Holy and Blameless

Friday - January 14th

Scripture to Read Today: Ephesians 1:3-14

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For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.

Ephesians 1:4

God packed the run-on sentence of Ephesians 1:3-14 with all kinds of beautiful truths about our salvation. A multi-week sermon series could be preached just on these twelve verses. Powerful word choices, clarifying prepositional phrases, and couplets of concepts sitting side by side to emphasize a truth all make this sentence powerful preaching material. Material that reminds every follower of Christ of God’s amazing grace.

Of the couplets used to provide clarity in this sentence, my favorite is found in verse four. "For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight" (Ephesians 1:4). I used bold type to draw your attention to the words "holy" and "blameless." Paul says that God chose us in Christ before the world began. Then, he goes on to say why he chose us - "to be holy and blameless in his sight."

God's plan for us before the world was made involved us ultimately standing before Him "holy" and "blameless." They seem redundant. Don't they both mean the same thing? Actually, they do not.

When God sees me as "holy," He sees me just as if I was always sinless. My posture before Him in Christ is that I have always been pure, perfect. When God sees me as "blameless," He sees me just as if I had never sinned. As I stand before God in Christ, no one can find fault or blame in me. I stand before God as someone who has never sinned.

All of this comes because of Christ. We are covered in His righteousness when we know Jesus as our Savior. We are covered in His blamelessness. Nothing we did in our attempts to please God or be good enough brings us to that holy and blameless posture before God. Jesus did it all. He brought God's redemptive grace to us through His death, burial, and resurrection.

Knowing we stand blameless and holy before God in Christ should motivate us to live lives of purity, grace, and gratitude to Him!