How can a believer be without blame before God?
Because of what Christ has done on our behalf, not because we merit or deserve it, but because of His matchless grace. Through faith in the finished work of the cross, believers are cleansed, forgiven, and justified from all things and counted blameless.
Les explains that a believer can be without blame before Him not on the basis of personal merit or deserving, but because of what Christ has done on our behalf and because of His matchless grace. Even if we slip and fall, if the Lord should come, the Book says we are blameless; this is God's own statement, not man's idea. Throughout Paul's writings, the believer has been cleansed and forgiven and is justified from all things by virtue of faith in that finished work of the cross. In Ephesians 1, the point is that we should not only be set apart, but we can be without blame before Him. Les pauses before 'in love' because it reads better: we are without blame before Him in love, and in love He predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will. The word adoption in the Greek, as previously discussed in Romans and Galatians, did not mean taking a child from that union and legally making him ours.
According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: