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<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cGod chose us in Him\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
This statement from Ephesians 1 is personal, not impersonal.\u00a0 The us<\/strong><\/em> refers to Paul and his audience, and the \u2018in Him\u2019 refers to Christ.\u00a0\u00a0 Christ is the locus of the choice, not apart from him, not in the abstract, not merely in the mind of God but \u2018in Christ\u2019.\u00a0 Now what exactly does that mean?\u00a0 If the choice is personal and of person, and in the context of a person namely Christ, who exactly existed before the creation of the universe to be chosen?\u00a0 Only Christ.\u00a0 He was there, and even participated in the creation of the universe.\u00a0 We were certainly not there.\u00a0 Paul does not believe in the notion of pre-existent or immortal souls or a well of souls in heaven that at some point are placed into human bodies.\u00a0\u00a0 Election happens \u2018in Christ\u2019 because he is the Chosen of God, as the recent movie series\u2019 title suggests. \u00a0Now since it is Christ who has been chosen to redeem humanity, it should be obvious that election is one thing, and salvation another.\u00a0 Christ himself did not need to be saved or redeemed. And yet he is the Chosen, the Elect One of God.\u00a0 We are only elect if we are in Him.\u00a0 Did God have a plan of salvation for fallen humanity before there even was a creation?\u00a0 Yes, says Paul.\u00a0 And it should be noted that Israel was also God\u2019s Chosen, but their election was for a specific historical purpose\u2014to be a light to the nations about the one true God.\u00a0 This election or choseness did not guarantee the salvation of individual Hebrews.\u00a0\u00a0 Election is corporate in nature\u2014 it was in Israel, and then it was in Christ.\u00a0 Salvation as always is by grace and through faith, and in Ephesians it is specified even more clearly\u2014by grace through faith in Christ, God\u2019s Messiah, his Chosen one.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of the keys to understanding Ephesians 1 then, and other similar passages which talk about predestination such as Rom. 8, is to understand the concept of corporate personality or put another way group identity.\u00a0 In the ancient world, including in a Biblical context, group identity was primary and individual identity is secondary.\u00a0\u00a0 When provoked to roll out his pedigree, the first words out of Paul\u2019s mouth for instance in Phil. 3 he says this\u2014<\/p>\n
\u201ccircumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee\u201d.\u00a0 None of this has to do with Paul as a distinctive individual, it all has to do with something someone else did for him\u2014 he was circumcised, he was born into the people of Israel, into the tribe of Benjamin, he was a Hebrew of Hebrews (probably meaning one who knew Hebrew like his father) and he was a part of the group called Pharisees.\u00a0 Nowhere does this read like a modern CV of individual accomplishments.\u00a0\u00a0 It has to do with his original group identity in various forms.\u00a0 And he goes on to say that he is prepared to reckon all that as skubala <\/em><\/strong>compared to being in Christ (I\u2019ll let you look up that Greek word).\u00a0 But now Paul is in Christ.\u00a0\u00a0 Or consider what he says in 2 Cor. 11\u2014 \u201cAre they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they Abraham\u2019s descendants? So am I.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Again, no list of individual distinctives or accomplishments.\u00a0 Indeed, when he lists distinctives he talks about all the troubles he has endured for the Gospel.<\/p>\nNow my point is this\u2014in the wake of the Enlightenment the spotlight was shone on individuals and individualism and individual accomplishment, and so it is no surprise that Luther and Calvin at the dawn of the Enlightenment read the NT in an individualistic light, like most moderns do today, when we talk about personally<\/em> being born again, or being saved etc.\u00a0\u00a0 This whole approach to texts like Ephesians 1 is wrong because it ignores that election and salvation happen in the context of God, in particular in the context of a vast corporate personality we know as Christ who is God\u2019s elect one. We are only elect if we are in Him, and through Him we are also saved by grace through faith in Him.\u00a0 This has nothing to do with God picking and choosing individual persons to be saved before the creation of the universe.\u00a0 It has to do with the Father choosing the Son to go and save a lost world, a personal choice of a person to do the job because Christ existed before the creation of the universe\u2014 and we certainly did not.\u00a0 Now Romans 8 is telling a little different tale\u2014the tale of how those who love God and are called according to purpose, have been destined in advance to be fully conformed to the image of Christ\u2014 this is of course about glorification and resurrection when Christ returns.\u00a0 It is not about the choosing of people to be saved in the first place. It is about the destiny of those who love God.<\/p>\nOne more thing.\u00a0 While it is true that \u2018faith\u2019 like \u2018grace\u2019 is a gift from God, we as believers have to exercise that trust and belief in God, and be faithful. God does not do this for us, and we have a choice about how we will respond to the Good News.\u00a0 In other words, God is not and does not operate like the Godfather. He does not make us \u2018an offer we can\u2019t refuse\u2019.\u00a0 This is in part because love must be freely given and must be freely responded to. It cannot be coerced, compelled, or predetermined.\u00a0 \u00a0There is a reason that Jesus calls loving God with all we are, and our neighbor as self as the great commandment.\u00a0 It is the heart of NT ethics, just as the heart of God\u2019s character is holy love, as 1 John 4 so ably tells us. See my little book Who God Is.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cGod chose us in Him\u2026\u201d \u00a0 This statement from Ephesians 1 is personal, not impersonal.\u00a0 The us refers to Paul and his audience, and the \u2018in Him\u2019 refers to Christ.\u00a0\u00a0 Christ is the locus of the choice, not apart from him, not in the abstract, not merely in the mind of God but \u2018in Christ\u2019.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":40179,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[13742],"class_list":["post-59219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-god-chose-and-sent-his-son-so-we-could-be-in-him"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a><\/p>\n