Essentials of Ephesians - Lesson 2

So here we go, verse 4. He’s given you reasons by talking about these spiritual blessings. These spiritual blessings we have in Christ, in the Messiah, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world. 

Let’s pause there and think about this for a moment. Notice the word choice here. He says, “God chose us.” He chose us in love, the last part of the verse says. This language speaks to what we find in Deuteronomy chapter 7. In Deuteronomy 7, Moses tells Israel that God chose you because He loved you. He chose Israel because He loved Israel, not because Israel was more in number than the other nations, but because He loved Israel. There was nothing, in other words, that Israel did to merit or earn God’s choice. 

God did not—hear this carefully—God did not look through the scope of time and see that a people named Israel would choose him, and then as a result, he made the choice of them based on what they would do. That’s not what Moses means. He means, God made a decision to set his covenantal love upon a people known as Israel. It’s Deuteronomy 7. 

Here, Paul is applying language from Deuteronomy 7, covenantal language, to make a point about what God has done for Jews and Gentiles in Christ. God chose to set his covenantal love on Jews and Gentiles in Christ. Another way to think about it is, is that God elected us in Christ. 

Now, notice when he did that. Paul says, “he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world.” This means before he created (Genesis chapter 1), he made an eternal decision to choose some Jews and some Gentiles from every tongue and tribe and people and nation to be in Christ. 

I want you to feel the weight of this now. Do not, as you hear me say these words, try to get God off the hook. He’s not trying to get off the hook. He is 100% sovereign over everything. And he exercised his sovereign freedom to make a decision to choose some Jews and some Gentiles to be in Christ, in love. That’s why Paul says, “Praise God,” because Paul, as we’ll see a little later, believes that nobody was worthy to receive that choice because we were all dead in trespasses and sins. But God in Christ chose; he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world so that we would be in Christ. He didn’t choose us because we would choose to be in Christ. He chose us before the foundation of the world so that we would be in Christ. That’s what he says basically, when he says in verse 3—or 4 rather, “he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world,” here’s the purpose, so that we would be holy and blameless before him. That language, ‘holy and blameless,’ is conversion language. It’s the idea of the cult. If you think back in the Old Testament, God set apart Israel to be holy; sanctified her to be holy. 

Think of those animals in the Old Testament that God set apart to be offered as sacrifices of atonement. They were chosen very selectively, carefully. They were to be holy and blameless animals set apart for God’s purposes. Paul is using conversion language here. He’s applying language from the cult. He’s applying it to those of us who are in Christ. Why did God choose us? He chose us to be converted. To be holy, devoted to God, to be holy and blameless. He chose us in Christ to be sanctified, to be God’s people. 

And now in verse five, he’s going to use another term here that’s very important for his argument. So, He chose us in Christ. Now this word in verse 5, it grammatically relates back to the verb ‘to choose.’ So, he chose us before the foundation of the world. Now verse five, and He predestined us. The word ‘predestined’ means to determine in advance, beforehand. If you read this word beside of the verb ‘to choose,’ the time frame in which God predestined is the same time frame in which God chose – “before the foundation of the world.” 

Now the word ‘to choose’ is a word that refers to choice unto election, choice to be the people of God. That word ‘predestined’ could refer to events being predestined that might not pertain to individual salvation. But when you put these two words together in this text as Paul does, Paul is making a very strong, what we could say, predestinarian argument. That he is praising God because, before the foundation of the world, God chose us in love in Christ so that we would be his people, and he predestined us to that end. 

If you look at Romans chapter 8 verses 28 down to verse 30, Paul uses this word ‘predestination’ that he uses in Ephesians chapter 1. In Romans chapter 8, for example, verse 28, he says, “And we know that to those who love God, all things work together for the good, to those who are called according to his purpose.” 

Now listen to verse 29, “because whom he foreknew.” Okay, listen carefully. The word Paul uses for ‘foreknow’ here, it doesn’t mean foresight. The idea is covenantal love. It’s the idea of God setting his love upon people. For God to know someone in advance, it’s the language of God entering into a covenant with them. 

You know, you have this language used to refer to the human relationship with a husband and a wife, not the foreloving, but the knowing. So, you have words in the Old Testament or times in the Old Testament where it says a man knew his wife, and that’s an intimate covenantal kind of love that’s expressed in the context of the marriage. 

By way of analogy to ‘foreknow’ is Paul’s way of talking about God foreloving, setting His covenantal love upon His people. So, if you read it that way, notice how the rest of the verse reads in Romans 8:29, “Because whom he foreknew,” what did he do? “He also,” here’s the verb, “predestined, predestined them to be conformed unto the image of his Son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brothers. And whom he predestined, these he also called. And whom he called, these he also justified. And these whom he justified, he also glorified.” 

So back to Ephesians chapter 1, verse 4, Paul’s point is (5, excuse me) is that God chose, predestined beforehand, before the foundation, us to be his people before we were even born. 

And Paul then tells us, though, more specifically in verse 5, to what did he predestine us? Verse five, “He predestined us,” listen to this, “unto adoption.” The predestination was to result in making us part of God’s family. 

Perhaps you know, as I, people who’ve been adopted. When a person is adopted, they have access to everything the family has access to. They have access to the father’s inheritance. This is especially important in Paul’s world, where the inheritance goes to the elder child. But if you’re not part of the family, you don’t have access to the inheritance. So, Paul is saying that God in Christ determined us to be adopted into His family. 

This fits what Paul says in verse 2, when he says, “God is our Father,” (verse 2); Jesus’s Father (verse 3), is our Father, (verse 2), because of God predestining this to be in Christ. 

We were not naturally, here’s the point, we were not naturally God’s children because we were dead in trespasses and sins, chapter 2. But God determined that He’s going to redeem a people in Messiah and make a people who was not his people to be his people. So, he predestines us for the purpose of adoption. 

Now notice, notice he’s going to give us the agent through whom this predestination takes place. He predestines us, verse 5, unto adoption through—predestines us through Jesus, the Messiah. Wow. It was God’s predetermined plan before the foundation of the world to make a people his people by choosing them through Jesus. That the agent through whom this election is affected is through Jesus, the Jewish Messiah. It was God’s redemptive plan to bless Abraham, in Abraham to bless the world, through Abraham to bless the world, for Abraham to bless the world. It was his plan to do that by choosing some from every tongue, tribe, people, and nation through Jesus Christ. 

And then he says, in verse 5, he chose to do that, to predestine, for him. Now the ‘for him’ could refer to “for Christ” or could refer to “for God,” for himself. But the point here is, is that God did this for God’s purposes, corresponding to the good pleasure of his will. 

Notice he called it ‘good pleasure.’ Perhaps one temptation we might have when we hear someone talk with passion about God’s eternal predestination, we might be inclined to think this is unloving and this is not good. Because we might think that if God chose not to select some, then everybody would choose the right way. 

But the problem with that is, is that everybody, chapter 2, verses 1 through 10, is dead in trespasses and sins. So, God, because he is a good God, chooses to redeem some people by guaranteeing that they would be in Christ. And he chooses to save and redeem some, otherwise everybody perishes. So, before the foundation of the world, he made this choice to do it in Christ and he did it in accordance with his good pleasure, the good pleasure of his will. His will in this respect is good and it pleases God and it is an act of love, verses 4 and 5 say. 

But it’s also an act that he does, verse 6, “for the praise of His glorious grace.” Again, the word grace there, think of it in terms of gift. Again, I talk about this in more detail in my longer class and I point you there to watch those lectures, but I’ll say a little bit about it here. 

When you think of the word ‘gift,’ think of it in terms of (or grace), think of it in terms of someone giving a gift with the expectation that the recipient of that gift will respond with the appropriate honor. That’s how gifts worked in Paul’s world. The ancient gift giver knew, and the recipient of the gift knew, that the gift was a social contract that would bind the gift giver and the recipient together. And the appropriate response of the recipient is to respond to the gift giver with the appropriate honor. 

That honor may have been, depending on the context, attending the dinner party if the gift was an invitation and showing the person who invited him honor. It could have been a situation where a financial gift was given and the one who received the gift would put an honorable inscription on a building. We see this today when someone donates money to a school or to a hospital. They’re honored by their name on that building. 

In recent scholarship, a particular scholar named John Barclay says this very fact in Paul and the gift. He showed with clarity that this is how gifts work and this is how we ought to understand grace as gift. I don’t follow everything Barclay says in the book, but I think he is right on this point that when Paul talks about gift, he talks about grace, he talks about gift. And guess what the response when you receive the gift of grace from God, guess what the response is to be from us who receive it? What’s the appropriate, the only appropriate response? He tells you, “for the praise of his glorious grace.” The appropriate response, appropriate response is honor, praise. That’s what praise means here is honor. 

Paul’s going to unpack what that honor looks like in chapters 4 through 6 as he gives exhortations to these Ephesians to walk in a manner worthy of their calling. But I’ll say to you now, what that appropriate response of honor should look like. It should look like a life lived in obedience to God. In other words, it should look like lives, verse 4, that are “holy and blameless.” The best way for you and me to honor God is by living a life pleasing to him. Not just uttering words that say, “Lord, we praise you.” Yes, we do that. But by presenting our lives as a living sacrifice to God. That’s the greatest honor you can show God is by giving him your life, following him faithfully, living in a manner worthy of his calling. And that is why God chose us in Christ so that we would be living sacrifices of praise to him so that he would receive the honor. 

So, guess what? When we stand before God as the people of God in the day of judgment, we will not praise ourselves that were saved. We will praise God because he is the reason why we are in Christ. He chose us in Christ, predestined us in Christ to be holy and blameless in Christ for his glory and honor, which he displayed, look at verse 6, “He displayed this grace, this gift upon us.” He gifted us with the gift; that’s the idea in the Beloved One. Who’s the Beloved One? Well, the Beloved One is Jesus. 

So, notice it, it’s beautiful, God chose us in love to be in the One who is loved. Jesus is beloved by his Heavenly Father. So, he chose (the Heavenly Father) to choose us in his Beloved One by means of love. This is good news because what Christ shares with the Father, we share with the Father in Christ. What does Christ share with the Father? Well, a whole lot. One thing is union, and we share union with Christ. And because we share union with Christ, we can call God our Father. 

So, then we come to verse 7, in which Paul now says, “In whom,” that is in the Beloved One, in Christ, “we have redemption, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the wealth of his grace.” I skipped over a phrase here; I want to read that again. “In him, we have redemption.” How do we have redemption? “Through his blood.” 

This word redemption is a powerful word in the Bible. If you think with me to the book of Exodus, for example. When Israel is in Egyptian slavery, they are crying out to God to deliver them from their oppression. And God hears their prayers. And he raises up Moses to be an agent through whom he delivers his people. And as they are heading out, eventually, of slavery, there is one final act that’s going to take place as God has been judging Egypt with all these plagues. And then there’s a plague of the slaying of the first born. And God tells Israel to put some blood there through this Passover celebration, and God is going to pass over. This is where the Passover celebration is instituted, really. God passes over that blood that he sees and spares those who have the blood. But he kills children in the homes who don’t have blood sprinkled on their doors. That’s a symbol of what God is going to do for his people. 

So, after that happens, Pharaoh says, “Get out of here.” And out they go out of Egypt. But then Pharaoh’s heart turns once again and he follows them, trying to kill them. But they cross the Red Sea supernaturally, miraculously. And then when Israel makes it safely through the sea with Moses as their leader, and God really is the leader, but they make it safely across the sea and the Egyptians and their armies tried to chase them down and God swallows them up in the sea and he kills the Egyptian and Pharaoh and his army. Their bodies are on the seashore because God brings in that moment salvation for his people, deliverance from Egyptian slavery. 

And when they praise God in Exodus 15, here are some of the things they say. They praise God for being a warrior. They praise God for crushing Pharaoh and his army in the sea. And they praise God for being their redeemer, purchasing them, buying them, bringing them out of slavery. Here Paul uses this language of the Exodus to show us there’s a greater Exodus in Christ that Jesus Christ purchased us. That’s what redemption is. It’s an economic term. He purchased us. Purchased us from what? Purchased us, redeemed us from the power of sin. Now, from all the effects of that and from all the anti-God powers. 

But just notice how Paul mentions, how he describes the redemption, verse 7. We’re redeemed through his blood, Jesus’s death, his blood, not the blood of a Passover lamb, but the blood of Jesus on the cross. his penal, substitutionary death on the cross is the means by which God wiped away my sin. Yes, it’s the means by which God satisfied his wrath because of my sin. 

And notice it. He says, “by means of the blood of Christ,” his blood. He gave us redemption. Here’s the redemption: “The forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his gift.” Now you think about that. The reason why you and I have our sins forgiven is because, yes, we believe the gospel. As we’ll see in a moment, Paul says they heard the gospel of their salvation and they received it. We made a real decision to believe in Jesus. 

You could even say, as I said when I was a young youth and I first became a Christian, we sang this song: “I have decided to follow Jesus, No turning back, No turning back.” That is true. I made a decision in April of 1996, April the 22nd, I chose, made a real decision to follow Jesus. 

I did not come to Jesus, as one preacher said, I did not come to Jesus screaming and kicking. God didn’t drag me to Jesus screaming and kicking. I wasn’t fighting against God. I didn’t say, “No, I don’t want Jesus. I wanted Jesus.” I made a real decision. But here’s the basic truth we need to feel is that the reason why we chose to follow Christ is because God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. He predestined us in Christ, and he offered Jesus. 

For whom did Christ die? That’s a very debated question. In this text, for whom did Jesus die? He died for those whom he chose before the foundation of the world because Paul links the redemption that we have in Christ through his blood to our forgiveness of sins. And in this text, those who have their sins forgiven are those who are redeemed. And those who are redeemed are those whom God chose and predestined. 

Now, here’s an important point here. Practically, we’re not justified by election; we’re justified by faith. We have to hear the gospel and believe it. But when it’s all said and done and we’re all in heaven, as the old hymn goes, “When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be. When we all see Jesus, we’ll sing and we’ll shout the victory.” When that day comes and I pray it comes quickly, that everybody who was in heaven is in heaven because God chose them in Christ and they chose Christ consequently to God choosing them. No one in heaven will look at God and boast in what that individual has done to be there. They’ll look at God and praise his name for his choice of them in Jesus, his redemption of them in Jesus by his blood. And so, we have redemption. This is God’s design according to the wealth of his grace. Paul talks about God’s wealth a lot. God is rich with grace. He is a wealthy God who pours out his gift upon sinners in abundance. 

Here’s a practical word, let me give it to you about evangelism. This truth about election ought not to discourage you away from evangelism. It ought to motivate you to evangelize. Here’s how you should perceive of evangelism. It’s my responsibility and your responsibility not to save anybody because we can’t save anybody. We can’t turn dead hearts toward Christ. We can’t resurrect dead hearts from the dead. But what we can do is preach the gospel to anybody who will listen to us and trust by faith that God will save his elect. 

So that one thing we’re doing when we evangelize, we are in the elect-finding business. And the only way we know if someone is elect is when they respond to the gospel. So, we throw gospel seed everywhere we can, using our vocation and our gifts and our skills and our resources to throw seed, gospel seed, everywhere we can, believing by faith, trusting by faith, praying by faith that God will save the elect. Paul himself says he suffers all things for the sake of the elect that they might be saved. Paul says that in the pastoral epistles. 

We’ll notice in verse 8 he now says that this grace that God has in abundance was abounded toward us in all wisdom and insight. That’s God’s wisdom and insight, that God’s choice to save us is a choice he made that is in accordance with his sovereign, perfect, divine wisdom.