia's heart before she attends to what Paul is saying.

1 John 5:1; Acts 16:14; John 3:3-8; 1689 London Baptist Confession, Chapter 10.

Why not this one. It is half right, and attractively modest, since the two really are simultaneous in time. Removing any logical order, though, leaves a spiritually dead sinner producing saving faith on his own, which is the situation regeneration exists to remedy.

Hard Doctrine — Grace & Election

Which council, meeting in 529, ruled against Semi-Pelagianism by affirming that even the beginning of faith is a gift of grace?

1. AThe Second Council of OrangeCorrect
2. BThe Council of Carthage
3. CThe Council of Ephesus
4. DThe Council of Chalcedon

Answer: The Second Council of Orange

Orange settled the long dispute that followed Augustine's death by teaching that grace precedes and produces every good motion of the will, including the very first stirring of faith in a sinner.

The Second Council of Orange, held in Gaul in 529 under Caesarius of Arles and later confirmed by Rome.

Why not this one. Carthage in 418 condemned Pelagius himself and his denial of original sin. Orange, more than a century later, addressed the milder claim that the sinner begins the work and grace then completes it.

Easy Doctrine — Grace & Election

According to Ephesians 2:8–9, salvation by grace through faith is described as what, so that no one may boast?

1. AThe reward of sincere seeking
2. BThe gift of God, not a result of worksCorrect
3. CThe outcome of a free-will decision
4. DThe fruit of moral effort combined with grace

Answer: The gift of God, not a result of works

Ephesians 2:8–9 · ESV

The word this in verse 8 is neuter in Greek while the word for faith is feminine, which is why many read the gift as the whole rescue Paul has just described, faith included. Either way the purpose clause settles the matter: it is arranged so that boasting is impossible. Verse 10 then completes the thought, making good works the result rather than the cause, prepared beforehand for us to walk in.

Ephesians 2:8-10.

Why not this one. Faith is genuinely something the believer does, so calling it a decision is not obviously wrong, and it is how most people describe their own conversion. But Paul is deliberately placing the entire transaction outside anything that could be counted as our contribution, precisely so that nobody has grounds to boast.

Medium Doctrine — Grace & Election

What does the Reformed doctrine of 'particular redemption' (also called 'definite atonement') affirm?

1. AChrist's atoning death was designed to secure the salvation of the elect in particularCorrect
2. BChrist died for every individual person without exception, guaranteeing universal salvation
3. CChrist died only as a moral example, not as a substitutionary sacrifice
4. DChrist's death provides a provisional salvation for whoever cooperates with grace

Answer: Christ's atoning death was designed to secure the salvation of the elect in particular

BF&M 2000, Article IV · ESV

The question is not what Christ's death is worth but what it was designed to do. Matthew 1:21 says he would save his people from their sins; in John 10:11 he lays down his life for the sheep. The cross on this view accomplished redemption rather than making it obtainable. This is the one point among the five where orthodox Christians genuinely divide, and BF&M Article IV affirms substitution without settling the extent.

Matthew 1:21; John 10:11-15; BF&M 2000, Article IV.

Why not this one. It sounds generous and preserves a real offer, which is why it appeals. But it leaves the cross an unfinished transaction whose outcome waits on the sinner, where particular redemption says Christ actually secured, and did not merely enable, what he died for.

Hard Doctrine — Grace & Election

Which theologian argued in 'Freedom of the Will' (1754) that the will always follows the strongest inclination, so that the sinner's inability to come to Christ is moral rather than natural?

1. AJonathan EdwardsCorrect
2. BJohn Owen
3. CFrancis Turretin
4. DCharles Hodge

Answer: Jonathan Edwards

Edwards distinguished natural inability, a lack of faculty or opportunity, from moral inability, a lack of willingness. The sinner has every faculty needed to come to Christ and no desire to, which is why his inability is real and yet fully culpable.

Jonathan Edwards, 'A Careful and Strict Enquiry into the Modern Prevailing Notions of that Freedom of Will' (1754).

Why not this one. Turretin's 'Institutes of Elenctic Theology' treats the will and grace at length, but it appeared in Geneva in the 1680s and does not frame the natural and moral inability distinction Edwards made famous.

Easy Doctrine — Grace & Election

In Acts 13:48, Luke describes the Gentiles who responded to Paul's preaching at Antioch of Pisidia. Who among them believed?

1. AAs many as were appointed to eternal lifeCorrect
2. BAs many as had first kept the law of Moses
3. CEveryone in the city who heard Paul that day
4. DOnly those who had already been circumcised

Answer: As many as were appointed to eternal life

Acts 13:48 · ESV

Luke reports the Gentiles rejoicing and glorifying the word, and then states plainly which of them believed: those who had been appointed to eternal life. Faith follows God's appointment rather than producing it.

Acts 13:44–48, the close of Paul's synagogue sermon at Antioch of Pisidia on his first missionary journey.

Why not this one. The same chapter reports Jews who contradicted and reviled Paul and then drove him and Barnabas out of the district altogether. The response to that sermon was sharply divided, not universal.

Medium Doctrine — Grace & Election

What does BF&M2000 Article V say about the 'free agency' of the sinner in relation to election?

1. AElection eliminates free agency entirely
2. BElection is consistent with the free agency of humanityCorrect
3. CElection is determined by the free choices God foresaw
4. DElection suspends free agency until regeneration is complete

Answer: Election is consistent with the free agency of humanity

BF&M 2000, Article V · ESV

Article V says plainly that election is consistent with the free agency of man. Reformed teaching has never held that God overrides the will; it holds that he renews it, so that the sinner comes because he now wants to come. That single clause rules out two errors at once: the caricature in which the elect are dragged in unwilling, and the revision in which election merely ratifies choices God saw coming.

BF&M 2000, Article V; Philippians 2:12-13.

Why not this one. It is the most common way of protecting free agency, and it seems to honor the same concern the Article raises. But the Article grounds election in God's purpose and grace rather than in anything foreseen, and it holds free agency alongside that rather than by trading it away.

Hard Doctrine — Grace & Election

What is the difference between supralapsarianism and infralapsarianism?

1. AThey differ over whether the decree of election comes logically before or after the decree permitting the fallCorrect
2. BThey differ over whether God elects individuals on the basis of the faith he foresees in them
3. CThey differ over whether the fall was decreed or merely allowed without any decree at all
4. DThey differ over whether election falls on individuals or only on nations and peoples

Answer: They differ over whether the decree of election comes logically before or after the decree permitting the fall

Both positions hold unconditional election, and both hold that God decreed the fall. They differ only over the logical, not chronological, order of the decrees within God's single eternal purpose.

The debate ran through Reformed orthodoxy in the century after Dort, and the Canons themselves use infralapsarian language without condemning the other view.

Why not this one. Neither side places the fall outside God's decree. The dispute concerns the order in which the decrees are conceived, not whether the fall was decreed.

Easy Doctrine — Grace & Election

What did Jesus tell Nicodemus is necessary before anyone can see the kingdom of God?

1. AHe must be born againCorrect
2. BHe must be circumcised as a son of Abraham
3. CHe must keep the whole law from his youth
4. DHe must be baptized by John in the Jordan

Answer: He must be born again

John 3:3 · ESV

The new birth is the requirement, and birth is something done to a person rather than by him. Reformed theology takes this as the plainest picture in Scripture of regeneration as God's sovereign work.

John 3:1–8, where Jesus compares the Spirit to wind that blows where it wishes and whose coming and going cannot be traced.

Why not this one. Nicodemus was already a circumcised Pharisee and a teacher of Israel. That is exactly why Jesus' answer astonished him and why he asked how a man can be born when he is old.

Medium Doctrine — Grace & Election

In 1 John 2:19, what does John say about those who went out from the church?

1. AThey were not of us, and their going out made that plainCorrect
2. BThey were of us, but they lost the life they once had
3. CThey were of us, and they will certainly all return
4. DThey had never once heard the apostolic teaching

Answer: They were not of us, and their going out made that plain

1 John 2:19 · ESV

John's explanation of apostasy is not that true believers fell away but that the departure revealed what was already the case. Had they belonged, he says, they would have remained with the church.

1 John 2:18–19, written about the antichrists who had left the congregations John addresses and whose departure he treats as a mark of the last hour.

Why not this one. John explicitly denies the first half of that sentence: they went out because they were not of us. He treats their departure as evidence about their past, not as a change in their standing.

Hard Doctrine — Grace & Election

What distinguishes hyper-Calvinism from confessional Calvinism?

1. AHyper-Calvinism denies the free offer of the gospel to all and the duty of every hearer to believeCorrect
2. BHyper-Calvinism denies that God elects any particular individuals to salvation and glory
3. CHyper-Calvinism teaches that Christ's death finally saves every person without exception
4. DHyper-Calvinism holds that regeneration follows faith rather than preceding and producing it

Answer: Hyper-Calvinism denies the free offer of the gospel to all and the duty of every hearer to believe

Hyper-Calvinism agrees with the five points and then adds a denial: since only the elect can believe, the preacher should address only those already showing signs of grace. The confessions say the opposite, that God commands all people everywhere to repent.

Acts 17:30 and 1 John 3:23, together with the free offer language of the Reformed and Baptist confessions.

Why not this one. It affirms particular election emphatically. Its error lies in what it infers from that doctrine about preaching and human duty, not in the doctrine of election itself.