On the false notion of Becoming an Elect child of God.

My professor once said that when he comes to faith in Christ that it is at that moment in time that he has become God's elect. Partly after hearing my professor and reading this excerpt from Louis Berkhof from what it sounds like the view is saying is: That God has elected the Church for salvation and anyone who does not fall into the salvivic camp in the Church by faith in Christ is a reprobate and anyone who does so is an elect. Now I think the problem here if this is actually what the view is saying is that it is misusing the terms: Election and Reprobation for the Church and the Lost.

"Camfield therefore says in his Essay in Barthian Theology, entitled Revelation and the Holy Spirit: 'It needs to be emphasized that predestination does not mean the selection of a number of people for salvation and the rest for damnation according to the determination of an unknown and unknowable will. That idea does not belong to predestination proper.' Predestination brings man into crisis in the moment of revelation and decision. It condemns him in the relation in which he stands to God by nature, as sinner, and in that relation rejects him, but it chooses him in the relation to which he is called in Christ, and for which he was destined in creation. If man responds to God's revelation by faith, he is what God intended him to be, an elect; but if he does not respond, he remains a reprobate. But since man is always in crisis, unconditional pardon and complete rejection continue to apply to every one simultaneously. Esau may become Jacob, but Jacob may also become once more Esau. Says McConnachie: 'For Barth, and as he believes, for St. Paul, the individual is not the object of election or reprobation, but rather the arena of election or reprobation. The two decisions meet within the same individual, but in such a way that, seen from the human side, man is always reprobate, but seen from the divine side, he is always elect....The ground of election is faith. The ground of reprobation is want of faith. But who is he who believes? And who is he who disbelieves? Faitand unbelief are grounded in God. We stand at the gates of mystery.'"

Pg. 111