Ephesians: The Doctrine of Divine Choice - Are You Offended at God's Choice?

Ephesians 1:1-5 "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in 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: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will."

Ephesians is a letter of blessings, the blessings are for the steadfast and faithful, they are spiritual or heavenly blessings, they are from God the Father through Jesus Christ.  Now we come to the question, why do the blessings come to us?  Why?   V4 tells us why.. this is a study on the first half of V4, "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world"   This verse teaches a doctrine that is taught in many other verses of the bible, but this verses teaches a doctrine that many people do not like.  The doctrine of divine choice, or God's choice.  Humans fear those words, they feel uncomfortable and uneasy.. if the subject was the doctrine of human choice, people would be at ease and comfortable, but that God should have a choice, humans don't like that.  It makes us feel uncomfortable, that we are not in control.  There is no other doctrine that is more offensive to human choice than this doctrine that this verse teaches.

We are all born with a nature that automatically believes in free will.. we all automatically believe in human choice.  If we can't decide our choices, than that is not fair.  We are born thinking that we as humans have the right to control our destiny.  Well, no we don't.  God has the right.  He is the creator and we are his creation.  It was God's choice that the sky would look blue, it was God's choice that grass and leaves would look green. He did not ask for our opinion.  Because he made it, he has the choice to decide, not us.  Because he is the Creator, he has divine choice.  Unconditional election, predestination.  God chooses people to be saved according as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world.



Paul Dowlings testimony:

I remember when I first heard this doctrine.  The words elect, chosen, predestined that appear hundreds of time in the bible were never ever mentioned in my home church.  The passages that teach these things about God's sovereignty were studiously avoided and never preached upon in the time I attended my church.  Its easy to do that if you take texts from here and there and preach on them and avoid what you don't like.  The first time I heard this doctrine is when I was in Spurgeon's church in London.  I got a book and I read it and I hated it.  I took a pen and I crossed out page after page, I hated it.  I found it offensive to my pride and to my rights and offensive to my choice.  Is God allowed to have a choice?  Only I am allowed to have a choice, not God.  That was my attitude when I first heard this doctrine.  I saved myself when I decided for Christ.  It was my will, God can offer but if I don't choose to be saved its all a waste of time.  I was saved by my choice..  quite natural.  And then what happened next was when reading through the bible, I began to see this doctrine on page after page for 2 or 3 years..  God wore me down, God decided, God selected.  You don't get that if you just pick certain passages.  And then through my fiance, she repeatedly floored me loads of times in theological arguments on free will.  And then through tapes and books, slowly it dawned on me.
 God is sovereign, he foreknew all things, that means he foreknew me as well.  And if he foreknew me it must happen.  It is not a hunch, it is foreknowledge.  If you are spiritually dead, as the scripture teaches, it is hard to choose.  Slaves to sin don't decide to be free do they?  It is God who quickens those who are dead, and an omnipotent God is not at my beck and call, but actually, I am at his.  I am just a creature and he is the creator.

 I came to accept this doctrine of divine choice because it is in the bible and avoidance doesn't fix anything.  It comes down to this, do you believe the whole bible? do you believe that God saves or does man's choice save himself?  Did Jesus Christ come to seek and save that which is lost or do we save ourselves by our choice?  Is salvation dependant upon human beings or dependent upon God?  Does the human will which is dead choose Christ without God or does God bring spiritual life into a dead person and they repent and believe the gospel?  Who is the prime mover in salvation?  It is God because we are dead in sins before we are saved.  God has a right because he is the creator.

V4 "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: "   do you want me to skip the verse?  No.  "According as" that means "inasmuch" Our spiritual blessings are connected to God's choosing.  Chosen in him before the foundation of the world.  Chosen means selected, picked out for oneself.  "chosen us in him, in Christ"  before, prior to, before the founding of the world, the created order.  God the father has selected the saints prior to the foundation of the created order.  God selected those who would receive the heavenly blessings.  The bible says this many times.  "Consider these words one by one, the first is "he has chosen" God has a will and a choice in the matter of salvation.  Some people do not like this doctrine but they must have it whether they like it or not or they must reject the inspired word." (Spurgeon)  God has a will in the matter of salvation.  Some people think that humans have a choice but no they don't because we all believe that we are saved by grace through faith.  There are no rights to salvation because grace means "undeserved" favor and mercy, not deserved.  Salvation is of grace, not deserved in any sense.  People who think we should have a choice usually are against this doctrine in Ephesians 1 because they think that man should have a free will but God is not allowed to have a will, he is not allowed to choose.  Many think this.  That person makes God less than themselves.  They can exercise their will but its not fair if God does that.  What a small God they worship.  If God is not allowed to have a will and execute his choice who he will spend eternity with..  well then I don't know.  Is God less than you?  God is more than us.  The teaching is that those who enjoy these spiritual blessings do so because they have been chosen by God to do so"  (V4)

how do we approach this profound mystery?  We are to approach with two attributes.  with respect and humility.  "according....  " can you grasp that?  the question is this, do you really think you are meant to? Do you think that you are meant to fully understand?  Do you think that you should understand the mind of God?  To do that you would need to be God.  God has revealed this to us but we do not investigate God.  This mystery is in the heart and mind of God.

 Another way to approach this is not with an argumentative spirit.  The bible is not arguing with us or in Romans 8-9 or the other books, it is not arguing.  This is just a statement.  God is not arguing, he is stating it.  V3-4  God is simply stating and that is what he does.  We don't argue with it because if we do we will end up saying God can't, God is not just, that's not fair and you will start to question God's right and God's choice and God's justice and you will end up measuring God's justice, what God does by your standard and that is wrong.  If God does not match our fallen ideas we will end up saying that God is not fair and I am and I am right and God is wrong.  That is where it leads and that is what many people do.  But God is the standard of what is right, fair.  Fallen humans are not the measure.. Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?"

Can you reconcile the doctrine of divine choice flawlessly with the doctrine of human responsibility and accountability for receiving or rejecting Christ?  No.  That's why you must believe both.    "If I see in God's book two truths which I cannot square with one another, I believe them both.  There is a middle somewhere though I know not where to find it and for the present I will believe it.  There are two things, God has said them and they must be true and it is my job to believe them."  (Spurgeon)

If a person who wants mercy sees that there is mercy to be had, he had better not pause to ask if God decreed him to have it, he should go and take it and he will then find that he is fulfilling God's decree.
The bible does plainly teach that the saints are chosen in Christ.  Unbeliever what do I say to you?  do you have to work out whether or not you are chosen?  certainly not, if you are not a Christian, receive Christ.  As many as receive him, to them gives he the power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name which are born not of blood, nor of the will of flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

You may ask, What good did God see in me? the answer is none, no good, no merit, nothing.  But he loved you anyway with an eternal live that has no beginning and no end.

These notes were taken by myself from the sermon by Paul Dowling of Whiteabbey Congregational (Reformed) at Sermon Audio.

http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=92307174276