The Church Formed By God - The Purpose - Holiness

Ephesians 1:4

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,

God chose us in order that we might be holy and blameless.  This was the end purpose of His design for salvation. The "end product" was to be pure and spotless. Blameless literally means without blemish, or spotless. Because we are chosen in Him, and because He followed thru and did the work of redemption, and then called and applied that work to our account, we are holy and blameless before Him. Because Jesus Christ gave Himself for us as “a lamb unblemished and spotless” (1 Pet. 1:19), we have been imputed His own unblemished and spotless righteousness. The unworthy have been declared worthy, the unrighteous declared holy. It is Christ's eternal and foreordained plan to “present to Himself the church in all her glory; having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she should be holy and blameless” (Eph. 5:27). We are blameless and spotless because it is Christ's perfect righteousness that commends us to God, not our own. It is His and not ours; now and forever. This is what the Reformers referred to as Alien Righteousness. It is Alien in that it not now, nor ever ever be, our own but will perpetually be Christ's.

Obviously Paul is talking about our position and not our practice. We know that in our living we are far from the holy standard and far from being blameless. Yet “in Him,” Paul said in another place, we “have been made complete” (Col. 2:10). All that God is, we become in Jesus Christ. That is why salvation is secure. We have Christ's perfect righteousness. Our practice can and does fall short, but our position can never fall short, because it is exactly the same holy and blameless position before God that Christ has. We are as secure as our Savior, because we are in Him, waiting for the full redemption and glorious holiness that awaits us in His presence. There are many in the church today who do not understand this and so, mistakenly, believe that Salvation can be lost. They think this because they erroneously see their position, not only their practice, as dependent on their effort.

We must note that because this is true, it no excuse for sin. Rather, it ought to motivate us to serve Him zealously. Because God declares us and leads us to be holy and blameless, we should strive to live lives now that reflect the holiness and blamelessness that are our destiny.