Focus Passage: Ephesians 1:4

‘He chose us in him before the foundation of the world.’

This passage should settle all and every question and argument about the biblical doctrine of election, but as we know from history as well as experientially, it has not done so, nor is it likely that it will. If, as we believe, the Word of God must be received by the heart, this is perhaps one of the ‘words’ that must be, and can only be, received by the heart. On the surface, it would appear to contain the answers to every single objection to the teaching in question; the teaching of the Scriptures with regard to God’s predestination and election of a people for His own possession.

But observe the order; rather than having ‘in love’ concluding the fourth verse, John Eadie posits that this begins the fifth verse, thus rendering as follows, In love having foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto himself, according to the good pleasure of his will. This would seem to express better by far the relationship that Paul would have us to recognize between the pleasure of God’s will toward His people and the demonstration of his will being based upon His love for them, foreordaining them unto adoption as sons.

The love of God for His people is underscored here as the basis of His predestinating grace toward them. Because of this love, He placed them in Christ from before the foundation of the world. How can these things be, we would solemnly inquire? How can it be, Charles Wesley asks in one his best-known hymns. Indeed, how is it that sinners; rebels against the authority of their Creator, may be so graciously treated by that very One whom they have offended? The only possible answer to this otherwise inscrutable reality is, and that according to the testimony of Scripture, that God has loved us—His chosen people—with an everlasting love. And it is that very love that is inexplicable. God loves His own because He loves them, there is no other reason to be found anywhere. This forces each one of us who are in Christ—because of the love of God—to ask the question raised by a very well-known country song-writer and singer, ‘Why me, Lord?’ ‘What have I ever done to deserve even one of the pleasures I’ve known?’ The answer that should be given, of course, is that there is nothing that anyone has ever done, nor could ever do, to deserve the love of God; it is a gift based solely upon His sovereign will—while Kris Kristofferson has raised a question that all believers have asked, this does not provide, necessarily, any support for his ‘brand’ of Christianity. Christ has taught us that it is by their fruits ye shall know them, not by any specious, seemingly religious, popular country ballad.

Nonetheless, the question is posed and poised in our hearts and minds, why ever did God love me, and love me so much as to give His only-begotten Son in order that I might have eternal life and not perish forever from His gracious presence? Our text only informs us that God foreordained us in love, and that this was through Jesus Christ.

Josiah Conder penned the words of this hymn, probably based upon the sixteenth verse of John 15 where Christ, in speaking to His disciples, pointedly reminded them, Ye did not choose me, but I chose you. Conder happily observes this truth in the language relevant for all instructed believers:

‘Tis not that I did choose thee, for, Lord, that could not be:

This heart would still refuse thee, hadst thou not chosen me.

Thou from the sin that stained me hast cleansed and set me free;

Of old thou hast ordained me, that I should live to thee.

‘Twas sovereign mercy called me and taught my opening mind;

The world had else enthralled me, to heav’n-ly glories blind.

My heart owns none before thee, for thy rich grace I thirst;

This knowing, if I love thee, thou must have loved me first.

While the answer to the ‘why me’ is far beyond our ability to discover, yet God has nonetheless discovered to us the truth and fact of the matter. And God has given to His people the gift of faith that our hearts may apprehend what our minds are incapable of comprehending when we read His Word, as for example, in the 31st chapter of the prophecy of Jeremiah. This chapter contains the somewhat famous promise of the New Covenant in verses 31 through 34 that is happily iterated by the writer/preacher in his epistle/sermon to the Hebrews. But before Jeremiah is given to actually pronounce that promised covenant, God sets down earlier in the 3rd verse the basis for that wonderful announcement. In that 3rd verse, we read;

Jehovah appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.

How marvelous, how wonderful the love of God from everlasting; yea, from the mouth of David in Psalm 103:17, the lovingkindness of Jehovah is from everlasting to everlasting. Paul has been led by God the Holy Spirit to join in this song of praise when uttering these realities, in Romans 5:8, But God commendeth his own love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Christ’s death for His people before ever they had been born; before their hearts were regenerated; before they were gifted with faith and repentance, Christ died for them, and this is God’s commending His own love toward us. John has added his voice to this truth in his first epistle. In this terse, but wonderfully blessed statement, John simply says, We love, because he first loved us. Yea, God is first in all things. His grace is an absolutely sovereign grace; His mercy is sovereign mercy, and salvation is entirely of Jehovah (Jonah 2:9) exactly because His love is a sovereign love.

David Farmer, elder

Fellowship Bible Church