Ephesians 1:4-7:
“… even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace.”
Christianity isn’t a religion; it is a relationship between God and the people he has redeemed and reconciled to himself through Christ. Paul emphasizes that at the heart of our relationship with the Lord is the truth that he has chosen us. This passage teaches three things about God’s choice to be in relationship to us.
(1) God chose you—personally—to be in relationship to him. He chose to “adopt” you as his son/daughter, and he did this because he loves you. And he chose you before the foundation of the world. “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” (John 1.12)
It is unfortunate that so many people get caught up in the debate between God’s sovereignty and man’s free. The bottom line is terribly simple: both are true, and we don’t have the mental capacity to comprehend how the two truths fit together. So accept both truths and focus on what really matters: the infinite-personal Creator of the universe loves you and has chosen you to be his son/daughter.
(2) God chose you in Christ. This means that God knew what it would cost to redeem you and make you his child. God knew the price required for you to be “holy and blameless before him.” That is why the verse 7 says, “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace…”
It is so easy to read those words simply as a doctrinal statement, as a theological principle, and lose sight of what actually happened on the cross of Calvary. Read the verse again and picture the incredible sacrifice that Jesus made for us. The physical pain of crucifixion was terrible, but it was nothing compared to the unimaginable spiritual pain of becoming sin and being separated from the Father. God enacted this strategy—and Jesus his Son submitted to it—because he loves us.
“He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.” (1 Peter 2.24)
(3) God chose you for a purpose. The purpose that Paul emphasizes in this passage is that you should be “holy and blameless,” and thus a living example of God’s “glorious grace.” In other words, God saved you so that he could enjoy fellowship with you, and so that you might display his grace and glory to a watching world.
I realize that I keep emphasizing this, but it bears repeating. And it will come up again several more times in our study of Ephesians. Salvation is not about us. We are saved to serve God’s kingdom purposes. Salvation is not the goal of the Christian life; it is just the beginning of it.
“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2.9)
