Ephesians 1:4 According as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: The word foundation. (καταβολή) suggests a descent, or letting down. But since we were chosen m Christ "before the foundation of the world," let us joy with reverence over the priority of our original nature, and not confound ourselves with any of the products of time. We are clothed upon with temporal nature, but we are not children of time. We are fallen into time, but we are from eternity. From of old, God loved us with an everlasting love. There is nothing in the world that represents to us either what we were, or what we shall be. Long before the geological eras began, long before the great chaotic age, and long before that first of all the sad changes, namely, the angel fall, God beheld His final human race, perfect in His Son. Whatever we have become through the two great falls, in heaven, and in earth, in Christ Jesus we are the holy children of eternity. Our right home is in our Father's house, amid the first-born eternal glories. It is not strange, therefore, that there should be a spirit in us which refuses to rest in anything under the sun, as our final condition. That which was "elect and precious," before the foundation of the world, lingers in us. (John Pulsford.) Parallel Verses KJV: According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: |