If you are a believer, it is not because you are more clever than your unbelieving neighbors. You did not come to faith through your own ingenuity.

That is the eternal promise the Father made to the Son. Why? As an expression of His love. The redeemed of humanity, then, are a gift from the Father to the Son.

With that in mind, consider Jesus’ words in John 6:37: “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.” That, again, affirms the utter invincibility of the church. Every individual ever redeemed — everyone ever given the gift of faith, forgiven, and justified before God by grace — is a love-gift from the Father to the Son. And not one of them will fail or be cast out. Would Christ turn down a love-gift from His own Father?

Furthermore, the importance of the doctrine of election emerges from all this. The redeemed are chosen and given to the Son by the Father as a gift. If you are a believer, it is not because you are more clever than your unbelieving neighbors. You did not come to faith through your own ingenuity. You were drawn to Christ by God the Father (John 6:44, 65). And every individual who comes to faith is drawn by God and given as a love gift from the Father to the Son, as part of a redeemed people — the church — promised to the Son before time began.

- John MacArthur

The Church and God's Eternal Plan