The Lord said to me, Before I formed you in your mother’s womb I chose you. Before you were born I set you apart. I appointed you to be a prophet to the nations. [Jeremiah 1:4-
5 NET]
This is a very significant verse in the first chapter of the book of Jeremiah. We learn that God had chosen Jeremiah long before he was born. In the New Testament there is a similar teaching in relation to the believer in the Lord Jesus. God chose each of us long before we were born.
This raises a whole series of interesting and controversial questions. When I was a young lad at Glasgow University, some of my fellow students bombarded me with a whole range of questions relating to God's choice and the question of free will. If it is true that God chose us for Himself, our whole life has been determined in advance. We have no choice. How can God punish us when he has already decided how we will act. I was overwhelmed by these intellectuals and my answers were totally inadequate and unconvincing. Thankfully, my simple faith remained strong. God gave me the strength to rise above all the negative suggestions. It was by God's grace that I found some way of deflecting these challenging questions which I could not answer. I don't remember how I replied to these lads who had much more confidence than I had. But strangely enough, they admired my simplicity and honesty - probably deep down they had dismissed me as a freak but they still treated me with considerable respect.
I have come to accept simply that there are many things that I do not fully understand. I cannot see things from God's perspective. In second year of my studies, I read Paradise Lost by John Milton, who taught that we have to reconcile truths that are apparently in conflict. Here is an apparent paradox. The Word of God teaches that we have choices (free will). We are not robots. God has given us the freedom to choose either to over Him or to disobey Him. This is from the human perspective. But we learn from the Bible that God knows what choices we will make. Milton saw that we had to accept both of these apparent conflicting truths. This was orthodoxy in Milton's terms. If we stress one of these at the expense of the other, we are committing heresy.
Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms in Christ. For he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world that we may be holy and unblemished in his sight in love. He did this by predestining us to adoption as his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the pleasure of his will – [Ephesians 1:3-5 NET]
This is a wonderful truth. God chose me long before I was born. His perspective is different from ours and we have to accept that. Like Jeremiah, God had chosen a wee boy from Ardeer in Stevenston. There were other boys who lived in council houses similar to ours and God did not choose them. But there is equally no doubt in my mind that I made a deliberate choice to follow Jesus. I am grateful that by God's grace, I have become a child of God. To every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, this message from Paul to the Ephesians comes to us today with great force and assurance. Before even the world was created (and there is a difference of opinion as to whether this was around 6,000 years ago or a much longer time ago) God had made his choice of his people. He had chosen the nation of Israel not because they were better than other nations. In the same way, he had chosen Jeremiah to be his prophet in the years leading up to the exile to Babylon. And he has chosen us in our day and generation. Notice that he had a purpose in his choice and this purpose is not for our glory. God's purpose is that we may be holy and blameless in his sight. That might raise concerns in our minds - these are challenging standards. I cannot describe myself and blameless and holiness is an aspiration but I am only too aware that I do not reach God's standard of holiness. But God's plan is for me to be holy and blameless in his sight. He sees us now as we will be one day. He sees us in Christ - and we are seen as, as it were, dressed in His holiness and righteousness. He took our sins and he has justified us so that in God's sight we are declared righteous and holy. What an exchange of grace - He took our sins and in exchange we are given his righteousness.
How did he do this? He predestined us to be adopted as his sons. This is the dignity which is conferred upon us. He chose sinners and will publicly declare them as sons of God. This is the truth of adoption as sons of God and it equally includes women. We are brought into the family of God and we have all the privileges and blessings associated with being a son of God. And we are not declared to be sons of God because God looks down on us and has decided to grant us this status because of our loyalty to him or our good living or for any other reason to do with us. It is completely because of God's grace that we have been chosen. It is entirely unmerited and undeserved on our part.
There are two main truths which we can learn for ourselves from the lesson in Jeremiah, illuminated by the verses from Paul's letter to the Ephesians.
Election - God has chosen his people for His own purposes and this is part of the sovereignty of God. God has the right to choose. We have to submit to his sovereign will.
Sanctification - God has chosen us for a specific purpose and it is to be holy and blameless in his sight. This work of setting us apart from God is a work of the Holy Spirit but it will be completed and realised fully in heaven.
There is also an interesting lesson from the verse at the beginning of this blog. God formed Jeremiah in the womb. So there is a dignity associated with the human foetus even before birth. This is very controversial and would provoke much debate. It is not the primary subject of today's Day Share but it is worth noticing.
[Picture by Isaac Quesada on Unsplash]
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