9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a
holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the
excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
(I Peter 2:9)
In
my last post, we explored the distinctiveness of being a chosen race. This is parallel
to Paul’s description of the church as the “one
new man” Jesus created out of Jews and Gentiles.[1] I also believe it helps us understand something of the imagery of
the twenty-four elders around God’s throne.[2]
Today I spent
time considering the significance of God’s people being a “chosen” race. Our world places the right to choose as a very high
value, at least when we are the ones making the choices. When it comes to other
people making choices about us, we have a mixed-response. If people choose
something negative, or repressive for us, we balk at the idea. If they choose
something good, like buying us ice cream, choosing us for the best team at
school, or choosing us as the best contestant in a talent contest, we think
that kind of choice is a good thing.
When we
consider that the greatest persons making choices about us are God and Satan,
we discover there is a huge contrast between what the red dragon chooses to do
to us as the despised creation made to be like Jesus, and what God chooses to
do for us as the beloved creation that is predestined to be conformed to the
image and likeness of his Son. We can be thankful that we are no longer “following the prince of
the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of
disobedience—“ and living as the “children of wrath”.[3] Instead, we are a people who are set apart unto God as holy, and
predestined to live in the adoption of sons of God,[4] those who make up this race that God himself has chosen.
We
do not typically think of race as an issue of choice. Even the
separating of humanity into different language-groups was an imposition of God
in judgment for man’s godlessness, and independence.[5] The
point is that race is not chosen. People simply are born into a race. The
parents did not choose to have their children in that race; the parents were
already in a race, or a particular mixture of races, and so their children
became whatever their DNA told them to be.
But the church
is a “chosen” race. As Adam was
created a certain way, and so became the one race of humanity, the church is
created a certain way, and became the one new man that is like Jesus.
It is
interesting that the word “descendant” is not used in relation to God’s chosen
race. Perhaps there is something too earthly, too physical and material about
this phrase. Perhaps there is something limiting about thinking of those who
have descended from a greater parent from our past, and that our connection and
continuation from Jesus is more of an “ascending”.
When we say
that someone is a descendant of someone else, we mean that, in relation to time
moving along like an ever-flowing stream, coming down from the mountains of
previous generations, one generation has to come down from another. That is
just the way we are described.
But the
children of God are not described in terms of time, or an earthly parent, or
even of one generation begetting another generation. Every single child of God
is chosen, predestined, and adopted. We come into this race of people by God’s
choice.
We are not at
the mercy of denominational deterioration, or the spiritual second law of
thermo-dynamics where every spiritual thing heads towards a state of decay. We
are in the mercy of the one who gives life to each child of God. Every child of
God is personally brought to life by Jesus Christ. There are no parents
bringing forth children into the kingdom of heaven. There are no grandparents,
or grandchildren. There is only one firstborn, and that is Jesus Christ;[6]
all the rest of us are sons of God, all adopted,[7] no
differences to segregate us or create any kind of hierarchy in the church at
all. “For in Christ
Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.”[8]
The
point is that we all come into this race, this one new man, this body of
Christ, by the new birth that is an encounter with the Holy Spirit of the
Living God regenerating the life that died in Adam, and making that life alive
in Jesus Christ our Lord. We are born again into sonship by faith in Jesus Christ.
It is the only way to become a son of God. We cannot make our earthly children
into sons of God. God has to make them sons of God. The new birth must make them
sons of God. Each and every believer in Jesus Christ is a first generation
Christian, born again directly from God, by the Spirit, through Jesus Christ.
So,
we are chosen into this race. We become one of the people of God by the choice
of God. God did not simply decide to have children and then waited to see whom
he would get. He did not have to wait for some spiritual ultra-sound to break
the suspense and show him if he got a boy or a girl. He knew whom he got because
he chose them. He knew that he could choose from both Jew and Greek and get
sons of God in the image of Jesus his Son. He could choose people from among
slaves and among freemen, and regenerate them into sons of God. He could choose
from among rich and poor, and create within himself sons who all share in the
same inheritance as the Lord Jesus Christ. He could even choose from among both
male and female and regenerate them all into sons who are being transformed to
be like Jesus from one degree of glory to the next[9] until that day that every one of us is glorified in his presence,[10] and we become just like him when we all see him as he is.[11]
It
is significant that the word “chosen”
is used both for us, and for our founder, Jesus Christ. Jesus is “a living stone rejected by men but in the
sight of God chosen and precious…”[12] This is for the comfort of the “one
new man” that is constantly “rejected
by men”. While we see that our founder is rejected by men to this day, what
matters is who and what Jesus is “in the
sight of God”. Jesus is “chosen and
precious” to God the whole time he is “despised
and rejected by men”.[13]
The
same is true of God’s children. We are both “chosen”
and “precious”. Jesus is God’s chosen
and precious cornerstone for the church, and the church is his chosen race that
is the offspring of Jesus Christ. We are called, “God's chosen ones, holy and beloved”.[14]
When Jesus secures the final victory over all the enemies who have allied against
him, those with Jesus are described as those who are “called and chosen and
faithful.”[15]
When
God spoke of his people at the time of Moses, he called us his “treasured possession”.[16] Isaiah the prophet records God’s description of his people as, “you are precious in my eyes, and
honored, and I love you.”[17] Paul referred to Jesus as “the
Beloved”,[18] and then to believers as “beloved
children”.[19]
The
point is easy to show with many other Scriptures, that believers in Jesus Christ
are what we are “in Christ”,[20] and that includes being chosen and precious, chosen and treasured,
chosen and beloved. We are not chosen to surround the throne with some insipid
kind of eternal slavery to an unhappy God. We are chosen to surround the throne
as a chosen race who are represented by twenty-four elders sitting on thrones,
wearing white robes of the righteousness that is by faith in Jesus Christ our
Lord, and wearing golden crowns of distinction as the chosen and beloved people
of God, worshiping in the presence of him in whose “presence there is
fullness of joy;” and at
whose “right hand are pleasures forevermore.”[21]
From my heart,
Monte
© 2013 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517,
Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted,
Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English
Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good
News Publishers.)
[1]
Ephesians 2:15
[2]
Revelation 4:4
[3]
Ephesians 2:1-3
[4]
Ephesians 1:5
[5]
Genesis 11:1-9
[6]
Romans 8:29
[7]
Ephesians 1:5
[8]
Galatians 3:26
[9]
“And we all, with unveiled face,
beholding the glory of the Lord,
are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord
who is the Spirit.” (II Corinthians 3:18)
[10]
“And those whom he
predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and
those whom he justified he also glorified.”
(Romans 8:30)
[11]
“See what kind of love
the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we
are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has
not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him,
because we shall see him as he is.” (I John
3:1-2)
[12]
I Peter 2:4
[13]
Isaiah 53:3
[14]
Colossians 3:12
[15]
Revelation 17:14
[16]
“For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord
your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face
of the earth.” (Deuteronomy 7:6)
[17]
Isaiah 43:4
[18]
Ephesians 1:6
[19]
Ephesians 5:1
[20]
Ephesians 1:3-14
[21]
Psalm 16:11
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