Ephesians 1:3-5
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us…in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world,… having predestined us to adoption as sons…according to…His will.
He chose us in Him. The apostle Paul does not just say “He chose us”, but rather, “He chose us in Him“. Paul writes in Ephesians that we are “accepted in the Beloved”. What is Paul talking about here?
Is God choosing us, i.e., you and me as individuals, before the foundation of the world, unconditionally? If His choice is truly unconditional, how, since not all are chosen, is it not discriminating? How is it not arbitrary? Yet we know God is not a respecter of persons.
It is interesting here to note that the Roman Catholic Bible (i.e., Douay-Rheims 1899) translates verse 11 as:
In whom we also are called by lot, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things according to the counsel of his will.
By lot? Really?
