The following is from a public post by Robert A. J. Gagnon, author of the must-read The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics:
The Blessing (Thanksgiving) to God in Ephesians 1:3-14: Whom Did God Choose Before the Foundation of the World? Part 2
Ephesians 1:4 reads: God "chose us in him (Christ) before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy...." Those who advocate for the perseverance of the saints (POTS) contend that Paul is speaking about every last individual believer that has ever made up, or ever will make up, the church. I argue that in view here is the choosing of the church as a corporate entity.
The parameters for the choice cannot be determined apart from understanding the most important theme of the letter; namely, the creation of the "one new human" (2:15), the "body of Christ," the corporate "church" as the means by which God's purpose for the world is to be accomplished.
It is this creation of the "one new human" that ends the division between Jew and Gentile (2:15), connected not by ties of ethnicity but Spirit. The new human is the corporate "body" of Christ, “growing up into him who is the head (Christ),” to “Christ’s fullness” (4:12-16). Each individual believer must clothe himself with this "new human" created in Christ by means of his Spirit (4:24).
The church is depicted in the letter as triumphant over all evil spiritual powers, moving the cosmic vector of Colossians into an ecclesiastical vector. Christ is said to be the head over all things “for the church” (1:22). Through the church, Christ's body and fulness (1:23), the wisdom of God is made known to the rulers in the heavenly places (3:10). The union of Jew and Gentile in Christ in the church is the first and decisive step in God’s grand cosmic plan to sum up everything in Christ (1:10; 2:12-22).
Given this pivotal theme of the letter, it is evident that that the "us" chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world is the very same "one new human," the corporate "church" or "body of Christ." God chose the church in Christ before the foundation of the world as the means by which God's cosmic plan to "head up all things in Christ" would be accomplished, putting hostile spiritual powers on notice that their rule was coming to an end.
In short, the phrase "before the foundation of the world" is not an assurance to individuals but rather a declaration to the cosmos and the powers therein that the corporate body of the church, the "one new human," is not an afterthought in God's redemptive plan but has been since before the world's creation God's intended means of heading up all things in Christ.
Verses 13-14 explain how individuals come to be in this "one new human" and participate in this election: by believing the gospel and receiving the very Holy Spirit that creates, joins, and sustains this "body" comprised of individual parts.
Although it is true that the direct object of the choosing in Eph 1:4 is "us," the subtext is the election of Christ himself before the foundation of the world, which in turn makes possible the simultaneous plan involving his body, the church. The church is "in him," which is why it participates in this elect status, conveying foreordained elect status to any who become members of the church by believing the gospel and receiving the Spirit.
"Church" does mean a "called out" entity, the assembly of those invited to become its members. But as we all know from the parable of the Great Supper, not everyone invited by God accepts the invitation. Nowhere does Ephesians tell us that the precise composition of the church is determined before to the foundation of the world as though free will did not operate among the human creation.
One misconstrues the nature of biblical exegesis when one contends that my interpretation "reads the text out of order" and is "the opposite of sound exegesis" (as one FB friend contended). It is not "out of order" for Paul to begin in 1:4 with the theme of the letter, namely the establishment of the corporate church in Christ before the foundation of the world, and then to go on to explain in 1:13-14 how the individual parts are brought together to form this single entity.
There is no preset script that requires the author to begin with how the individual parts get in before he talks about the whole. It is quite natural for Paul to begin with the overall theme of the letter and then later discuss the mechanics.
