"...the Bible regards it as surprising that any are saved...” J. Gresham Machen

“The Bible clearly teaches that when some men are saved and others are lost, neither of these two things come as a surprise to God, but both come to pass because they both stand in God’s eternal plan.
The Bible lays the chief stress upon the former of these two things; it lays more stress upon the fact that the saved are predestined to their salvation than it does upon the fact that the lost are predestined to their eternal retribution.
Why does it do that? Does it do it because it seeks to obscure in any way the predestination of the lost? Certainly not. On the contrary, it teaches that latter doctrine in certain passages in the clearest possible way. Why then does it lay the chief stress upon the predestination of the saved to salvation?
I think I can tell you at least one reason why it does so. It does so because it regards the salvation of the saved and not the eternal loss of the unsaved as the really surprising thing. We are prone to look at the matter in exactly the opposite way. The thing that we regard as surprising is that any members of the human race, any of those excellent creatures known as men, who are supposed to be doing the best they can and be guilty, at the most, of merely trifling and thoroughly forgivable faults, should ever fall under the divine displeasure. But the thing that the Bible regards as surprising is that any of those fallen creatures known as men, all of whom without exception deserve God's wrath and curse, should be received into eternal life. We regard it as surprising that any are lost: the Bible regards it as surprising that any are saved. Naturally, it is the surprising or unexpected thing upon which the stress is laid. It is for that reason, or at least partly for that reason, that the Biblical doctrine of the predestination is concerned chiefly with the predestination of the saved to their salvation rather than with the predestination of the unsaved to their eternal loss. The latter side of the matter is less extensively expounded simply because it is everywhere presupposed. It forms the dark background upon which the wonder of God’s purpose for those whom He has chosen for salvation is thrown into glorious relief.”

- J. Gresham Machen, A Christian View of Man