Eternity Daily Bible Study No. 225

Life In Christ – 2

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(Eph 1:3-6)  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! He has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm,  just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in his presence.  In love he predestined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ, according to the pleasure of his will, so that we would praise his glorious grace that he gave us in the Beloved One.

Life in Christ is life in the love of the Father. We are “in the beloved One”, we are chosen, adopted, and heirs with the Only-Begotten Son, we are treasured by God simply because we are in Christ. God’s love of us is constant and quite independent of our experiences of him. On our “down days” we are beloved and on our “up days” we are also in the beloved.  

The verses above talk a lot about choosing and predestination so I will take a moment to tackle this question. Trains are pre-destined, their destination is programmed in advance and generally written on the front of the train. They run on railway tracks from A to B. And hopefully they run on time. But who gets on the train is a matter of choice. It has been predestined since before the foundation of the world that those who believe in Jesus Christ should be holy and blameless before God and inherit eternal life. The Heaven-bound train, so to speak, had its destination programmed well in advance. 

But who gets on the Heaven-bound train? Is that fully pre-destined also? Or is it a totally free choice?  Certainly some lives are predestined, John the Baptist, Jesus , Moses, Noah all had destinies mapped out in advance, John the Baptist was even filled with the Holy Spirit from birth! No choice there! And Judas, Pharaoh, and a few false teachers were predestined to perdition. That is God’s business. But in-between it seems there is a large number of people whose lives are not so well-programmed and who may have a great deal of choice regarding whether to follow Jesus or not. When a great man of God comes along these “in-between folk” believe in large numbers and there is a mighty revival. When church leadership is weak and ineffectual they fall away or never make the choice to follow Christ. If everyone was predestined then the quality of leadership would make no difference. So it seems to me that we “fall on the normal distribution curve” with most people in-between in regards to choice and a few highly pre-determined individuals at either end – predestined either for glory or for perdition.

From this side of salvation, as those who have decided to follow Christ and forsake the world we can say “he chose us in him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in his presence”.  We are chosen in Christ, if we re in Christ, then God has chosen us to be there. Chosen us by offering us an opportunity, which we have taken or chosen us one by one. It matters little; we are in Him now and have an eternal destiny. God’s purposes for us are long term and far-sighted. His plans for us began “before the foundation of the world” and continue for all eternity. God’s love is endless and His thinking of us is deep and full.

“In love he predestined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ, according to the pleasure of his will”. “In love” These plans that God makes are loving, it is because he loves us that He plans good for us. “According to the pleasure of his will” And it is no chore for Him - our good is His pleasure. Our salvation is according to the pleasure of His will.

Adoption is not a thrilling word to many because it presupposes grief or rejection of some sort. The parents have died or the mother does not want the child or cannot care for the baby.  The world casts out the saints and rejects the men and women of faith of whom it is not worthy (see Hebrews11). But God delights in them and adopts them as His own. God wants more children, many children as brothers and sisters for His beloved Son. 

(Rom 8:29)  For whom He foreknew, He also predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, for Him to be the First-born among many brothers.

God adopts us into His family because His love is inclusive. God loves to include others in His love. The whole idea of salvation is for an enormously wide range of people to be included in Heaven and to know the love of God. Jesus will happily include in His love all who can accept Him and who are not offended at Him. Prostitutes, soldiers, fishermen, all races, all tribes, all languages, lepers, rejects, rich and poor alike. God’s love includes, adopts and desires an extra person at the table.

“So that we would praise his glorious grace that he gave us in the Beloved One.”  God wants us to know how much He loves us and to be excited about that. He delights when we say “Wow! I am loved by God, included among His favorite people, chosen and beloved, He is so good and gracious to me, I just don’t deserve it!”

And God’s love is permanent.  When we blow it, He still loves us just as we love our children through tantrums and rebellions and disappointments. But his love is much deeper still. God wants us to know that He love us to the very depths of our beings and that he knows and loves even those parts of us that non-one sees or fully understands except Him.

Life in Christ is a life of chosen and adopted sonship. God wants us in His family and includes us in His love. Life in Christ is a life of being loved in the deepest parts of who we are and being accepted fully as we are, with plans for improvement, for God loves us too much to leave us in our sin. We do not want to be left in our sin, we cry and groan for deliverance, and God will do it. He will fulfill our desire for righteousness and make us pure and blameless before him.

We are “in the Beloved One” as a bookmark is in a book. Where the book goes, we go, the reader carries the book, and also the bookmark. Where the book goes, the bookmark goes. When Christ died, we died with Him, when He rose we rose with Him (Romans 6:1-11), when He ascended we ascended with Him (Ephesians 2:6, 4:10) and when he returns the saints w ill return with him in glory (Jude) and when He is revealed we will be like Him (1 John 3:1-3). Like the bookmark, we are passive, it is done to us simply because we are in Christ, it is grace. And it is glory! We are in the beloved and what God does for His beloved Son, He will also do for us. (Romans 8:32-35)

More on that tomorrow…

Blessings,

John Edmiston <johned@aibi.ph>

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