Chosen In Him, Ephesians 1:4

[kyredneck]

Your interpretation does not follow the text, and the exegesis you are using is not sound.

It’s called Vanology.

 

[Anthony Pritchard]

Only a blithering idiot would claim God chose His Redeemer without a plan to redeem.

I had to laugh. You start with “mind boggling,” “complete ignorance,” “blithering idiot,” and “taint so,” then claim to be doing objective exegesis. You're not reasoning, just performing. Priceless!

Your move from “God chose the Redeemer” to “therefore He corporately chose those the Redeemer might redeem” is pure inference, not text. Ephesians 1:4 does not say “He chose Christ and thereby corporately chose a potential people.” It says, “He hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world.”

Calling that chain of inference “the word of God” is the real problem. You have elevated your construction to the level of Scripture and then declared dissent to be rebellion against the text.

Your interpretation does not follow the text, and the exegesis you are using is not sound.

 

[Brightfame52]

Chosen in Him is not some difficult or obscure New Testament phrase. False Teachers spewing false doctrine are guilty of presenting many differing meanings, as if the meaning is not obvious.

The first issue is this: Does the phrase refer to being chosen individually as foreseen individuals, or being chosen corporately as the target group of God's redemption plan? And the answer is just as simple. Scripture precludes being chosen individually before the foundation of the world, because once we existed as "not a people" chosen for God's own possession. Read 1 Peter 2:9-10!

Pay no attention to the tremendous volume of of fabricated false verbiage being spewed to hide the truth of scripture.

Van,

Your attempt to escape the sovereign weight of election by retreating into "corporate election theory" is a total grammatical and logical failure. By claiming that God didn't choose specific, named individuals before time, but rather just chose a blank "target group," you have stripped God of His omniscience and turned salvation into an empty shell waiting for man's free will to fill it.


Let the unyielding ink of Peter's own letters completely flatten your theory:

1. Peter Addresses Individuals as Elect, Not a Blank Concept

You command us to read 1 Peter 2:9-10 to prove corporate election, but you are completely blind to how Peter opens his letter. Look at who he is addressing:

• “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father...” (1 Peter 1:1-2)

Peter does not address an abstract, empty "corporate target group." He addresses individual, flesh-and-blood people scattered across specific geographic cities. He tells these specific, distinct individuals that they are “Elect according to the foreknowledge of God.” You cannot scatter an abstract corporate concept across Galatia and Asia; you scatter individual human beings.

2. You are Confusing Eternity Past with Temporal Manifestation

You claim that because 1 Peter 2:10 says the elect were once “not a people,” individual eternal election is precluded. You are completely confusing The Eternal Phase (Phase I) of salvation with The Vital Phase (Phase III).

In eternity past, the elect were individually chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, and their names were indelibly written in the Lamb's Book of Life (Ephesians 1:4, Revelation 13:8). However, when they are born into this world in Adam, they live for a time in natural rebellion, spiritually dead, and historically manifested as “not a people.”

When the Holy Ghost sovereignly quickens them in The Vital Phase (Regeneration), He calls them out of that darkness and makes them a people in open, public possession. Peter is describing their experiential conversion in time, not denying God's sovereign choice in eternity. To suggest God didn't know who they were until Phase III is to deny divine omniscience.

3. The Absurdity of an Empty "Target Group"

Think about the sheer logical breakdown of your position. You want a "corporate group" chosen in Christ, but no individuals chosen. Van, a "group" does not exist apart from the individuals who make it up!

If God chose a "body," He chose the specific members of that body. If He chose a "bride," He chose the specific person who comprises that bride. If He chose a "target group" but left it up to human free will to decide who enters that group, then man is the ultimate author of his own election, not God.

Scripture completely shuts the door on your theory. God didn't choose a generic category; He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4). Stop trying to fabricate false definitions to protect your conditional theology, and face the plain, unyielding ink of 1 Peter 1:1-2!

---

 

[Van]

It’s called Vanology.

Its called name calling, but the correct term in biblical truth.

I had to laugh. You start with “mind boggling,” “complete ignorance,” “blithering idiot,” and “taint so,” then claim to be doing objective exegesis. You're not reasoning, just performing. Priceless!

Your move from “God chose the Redeemer” to “therefore He corporately chose those the Redeemer might redeem” is pure inference, not text. Ephesians 1:4 does not say “He chose Christ and thereby corporately chose a potential people.” It says, “He hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world.”

Calling that chain of inference “the word of God” is the real problem. You have elevated your construction to the level of Scripture and then declared dissent to be rebellion against the text.

Your interpretation does not follow the text, and the exegesis you are using is not sound.

More nonsense. I showed by the Ephesians 1:4 election must be corporate. You post another taint so.

Understanding Ephesians 1:4 in light of 1 Peter 2:9-10 is not a "chain of inference" but a logical necessity.

 

[Van]

Van,

Your attempt to escape the sovereign weight of election by retreating into "corporate election theory" is a total grammatical and logical failure. By claiming that God didn't choose specific, named individuals before time, but rather just chose a blank "target group," you have stripped God of His omniscience and turned salvation into an empty shell waiting for man's free will to fill it.

SNIP

ose a "target group" but left it up to human free will to decide who enters that group, then man is the ultimate author of his own election, not God.

Scripture completely shuts the door on your theory. God didn't choose a generic category; He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4). Stop trying to fabricate false definitions to protect your conditional theology, and face the plain, unyielding ink of 1 Peter 1:1-2!

---

More mindless verbiage saying taint so. This poster seems to not even know of the corporate elections found in scripture. Nuff said.

Then the lie. The human free will, does not decide who enters the redeemed group of individuals. No one should be that ignorant of Romans 9:16.

 

[Anthony Pritchard]

More nonsense. I showed by the Ephesians 1:4 election must be corporate. You post another taint so.

Understanding Ephesians 1:4 in light of 1 Peter 2:9-10 is not a "chain of inference" but a logical necessity

You keep asserting that Ephesians 1:4 “must be corporate,” but repeating “logical necessity” doesn’t turn your inference into exegesis.

Ephesians 1:4 says:

“According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world…”

The subject is “He,” the verb is “chose,” and the direct object is “us.” The phrase “in him” is the sphere or location of that choice, not a replacement for the object. The text does not say, “He chose Christ, and thereby corporately chose a potential people.” That’s your construction, not Paul’s wording.

Appealing to 1 Peter 2:9–10 doesn’t change that. Peter is describing a once-not-a-people / now-people reality, but that corporate description does not logically require that every use of “chosen” elsewhere be reduced to a purely corporate, non-individual sense. You’re importing a system into the text and then calling the result “logical necessity.”

The issue isn’t whether you can build a corporate-election model. The issue is whether Ephesians 1:4 states what you’re claiming. It doesn’t. You’ve elevated your theological synthesis to the level of the verse itself and then treated disagreement as “nonsense.”

I’m not denying that God has a people. I’m denying that your corporate-only reading is demanded by the grammar of Ephesians 1:4. If you want to defend your view, do it by showing how the syntax requires it, not by labeling dissent as ignorance and then baptizing your inferences as “the word of God.”

Your interpretation does not follow the text, and the exegesis you are using is not sound.