Verse 12 of Colossians 3 addresses you—my brothers and sisters in Jesus—as “God’s chosen ones,” or it could
be translated, “the elect of God.” This
description—don't miss it!—is so precious. Israel of old was God’s elect. And as Israel of old
was called sovereignly and freely, so also “you were called.” See verse 15: “you
were called in one body.” You were summoned to be joined to Jesus, to belong to
Jesus’ body. And, the “elect of God” are also described as “holy” and “loved.”
You are “holy” and “loved.”
To understand the power and preciousness of these “oppulent
appellations,”[1] consider
the love language of Deut. 7:6-8. (By
the way, I’ll just say parenthetically: this ought to be your “love language,” our love language.) In Deuteronomy 7:6-8, these three concepts of election, holiness,
and being loved come together so beautifully.
For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
To be holy, as perhaps you know, is to be set apart for God’s special use and purposes. And this holiness is the result (note this well), not the cause, of God’s election. God’s choosing of a people calls them to be holy, set apart with a special status, to be used for God’s good and glorious purposes.
Now although God’s election makes a people holy, it is not election that makes God’s people loved. God’s love is what moved him to
elect a people. His love elects, his
love chooses.
Two texts on this love. Jeremiah 31:3 says, “I have loved
you with an everlasting love.” Before you were created, God loved you, he set
his affection on you. And Ephesians 1:4-5: “In love he predestined us . . .
through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will. . . .” So his love
moved him to predestine, to elect. You are elect, because you were loved, but
you were not loved and elected because you were holy, but God’s love and
election made you holy. For as Colossians 2:13-14 tells us: “When you were dead
in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, [it was then that] God
made you alive together with Christ, having forgiven us all our trespasses,
having wiped out that record of debt that stood against us with its legal
demands.” He put it away, “nailing it to the cross.” Loved. Elected. Forgiven.
Made holy.
And so with these descriptions—chosen, holy, and loved—it’s
clear: the Church is being understood as the new Israel in the second Adam, as
a new humanity in Jesus. Doug Moo says this:
The Christians in Colossae . . . have the privilege of belonging to the historical people of God. The ‘new self’ is the ‘new Israel.’ This identification is clearly indicated in the description of the Colossians as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved. All three are standard ways of describing Israel in the Old Testament and the church as the people of God in the New Testament.[2]
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