CHOSEN “According as He hath chosen us IN HIM before the foundation of the world…” Ephesians 1:4
My eternal security is rooted and grounded not in what I have done, but in where I have been placed. I am too weak and frail, vacillating and mutable; there are too many ups-and-downs and ins-and-outs for me to find stability in myself. No, my stability is in the unchanging, everlasting covenant of the immutable Jehovah. Bless God for the sweet doctrines of election and predestination; they are graciously given as mighty stabilizers. An old preacher once said, “As God did not at first choose you because you were high, so He will not forsake you because you are low.” And then I like what William Plumer said; “God will never cast away His jewels, but gather them into His cabinet of just men made perfect.” Take courage dear soul, it’s not in your accomplishments, for when placed in the balance your failures will far outweigh them; but take courage in the satisfaction of our Covenant Head, Jesus Christ; which He made particularly for His covenant people. In Revelation 21:23 we read that Jesus Christ is the Lamb, the Light of the New City Jerusalem. Light in Scripture is the emblem of joy. The joy of the saints in heaven will be this, Jesus chose us, loved us, bought us, cleansed us, robed us, kept us, and glorified us: we are here entirely through the Lord Jesus. No beauty is left when light is gone. All the beauty of the saints comes from the Lamb. They reflect the light of the Sun of Righteousness; they live as beams proceeding from the central sphere. If He withdrew we would die; if His glory were veiled our glory would expire. That Light will reveal knowledge. In heaven our knowledge will be perfect, but the Lord Jesus Himself will be the fountain of it. Dark providences never understood before will then be clearly seen, and all that puzzles us now will become plain to us in the light of the Lamb. What revealing there will be and what glorifying of the God of love. Light manifests; “In this world it doth not yet appear what we shall be.” God’s people are a hidden people, but when Christ receives His people into heaven He will touch them with His own love, and change them into the image of His manifested glory. They were poor and wretched, but what transformation! They were stained with sin, but one touch of His finger, and they are bright as the sun, and clear as crystal. What a manifestation! All this proceeds from the exalted Lamb. Whatever there may be of radiant splendor, Jesus shall be the center and soul of it all, the King of kings and the Lord of lords.
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