Here is my commentary on Ephesians 1:6. I am publishing these once or twice a week, but you can read all of the available articles at our web-site.

Ephesians 1:6

“.. to the praise of his glorious grace which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.”

God’s grace is praiseworthy.

We can praise God’s grace because it is part of His personality or nature. This grace has redeemed us and set us free from sin and death. This grace grants us eternal life, vanquishing the power of sin and raising a whole race of humanity to be sons and daughter of God.

We were once far off but God’s grace has overcome the chasm that separated us from Him. It is grace that adopts us into the divine family granting us an inheritance fay beyond our wildest dreams.

God’s grace is glorious.

Glory is one of those terms that is hard to pin down.

Sports teams and individuals are said to win glory when they achieve a great victory. The sporting prowess or athleticism causes spectators to stand in awe of their ability.

Glory can be won on a battle field when the extreme stresses of being under fire or in other imminent danger bring out super-human courage or gallantry. If the favoured side wins the victory then that helps, but it isn’t necessary to be the victor. We can be awed at the ability of people to sacrifice themselves to save others or to be seemingly oblivious of bombs and bullets.

The glory of a monarch may be seen in ceremonial occasions where wealth, grand institutions and traditions captivate the dreams and aspirations of a culture.

In all of these cases, glory is seen in the awe that human endeavours inspire in the hearts of other people.

God’s glory is of a different magnitude. The glorious grace of God is glorious regardless of our response. God’s grace is glorious even if nobody accepts it. His glory flows from His nature.

We are right to be awed by God’s grace. Our awe is not necessary for it to be considered to be glorious.

God’s grace is freely bestowed.

He pours it out on us freely. Grace would not be grace if it came at a price. God’s grace is free of cost, but He bestows it liberally, overwhelmingly, pressed down and running over.

God’s grace is like a mighty waterfall such as Niagara or Victoria Falls. Enormous quantities of water flow over these falls every second. You can’t see where the water comes from. You can’t imagine how much water is contained there.

God’s grace is like that. It is as liberal as the greatest waterfall. It is bestowed whether we receive it or not. God is not moved by our reaction; He will overflow us with grace regardless.

So the sun shines on the just and the unjust alike, and the rain waters the fields of the godly farmer as much as the ungodly farmer. To the atheist raging against Him or the artist who mocks Him, God gives air to breathe, food to eat and water to drink.

This unstoppable river of praiseworthy and glorious grace is poured out in us “in the Beloved.”

It is Christ who releases and bestows this grace into us. The sacrifice on the cross releases grace to the world. Because Christ is beloved by the Father, God is pleased to pour this liberal overflowing stream of grace to the planet.

Although the grace is bestowed to us “in the Beloved”, we don’t have to be in the Beloved to receive it. Jesus’ death is available to every person, but only some will receive the promise of eternity. He died for all so that some will receive life.

He doesn’t stop loving or bestowing grace on those who reject Him. He is determined to love even if we don’t recognise His love. His grace is greater than our rejection of it.

The grace that is bestowed on everyone will eventually stop for those who are not “in the Beloved.” Judgement awaits those who refuse His grace. The waterfall will turn off, the flow dry up, and those who reject Him will be asked “Why?”

Often we think of grace as pertaining to salvation. But it has a far wider application than that. It speaks of all blessings that God gives to people.

John Wimber used to speak of “gracelets,” the little blessings or signs of God’s presence and love which encourage us to keep on going, to persevere through trials, or just to give us joy in a surprising experience. It might be a dream or a vision, an unexpected gift, a rainbow, a rush of faith to trust Him.

Grace can also relate to supernatural ability to serve God’s purposes. This might be in the form of the spiritual gifts of 1 Corinthians 12. In fac the word of gift in Greek is derived from the word for grace. It might also be the ability to fulfil a spiritual commitment that would normally be impossible for us, yet we find though constant prayer and dependence on the Holy Spirit that we find a grace for this task.

Key points from this verse:

• God’s grace is worthy of our praise
• God’s grace is glorious and inspires awe in our heart
• God’s grace is freely bestowed
• God’s grace brings limitless blessing

Here is my commentary on Ephesians 1:5. I am publishing these once or twice a week, but you can read all of the available articles at our web-site.

Ephesians 1:5

“He destined us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will.”

God’s adoption of us, His plan of salvation had nothing to do with chance. It was not in any sense a “Plan B” or a backup in case things went wrong. God knew from before creation that Adam and Eve, and all humanity with them, would sin and need salvation.

Paul says that God “destined us” “according to the purpose of his will”. This was all planned and accounted for- sin, suffering, death, sacrifices, Temple, Jesus, redemption, eternity.

When people, cultures and demons fight against God, raging with all their puny power, God already has that in hand. He has foreseen it and factored it all into His plan.

God has destined us. We are like pots in the hands of a potter. He determines the use that He has for us. Some of us are destined to what the world deems to be success, whole others are destined to a success seen only in eternity.

He has destined us to be sons, or into sonship. This is God’s great plan- to raise a family of sons and daughters tied to Him through the new birth. When we are born again, it is to a spiritual life. We come alive in ours spirits, and the spirit of sonship is born in us. This is the Holy Spirit who enables us to call God “Abba Father.”

Sonship is about three things:

– Relationship. We are called (or destined) to live in humble relationship with the Father. God does not want mere servants or slaves who obey Him from duty or fear. He wants sons who love Him.

– Family. Those who are in God’s family, the elect, all have one Father. Therefore we are related to one another and must love and respect one another.. Those who fail to love the brethren show they are nor truly sons of God.

– Inheritance. To be a son means that we have an inheritance. In Romans 8:17, Paul says that we are heirs of the Father and co-heirs with Christ. Everything that is the Father’s He willingly gives with us, if not in this life then in the life to come.

This sonship is our destiny. We were made for this! This is not our achievement, but the gift of the Father to us in Christ.

This is something we must always bear in mind. Everything we have, every blessing that we enjoy, every privilege that comes from being in God’s family, comes only as a gift from the Father. It comes to us through the death and resurrection of the Son, Jesus Christ,

We don’t deserve this favour. We aren’t clever enough to work this out for ourselves. It is all gift, purchased for us through the sacrifice of Christ.

God is not a remote being, playing us like pawns on some cosmic chessboard. He loves us. When He acts in our lives, it is love that motivates Him.

He loves us with a passionate intensity that holds nothing back. He has given us His Son; will He not give us all things?

In that sense the earlier analogy of a potter moulding his pots is inadequate. Nobody loves a pot. A father loves his children and wants the best for them. The moulding of our lives is done in love for us so that in Christ we may reach our highest destiny.

He loved us when He planned us. He loved us when we were conceived and then born. He loves us as we mature and grow in sonship to Him.

He grieves over sin and its destruction of life and distraction from destiny. Sin smashes the relationship between son and Father. It damages the image of God in those whom it hurts. It ensnare us and keeps us from our true calling as sons and daughters of the King.

For this reason, God will destroy sin and judge all who refuse to repent. He will cast out those who refuse His invitation to Sonship. This is all in love (agape)- love for us and love for His creation.

God does nothing in the absence of love. God is love. Even judgement is done in love. Those who love sin more than they love God will be judged to be beyond God’s love and therefore beyond God’s kingdom.

God is making a family “according to the purpose of His will.” He wants a family of sons and daughters who recognise His love and respond to it, even in the context of a sinful and broken world which both reflect and hides His love.

The purpose of our life is to discover the love of God. Why am I here? To love God and to enjoy His fellowship.

His will is that we should love Him. To make sure that our love is genuine and not forced or coerced, He gave us the freedom to will and to do what we like. Human will is the precondition for human love. To love like God loves, we must have the capacity to not love. God’s love for us gives us the capability of rejection of His love, that is, sin.

The purpose of God’s will is to bring into being a family of sons and daughters who freely love Him in the same way that He has first loved us.

Key points from this verse:

• God destined us to be His sons and daughters.
• Sonship is about relationship, family and inheritance
• sonship is destiny but not compulsory We can choose to reject His plan for us
• it is all about God’s love

Here is my commentary on Ephesians 1:4. I am publishing these once or twice a week, but you can read all of the available articles at our web-site.

Ephesians 1:4

“… even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him.”

This runs on from the previous sentence: God has blessed us with very spiritual blessing in heavenly places even as he chose us …”

Again there is this verbal linking of the blessings of heaven with the world. It is vital that we do not put too much emphasis in our thinking on the separation of earth from heaven. Both are a part of God’s good creation.

There is a tendency in some religious circles to follow the error of the Gnostics, a religious cult that goes back to the time of Jesus. The Gnostics were a broad group of people who basically believed that there is a huge gap between heaven and earth and people are kept in bondage on the earth until they have the knowledge (Greek, gnosis) to allow their spirits to conquer the flesh. In their thinking everything that belonged to the spiritual was good while everything related to physical things was evil.

God made the world and declared that it was good. God made people and declared them to be “very good.” It is sin that separate us from God and disfigures the creation.

So God chose us before the foundation of the world to be a part of the redeemed, liberated kingdom.

“God chose us.”

There is a paradox at work and we must tread carefully lest we fall into error.

What does this mean? In what way did God choose us before the foundation of the world? Why did He choose some but not others? What part does my choice play in this?

So many questions in three words!

Some people from the Reformed, Presbyterian or Calvinist churches say that God’s choice is absolute. They stress the sovereignty of God. They would say God chose us and He did not choose others. They argue that Jesus only died for those He had chosen to save. Some go as far as to say that he predestined some to salvation and others he predestined to hell – this is an extreme Calvinist view.

This does not do justice to our freedom to act as choosing people. God created us with a capacity for love and that must give us the ability to choose not to love.

Our salvation requires two choices- God’s choosing of me and my choosing to respond to His love.

John 3:16 reminds us that God so loved the world- all people. His choice, His desire is that all people should be saved. Not everyone chooses to accept salvation; they reject His choice of them.

God chose us, but not in an exclusive way that says He didn’t choose others.

God knew before He created the world- before the foundation of the world, before the first day of creation- He knew us already and He chose us for His own.

Everything that has happened in my life worked to bring me to the place where I said “Yes” to Him.

God chose us “in Him.” The “him” is Christ (otherwise it would be “in himself”). The NLT helpfully adds this.

We are chosen in Christ. It was the will of the Father and the Son that we are chosen to eternal life. There is a determination of purpose and identity in that phrase. I am “in Christ”. My destiny is assured from the beginning “in Christ.” My assurance is that God chose me in Christ.

Before He created the world, God chose us. His plan was always to have a kingdom of people who would freely choose to love and serve Him. The devil has tried to thwart this kingdom, but God’s purposes prevail. Even temptation and testing provide opportunities for God’s grace to bring us closer to Him and for His choice of us to be vindicated.

We were chosen, a part of God’s master plan, His redeeming work. People may ask “Why did God let this thing happen?”, but His answer is always “I chose you for my own. Even this thing is a part of my eternal purpose for you.”

Before the so-called “Big Bang”, God was at work in my past. Geologists think they are clever to think in millions of years, but with God it is eternity to eternity- eternity before time and eternity beyond time.

We are chosen to be holy and blameless before Him.

Holy- I am set apart for God’s purpose. Before the world began Jesus chose me to be holy. This purpose of being called to serve God is more than a life-long journey. It started in eternity past and will be completed in eternity future. I am called to be a saint. A servant of God and that calling is an eternal calling.

Blameless- (in Greek amomos). We were chosen in order to be blameless- without charge or stain. We don’t force ourselves to be holy and blameless in order to be chosen. God has chosen us in order to make us that way.

It is not that God has in Christ chosen just to forgive us. He is making us blameless. There is an investigation going on. Satan is a prosecutor digging up our past, trying to trap us into sinning more. A case will be presented but God has already determined that we will be blameless. The evidence against us will be destroyed or ruled as inadmissible and the charges will be withdrawn. No case to answer.

Why? We are “in Christ” and therefore all accusations and judgements against us are nullified by His blood.

We shall be (and already are) holy and blameless before Him.

We dwell in the presence of God the Father. We stand before Him already. Having received life in Christ, we are sealed with the Holy Spirit and we are “before the Father.”

The judgement is already made in eternity that we are blameless. So we stand before God forgiven and restored. We are in the same existential state as Adam and Eve before they sinned.

Yes we will continue to sin, but we have been declared blameless. Yes we will fall short of the glory intended for us, but we continue to dwell in the presence of God Almighty.

So our life consists of becoming what God says we already are.- holy and blameless. We have been chosen to become the holy and blameless people He has called into existence.

Key points from this verse:

• God chose me before time began
• God chose me, but I also chose Him.
• I have a destiny and a purpose- to become holy and blameless in the presence of God.