Ephesians; 1:4 – Elected to be blameless. Humility and obedience are the only way.

Tuesday March 5, 2019

 

There is a definite and dominant ethical quality about the divine election. We are elected by a God to a heavenly quality.

 

His election of us is His will for us. His will is His highest and best and not a much-watered down version of our own.

 

To water down holiness and blamelessness is to destroy their meaning. It’s like trying to limit God, if you do, you destroy His name. None of these wonderful divine things must be lessened in order to make them more human and therefore acceptable to more people who have no knowledge of them or of God.

 

God says that He is in the heavens. Did you ever find that strange when God also says that He is omnipresent? Isn’t He on the earth as well? But why does God place Himself in a place of holiness, unstained by the unrighteousness of man or the curses upon the earth? He depicted heaven by a deep and beautiful blue linen in the Tabernacle, embroidered with angels, on the veil that isolated the holy of holies from all men. Why did He put Himself in such a place called heaven?

 

Isa 55:8 "For My thoughts are not your thoughts,

Neither are your ways My ways," declares the Lord.

 

Isa 55:9 "For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

So are My ways higher than your ways,

And My thoughts than your thoughts.

 

Heaven is the realm of flying birds, where snow and rain originate, the home of the sun, moon, and stars, the dwelling of angels, and the place where God dwells.

 

The heaven is called God’s holy habitation.

 

Deu 26:14

'Look down from Thy holy habitation, from heaven, and bless Thy people Israel, and the ground which Thou hast given us, a land flowing with milk and honey, as Thou didst swear to our fathers.'

 

Only God in heaven can bless the earth.

 

God’s heavens are far, far above the earth and our ways. We must not try to drag heaven closer to us in our feeble minds, as if this actually makes it more obtainable.

 

So, God is there and we are here, infinitely far away without hope of obtaining His residence and beauty? If that were so, the human story would be nothing but tragedy. But heaven came to earth. Jesus didn’t lower heaven or raise up the earth. He came to bring life to men as bread and water; bread of heaven and living water. And He invites everyone to eat and drink through faith.

 

Isa 55:1 "Ho! Every one who thirsts, come to the waters;

And you who have no money come, buy and eat.

Come, buy wine and milk

Without money and without cost.

 

Isa 55:2 "Why do you spend money for what is not bread,

And your wages for what does not satisfy?

Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good,

And delight yourself in abundance.

 

Isa 55:3 "Incline your ear and come to Me.

Listen, that you may live;

And I will make an everlasting covenant with you,

According to the faithful mercies shown to David.

 

Isa 55:4 "Behold, I have made him a witness to the peoples,

A leader and commander for the peoples.

 

Isa 55:5 "Behold, you will call a nation you do not know,

And a nation which knows you not will run to you [a fact during the Millennium],

Because of the Lord your God, even the Holy One of Israel;

For He has glorified you."

 

Isa 55:6 Seek the Lord while He may be found;

Call upon Him while He is near.

 

Isa 55:7 Let the wicked forsake his way,

And the unrighteous man his thoughts;

And let him return to the Lord,

And He will have compassion on him;

And to our God,

For He will abundantly pardon.

 

When we pray we are to pray to “our Father who is in heaven, sanctified by Your name.” When our hearts understand the heavenly quality of God, He will be sanctified in our hearts, for heaven is so much higher than the earth.

 

Every believer has been predestined to be adopted as sons, sons who call the Almighty, “our Father who is in heaven.”

 

Holy and blameless: No other way of life is fitting for those who are chosen and destined by God the Father. It is the only life fashioned for the elect.

 

Col 1:22 contains the word amomos.

 

Col 1:22 yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him [Greek: in His sight] holy and blameless [amomos] and beyond reproach — 

 

Col 1:13 For He delivered us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son,

 

Col 1:14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

 

The imagery of vv. 13-14 is that of enslaved people being set free through payment (redemption) and being transferred en masse to the kingdom of the Son. Every believer is now and forever more a member of His kingdom. It is much like the Exodus being led out of Egypt.  

 

Isa 61:1-2

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,

Because the Lord has anointed me

To bring good news to the afflicted;

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,

To proclaim liberty to captives,

And freedom to prisoners;

To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord,