OCTOBER 31, 2024
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: 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: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.” (Ephesians 1:3-6)
Paul opens with “Blessed be” to clearly emphasize God. In the following few verses, he will address predestination, adoption, God’s will, grace, redemption, and glory; all themes connected to God Himself and all worthy of blessing. After blessing the Father and the Son, Paul notes that God has blessed us, in Christ, with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places. This all-encompassing statement indicates that Christ has given us every blessing we need. Christ came from heaven to earth from the Father to bring us every blessing we need.
God chose every person who would believe in Him before they were even created. These words have tremendous implications regarding God’s wisdom and plan. His wisdom and power are so great that He knew the end even before the beginning. God exists outside of time and is the only Being able to know all things because He created all things.
Paul also notes a few essential applications of God’s choosing us to be His children. Because of God’s wisdom, power, and love, our proper response as His children is to obey Him. We are to be “holy,” a word meaning “set apart.” We must also live in a way that is without blame, an essential characteristic for all believers, especially church leaders.
The Apostle then teaches why God chose believers to be His children according to His own will. In an act of love and as part of His divine plan, God designed a way for all men, even those not part of the Jewish people, to come into the family of God. The Gentile believers reading this letter would especially appreciate this note from Paul, who considered his Gentile readers as equals, as brothers and sisters in the family of God.
Choosing believers in advance to become part of God’s family is an act of His glorious grace. God does all things for His glory. This includes His planning for those who will become His children. Some think the doctrine of predestination is ridiculous because they see it as removing our autonomy. They will say, “If your salvation was determined before birth, why take your faith seriously? Whether you made the list or not, there’s nothing you can do to change that.” Consider instead that God, who created all things, specifically chose before the world’s creation that we would be made, live, become His children, and one day stay with Him for eternity. This grace is a powerful gift, a blessing God gave us.
His acceptance of His beloved Son is thus bestowed to all who genuinely believe and trust in Him and His sacrifice in our place. In love, we were predestined to be adopted as children of God by faith in Jesus Christ and openly admitted to the privileges of that high relation to Him. The reconciled and adopted believer needs to give all the praise of salvation to their gracious Father, for it is “to the praise of the glory of His grace” that we are “accepted in the Beloved.
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