Chosen for what?

1 Peter 1:2- ‘’…. who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood

Peter reveals to us that God, the Father, had ‘foreknowledge’. What that means is that He saw and He knew everything that was going to happen, from beginning to end, from the beginning.

Peter says that you were ‘chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father’. What this means is that He saw and He knew that you would be born, that you would sin, that you would be separated from God and that you would need a saviour to reconcile you to Himself.

So, according to this that which He foreknew, before you were born, before you sinned and before you needed a saviour, He sent Jesus, God the son, to live without sin, to die in your place and to rescue you from all of your sin and from death by, as Peter says, ‘the sprinkling of his blood’.

Jesus was the chosen one of God to redeem those chosen of God.

If you are a Christian, it is not because you found God, chose God and made a way for God; it is because He foreknew you, He chose you and He made a way for you because He loves you.

When did He choose you? At what point are you chosen?

2 Thessalonians 2:13- ‘’from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth.’’

God, at the beginning of time, looked from the beginning to the end, and saw everything, including all of your sin, past, present and future and having seen everything, because He loves you, He chose you.

What did God choose you for?

Two things.

According to Peter, those who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father have been chosen for ‘obedience to Jesus Christ’ and for ‘sprinkling by his blood’.

Sprinkling by His blood?

In Exodus, Moses mediates a covenant between God and man. This covenant was put into effect with a ceremony where Moses sprinkled the blood of sacrificed animals on to the people. Both the ceremony and the covenant were a shadow of that which was to come in Jesus.

Speaking of this ceremony, Hebrews 9:13 said that ‘the sprinkling of the blood of goats and bulls sanctifies one so that they are outwardly clean’.

Hebrews 9:14-15-How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences (in other words, wash us inwardly as well as outwardly) from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God. For this reason Christ (rather than Moses) is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance- now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant. (the Law).

Hebrews 10:1-4- The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming- not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. If it could, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once and for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins, because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

Hebrews 10:5-12- Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said: ‘’Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. Then I said, ‘Here I am- it is written about me in the scroll- I have come to do your will, O God. First he said, ‘’Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them.’’ (although the law required them to be made). Then he said, ‘’Here I am, I have come to do your will.’’ He sets aside the first to establish the second. And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all. Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest (Jesus) had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God.

When Peter says that we have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father for ‘sprinkling by his blood’, what He is saying is that we have been chosen to be washed clean, once and for all, by the one sacrifice of Jesus and, as verse 22. of Hebrews 10 states, we can ‘draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having had our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience’.

So this is what Peter reveals and confirms;

God, the Father foreknew you; He loved you; He chose you. Accordingly, He sent Jesus, God the Son, to die for you, in your place, to pay your debt to sin. This means that if we believe in our hearts and confess with our lips that Jesus is Lord; it is as if your life is sprinkled with His blood, which washes away your sin and removes the separation from God that sin creates.

From the beginning of time, God, in His incomparable love for you, predestined you to redeemed by the sacrifice of Jesus.

Secondly, Peter says that you have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father for ‘obedience to Jesus Christ’.

Romans 8 says in this way;

Romans 8:29-30 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

What this is saying is that God foresaw you, He chose you, He called you, He justified you, so that you would be ultimately be glorified by conforming to the likeness of His son.

In other words, He wants you to become more and more like Jesus.

How do we become like Jesus?

By trying harder? No.

Peter tells us that it is ‘through the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit’.

Sanctification is the process of God the Holy Spirit working in us and taking us from justification to glory.

So this is what Peter sees-

That God, according to His foreknowledge and love, began a work in you when He chose you to be justified and redeemed from sin through the sacrifice of His son, Jesus.

Once, through repentance and faith in Jesus, we are adopted into the family of God, He sends His spirit to live in us as a seal of our adoption and by His Spirit, He dwells in us to work in us and on us that we would become more and more like Jesus, His son.

If you are a Christian, it is because you have been‘’….chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood’’.