Ephesians 1:4 - Chosen before the creation of the world

1:4

“He chose us in Christ before the creation of the world”, “He predestined us for adoption as sons”. Predestination/election is a subject that has caused, and still causes, enormous problems with some. The root of our problem (and it is worth noting that election does not cause God, nor the writers of the Bible, any problems! Just think about that for a moment.) is that with our minds we cannot square the fact that God is in total control, is absolutely sovereign with the fact of human free will. As a result many adopt a typically human response, we cannot cope in our minds with both being true, so we decide to adopt only one of these truths and either negate the other, or at least give it much reduced importance. This is a very silly approach to take. The truth is that the Bible quite clearly teaches that God is all powerful and knowing, is absolutely sovereign, and that we are utterly and completely dependent upon Him for our salvation. It also teaches, and does so on virtually every page of the Bible, that we are responsible human beings. What we do with our lives matters. My attitudes, my decisions, my actions matter. They affect my life, they affect the lives of others, and they matter to God. Notice this as well. Predestination.election is never introduced in the Bible as a matter of debate. Paul never says “well here is a topic that should get you shouting at each other”. No! It is always introduced in order to encourage us, to motivate us to action. So we are not going get in a tizz. Instead we are going to take God at His word, without fear, and learn from what He says. Knowing that what we do with our lives matters, we are going to live our lives in the light of the truth that God teaches.

“He chose us in Christ before the creation of the world”. It is no accident that we belong to Christ, it happened on purpose, for a purpose, out of love. Jesus said to His disciples that they did not chose Him, but that He chose us. And we are chosen in Christ. There is no other place, no other means, by which we can belong to God. It is in Christ alone. And God chose us before the creation of the world. We matter, we are part of something big!

We deserve nothing, but are chosen purely because of Christ, but that does not mean we can do what we like with our lives, quite the opposite. We were chosen to be holy and blameless. We are to live godly lives, we meant to be different from the world. For we are to shine as lights in this dark world. If we ever have the notion “I have been forgiven therefore I can do whatever I like” then we really haven’t got a clue.