My Chosen One

Consider what the Scriptures say about Jesus’ relationship to God. What is his position in God’s economy? His position is the Chosen. Jesus was selected by God so we call him the Chosen One—the Messiah. Jesus’ highest honor is God’s approval. God has chosen Jesus and that fact should demonstrate to you who the One God is! He's the One who chooses.

Behold, my Servant, whom I uphold; my Chosen One in whom my soul delights. I have put my Spirit upon him (Isaiah 42:1; NASB).

Excuse me, but who is whose servant? Who upholds who? Who chose who? Would you read Isaiah 42:1 again, kindly? Who put his Spirit upon who? God does it all. Jesus is subordinate to God as God’s Chosen One. God selected him.

‘You are my witnesses,’ declares Yahweh, ‘and my Servant whom I have chosen’ (Isaiah 43:10; LEB).

Here is my Servant whom I have chosen, the one I love, in whom I delight. I will put my Spirit on him (Matthew 12:18).

Division Makes Approval Evident

And what about you? If it offends you so much that God chose Jesus, does it also offend you that God chooses from among different groups and individuals in his Church? Well, he does.

... when you come together as a church I hear there are divisions among you, and in part I believe it. For there must in fact be divisions among you, so that those of you who are approved may be evident (1 Corinthians 11:18-19; NET).

The chart below is not 100% accurate, but it is an attempt to trace the groups that have departed from the original Church by apostatizing, and the attempts of those groups to return to the Faith, many of those attempts being failures. It defines the position of denominations and doctrines in relation to the original Church, which it calls "the Church of Christ." The chart has its errors, but it proves that divisions have led to God's approval for some, and his disapproval of others within the Body of Christ.

Are You Among the Chosen?

If Jesus' great accomplishment in life was to be chosen by God, then God’s choosing you should be your greatest accomplishment too. Are you among God's chosen? Lots of people go to church. Among them are God's elect. Are you one of the elect, or just a churchgoer?

... many are called, but few are chosen (Matthew 22:24; KJV).

Now, if you are among God’s chosen few, you have overcome the odds. You have accomplished something very uncommon. You have found the straight gate. You are walking on the narrow path--few there be, so congratulations if you are among the few!

… strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it (Matthew 7:14; KJV).

Be Sure

It’s not guesswork to prove that you’re chosen. It’s something that you can actually confirm. It's something you can know for certain.

… we know, brothers and sisters loved by God, that he has chosen you (1 Thessalonians 1:4).

And yes, you must prove it. You must prove yourself to be among God's elect. What kind of efforts should you make to confirm your status as a chosen child of God? You should persevere under trial, have firmness in the Faith, and demonstrate victory over temptations. You also must show resistance to apostasy. Make the effort to demonstrate bravery, mercy, and love--then you'll know that you're among the chosen few.

Therefore, my brothers and sisters, make every effort to confirm your calling and election (2 Peter 1:10).

Make the maximum effort to confirm your election! You either confirm that you are chosen, or you don’t confirm it. If you make no effort to confirm your status as one of God's elect, that means that you’re willing to risk losing eternity. What a gamble! Would you leave your eternal destiny to luck? Confirming your calling and election should be a matter of intense interest and effort.

We're aiming at the Kingdom, aren't we? We're called to reign with Christ on the Earth. How committed are you to accomplish this?

The Anointed One

The titles Messiah or Christ essentially mean the Chosen One although the most literal translation of these is Anointed One. The Jews of Jesus' day understood the term Messiah to mean Chosen One and the next passage proves that. Read it and you'll see how the men who crucified Jesus thought that the term Messiah was equivalent to God’s Chosen One.

… even the rulers with them sneered, saying, ‘He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah, the Chosen of God’ (Luke 23:35; NKJV).

So Messiah means Anointed, and implied in the term the Anointed One is the manner by which God demonstrates his choice of someone--he demonstrates his election by pouring oil on someone. Oil signals that God has given someone his Spirit.

God sent prophets to anoint both David and Jehu with oil before they were established as kings over God’s people. Today he sends his Holy Spirit to anoint a person for leadership over his people. That's why another name for the Holy Spirit is the Anointing.

… he [David] was glowing with health and had a fine appearance and handsome features. Then the LORD said, ‘Rise and anoint him; this is the one.’ So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers, and from that day on the Spirit of the LORD came powerfully upon David (1 Samuel 16:12-13).

… the prophet poured the oil on Jehu’s head and declared, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘I anoint you king over the Lord’s people Israel’” (2 Kings 9:6).

You Are the Christ

In his day, there were plenty of guesses and rumors floating around regarding Jesus' identity. Jesus asked his disciples point blank who he was, and you may recall what Peter said. He gave the best answer. It was:

You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God (Matthew 16:16).

The Christ means the Messiah, God’s Anointed One. Those terms are synonymous. Now, again we need to highlight the fact that calling someone Messiah sums up not only who they are, but what their relationship to God is.

Jesus (as Messiah) is anointed by God. He is set apart by God. That means that God chose Jesus, and Jesus affirmed this about himself. He said he was…

… the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the World (John 10:36a).

Being set apart and sent by God--that's what Jesus professed to be. For God to set someone apart means that he chooses them. Jesus understood that that’s what he was—a man chosen by God.

But do you understand this about Jesus? Do you see him the way he sees himself? Can you say with Peter "You are the Christ" with a full understanding of what it means to be the Christ? It means that Jesus was chosen by God. It means that the One God selected Jesus and anointed him.

Yes, God selected Jesus. God made his choice of Jesus known to us through signs (like the virgin birth), Jesus' miracles (which God did in him), and his resurrecting Jesus from the Dead. Jesus is the Christ of God.

He said to them, 'But who do you say that I am?' Peter answered and said, 'The Christ of God' (Luke 9:20; NKJV).

Self-Awareness

Jesus was aware of his role as God’s Christ, as we can see in the following passage. The first thing he declared publicly at a preaching event he had in Nazareth was a statement about God. Of him, Jesus said "he has anointed me... he has sent me."

He [Jesus] stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’

Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, ‘Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing’ (Luke 4:16-21).

The Spirit of God came upon Jesus to anoint him. But what was Jesus chosen for? According to Isaiah, he was chosen to proclaim good news to the poor, to proclaim freedom for the prisoners, to proclaim recovery of sight to the blind, to set the oppressed free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

This is just some of the work God planned for his Christ. There was much more. God has also tasked the Christ with saving the people of Israel, establishing peace on Earth, and reigning eternally over God’s Kingdom. The Christ is the one God has chosen for eternal leadership, glory, and power!

Chosen From the Beginning

But how did the Lord Jesus get selected for these tasks? Was there a selection process? Did he have to submit a CV/resumé? Was there an interview? God wouldn’t select someone for such great things arbitrarily, would he? No, certainly not.

By the time the World was created, the Word (not yet known by the name Jesus) was already God’s most trusted and beloved companion. God had planned for the Word to be the sacrifice for sins from the Beginning, from the Creation of the World.

He was chosen before the Creation of the World, but was revealed in these last times for your sake (1 Peter 1:20)....

[Jesus is] the Lamb who was slain from the Creation of the World (Revelation 13:8).

Chosen in Spite of Popular Vote

One of the most amazing aspects of God’s choice is that he chose someone who men rejected. He gave life to someone deemed worthy of death. This comes to prove that we don’t think like God does. Humanity’s thoughts are so far off course that we hated the one God most loved. We rejected the one God chose. We killed the one God anointed.

... [Jesus is] the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him... (1 Peter 2:4).

A voice came from the cloud, saying, “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him” (Luke 9:35).

Aren’t you glad that God overrode man’s rejection of the Messiah? By resurrecting Jesus, God undid what humans did. We killed the Christ, but God gave him life. We humiliated Jesus, but God exalted him. God’s choice prevailed!

Demonstrate Your Knowledge

So, God spoke his mind about Jesus. Peter spoke too. But what about you? You must confess the same thing as Peter who said “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” You have to demonstrate that you understand concisely who Jesus is and that you understand (with precision) his relationship to God.

Peter didn't just speak once. He made the same statement a second time when Jesus was becoming unpopular. He repeated it when masses of people were abandoning Jesus.

From that time many of his disciples went back and walked with him no more. Then Jesus said to the twelve, ‘Do you also want to go away?’

But Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Also we have come to believe and know that you are the Christ, the Son of the Living God’ (John 6:66-69; NKJV).

And You?

Will you stand with Jesus when everyone else is falling away? Will you rise up in the midst of apostasy? That all depends on whether you too are chosen. Only if you are in Christ are you chosen. That is, you must be in the Chosen One for God to choose you because God chooses us in Christ. He chose us in Jesus! See how the word in is used in the next passage:

… he [the Father] chose us in him [Jesus] before the Creation of the World to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ (Ephesians 1:4-5).

If you are baptized you are in Christ now. That's something you can control. But you can't control whether you were predestined through Christ before the foundation of the World. The Antichrist would love to undo that by deceiving you, but don't let him. Let's be what we were called to be, a chosen people!

… you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession… (1 Peter 2:9)

... false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect (Matthew 24:24).