4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will
These two verses may be the most powerful ones in the entire Bible. They sum up both the entirety of God’s plan for us and His love for us very nicely. They clearly state the dilemma God had when deciding whether or not to create mankind. I just love these verses!
The phrase “before the creation of the world” reflects back to Genesis 1:26 when God is talking to Himself and says "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness” (NIV). It was not some rash impulse that God had to create mankind. There was a lot of thought put into the plan to create us and what that would mean.
In Job 38:4-7, God told Job the angels were around when God created us. If God already had the angels, He must have desired something different from mankind. We do not know exactly what an angel’s relationship to God is or how much freedom an angel is given. However, it seems that once an angel chooses to disobey God, there is no turning back to Him. There is no account of an angel repenting in the Bible.
With us it is different. Each of us breaks our relationship with God
when we sin. We then need to turn to
Jesus to have those sins forgiven and our relationship with God restored. After that point, we remain faithful and our
relationship with God is secure, even when we do sin again. That is what is meant when it says that God “predestined us to be adopted as his sons
through Jesus Christ.” When we are
saved from our sins we are also adopted into God’s family. This all means that we appear to have more
freedom of choice than the angels do. Creating
us with the ability to choose to serve Him meant that some people would choose
not to. Even those who do choose to
serve God do not always do what He wants them to do. According to James 4:17, any time we fail to
live up to what God wants of us, it is sin.
What is mind boggling is that before God even created us, He knew we
would sin and that He would have to send Jesus to die for those sins to restore
our relationship with Him. As soon as
God created us, Jesus was sentenced to death.
Yet, because He loved us so much, even before you, I, or anyone else was
created, He was willing to pay that price.
That is why I feel these two verses are so powerful. They speak of God’s wisdom in understanding the failings mankind would have and being able to devise a plan to overcome them. They also speak of God’s love for us with Him being willing to send Jesus to die for our failings. But even more powerfully, they tell us He was willing to create us knowing the full extent of the pain and suffering it would cause Him. He could have seen the price Jesus would have to pay for creating us and decided He was fine with just having angels around. God did not need us. He is complete within Himself. Yet, He knew that we would benefit greatly from being in relationship with Him so He was willing to pay that price so that we could experience all the good He can offer us. Praise God for His love for us and His desire for us to experience the blessings which can only come from Him, especially since He had to pay a terrible price for that to be possible!
Keep in mind that we are only experiencing a part of God while in this life. We cannot fully appreciate what God has done for us until we reach Heaven and can truly realize what it means to have been adopted into God’s family and the blessings that come with that.
