Ever since the conflict between Pelagius and Augustine and then between the Reformed churches and Jacob Arminius, what the Bible says about election (“choice”) and predestination had caused Christians to form two opposing camps. To get it out of the way, I am in the “calvinist” camp.
But I thought I might point out something about Ephesians that may be helpful no matter which camp one is in…
In writing my forthcoming commentary on Ephesians, I thought a great deal about the distinction between the election of a person and the election of a group. For example, God chose Israel to be his special nation but he didn’t choose every individual Israelite to inherit eternal life.
But only recently did I realize that something else has to be going on here.
… even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him in love.
Ephesians 1:4 ESV (altered)
On standard “calvinist” interpretation, Paul is describing here the choice of God to give eternal life and salvation to anyone in history from the distant past to the distant future.
There is no way that can be right.
I don’t believe this passage and many others are intelligible unless God does choose specific people for the grace of salvation. But Paul is, nevertheless, not describing what all saved people throughout history have in common with each other. The whole letter is about the new thing God had done in raising Jesus from death to His right hand.
He is saying that “we,” his own generation of believers, are holy and blameless before him, having been seated in Christ by the Spirit. He is telling his readers that they have been chosen for grace that previous believers longed for but did not receive.
And there is good precedent for this kind of generational election.
A general teaching on salvation and God’s election is inadequate to explain Paul’s meaning in Ephesians 1:3-4. He is not teaching on “the elect” as an undifferentiated mass no matter where they are in history, before or after the resurrection and ascension of Christ. Otherwise, we are claiming that Paul has somehow tacked a basic teaching, that could be declared at any time, to the news that Jesus has been enthroned in the heavens. Rather, Paul is talking about how his (and all subsequent) generation have been much more greatly blessed. A precedent for this kind of election or choice was preached by Moses:
The LORD our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. Not with our fathers did the LORD make this covenant, but with us, who are all of us here alive today. The LORD spoke with you face to face at the mountain, out of the midst of the fire, while I stood between the LORD and you at that time, to declare to you the word of the LORD
Deuteronomy 5:2–5a ESV
The Israelites gathered before Moses that day had been with their parents at Sinai (though some had not even been born), but now their generation had reached the Promised Land and had already been given victories over kingdoms to take possession of their lands. So too, Paul is telling his readers that they are blessed above and beyond past believers. While former generations were in a kind of deathly wilderness (Ephesians 2:1ff) this generation has been raised to a new creation. This was God’s plan in bringing Jesus to resurrection and enthronement for us believers who live in the aftermath of that transition.