God's forgiveness is based on his initiative of mercy, on the riches of God's grace, and God's free gift to us is Christ his son, not just Christ as a means or channel through which redemption or forgiveness reaches us, surely Christ is the instrument through which and whose work God's forgiveness reaches us, but Christ has in Himself God's forgiveness for us. God himself "gave the only begotten Son" to die as a sacrifice for our sins, God's forgiveness is realized in giving his son, and both the act of forgiveness and those forgiven are in the kingdom of Christ, the given son, " God in Christ has forgiven us, that God has forgiven in Christ his only begotten son, giving him as a propitiation for our sins." Chosen/Election and "In Christ" Here, the election of which we speak is not that of Israel as persons for special privileges and for special service, or individuals for some office, or for the performance of some special service, but the election of individuals as children of God and heirs of eternal glory. Election is commonly understood as an eternal expression of the sovereign will of God in his divine good pleasure, the realization of which through the objective work of Christ and the subjective work of the Holy Spirit, is unconditional. JI Packer provides an excellent definition of the biblical truth of election: The verb elect means "to select, or choose." The biblical doctrine of election is that before the Creation, God selected from the fallen human race those whom he would redeem, bring to faith, justify, and glorify in and through Jesus Christ (Romans 8:28-39; Ephesians 1: 3-14; 2 Thess. This divine choice is an expression of free and sovereign grace, for in it... middle of paper... the purpose of God's choice could be realized. Here it is stated that He chose us "that we should be holy and blameless before Him", it is a language of sacrifice, the metaphor is sacrificial, and it is holy because it is offered to God, and as a sacrifice, it should be without blemish. And only in Him could we be holy and without blemish. In fact we were by nature children of wrath, there was nothing about ourselves, our spirits, our souls and our bodies that was without blemish, God could not accept us as offerings. But Christ, as a true sacrifice, holy and spotless, offered himself to God on the cross, washed away our sins and redeemed us from the wrath of God, and in Christ, in his crucifixion, our old man was crucified, and in his resurrection, a new creation be brought about, so that our reasonable service as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God might be made possible.