“He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him.” – Ephesians 1:4
The Plan of the Father
Before the world began, before time ever ticked its first second, God had a plan — a plan not born out of reaction, but out of His eternal love. His purpose was simple yet staggering: to bless us in Christ. Every spiritual blessing you and I enjoy flows from that fountain — the Father’s decision to unite us to His Son.
God’s plan was not random or dependent on us. It wasn’t that He looked down through history, saw who might choose Him, and then decided to choose those people. Scripture doesn’t leave that option open. Paul says clearly: “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.”
Before creation…. Before your first breath…. Before your first choice…. God chose you — in Christ.
The Cause of Salvation
So, what is the cause of our salvation? Why are you a Christian?
Our instinct might be to say, “Because I chose Him.” But that answer collapses under the weight of grace. Could you or I be the cause of the greatest blessing in the universe? Could we be the source of something so holy, eternal, and divine? No — we are the recipients, not the cause. What makes God – God is that He is the cause and we are the effect. He is the source; we are the sourced.
Paul reminds us that salvation begins not with our will, but with God’s grace. He chose us — not because of anything we had done, thought, or promised — but purely out of His love. This is humbling truth. It silences pride. It shifts our gaze from ourselves to the One who saves.
The Mystery of Sovereignty and Responsibility
For centuries, Christians have wrestled with this mystery: If God is sovereign, what about our responsibility to believe?
Charles Spurgeon once described God’s sovereignty and human responsibility as two rails on a railroad track. From where we stand, they may look like separate lines — but as you look farther into eternity, they converge into one truth. God is fully sovereign, and yet He calls us to believe, to respond, to trust in Christ. Both are true. Both are beautiful. Both are biblical.
Salvation is not a tug-of-war between God’s will and ours — it’s a miracle where His sovereign grace transforms our will to embrace Him.
The Testimony of Grace
Finally, one last thought; consider the story of Saul of Tarsus — the persecutor turned apostle. When Stephen was stoned, Saul stood approvingly by, holding the cloaks of the murderers. Yet even as stones fell and Stephen prayed, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them,” God was already answering that prayer — reaching toward the very man who stood against Him.
On the road to Damascus, light from heaven interrupted Saul’s hatred. Jesus called his name. Saul was blinded, humbled, and reborn. If asked, “Paul, who is responsible for your salvation?” Paul would not have said, “I chose Him.” He would have said, “He chose me. He arrested my attention. He saved me.”
Just like Peter, sinking in the sea, didn’t pull himself up — Jesus reached down and lifted him. Salvation is not about the strength of the one being saved, but the sovereign choice and power of the One who saves. We know that our salvation is not by our doing, but neither is it by us being the initial “chooser”. Jesus clears that up by telling the disciples, “You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.” (John 15:16) God, in his rich grace, chose us and brought us to a place where we could then choose Him.
The Center of It All
We struggle with this truth because our nature wants to be the center. We want credit. We want to say, “I did something.” But the gospel decenters us — it removes us from the throne and restores God to the center where He belongs.
We make terrible Kings, don’t we? The world is full of people who have tried to make themselves the center of everything. And every time humanity crowns itself, destruction follows. But when God is at the center, everything aligns. Life makes sense. Grace abounds. Joy flows.
To be chosen in Christ is to be forever aligned with God’s eternal purposes and anchored to the center of God’s love. This is why we should love this truth, because we would, in and of ourselves, never choose this! Why follow a weaker version of the Christian faith that positions God as the responder to our every whim and want? Instead, let us embrace the truth of God as the Decider, the one who “chose us in Him before the foundation of the World”. It’s because of His sovereign choosing that we get to experience unending grace and goodness forever: to the praise of His Glory!