God Chose Us!

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, (Ephesians 1:4)

We have long taught that every word in the text of the Bible is significant.  The text before us makes that principle very clear and highlights it for us.  Thayer tells us that the word translated “just as” is the Greek word “kathos” (long 'o')  and means: according as, just as, even as, in proportion as, in the degree that, since, seeing that, agreeably to the fact that, or when and after that.  Essentially the word expresses conformity, one thing or idea to another.  It is an adverb, meaning that it modifying not a noun, but a verb.  It looks back to verse three and the verb there, “blessed”.  It thus tells us that God has blessed in a certain manner that is in conformity with another idea.  The key for us to connect the first idea, that God has blessed, with the second.

And what is that second idea?  It is the idea of election, here expressed in the term “God chose”.  The choosing agent here is God Himself, not Christ.  It is the Father who chose us to be in Christ, as the prior verse tells us.  We are given much more information as this, and subsequent verses unfold, but we must start here.  Just as we must acknowledge that God was the one who initiated creation, so also ought we acknowledge that God is the One who initiates spiritual recreation - salvation.  “He” refers back to the beginning of verse 3 and the reference to God the Father.  It is God in His role as the Master and creator of the universe that does this calling.

“Chose” is eklego (long 'o') in the original language.  Technically speaking, it is an aorist middle indicative meaning to pick out, to choose. The aorist is one of two ways the Greek language has to make reference to the past.  The Imperfect is the “simple past”.  The Aorist is a bit more complicated and merely points out that the action of the verb has already taken place, and is not taking place now.  It makes no judgment about when, or how long it took when it did occur.  The indicative tells us that the verb is making a statement of fact.  The “middle” voice means that the verb is emphasizing a reflexive kind of action.  That is, that God Himself did the choosing.  He was not responding to some other action or to some other event, nor did He delegate this choosing to some other agent.  He did it Himself, and, at the time Paul was writing, that choosing was completed.  We are told when it occurred in a matter of a few words in the next phrase.

We are also told of the objects of that choosing.  “Us” speaks of a select group.  It refers to “us” and not to them.  It is a pronoun and refers back to the same group that verse 3 spoke of as being blessed with all spiritual blessing in Christ.  The “Us” here is those who believe  and are in Christ.  This is opposed to those who do not believe and are not in Christ.  It is a definitive statement of God's elective grace concerning believers in Christ.  God elected those who are in Christ, in the words of these two verses.  We need to reconcile ourselves to the fact that this means that there is a negative side to this truth as well.  This means that God did not elect those who are not in Christ.  But this truth, we will leave for a later discussion and for a later verse where it is more apt and the text is better suited to accommodate our discussion.

The glorious truth is that we, meaning those who are true Christians, have been chosen by the almighty God of the universe!  He selected us and then set about blessing us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ!  What glory!  What wondrous love!  What a marvelous and gracious God we serve!