Who is chosen in love?

by Mike Ratliff

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love 5 He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. Ephesians 1:3-6 (NASB)

Carefully read the passage I placed at the top of this post my brethren. In love, God predestined believers for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ. Our Creator’s great love for us moved Him to call us out of the passion we had for Satan and the kingdom of darkness. Never forget my brethren, all in Christ were predestined for adoption as sons with great affection by God Himself. He took us, who had no legal claim to being a part of God’s family, as His very children, with all the privileges that status entails.

1 See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. 1 John 3:1 (NASB) 

Remember my brethren, God is too holy to even look upon sin (Habakkuk 1:13) yet He set His loving gaze upon us in the misery of our impurity and willful profaning of all that is good and right in order to make us new creations in Christ. He adopted us unto holiness even though we were unholy. This very fact proves beyond all doubt my brethren that not one of us was any different from the rest of the fallen human race (Ephesians 1:4). We were just as unholy and fallen as the rest of the fallen human race until God intervened.

What motivated Him to love only some in this way and not every man, woman, and child who will ever live? Now we enter into the genuine bounds of the great mystery. However, we know that it is certainly not because we are inherently better than those who have not been chosen in love for holiness and adoption. Sacred Scripture says only that His choice to love His people is according to the purpose of His will (Ephesians 1:5).

John Calvin comments that in adoption “God does not inquire what we are, and is not reconciled to us by any personal worth. His single motive is the eternal good pleasure, by which he predestinated us.”

The wonder of divine election is not that God loves us because we are lovely but that He loves us even though there is nothing lovely in us. But in choosing us, He loves us in order to make us holy in His sight. Those whom He chooses will certainly become lovelier over the course of their walk with Christ, and will be completely pure in glory. My brethren, may we humbly remember that there is nothing in us to make God love us.

Soli Deo Gloria!