He Chose Us

Ephesians 1:4a

Last week we really began to dig into Ephesians. We saw that we ought to bless God for Who He is and all He does for us. We also saw that God provides extensively for us and blesses us with “every spiritual blessing.” We may not have all the money or talents we desire, and we may struggle with loss and hardship, but the truth is and forever will be that we are blessed eternally forever. All He does is for our good.

Today we dig into the next verse, Ephesians 1:4. It says, “just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.” There is a lot to unpack in this verse! I hope you will join me in trying to grasp and understand this truth Scripture presents to us. And I encourage you to not read these verses with preconceived notions of what it does or does not say. I promise I aim to do the same

Let’s start with the first part of this verse. Paul writes, “just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.” It would be a good idea to read verse three as well since this is the same sentence (Paul is not a big fan of periods). We know that the “He” in this verse is referring to God since that is clearly who Paul is talking about in verse three, “Blessed be the God” [emphasis mine]. So God chose us.

The next part of this verse says, “in Him.” Now the question is who is Him? I believe this is still God, and I base that off of the sentence structure. We see at the end of this verse that it says “we should be holy and without blame before Him in love” [emphasis mine]. If you read verses three and four together it does appear to still be God here. Therefore, we could replace “He” and “Him” in this verse with “God”.

Now we can see that God chose us in God (Himself). He chose us. That is what the verse clearly states. Next, this verse then goes on to tell us when He chose us, and the answer is truly remarkable!

God chose us in Himself before the foundations of the world. He chose us before He spoke the world into existence! Before the foundation were laid we were chosen by God Himself. This also shows us that we did nothing to earn His choosing for we did not even exist! It is a humbling thought to know that He chose us, and we did nothing to earn it or deserve it. He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing.

Why did God choose us in Him (to be saved) before sin had even entered the world? If the foundations of the world were not even laid yet then there was clearly no sin in the world, and yet He chose us. I believe this shows us that He, in His sovereignty, knew that Adam and Eve would sin, that sin would enter the world, and that He would need a perfect sacrifice in order to save us from eternal damnation. When Adam and Eve sinned they were fully at fault, but God, being all-knowing, knew that they would sin. The devil did not throw His plans off. He did not need to call an audible as soon as sin entered the world. This verse shows us that He already had planned to send His Son to die for our sins and this is why He chose us. Isn’t that incredible?! God is in complete control and has been before the foundations of the world! And Jesus, being fully God, also knew that He would need to die for our sins before the foundations of the world! Yet God still decided to create the world and choose us (believers) in Him. That is an unfathomable love!

In our next article we will look at the second part of this verse and what it means to be holy and blameless. For now, let us ponder Him and Who He is and what He has done for us. Let us be humbled by the amazing truth, and though His love is unfathomable, let us pray that we will be able to fathom as much of it as our finite minds will allow (Ephesians 3:18-19).

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