According as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:
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Ambrosiaster
AD 400
God, foreknowing all, knew who were going to believe in Christ. … Therefore those whom God is said to call will persevere in faith. These are the ones whom he elected before the world in Christ, so that they might be blameless before God through love—that is, so that the love of God might give them holy lives. For no one can show greater respect toward another than when he obeys in love.
As by his eternal decree, according to the purpose of his good will and pleasure, he hath made choice of us to be his adoptive sons, and predestinated us to be saved and glorified by the merits and grace of his beloved Son, our Redeemer, without any merits of ours to the glorious praise and riches of his grace, by which he hath made us abound in all wisdom and true prudence. (Witham)
It is asked how anyone can be saintly and unblemished in God’s sight…. We must reply [that] Paul does not say he chose us before the foundation of the world on account of our being saintly and unblemished. He chose us that we might become saintly and unblemished, that is, that we who were not formerly saintly and unblemished should subsequently be so…. So understood it provides a counterargument to one who says that souls were elected before the world came to be because of their sanctity and freedom from any sinful vice. .
Between saintly and unblemished there is this difference, that one who is saintly is ipso facto understood also to be unblemished, but one who is at some point unblemished is not by that fact itself saintly. Infants, after all, are spotless because their bodies are pure and they have committed no sin; and yet they are not saintly, because sanctity is not acquired without will and effort. Moreover, he who has done no sin can be called unblemished, but the saintly person is the one who is full of virtues. .
Paul, wishing to show that God made all things out of nothing, ascribed to him not the “composition,” the “creation” or the “making” but the katabol&#;, that is, the inception of the foundation. .
The sanctified life is not the effect of our labors or achievements but of God’s love. It is not born of love alone or of our own virtue. For if it were from love alone, all ought to be saved. Again, if it were from our virtue his earthly appearing and the whole of his work would be unnecessary. But it is not from love alone or from our virtue but from God through God…. Virtue would have saved no one had there been no love…. For to become virtuous and to believe and to advance, this too was the work of the One who called us, even though it is something we can share. .
Do you observe how that nothing is done without Christ? Nothing without the Father? The one has predestinated, the other has brought us near. And these words he adds by way of heightening the things which have been done, in the same way as he says also elsewhere, And not only so, but we also rejoice in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 5:11 For great indeed are the blessings bestowed, yet are they made far greater in being bestowed through Christ; because He sent not any servant, though it was to servants He sent, but the Only-begotten Son Himself.
What he means is this: The one through whom he has blessed us is the one through whom he has elected us…. Christ chose us to have faith in him before we came into being, indeed even before the world was founded. The word foundation was well chosen, to indicate that it was laid down from some great height. For great and ineffable is the height of God, not in a particular place but rather in his remoteness from nature. So great is the distance between creature and Creator. .
“You have been elected,” he says, “in order to be holy and unblemished before his face.” … He himself has made us saints, but we are called to remain saints. A saint is one who lives in faith, is unblemished and leads a blameless life. .
His meaning is somewhat of this sort. Through whom He has blessed us, through Him He has also chosen us. And He, then, it is that shall bestow upon us all those rewards hereafter. He is the very Judge that shall say, Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Matthew 25:34 And again, I will that where I am they will also be with Me. John 17:24 And this is a point which he is anxious to prove in almost all his Epistles, that ours is no novel system, but that it had thus been figured from the very first, that it is not the result of any change of purpose, but had been in fact a divine dispensation and fore-ordained. And this is a mark of great solicitude for us.
What is meant by, He chose us in Him? By means of the faith which is in Him, Christ, he means, happily ordered this for us before we were born; nay more, before the foundation of the world. And beautiful is that word foundation, as though he were pointing to the world...
The grace of the Spirit is now indeed made manifest, whereas before hand and from the very beginning God has chosen His elect, whom He knew and that God foreordained to be, and to be given over to holiness.
