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Sovereign Election in Galatians

Sovereign Election means not only election to salvation, but also to a life of service ordained by God.

In Galatians, Paul testified that he had been chosen by sovereign grace. He recognized that he had been set apart from his mother’s womb to know Christ and serve Him. What was true for Paul is true for all believers. The fact is, all who come to know Christ do so because God has sovereignly appointed them for a glorious relationship with Him. Standing behind every conversion is the doctrine of sovereign election:
He who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles. —Galatians 1:15–16a
Paul declared that long before he was born, the sovereign choice of God had set him apart to know Christ and preach Him. William Hendriksen writes that these words—“who had set me apart before I was born”—testify to God’s sovereign good pleasure: “It refers to far more than the divine providential activity revealed in Paul’s physical birth. It indicates that God did not, as it were, wait until Paul had first proved his worth before appointing him to an important function in His kingdom. No, from his very birth Paul had already been designed for his specific mission, that design being itself the expression of God’s plan from eternity (Eph. 1:11). Hence, the verb separated, as here used, means nothing less than ‘set (me) aside,’ ‘consecrated’ (me), ‘marked (me) off from the rest of mankind.’”
—Steve Lawson, Foundations of Grace (Reformation Trust, 2006), 403.