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THE KING’S BUSINESS
And we shall be “holy and without blemish” in our actual condition and in our personal characters when God’s eternal choice of us has fully worked itself out (1 John 3:1, 2; Eph. 5 :27). All this positive holiness and negative freedom from blemish will be “in love” ; for love is the sum and substance of true holiness (1 Cor. 13, entire chapter ; 1 John 4 :8).. Saturday, June 8 . Eph. 1 : 5 . God chose us out of the world “that we should be holy and without blemish before Him in love,” because He had in His eternal purpose of grace “foreordained us (i. e., marked us out beforehand) unto adoption as sons.” This “adoption as sons” was “through Jesus Christ,” i. e., it would become qurs through our accepting the Son of God, through accepting the Lord Jesus, the only begotten Son of God we obtain the right to become sons of God (John 1:12, R. V.). This foreordination “unto adoption as sons” was wholly a matter of God’s own gracious will, and not at all of our desert, or, as Paul here puts it, “accord ing to the good pleasure (kind intention) of His will.” However, it was not an arbi trary whim, it was the sovereign choice of one who wills what He will, but who is love and who only wills what Infinite love prescribes. Our “adoption as sons” is “unto (or rather into) Himself,” that is to say, He Himself is the goal toward which His eternal purpose in its execution leads us on. He takes us “into Himself,” into His very life (cf. John 14:20; 17:21, R. V.). Sunday, June p. Eph. 1 : 6 . Verse 6 begins in the middle of a sen tence. The entire sentence covers twelve verses (3-14 R. V.), and every verse is packed full of meaning. There is perhaps no other such sentence in all litera ture. The heart of the whole sentence is found in two words of vast significance, “IN CHRIST.” These words, or synony mous words (“in Him,” “in whom,” “in the beloved”) are found in every verse excepting three (5, 8 , 14), and in two
believers in Christ with every spiritual blessing in Christ is His own sovereign gracious choice. “He chose us (i. e., chose us out of the mass of mankind) in Him (i. e., in Christ) before the foundation of the world.” The closing words could be translated accurately, “before the founda tion of a world.” Before any world was created God had chosen you and me, chosen every one who in the coming ages should believe in Christ, and blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ. Every spiritual blessing was deeded to us and was at our disposal from all eternity in the past, and it shall be ours in actual possession to all eternity in the future. This is the Bible doctrine of election, and a right glorious doctrine it is. I am glad that my blessed ness roots in God’s choice of me and not in my choice of God. I knew a young man who was one night reading this verse in a translation that read, “God chose us in Him before the foundation of a world.” No sooner had he read these marvelous words than he sprang frpm his chair, rushed to the window and threw it up, sat out on the window sill and shook his fist at the mighty stars and cried: “I got in before you.” But God did not choose us to salvation irrespective of how we might live: he chose us “that we should be holy and without blemish.” This holiness and freedom from"every blemish from which God has chosen us was not merely in the sight of men, but “before Him,” i. e., before God. As far as our standing is concerned we are already “holy and without blemish,” for we are identified with Christ and are fully justified in Him. Every per fection of character that belongs to Jesus Christ God imputes to us now (2 Cor. 5:21; Acts 13:39; Phil. 3:9; Rom. 4:5; Rom. 3:24-26). We stand before God “in Him.” God looks at us through Him, but that is not all, God chose us, not merely that we might be perfect in our standing, “holy and without blemish,” in our stand ing, but He chose us that we might become in our actual condition and our personal characteristics, “holy and without blemish.”
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