What does it mean that God chose us before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4)?

But in blessing us after this wonderful fashion God has wrought in keeping with an act of His mind in a bygone eternity. Before the foundation of the world He chose us in Christ. Let those two words, "in Him," be noted, for again and again they, or their equivalents, occur in this chapter. As a matter of history we each were in Adam before we were in Christ, but before Adam was created, God saw us as in Christ, and on that basis we were chosen. What was in view in His choice was that we might be holy and blameless before Himself in love.

In the saint now there is that which is very unsaintly indeed, unlike God and His beloved Son: pride, vanity, foolishness, all kinds of evil ways and thoughts that never flow from Christ, and have no kind of resemblance to Him. But for all this, are they not saints? God forbid they should not be. And yet this is the steady thought of God. He has chosen us in Christ that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. How can that be? The answer is, because God looks at us here according to that which He gives us in Christ, and nothing less. All is ignored in this verse, save that new nature which flows from His grace to the objects of His choice. He has chosen us to be so, and He will have us so perfectly, and nothing else, when the time comes for us to be in His presence. But even now it is true in the essence of the thing, inasmuch as we are in Christ and have His life in us. Can I find any fault in Christ? If Christ is without blame in love, in the very nature of God Himself, He is precisely the life of every Christian, let a man be called by what name he may among men.

The character of God Himself is depicted in that which is ascribed to the saints (v. 4). God could find His moral delight only in Himself and in that which morally resembles Him. Indeed this is a universal principle. An honest man can find no satisfaction in a man who does not resemble him in this respect. With still greater reason God could not endure that which is in opposition to His holiness, since, in the activity of His nature, He must surround Himself with that which He loves and delights in. But, before all, Christ is this in Himself. He is personally the image of the invisible God. Love, holiness, blameless perfection in all His ways, are united in Him. And God has chosen us in Him. In verse 4 we find our position in this respect. First, we are before Him: He brings us into His presence. The love of God must do this in order to satisfy itself. The love which is in us also must be found in this position to have its perfect object. It is there only that perfect happiness can be found. But this being so, it is needful that we should be like God. He could not bring us into His presence in order to take delight in us, and yet admit us there such as He could not find pleasure in. He has therefore chosen us in Christ, that we should be holy, without blame before Him in love. He Himself is holy in His character, unblamable in all His ways, love in His nature. It is a position of perfect happiness — in the presence of God, like God; and that, in Christ, the object and the measure of divine affection. So God takes delight in us; and we, possessing a nature like His own as to its moral qualities, are capable of enjoying this nature fully and without hindrance, and of enjoying it in its perfection in Him. It is also His own choice, His own affection, which has placed us there, and which has placed us there in Him, who, being His eternal delight, is worthy of it; so that the heart finds its rest in this position, for there is agreement in our nature with that of God, and we were also chosen to it, which shows the personal affection that God has for us. There is also a perfect and supreme object with which we are occupied.

God's choosing us before the foundation of the world is not what affirms in the time of choosing the sovereignty of grace, for, supposing for a moment that God were to choose us now, it would be just as sovereign an act as doing it then. The practical truth brought out in His choosing us before the foundation of the world is, that it proves that we have nothing whatever to do with the world; before its very foundation we were chosen; we have nothing to do with it but to get through it. God would bring us into this blessedness with Himself which has nothing to do with the world. We have just to go through it "unspotted"; that is all we have to do with it. Our living place was settled with God before ever it existed. God had this thought to have a people in Christ, "holy and without blame before him in love." This is what God Himself is. He thus brings us to be according to His own nature - "holy and without blame" before Himself. We have an infinite object before whom we are, and having the divine nature we can enjoy that object. We are not taken out of the world yet, nor are meant to be; but we are to pass through it as Christ did. If one look at it in another point of view, it is just what Christ was Himself, and that before God. This is the thought of God.

Nor is this all. "From" the world's founding is not of the same import as "before" it. Let us respect and learn from the very words of God. Those saints who are preserved from yielding to the Beast at the close of the age had their name written from the foundation of the world in the slain Lamb's book of life. With this we may compare the King's language to the blessed from all the nations, severed like sheep from the goats, to inherit the kingdom prepared for them "from" the world's foundation. But the phrase used in Eph. 1:4 as in 1 Peter 1:20 is pointedly different. As Christ was foreknown and loved by the Father (John 17:24) "before" then, so did God choose in Christ us who now believe "before" the world's foundation, that we should be holy and unblemished before Him in love. It is easy for a Christian to understand Christ foreknown before time began; but how wondrous the grace that God chose us to such an association and for such a purpose! He was known before creation, as He had a glory in personal right above it; we by grace are objects of divine counsel which His work suite in order that we may enjoy all where He is, and with Him.

The epistle opens with a lovely doxology: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: according as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love" (Eph. 1:3-4). There is the elective choice of God. The Church was the thought of God in eternity, before the foundation of the world; but the individual relationships are treated of first before the corporate are unfolded. You will never learn the truth corporately till you have learned it individually. God thinks of the individual believer first. God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. Long before there was a world, upon which the first man sinned, the believer was chosen in Him to be "holy and without blame before him in love." You say, I am not holy. But look — is not He holy, and without blame, and in love before God? Oh yes. Well, I am in Him, that is the point.

This is in direct contrast with the Jewish portion of old. Jehovah called the Jew to enjoy temporal blessings in earthly places, with Canaan as their seat, basket and store, good crops and vintage, etc. — their promised enjoyment, if obedient. But we are not called thus. The Spirit here expounds a deeper purpose formed in God's heart before the foundation of the world, that we should be before Him in heavenly glory with His Son. If there, we must have a suited nature. Could the natural man be at home with God, and find pleasure where all is holy? Impossible, it is opposed to his very being. Moreover, supposing it were possible to be before Him with a conscience not at rest, where would be the joy? How blessed, therefore, that we are to be "holy and without blame before Him in love!" "Holy," because having His nature, a nature that finds its only portion in God — "Without blame," in virtue of Christ's work; for who shall lay anything to our charge? — "In love," His love flowing ever into our hearts, and back again to Him its source.

Here we are carried back before the foundation of the world, countless ages, perhaps, before it was fitted for man's habitation, therefore before man's history opened — not to say closed in the cross of Christ. "According as he hath chosen us in him, before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love." Thus He is pleased to reveal to us the thoughts that were in His heart about us in a long back eternity. There is no activity of the divine counsel yet. It is simply what He chose for Himself. You choose what suits yourself, and so it is with the blessed God: He chose what suited His own nature, and revealed Himself in the choice He made. And what was that wonderful choice? He hath chosen us in Christ, holy, without blame before Him in love. And the most blessed word in that verse is "before Him," as though he would set us out before His own gaze, the objects of His love. Oh, how blessed to be allowed to know it. As it is in Christ that we have been thus chosen, we have had the perfect expression of the character and object of His choice, when Christ was manifested here, as in Matthew 3:16-17. It is a wonderful help to our realisation of what is so beyond all our thoughts, to have had the manifestation of all that was perfectly suited to the heart of God in Christ down here. Four things are thus presented to us in Him — the heavens opened to Him, the Spirit of God descending upon Him, the Father's voice declaring Him to be His beloved Son, in whom He was well pleased, and all because of what He was personally in Himself.

Not only had God plans to bring into the world His own Son to deal with the question of sin, but those who were to be blessed, through His work of redemption, were chosen “in Him before the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:4); and the divine purpose was that “we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.” We were chosen in Christ to be like Christ, and with Christ, sharing His own place before the face of the Father, and to be holy in nature, blameless in character, like God Himself, and be before Him in love. How wonderful are the thoughts of God, and how rich His grace.

(V. 4). Then we learn not only the source and character of our blessings as coming from the heart of our God and Father, but we find that they had their beginning “before the foundation of the world”. Then it was in the far distant eternity, that we were chosen in Christ. This involves a sovereign choice entirely independent of all that we are in connection with Adam and his world, and which nothing that transpires in time can alter.