I N D E X
without blame; and positionally, before Him.  If the holiness provided by the
Saviour can endure the light of God's presence we have that which is perfect and
complete.  To attempt to improve it or make it more secure is to miserably fail.
This perfect standing before God, this completeness in Christ, is the basis of
the words:
`Let no man, though he wishes it, defraud you of your prize, persuading
you to self humiliation and the worship of angels'
(Col. 2:18 author's translation).
The Seraphim veil their faces in the divine presence, `but we all with
unveiled face, as in a mirror, behold the glory of the Lord'.  We have `boldness
of access with confidence by the faith of Him'.  We do not glorify this wondrous
grace by depreciating the perfectness of the holiness which is ours in Christ.
In ourselves we are nothing, but He is all.  Of ourselves we are darkness, but
we may walk in the light as He is in the light, for the precious blood of Christ
cleanseth from all sin.
This then is the object of the Father's choice.  What a calling is ours!
Those who are thus holy in Christ are called saints.  These demand our love
(Eph. 1:15), our prayers (6:18), and only as we, in spirit, embrace all saints,
shall we begin to understand the fulness of the love of Christ (3:18).  We
cannot make ourselves holy, we cannot keep ourselves holy, but the Lord asks us
to `walk worthy of the calling' (Eph. 4), for He has `saved us and called us
with an holy calling' (2 Tim. 1:9).
The Threefold charter of the church
The Father's Motive.  In Love
Some believers, who hold the Calvinistic doctrine of the decrees, are so
antagonistic to the suggestion which we have earlier put forward, namely that
the Divine foreknowledge which could see beforehand whether a free moral agent
would or would not believe the gospel, that one of them, after reading the
article entitled The epistle to the Romans in The Berean Expositor Volume 27,
page 33, stooped to attack us by means of `an open letter', but if we will but
read to the conclusion of Ephesians 1:4 we shall discover that the initial cause
of our election and salvation, is neither the sovereign decree of the Most High,
nor the foreseen faith of the poor human recipient, but simply and solely the
promptings of divine Love, which is the root and cause of the whole purpose of
redeeming grace.
`In love'.-- This we shall find is true of other callings than that of
Ephesians:
`Thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God: the Lord thy God hath
chosen thee to be a special people unto Himself, above all people that are
upon the face of the earth.  The Lord did not set His love upon you, nor
choose you, because ye were ... but because the Lord loved you' (Deut.
7:6-8).
Blessed `arguing in a circle' !  The Lord loved you ... because He loved you.
Here we meet with `choice', a `special people', `above all', in connection with
this earthly calling, which reflects the high glories of the super-heavenly
calling.  Yet, however diverse these callings may be, whatever dispensational
differences are apparent, however great the contrast between law and gospel, one
thing remains constant, the prime cause of all causes is Love.
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