Christians have been chosen not because they are holy but in order to become holy. They were not chosen because God foresaw they would be holy, but because He purposed to make them so. The date of this election of grace is given in the text. It was not only before we were born but before the world was made. Saints were chosen in the counsel of God from all eternity. “We love him, because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).

Many Christians seem to have a problem with the Biblical teaching of predestination. John Newton relates the story of an elderly woman who had a simple way of looking at it. Aware of all the controversy on the subject she said, “Ah, I have long settled that point, for if God had not chosen me before I was born, I am sure he would have seen nothing in me to have chosen me for afterwards!”