Redemption to the Praise of His Glory

Transcript

GRM 813
10/13/2002
Redemption to the Praise of His Glory
Ephesians 1:3-14
Gil Rugh

We’ve been studying the book of Acts, we’ve been looking into Paul’s ministry at Ephesus. I want to turn your attention to the book of Ephesians in your Bibles, Ephesians and the first chapter. I realize when I roam around like this I’m probably getting into books which some of you are doing in your Bible studies so I hope the overlap won’t create a difficulty but maybe will reinforce one another. Paul wrote a letter to the Ephesians sometime after his ministry there. It’s part of what we call the Prison Epistles. Remember we noted that Luke’s intention in Acts is to follow Paul’s ministry to Rome. And that’s where he will break off his record of Paul’s ministry. Paul will be in a two-year imprisonment in Rome and that’s where Luke will conclude the narrative. During that imprisonment in Rome Paul wrote several letters we know as the Prison Epistles. And two of those letters were to churches in Asia, the letter to the Ephesians, the letter to the Colossians. He also wrote to the Philippians in Macedonia, in northern Greece, and he also wrote to Philemon. Those form something of the Prison Epistles.

Paul’s concern is to refresh them on the doctrine he had taught them, and then to encourage them in their walk with the Lord. Remember Paul had a three-year ministry at Ephesus and that ministry would have continued on after his departure because we know there were other faithful servants joined with him there in ministry. When he left that ministry there were elders in place. We’ll see that when we discuss chapter 21 and look into his visit with the elders from the church at Ephesus. It was a well-established church with godly leaders in place when Paul concluded his three-year ministry at Ephesus. It’s encouraging to see some of the doctrines that he gets into.

And we want to look at some of the material in chapter 1 with you where Paul really is going to overview the roles of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in our redemption -- the fact that the Father chose us, the Son redeemed us, and the Spirit sealed us. We see all three persons who comprise the triune God, one God eternally existing in three persons. And the Ephesians had been taught this doctrine, grounded in it. So Paul could talk about the work of the Father, the work of the Son, the work of the Spirit and expect that these believers would not be confused, thinking he was talking about three gods. He could talk about the work of God in electing or choosing from among fallen, sinful humanity some for salvation in Christ, before the foundation of the world. It’s a doctrine that we think, boy, that is heavy and hard. We’ve been believers for years and maybe we think we can’t grapple with it. Paul writes back to the Ephesians and he doesn’t go into it as though this is some strange or difficult doctrine. He just reminds them of this wonderful truth, then goes on to talk about how Christ carried out the plan of redemption and how the Spirit sealed that to all those who believe.

So in the very first part of the letter he’s into what we would call very deep, or heavy, doctrinal truth. And you can be sure during Paul’s three-year ministry at Ephesus where he ministered daily for two years in the school of Tyrannus he was grappling with these matters. They weren’t just things -- well, I’ll leave those to theologians. He understood it was necessary for the common, if you will, ordinary, every-day believer to know, understand and appreciate, have his feet firmly grounded in the truth of the Word of God. As he’ll tell the elders, there will come in the not-too-distant future, men from among your own selves speaking perverse things. He was concerned that they not be blown about with every wind of doctrine as he talks about in chapter 4 of this letter.

Let’s pick up with verse 3. We won’t be going into a great detail in all these verses, focusing a little more on the work of the Father and the work of the Spirit in connection with our redemption. After words of opening greeting in the first two verses he says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.” He begins with a description of praise, blessing, adoration of God. He is the one who is blessed. Denotes in His very character and being He’s the one worthy of praise, worthy of worship, worthy of adoration. Now this God who is worthy of all blessing has blessed us in that He has bestowed upon us all that we have in Christ. So the blessings He has given us come from the God who is worthy of all of our blessing. Not that we give Him anything He needs, but we proclaim His person, acclaim that person, declare Him the God worthy of all worship.

He is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that denotes the relationship within the Godhead, denotes the fact that when Jesus Christ became a man He was born of a woman. But it was the work of God the Father in bringing about that birth as Christ was conceived of the Holy Spirit in the womb of Mary. Remarkable truths that we have to sort out carefully. We think, boy, we have to be drawing fine lines, and we do. There are three persons who comprise the one God, there are not three Gods. There is not one person who manifests himself in three ways, but there are three persons. We’ve noted we sometimes get confused in trying to illustrate the doctrine of the trinity because there is no illustration of the doctrine of the trinity. Because the doctrine of the trinity is totally unique.

We’ll say, well, a man can be a husband and a father and a worker. But he is one person functioning in three roles, that’s not an example of the trinity. It is not one person sometimes functioning as the Father, sometimes as the Son, sometimes as the Holy Spirit, the heresy dealt with firmly in early church history. Not as early as the book of Acts, but in early church history after New Testament times. Sabellianism or modalistic monarchianism, terms that come quickly to your mind I am sure. Modalistic monarchianism -- one God, one person manifesting Himself in three modes. No, He’s the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. There is that relationship. I take it an eternal relationship, because throughout the Old Testament before the incarnation the Father was the Father, the Spirit was the Spirit and so the Son would have been the Son. Paul just mentions that almost in passing, in identifying the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He’s not going to elaborate that doctrine, he’s going to talk about what the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has done for us.

So you see he is operating from the premise that these Ephesians have a grasp of this basic truth. He’s not going to lose them in the first lines of the letter. What does he mean, “God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”? That mean…? and they’re gone. No, he assumes they’re going to be able to grapple with that and move right along with him. Doesn’t mean they understand all the nuances of it because it’s not possible to understand all of that. But by the same token they’re not going to be shaken or distracted by the fact he begins with that kind of observation in relationship of the Godhead.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.” One that who… the relationship there, God the Father, our Lord Jesus Christ. And now the Father blesses us. You see, we have a relationship with both of them because He is also our Father as we’ve been born into His family, and the Son is our Lord. And we’ll see our relationship to the Spirit as well before Paul is done here. We are blessed to have been brought into a relationship with the living God, which brings us into a relationship with all three persons who comprise the one true God. And God the Father has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies. That is a blessing that has been bestowed upon every believer. His blessings are bestowed in Christ. This becomes a key expression through the book of Ephesians. Paul is saying here He is pertinent to those who have come to trust in Christ, who are in Christ, have a relationship with Him. They abide in Christ and Christ abides in them, that relationship established by the grace of God in our salvation.

He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing. Let’s go back up and look at each of these prepositional phrases beginning with the word with, the preposition ‘with’ or ‘in’. “Blessed us with every spiritual blessing.” That means everything you could get has been provided in Christ, every spiritual blessing. God has held back nothing, but all the blessings that could be bestowed have been provided to us as His children. That’s why there’s nothing more, there’s nothing else. There’s a growth in what we’ve received in Christ, there’s a developing appreciation of what we’ve received in Christ, and so on, but we received it all in Him. We’re not on a pursuit to find something else, to get something more in that sense. It has all been provided for us, it is simply perhaps an appropriation of that and an enjoyment of it, an experiencing of it. But it’s all there. I use an example of the baby that’s born with all the parts. But the use of those parts, the appreciation of them and all the benefits and everything is a developing thing. But you don’t talk about the baby getting more parts. When the baby is born he’s got all the parts he’s ever going to get. Now that doesn’t mean that it’s all done because that baby hasn’t entered into all in the sense of being able to appreciate it, enjoy it and so on. That’s a developing thing. So when we were born again, we were born into God’s family, every spiritual blessing was bestowed upon us. Now we are maturing in those blessings as we grow.

These were provided for us “in the heavenlies in Christ,” or as we have it, “in the heavenly places.” Translators in the edition I am using having added the word ‘places,’ “in heavenly places.” It gives you the idea. Harry Ironside’s commentary on Ephesians is entitled “In the Heavenlies.” This expression is used five times in the book of Ephesians, what takes place in the heavenlies. Down in verse 20, the end of the verse, we were seated at His right hand in the heavenlies. In chapter 2 verse 6, we were “raised.. up with Him and seated… with Him in the heavenlies in Christ.” In chapter 3 verse 10, “that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenlies.” Angelic beings inhabit the heavenlies and they are observers of redemption. So they are beholding God’s work of grace in the church, see something of the grace of God in redemption, because there was never any redemption for angels. The angels who sinned are condemned eternally to hell, but the manifold wisdom of God in the work of redemption is made known to spirit beings, to angelic beings that dwell in the heavenlies through what God is doing in the church. And then in chapter 6 verse 12, we don’t struggle against flesh and blood but against the rulers, the powers, the world forces of this darkness, the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenlies. We talk about the angelic beings, we’re talking about fallen as well as unfallen beings, demonic beings, fallen angels. We’re doing battle against the forces of the devil. In the heavenlies and what takes place beyond the realm of just this physical life. And that’s what God has provided and where God has provided for us every spiritual blessing. “In the heavenlies.”

And much of this we will enter into in the full sense when we enter into the realization of our inheritance, when we are placed as sons. We are adopted as sons which we will talk about in a little bit. So everything has been provided for us in the heavenlies and we are enjoying some of that now, we are entering into some of that, but the fullness of it will come even in the ultimate sense at a future date. This all takes place as we noted “in Christ.” In Christ. That relationship with Him is everything. Apart from that relationship with Him there is nothing. And it’s an either/or. No one is partly there. Jesus put it, “He who is not with Me is against Me.” There is no middle ground. Now I realize God is working in the lives of some of the elect, He is drawing them to salvation. You might say they are in the process, but the line is drawn, until a person believes he is lost. There are no partly saved people, right? Right. Right, because the scripture says it, there are no partly saved people. We might say, “Oh, a person is so close.” You know what? We might say they are so close, but if they get hit by a truck tonight they are just as lost as the most lost demon. There is no partial salvation, it is heaven or hell. And until a person crosses the line, so to speak, places their faith in Christ, they are lost. As Ephesians 2:1 puts it, “you were dead in your trespasses and sins” until, verse 5 says you were made alive in Christ. Dead, alive. So being in Christ is everything. You are either in Christ or you are not.

So Paul is addressing the blessings of those who are in Christ. He goes on, “just as He…” And this incidentally is one of those long sentences of the Apostle Paul that goes on and we’ve broken it up in our English Bibles but it just goes on and on. Some of you have done diagramming. You start diagramming these and you pretty soon are taping pages together because it runs off seemingly everywhere. “Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.” In verse 5 he’ll talk about “He predestined us.” We’re just starting the letter. He’s talked about the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. How does this work? Are they equal? And we’re just going right on. We’re still in the first sentence of the letter after the greeting, and he’s into the doctrine of election. No wonder Paul was in trouble everywhere he went. Who starts out a letter with the doctrine of election? Paul, under the direction of the Spirit.

“Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.” Establishes here what God did and when He did it, then goes on to say why He did it. Answers all the basic questions. “He chose us in Him.” The action—He chose us. How? In Christ. Before the foundation of the world God sovereignly, from among fallen humanity, chose some to belong to Him through a relationship with His Son, Jesus Christ. We may struggle with some of that, we may have questions about it. The facts are clear. This happened before the foundation of the world.

A recent book attacking this as a doctrine of Calvinism (and we usually consider this Calvinistic teaching), that God sovereignly chooses some, is arguing that really if that’s the case then we’re just robots and so on. But you understand no matter what you think about the doctrine of election, no matter how you explain it, the matter is settled. It was settled before the foundation of the world. It’s not up in the air, it is settled. Now you may say, well, I think God did it by His foreknowledge, and we’ll see Paul says that’s not the case, even in this context, that He looked ahead to see who would believe and then He chose them. We understand now we live in time, that still doesn’t change the fact that it is a settled issue. The person who is writing this book is arguing that God’s foreknowledge, He foreknew who would believe. Even allowing that for this point, you understand that occurred before the foundation of the world. So now as we’re living it out, the choice has been made. This person disagrees with me on the basis of the choice and how the choice was made, but we both have to agree the choice has been made, because it was done before the foundation of the world.

“He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.” That means before Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Well, before that God had chosen some for salvation in Christ. “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world,” the purpose, “that we should be holy and blameless before Him.” “Holy,” set apart from sin for God. “Blameless,” unblemished. All the defilement, all the defects brought about by sin have been removed. We have been cleansed. Remember in Colossians 1:22 Paul told the Colossians that we will be presented by Christ to His Father as those that are “holy and blameless and beyond reproach.” That was God’s intention. When He chose us in Christ He was choosing from among sinful humanity some that would be so cleansed and purified from sin that they would be able to be presented in His presence as “holy and blameless and beyond reproach.” All the effects of sin have been removed through the work of Christ in their lives.

That we should be holy and blameless before Him in love. That’s our ultimate goal, that we will some day as Colossians 1:22 says be presented in the very presence of His glory. That is the issue. Not that we are good people, relative to one another or other people, that we are better than someone else. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. We must be able to stand before Him as holy and blameless and without reproach, and that takes the cleansing, saving work of Christ to bring about in a life. He goes on and says this happens before Him, of course, ultimately in the presence of God and ultimately will take place literally in His presence in glory.

“In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace.” I mean, there is so much theology packed into the first long sentence of this letter that we spend years and years delving into it, examining it. And we grow in the knowledge of the Word, and the more we grow the more we realize the depth and breadth of the truth that God has revealed concerning Himself. “In love He predestined us to adoption.” Predestined, I take it, ties to the doctrine of election. If we were going to distinguish them (sometimes we use the terms interchangeably) election refers to the choice God made from among fallen, sinful human beings to choose some for salvation. Those that He chose, then He predestined and appointed to be adopted as His sons. That means they’ll enter into all the prerogatives and all the benefits of sonship. “He predestined us to adoption as sons.” That’s on the basis of His love. “Not that we loved God, but that He loved us,” I John 4 [verse 10] tells us. This is the great demonstration of love “in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us,” [Romans 5:8]. The provision God made was His acting on our behalf for our good. Be careful here, because some people don’t have their feet firmly planted in Biblical truth and theology, they get confused. They say, “You can see how valuable you are, Christ died for you.” All of a sudden we’ve corrupted the doctrine of grace, misunderstood the love of God and the manifestation of His love. The demonstration of His grace and mercy is the fact that He deals with people that are worthless, as He describes them in Romans 3 [verses 10-18] quoting from the Old Testament.

To those who were sinful, deserving of hell, in love provided redemption and destined them to be adopted as sons. We use the word ‘adopted’ in a little different sense. We use adoption when we are taking somebody to become part of our family that was not physically born into our family. That’s not how the word is used in the New Testament, that’s not what adoption meant. “He predestined us to adoption as sons” refers to that time when we will be placed as the sons of God, when we will enter into all the provision of sonship, if you will. It’s the glorification of the body. Back up to Romans 8, Romans 8:15, “you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” And we are the children of God so we are fellow heirs with Christ. Down to verse 23, “not only this, but having in ourselves the first fruits of the Spirit,” we’ll be talking about the Spirit in a moment, “having the first fruits of the Spirit, we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption.” So that we are the children of God, but we’re waiting for our adoption. What does that refer to? The redemption of our body.

Adoption in the Roman culture was that time when a son became of age. Up until that time hefor was a son but he didn’t have the prerogatives of sonship. He may have lived under the authority of appointed slaves, but when he was adopted now he was placed into his position as son, entering into the full prerogatives and so on, all the benefits. It would be entering into the inheritance. You may be the heir of a fortune, but you may be working a job trying to pay the bills. Why? Because you haven’t received or entered into the inheritance yet. Same idea. So that’s the picture. The adoption as sons will take place when our body is transformed and we are glorified. Then we enter into all the prerogatives, all the benefits, the fullness of our position as sons of God. Galatians 4:5-6 talk about the same thing.

Come back to Ephesians 1 [verse 5], “He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself.” This process has to come through Christ, there is no other way. Again this is foundational theology and yet we have a major movement within evangelicalism today, doing what? Saying that those who have never heard the gospel, they are provided for. Then they turn it around and make it an issue of God’s mercy, and God’s mercy is so wide that it even includes those who never have opportunity and never hear. And the confusion goes on. Part of the sovereign plan of God is that no one will come to Him except through His Son. God is not obligated to save sinful beings. We say this isn’t fair, this isn’t right. Be careful. We get into trouble in more ways than one. Remember the angels who sinned, God never made a provision for them to be able to repent and be saved. Hebrews 2. There is no salvation provided for their sin. God is not obligated, not required, to provide salvation, let alone save sinful beings. He didn’t do it for any of the angels who sinned. So the fact that He has chosen in His plan to save some and not others among sinful human beings is perfectly just because He’s not obligated to save any sinful beings.

We act like, oh, what a miscarriage of justice that He has chosen some and not others. You understand, that’s not the way the Bible presents it. What a great demonstration of love that He has chosen to save any. You know, He could have dealt with us the way He dealt with angels, they sinned, they’re going to hell, case closed. Not one fallen angel will have any recourse, anything to say against God’s holy character, justice, and righteousness in condemning them to hell. They deserve it. “The wages of sin is death,” [Romans 6:23]. Justice requires the penalty be paid, they will pay it. Some have idea that, well, God is obligated to save sinners. He is not, He is obligated to mete out justice and that means sinners must go to hell. It is amazing that in His mercy and love and grace He has provided salvation and then acted to save some among sinful human beings. He predestined them to the fullness of glory as sons of God. He did this “through Jesus Christ to Himself.” Men and women are free to believe what they want, but they will only be saved by believing what God said. Salvation is always through Jesus Christ.

“According to the kind intention of His will.” And we are recipients of great blessing in His will. I think the previous translation gives you more the theme, “according to His good pleasure.” In other words, God operated out of His own will, out of His own sovereign determination. Both are saying the same thing, I think the translation, “according to His good pleasure,” perhaps makes it a little clearer. “The kind intention of His will,” His will determined that we would receive blessing, and that is true. What you see here is why did God do this. We try to reason, then we come up with conclusions: I don’t think God would do this, no, I don’t think this would have been… Well, wait a minute, there is no explanation. God decided within Himself, among Himself, the council of the Godhead. He sovereignly determined this is what He would do. He sovereignly does it and He always acts consistent with His own character as God. That’s as far back as we can go. We say, well, I think we need an explanation. Well, the explanation is God sovereignly decided to do it this way. You know what it’s like when you’re little child wants to require of you an explanation. Sometimes you say, what? Because I said so. They say that wasn’t nice. It’s true. ??????????I decided to do it, we’re going now. Why now? Because I decided now. So this is what God has decided to do.

This is going to be emphasized here, “according to the kind intention of His will.” Down in the middle of verse 9, “according to His kind intention,” or according to His good pleasure. He’s the one, in verse 11, who works all things according to His purpose, “He works all things after the counsel of His will.” He counsels with Himself. ???????/ask who has been His counselor? I mean the arrogance of man who wants to decide what God can do and cannot do. Hear people say things of utter stupidity, “My God would not do that.” Well, that may be so, but you understand your god is no god at all, no more a god than the idols of wood and stone that men make. The only true God is the God of the Bible, and we don’t tell Him -- He tells us.

I’m not in any way casting a cloud on the character of God or implying that He is anything less than loving and kind and merciful. But you understand, He is God and we are not. We have both the transcendence and the eminence of God. And God’s eminence is God’s presence with us, His closeness, and so on. But His transcendence marks Him off as separate from us, high and apart. And we need to recognize His love is infinite love and mercy and grace go beyond understanding. But you understand He does not have to meet our standard, He meets no one’s standard, because He Himself is the standard. What He does is right. There is no standard outside of God that He must meet. He is the standard, He is God. So He acted according to His good pleasure, He sovereignly determined this is the way it would be.

“To the praise of the glory of His grace.” “To the praise of the glory of His grace.” God is acting according to His good pleasure, according to His will. Go to Titus 3, Titus 3:5, when He acts according to His good pleasure. You see in verse 5, “He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy,” verse 7, “that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs.” You know, people who say that God looked ahead by His foreknowledge to see who would believe and then chose them are saying, what? He chose them on the basis of their good work, on what they would do. No, He did it on the basis of His grace, and He’s doing it to the glory of His grace. And to say, well, it’s on the basis of the works that He foresaw they would do, even a good work like believing, is still founding our salvation on the basis of what somebody did, is it not?

And yet what Paul is arguing, (come back to Ephesians 1 [verse 5]) He acted according to His good pleasure “to the praise of the glory of His grace.” You are familiar that the ultimate end of man is to glorify God. We ought to be careful. The ultimate goal is not the salvation of man. Even the salvation of man is for the glory of God. Now if you get that corrected it will help put things into perspective, because you know what? I have made all things for myself, God says, even the wicked for day of destruction. The exaltation of God’s glory is what it is all about. That will happen in the salvation of some, that will happen in the destruction of others. But the purpose of God will be realized because His purpose is His glory, “the praise of the glory of His grace,” because in the context here we are talking about the work of salvation. And we talk about the exaltation, the glory that will come to those who have been redeemed by His grace, that ultimate glory when we are placed as sons. But you understand that’s not the ultimate goal of it all, because for all eternity we will be trophies of God’s grace. The angels of heaven who are but observers of what we would call redeeming grace will be looking at us for all eternity and saying, you know what? That’s a sinful person, just as corrupt and vile and hell-deserving as the demons that God has placed in hell. And you know what? Here they are holy and blameless and without spot. That’s how great the grace of God is. So for all eternity God will be glorified for the grace demonstrated in our salvation.

“To the glory of His grace.” We turn things around and want to put man at the center of it all. And even the work of salvation is God-focused. The picture of God wringing His hands because people don’t do what He… He’s the exalted God, He’s going to get glory. You know what? You can’t get around that. People can refuse to bow the knee before Him. Ultimately all will bow the knee, but now they think they’re something. You know, you can’t avoid bringing glory to God. You will bring glory to God -- you will bring glory to God as you go to hell, or you will bring glory to God as you enjoy the splendor of heaven, but you will bring glory to God. (I believe that was Proverbs 16:4 when I said I have made all things for myself, even the wicked for the day of destruction, but I am not being held to that. The verse is true, whether you find it in Proverbs 16:4, you’ll have to check.)

All right, Ephesians 1, let’s move on. It’s “to the praise… of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.” You know, there is what we call the common grace of God, the rain falls on the just and the unjust. So man lives by virtue of what we call common grace, grace extended to all. But redeeming grace is experienced only by the elect, those who have been chosen in Christ. That’s what he’s talking about here, this grace “freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.” Then he goes on to talk about the work of God in Christ. He’s the Beloved and He’s the one in whom “we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace.” Paul just can’t… he’s like groping for words. “The riches of His grace which He lavished upon us. I mean, you just can’t talk about grace, you have to talk about the riches of grace.” You just can’t talk about the riches of grace, you have to talk about “the riches of grace that have been lavished upon us.” I mean, it’s like Paul is grappling here with the finiteness of his own mind and his own words. How do you express this grace, the riches of this grace, the lavishness of the riches of this grace? “He made known to us the mystery,” and it’s according to His good pleasure. Why did I know, why did I believe? Why did you know, why did you believe? It’s a mystery of grace, and the unfolding of the plan of God to redeem those that He has chosen.

And He made it known to us according to His good pleasure. There is no room for pride or arrogance. It was the sovereign act of God that reached out and took hold of your life and your heart and turned it to God. You were just as vile, I was just as vile, I was just as hard, just as hostile, just as dead, whatever the pictures of scripture you want to take. But it was the sovereign work of God that drew us to salvation. There is no other explanation. You look around sometime and you think, you know I think they are a better person than I was. Why am I saved and they’re not? Grace. I was just as lost as they are. I look around and say they deserve to go to hell. You know what? So did I. But I am saved, not because I deserved anything other than condemnation. I’m saved because of the riches of the grace that was lavished on me. How do I explain that? All I can say is God sovereignly did something for which there is no good human explanation. I would have sentenced a lot of you to hell, I mean, that’s the way we act isn’t it? We quickly lose patience, we quickly give up, we’re quickly offended. Isn’t that why the scripture talks about the way we respond in forgiveness and all of that? We’ve been the recipients of such great forgiveness, such great grace. That’s what He unfolds here.

Moving to that time when everything will be brought to completion in Christ. And as we’ve talked about the glorification of the saints, the unveiling of the saints before all creation as Paul talks about in Romans chapter 8. Verse 11, we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will, to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory. In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation -- having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise.” Before the foundation of the world God acted to choose and appoint to destiny. But now in time, God has not only ordained the end, He’s ordained the means to the end. The end being the salvation of the elect, the means being they hear and believe the gospel. He has ordained both the end and the means to the end, the salvation of those He has chosen and the means that they would hear and believe the gospel.

So you also, who are you? Well, you are the ones who have just been described who have been blessed with every spiritual blessing, who have been chosen before the foundation of the world and predestined and so on. “After listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation -- having also believed.” I can’t understand why it is. Why did I, sitting there next to that person who didn’t seem as hardened in sin as I was, yet it struck my heart and I responded, must have been something good in me. Not a thing! It was the hand of God that took hold, turned you around to believe the gospel you heard.

And “having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise.” God’s work is complete. You know what happened when by His grace you believed the gospel? The Holy Spirit sealed you. The seal denoted possession, denoted security. The seal is a mark that belongs to the person who owns the seal. And it is security. You seal the document to guarantee its security. That’s what is elaborated here. We were “sealed in Him,” in Christ, “with the Holy Spirit of promise who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession,” note this last phrase, “to the praise of His glory.” The Holy Spirit is the pledge of our inheritance. The pledge is the down payment, as we’ve talked about many times, the earnest money. We’re familiar, most often when you’re going to buy a car or a house or something like that, you put down the earnest money, which is what? The guarantee you’ll go through with the transaction. And you’re going to buy something like a house and you say, well, I’ll give them $10. Well, they want it to be enough that it assures you’ll go through with it, you’ll not walk away from it. What’s the Holy Spirit? He is God’s down payment, the third person of the triune God is the down payment. You can’t get any more secure than that. You wonder, will God go through with it? It’s guaranteed and settled, it’s sealed with the third person of the triune God. That means I belong to Him and I am secure. And you’ll note, He is given as the down payment “of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession,” that guarantees I’m going to make it. There’s nobody chosen by God who’s come to believe by the grace of God who won’t make it. I know some pretty weak people, but I don’t know any weak Holy Spirit. We are sealed by God.

Why does He do this? I must be something! Read the last phrase, “to the praise of His glory.” That’s the whole point, that God would be exalted because He has done this with you, a nobody, a nothing. With me, a nobody, a nothing. Worthless, deserving only an eternal hell, but He has secured for me my eternal salvation and guaranteed it and it will be to the praise of His glory. So for all eternity we’re going to be parading around heaven. You know what we’re going to be? Trophies of His grace, demonstrations of God’s grace. For all eternity, a hundred billion years we will be living testimonies of the greatness of God’s grace. In a hundred billion years we’ll not need the grace, mercy and love of God in redemption because redemption will be complete, there will be no sin. But we will be there as reminders of God’s grace, the greatness of His grace. Our salvation is a humbling truth, and it is a glorious truth that we have been exalted as sons of God, destined for glory because of God’s great grace. And we are to the praise of His glory.

That’s why our lives, as Paul will go on through Ephesians, are to be lived holy before the world. We are trophies of grace. That is to be manifest before the world. The marvelous grace that has transformed us and made us new, and now we are a people on the road to glory. Should we not stand out before all the world as testimonies to that grace?

Let’s pray together. Thank you, Lord, for the lavish, rich grace bestowed upon us. Indeed we are humbled again as we contemplate our unworthiness, the greatness of our sin, its awfulness, its offensiveness. The magnificence of Your grace that reached out, lifted us from our wretched condition, washed, cleansed and made us new, and bestowed upon us the riches of heaven as an inheritance now as those who belong to You. Lord, may we desire to live every day manifesting the greatness of Your grace and its ongoing work in our lives in preparing us for the glory of Your presence. We pray in Christ’s name. Amen.