Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
Ephesians 1:7

Clarke's Commentary

Verse 7. In whom we have redemption — God has glorified his grace by giving us redemption by the blood of his Son, and this redemption consists in forgiving and delivering us from our sins; so then Christ's blood was the redemption price paid down for our salvation: and this was according to the riches of his grace; as his grace is rich or abundant in benevolence, so it was manifested in beneficence to mankind, in their redemption by the sacrifice of Christ, the measure of redeeming grace being the measure of God's own eternal goodness.

It may not be useless to remark that, instead of της χαριτος αυτου, his grace, the Codex Alexandrinus and the Coptic version have της χρηστοτητος, his goodness.

Bridgeway Bible Commentary

1:1-23 A LIFE OF FULNESS THROUGH CHRIST

Praise for blessings in Christ (1:1-14)

In introducing himself, Paul reminds his readers that they are saints, God’s holy people, who live their lives in union with Jesus Christ (1:1-2). He then offers praise to the triune God: in verses 3-6 on account of the Father who planned salvation; in verses 7-12 on account of the Son who made this salvation a reality; and in verses 13-14 on account of the Holy Spirit who guarantees salvation.
God’s blessings, which believers receive because of their union with Christ, are not limited to the things of this world. They lift the lives of believers above everyday things so that now, in the present world, they can enjoy the spiritual blessings of the heavenly world (3). God planned his purposes for his people before the universe was created. In his love he chose them to be his children, his aim being that they should be holy and blameless, and so bring praise to him (4-6).
Through Paul, God now makes known more of his eternal plan. By calling it a mystery, Paul does not mean that he is going to tell people something to confuse or puzzle them. He means that he is going to tell them something they would not know unless God revealed it to them. God has, so to speak, a ‘secret plan’ (GNB), which he now reveals. Believers already know that people have forgiveness only through the grace of God and the blood of Christ, but a further truth is now made known. This truth is that one day all the rebellion and confusion throughout the universe will cease, and unity between God and his creation will at last be restored through Christ. The universe will find its full meaning in him (7-10).
In choosing Jewish and Gentile believers to be united in one church as his people, God shows that he is already fulfilling his purposes for harmony and unity (11). Paul was a Jew, and his words ‘we who first hoped in Christ’ refer to the Jewish people who had waited for the coming of Christ for centuries. But most of Paul’s readers were Gentiles. In the next sentence he therefore addresses them with the words ‘you also’, to emphasize that they too are now God’s people, because of their response to the gospel. God gives the Holy Spirit to Jews and Gentiles without distinction. The Spirit is the guarantee that they are God’s people now, and that one day they will receive all that God has promised them (12-14).

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace.

In whom … that is, "in Christ," carrying the great truth that the blessings enumerated in this epistle belong exclusively to those who have been "baptized into Christ," there being absolutely no other way mentioned in the New Testament through which any man may dare to fancy that he is "in Christ." If there is any other way to be in Christ, someone should cite the New Testament passage which tells sinful people what it is, because it is clear enough that many are spurning the manner of being united with God "in Christ" through faith, repentance and submission to God's ordinance of baptism (1 Corinthians 12:13; Romans 6:3-5; Galatians 3:27).

Redemption through his blood … The New Testament presents the blood of Jesus Christ as the purchase price of the church, the grounds of redemption and the great atonement (Acts 20:28; 1 Corinthians 6:20; 1 Peter 1:18-20; Colossians 1:14). As Foulkes said, "Such redemption is found in Christ, not merely through him, but by men coming to live in him." Francis Foulkes, op. cit., p. 52. As pointed out earlier, this also means denying oneself and receiving identity with Christ as Christ. See under Ephesians 1:4.

There are two fundamental teachings in regard to the great sacrifice for human transgression paid by Jesus our Lord upon the cross, which appear in this passage: (1) the concept of a ransom paid in order to deliver, and (2) the idea of sins forgiven, remitted, taken completely away. Jesus Christ himself described his earthly mission in respect of both of these, "giving his life a ransom for many" (Matthew 20:28), and "shedding his blood for the forgiveness of sins" (Matthew 26:28). "The word Paul used here for "forgiveness" is [@afesis], used by him in only two other passages (Romans 4:7; Colossians 1:14). It means `letting go,' not 'exacting payment for'." Willard H. Taylor, Beacon Bible Commentary, Vol. 9, (Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press, 1965), p. 154.

According to the riches of his grace … The supply of grace is one of surpassing richness, fullness and over sufficiency. "Abundant entrance" will be granted to the redeemed (2 Peter 1:11).

Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

In whom we have redemption - On the meaning of the word here rendered “redemption” - (ἀπολύτρωσις apolutrōsis) - see the notes at Romans 3:24. The word here, as there, denotes that deliverance from sin and from the evil consequences of sin, which has been procured by the atonement made by the Lord Jesus Christ. This verse is one of the passages which prove conclusively that the apostle here does not refer to “nations” and to “national privileges.” Of what “nation” could it be said that it had “redemption through the blood of Jesus, even the forgiveness of sins?”

Through his blood - By means of the atonement which he has made; see this phrase fully explained in the notes at Romans 3:25.

The forgiveness of sins - We obtain through his blood, or through the atonement which he has made, the forgiveness of sins. We are not to suppose that this is all the benefit which we receive from his death, or that this is all that constitutes redemption. It is the main, and perhaps the most important thing. But we also obtain the hope of heaven, the influences of the Holy Spirit, grace to guide us and to support us in trial, peace in death, and perhaps many more benefits. Still “forgiveness” is so prominent and important, that the apostle has mentioned that as if it were all.

According to the riches of his grace - According to his rich grace; see a similar phrase explained in the notes at Romans 2:4. The word “riches,” in the form in which it is used here, occurs also in several other places in this Epistle; Ephesians 1:18; Ephesians 2:7; Ephesians 3:8, Ephesians 3:16. It is what Paley (Horae Paul) calls “a cant phrase,” and occurs often in the writings of Paul; see Romans 2:4; Romans 9:23; Romans 11:12, Romans 11:33; Philippians 4:19; Colossians 1:27; Colossians 2:2. It is not found in any of the other writings of the New Testament, except once in a sense somewhat similar, in James James 2:5, “Hath not God chosen the poor of this world “rich” in faith,” and Dr. Paley from this fact has constructed an argument to prove that this Epistle was written by Paul. It is unique to him, and marks his style in a manner which cannot be mistaken. An impostor, or a forger of the Epistle, would not have thought of introducing it, and yet it is just such a phrase as would naturally be used by Paul.

Calvin's Commentary on the Bible

7.In whom we have redemption. The apostle is still illustrating the material cause, — the manner in which we are reconciled to God through Christ. By his death he has restored us to favor with the Father; and therefore we ought always to direct our minds to the blood of Christ, as the means by which we obtain divine grace. After mentioning that, through the blood of Christ, we obtain redemption, he immediately styles it the forgiveness of sins, — to intimate that we are redeemed, because our sins are not imputed to us. Hence it follows, that we obtain by free grace that righteousness by which we are accepted of God, and freed from the chains of the devil and of death. The close connection which is here preserved, between our redemption itself and the manner in which it is obtained, deserves our notice; for, so long as we remain exposed to the judgment of God, we are bound by miserable chains, and therefore our exemption from guilt, becomes an invaluable freedom.

According to the riches of his grace. He now returns to the efficient cause, — the largeness of the divine kindness, which has given Christ to us as our Redeemer. Riches, and the corresponding word overflow, in the following verse, are intended to give us large views of divine grace. The apostle feels himself unable to celebrate, in a proper manner, the goodness of God, and desires that the contemplation of it would occupy the minds of men till they are entirely lost in admiration. How desirable is it that men were deeply impressed with “the riches of that grace” which is here commended! No place would any longer be found for pretended satisfactions, or for those trifles by which the world vainly imagines that it can redeem itself; as if the blood of Christ, when unsupported by additional aid, had lost all its efficacy. ⁽¹¹²⁾

(112) “Comme si le sang de Christ sechoit et perdoit sa vigueur.” “As if the blood of Christ were dried up, and lost its force.”

Smith's Bible Commentary

Let's turn in our Bibles to Ephesians.

Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God ( Ephesians 1:1 ),

Now, if you were writing this epistle, take out the name Paul, and insert your name and then, whatever it is that you are: Jim, a service station attendant by the will of God. John, a foundry worker by the will of God. You see, not all are called to be apostles. Not all are called to be pastors, and not all are called to be preachers. Also, it is a mistake to try to be something that God hasn't called you to be, something that God hasn't equipped you for.

I really do not like the phrase, "He is following the highest calling of God; he's gone into the ministry." The ministry is not the highest calling of God. "Oh, he's following the highest calling of God; he's a missionary." That is not the highest calling of God. Whatever God has called you to be and equipped you to be is God's highest calling for your life. And you don't need to feel like a second-rate heavenly citizen just because you have a job as a service station attendant, or you are a secretary, or if you are blessed of God with the privilege of being a housewife. Whatever it is that God has called you to be is the highest calling of God for your life, and we should be enjoying rather than feeling guilty. "Oh my, I'm not in the ministry. I should be in the ministry. I have to work at this job and all." Hey, be grateful that God has spared you a lot of the pain and deprivation and grief that ministers often have to go through.

So Paul is just declaring his own calling. What I am, I am by the will of God, and that is what is important. For many years I had a difficult problem, because I sought to be "Chuck, the evangelist by the will of God," but I wasn't. God never did call me to be an evangelist, and my endeavor to be an evangelist was totally futile, frustrating, defeating. It wasn't until I decided to kick the mold of the denomination that I was in, which held up evangelist as the highest calling, and just be what God had equipped me to be and ordained me to be: Chuck, a pastor-teacher by the will of God, that I began to experience a real fulfillment in my ministry. Up until then, the ministry was hard. It was a grind. It was a push. I was trying to be something God didn't make me. And you know, that's the hardest thing in the world to try to be something that God didn't make you.

The Bible says, "Make your calling and election sure." Know what you are by the will of God. Because if you are what you are by the will of God, then you have pleasure in what you are and what you are doing, and when your work becomes your pleasure, then you are a happy person.

I always encourage young people to find something they really enjoy doing and learn how to make a living from it. Because when your work is your pleasure, then you are a happy person. If your work is a grind, then you are going to be a miserable person, because you've got to figure that probably a third of your life is going to be spent on the job, and if it is just a grind and a push, and you think, "Oh, I have to go to work today. I'll be glad when five o'clock comes." Man, you're grinding at it constantly.

Paul, an apostle by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus ( Ephesians 1:1 ),

You may say, "Well, that lets me out." The only part that lets you out is the "of Ephesus." It is a tragedy, really, that the church decided to "saint" certain people for special honors. We make him a saint. The church never made anybody a saint. The Lord creates the saints, not the church. And as far as the Lord is concerned, you are all saints if you love Him and follow Him. It's not a special category for super Christians. It's a common title for those who love the Lord and believe in Him. "Saint Charles," I will accept the title. But if that bothers you, Paul goes ahead and includes you in the rest of it there.

and to the faithful in Christ Jesus ( Ephesians 1:1 ):

So this letter is to you.

In this first verse he introduces, really, the sort of the underlying tone of the whole epistle, and it is in the words "in Christ Jesus." So as you go through this epistle, it will be helpful if you will take your pen and you will underline all of the things that you have that God has done for you in Christ, through Christ. And you will find the phrases, "in Him," "by whom," "in whom," "through whom," "through Him," and all of these things that you are and have through and in Jesus Christ. And you find this reoccurring throughout the entire epistle. And so this almost becomes the key word that will unlock the epistle as he tells you all that you are, all that God has done for you, all that God is going to do for you, all that God wants to do for you, in Christ Jesus. So do underline as you go through and it will help it to be drawn back to your memory.

Grace be to you, and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ ( Ephesians 1:2 ).

Grace and peace, coupled together, over and over throughout the New Testament. Always in this order, for you cannot know the peace of God until you first experience the grace of God.

For years I went in my Christian experience without really knowing the peace of God in my heart. Because I was under a work relationship with God, trying so hard, and I never had peace. I really never had assurance of my salvation until I discovered the grace of God. And in the discovery of the grace of God, I then had assurance of my salvation, and I experienced the peace of God, and it was glorious. And that I think, probably, is one of the reasons why I emphasize the grace of God so much in my ministry, is that brought such a depth of peace and blessing to my own life to experience it after serving the Lord for years.

"From the Lord Jesus Christ." Now a lot of people think that is first, middle, and last name. Not so. His name is Jesus. It is the Greek for the Hebrew Yeshua. The Hebrew name is Yeshua, is a name which means, or is a contraction of "Jehovah is salvation." One of the compound names of Jehovah, Yeshua. The Greek name is Jesus. And they were instructed to call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins. The Lord is salvation, call Him Yeshua, for He shall save His people from their sins. The word Christ is the Hebrew word Messiah, and it tells His mission. He is God's promised Savior, the anointed one, the Messiah. And Lord is His title. Now, our problem is that we use it as His name, rather than His title. And thus, we use it loosely and oftentimes in vain. Many people take the name of the Lord in vain, because they use the term Lord as a name, rather than a title. It signifies my relationship with Him. If He is Lord, then I am the doulos, I am the slave, I am the bond slave. And it is important that I establish this relationship with Him as Lord and servant.

Jesus said, "Why do you call me Lord, Lord and yet you don't do the things I command you?" That is inconsistency. And yet, how inconsistent people are calling him Lord, and yet not obeying His commands. And so it is important that we realize that this is a title, not a name. And that we come into that relationship with Him as Lord. "For if thou shalt confess with thy mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the mouth confession is made unto salvation" ( Romans 10:9-10 ). Confessing what? Jesus is Lord. But it can't be an empty confession, because many people come in that day saying, "Lord, Lord open to us." And He will say, "I never knew you. What do you mean, 'Lord, Lord'? You never served Me." "Oh, but I called You Lord all of my life." "Yes, but you never served Me." Title, relationship, don't take it lightly or loosely.

Now Paul gets immediately into the issues that he wants to talk to them about.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places ( Ephesians 1:3 )

And there you have it:

in Christ ( Ephesians 1:3 ):

Notice, first of all, that he is thanking God for the spiritual blessings. There is an awful lot, in fact, too much talk today about material blessings. And those that are going around advocating how that every saint of God should experience all kinds of material blessings and the testimonies are of the material blessings. Sometimes I don't know if I am in an Amway meeting or a church service as people testify of the material blessings. Paul is thanking God for the spiritual blessings. And when you hear a person giving thanks to God, note what he is thanking God for, because it can surely indicate the person's place spiritually. If a person is really walking after the Spirit and is interested in things of the Spirit, he is going to be thanking God for the spiritual blessings. But if a person is a materialist and is very interested in the material things, he is going to be talking always about the material blessings. "But beware of those," the Bible says, "who declared that godliness is a way to material prosperity, from such turn away." He is thanking God for the spiritual blessings.

And he is going to spend the first three chapters of Ephesians sort of enumerating these spiritual blessings that we have in and through Jesus Christ. He is going to tell you for three chapters now what God has done for you.

I think that one of the greatest problems in the church today arises from the fact that in the church we are always hearing what we ought to be doing for God. I grew up on that kind of a diet. Every service that I attended, it seems, I was being told what I ought to be doing for God, and I wasn't doing what I ought to be doing for God. And I was very miserable and I felt convicted constantly, because I was failing. I ought to be doing more for God, I ought to be doing this for God, and the other thing for God, all I ought to be doing for God. There were many things I wanted to do, but I just was weak. I ought to be praying more, and so I go down on Sunday night, and I'd pray, "God, I am going to pray more this week." But I didn't. Then I would feel guilty, and next Sunday night I would go back and repent for not praying more last week, and, "This next week I will do it, Lord." But every Sunday night there was repentance for my failures this last week. I ought to be reading the Bible more, "God, I am going to read the Bible more," but I didn't. I wanted to. I ought to be witnessing more. But I didn't. Always feeling guilty because I was failing to be or to do all that I ought to be doing for God. Half of the problem was that I didn't know how. For years in my ministry I followed the pattern that I knew by growing up. I was telling the people constantly what they ought to be doing for God.

First many years of my ministry I was always half mad with the people. Because I wanted to be an evangelist, because that is what the denomination recognized. I wanted to see souls saved, because the first thing I had to report on my report every month was how many people were saved this month. Terrible to put zeros in there. The hierarchy, the bishops will never recognize you unless you have converts. And so I had prepared some of the most fantastic evangelistic sermons. I mean, they could convince the hardest sinner that he ought to commit his life to Jesus Christ. And I would go to church all supercharged with this powerful dynamic message, I mean no sinner can reject this message. And I would get to church and I would look around, and there wouldn't be a sinner in the house. I knew everybody by first name. What are you going to do? No sinners to preach this powerful message to. Can't change my message now. I don't have anything else to preach. I will have to preach this powerful salvation message to all of these saints. That is frustrating. And I let my frustration be known by laying it on the saints. I put a little addendums to my message, of how they had so failed God, that if they were doing what they should be doing this church would be full of people tonight. Sinners to hear the gospel message. "You should have your neighbors with you this evening." And I would really lay it on the poor saints, and their heads would go down, down, down. I was laying the lash across their backs, beating them, total failures in their Christian walk. I have got to preach this powerful salvation to saints, that is not fair.

So I developed a congregation of frustrated, guilt-ridden saints. And I would make my appeal to reconsecrate your life to Jesus, at least I could get people forward. Oh, God bless. You notice I dedicated my last book to those people way back when. Those blessed saints that endured my whippings every Sunday, and came back for more--that is the surprising thing. As their head would go down and they'd feel guilty, "Yes, I have failed God. Oh, I am so sorry, Lord. I should be doing more for You. I know I should. But, God, I don't know how. This dumb pastor isn't teaching me anything besides salvation." It was really my fault. I never took them beyond salvation. I never brought them into the walk in the Spirit, in the life of the Spirit, into growth and maturity in the Word.

One day God changed my ministry. I became a pastor-teacher, got rid of my evangelistic sermons and started to feed His sheep, to make them strong, and there was a dramatic change in my own ministry. As I quit beating the sheep and started feeding the sheep, the sheep started getting strong. They started getting healthy, and you know what happened? As they got strong and healthy, they started to reproduce. They now have something to share with their neighbors. Christ became their life. Witnessing wasn't something they were doing anymore, it was something that they were. Their lives changed by the Word of God and the power of the Spirit. They became witnesses, and the effect of it was that their witness began to go out throughout the neighborhood, and their neighbors began to come and be saved. And the church began to be blessed and grow.

The church has been emphasizing much too long what you ought to be doing for God, the Bible doesn't emphasize that. The Bible emphasizes what God has done for you. "Thanks be unto God who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings," and he takes three chapters now to tell you all that God has done for you. And it is not until he has told you for three chapters what God has done for you that he turns around then and says, "Now walk worthy of this glorious calling." He doesn't tell you what you ought to be doing for God until, first of all, establishing for you what God has done for you. And that is the proper order, because you can't be what you ought to be without that which God has already done for us. In other words, God's work has to be first in my life.

And in the New Testament, the order is always that way. You will never find the reversed order. Before what you should be doing for God is always what God has done for you. "Thank God," Peter said, "that we have been born again into a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, that fades not away, that is reserved in heaven for you who are kept by the power of God" ( 1 Peter 1:3-5 ). All of this is what God has done for you. Thanks be unto God, we have been born again to this living hope because Jesus rose from the dead. We have an inheritance, incorruptible, undefiled, fades not away. That is all what God has done for you. Reserved in heaven for you who are kept by the power of God, it is God that is keeping you.

Well, you say, "Don't I have anything to do?" Yea, through faith just believe it, that's all He requires. For you to believe that work that He has done for you. And so, we sought to follow the New Testament pattern, declaring the glorious works of God in our behalf.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessings, in these heavenlies in Christ Jesus. Starting off now,

According as he hath chosen us in him ( Ephesians 1:4 )

God chose me. That thrills me. It used to scare me. I used to argue against that. That isn't fair that God should choose. I didn't like the doctrine of divine election. I don't know why I didn't, inasmuch as He elected me. But somehow my rational mind was wrestling with that. I am glad that God gave me the choice. I appreciate this capacity of choice. I recognize the awesome responsibility that goes with it. But I am glad that God gave me the opportunity to choose the one that I was going to spend the rest of my life with. I would have just hated to have someone dumped on me. I appreciate that choice. But I would deny God that same right. God, You don't have a right to choose who You want to spend eternity with.

"According as He has chosen us." It is interesting that Paul has that at the top of his list. And I think that it is appropriate. The top of our list should be the fact that God chose us. What a blessing, what a glorious blessing that God should choose me to spend eternity with Him. Now the amazing thing is, when God chose me, and this gives us a little clue in the whole thing,

chosen us in him before the foundation of the world ( Ephesians 1:4 ),

Now God didn't choose me after I decided to clean up my act and live for Him. God didn't say, "Oh, all right, I will chose him." God chose me before the foundations of the world. Now, that gives you the key into God's choices. Having chosen me before the foundation of the world indicates that He chose me according to His foreknowledge. Because God knows all things, He will never learn anything new. If He can learn anything new, then He doesn't know all things. James said, "Known unto Him are all things from the beginning." So it is according to His foreknowledge, because He knew in advance. He chose me on the basis of His foreknowledge.

Now, this is where we have difficulty with the concept of the foreknowledge of God and predestination, and election, and chosen in Him. We have problems because we can't think with that capacity, or with that advantage. It must be . . . I don't even know if you have to think when you have that advantage. You know everything. And on the basis of what God knew, from the beginning He made His choices.

Now imagine if you had that kind of capacity that you knew everything in advance before it ever happened. You knew exactly how it was going to turn out. You could sure go back and improve your lot, couldn't you? I have made some choices in my life that I was sorry that I made afterwards. I have made some poor decisions in my life. I sold too quickly. I bought at the wrong time. Oh, if I only had foreknowledge when I made my decisions I wouldn't have chosen the losers. That would be sort of stupid to choose losers, wouldn't it? If you knew in advance. If you knew who was going to win the ball game. Or better yet, you could go to the racetracks with this kind of knowledge. Imagine what you could do, having foreknowledge, knowing every horse what he was going to do in that race, and you would go to the racetrack with this kind of knowledge. Now, if you could, do you think you would go there and pick out a ticket of losers? I don't know what you do at racetracks. Would you pick out a bunch of losers? You would be stupid if you did. Of course, you wouldn't. You would pick the winners, because you know in advance who is going to win the race. What the outcome is going to be. And so you make your choices predicated on what the outcome is, because you already know in advance what it is going to be. That is just using your head.

Now that is what thrills me about God choosing me. Because He don't choose no losers. God has only chosen winners. And by virtue of the fact that I have been chosen, that ensures that I am going to win. Chosen in Him before the foundations of the world. I derive tremendous comfort from that. You may say, "Well, that isn't fair that God can choose, because if He chooses who is going to be saved, then He has also chosen who is going to be lost." It doesn't say that, does it? You are adding to the scripture. Well, that is a natural assumption. Not necessarily.

The fact that God foreknows those that are going to be saved and chooses them does not preclude any man from coming, because the scripture says, "Whosoever will, may come and drink of the water of life freely" ( Revelation 22:17 ). And not one person has ever come to God and been turned back by God. God says, "Well, let Me see. I'm sorry, your name is not on the list. Too bad, you seem like a very nice fellow. I would like to save you, but there was a slip up in the records someplace. I guess you just can't make it." Predestination, divine election never precludes any man. You say, "But I don't think that I like that God can make these choices. Because, what if He didn't choose me?" Well, how do you know He didn't choose you? "Well, I am not a Christian." Well, why aren't you a Christian? "Well, I don't want to be." Well then, maybe He didn't choose you and it's sort of sad. But you can find out whether or not He chose you by just accepting Jesus Christ. And you will discover He chose you before the foundation of the world. You see, if there is any question in it, you can answer the question tonight. You can just say, "Lord, come into my life. I am going to be a Christian. I am going to follow Jesus Christ." And you will discover the minute that you do, that God chose you from the foundation of the world. He says, "I've been waiting for this. Great to have you on board; come on in." And then He'll show you, "I chose you, here you are. I knew exactly the time, and the whole situation. Here it is, you were chosen before the foundation of the world."

"Yea, but what if I don't want to come?" Well then again I say, it's tough, but you can't blame God. Because God has opened the door to you. And God has given you the opportunity, and God has called you to come. So though God has chosen those, still He has left the door open so that it becomes your choice also. Though God already knows the choice you are going to make. But you are the one that makes the choice, but God in all of His wisdom knows the choices each person is going to make. But He doesn't make the choice for you. He only knows in advance that which you are going to choose.

We were chosen before the foundation of the world,

that we should be holy and without blame before him in love ( Ephesians 1:4 ):

Oh God, help me . . . we have got two chapters to go and I am just plotting. But every verse just opens up such a new, rich dimension. It is hard to just pass over it.

What has God chosen for you? That you should stand before Him holy and without blame. In Jude we read, "Now unto Him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory, with exceeding joy" ( Jude 1:24 ). One of these days my name is going to be called, and I am going to stand out, and God is going to look at me, and Jesus is going to step up and say, "Father, one of mine." In Christ, holy, without blame. "He is innocent Father. He is without blame. He is faultless." He is going to present me faultless. How? Because He is going to present me in Him. It is in Christ that I have this standing before God of faultless, without blame, holy. That isn't me, that isn't my works, that isn't my efforts; that is the way God is going to receive me in Christ Jesus.

That is the way Jesus is going to present me to the Father, for He has taken all of my blame. He has taken all of my sin, and He has paid the price and the penalty, and He is going to present me in His righteousness. For God made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God through Him.

Having predestinated us ( Ephesians 1:5 ),

God's predestined plan for our lives.

that we should be adopted as His children ( Ephesians 1:5 ),

Now, as we were going through Romans, we pointed out the fact that we have been adopted as the sons of God. Jesus is the only begotten Son of God, but God has predestined that we should become the adopted children by Christ Jesus.

according to the good pleasure of his will ( Ephesians 1:5 ),

Now, this is a phrase you are going to find repeated, and it is an important phrase to understand. "The good pleasure of His will."

In Rev 4:11 the elders declare to God, "Thou art worthy to receive glory and honor: for thou hast created all things, and for Your good pleasure they are and were created." The good pleasure of His will. God has chosen you. God has predestined you to be His children that He might receive pleasure from your willful obedience to His will. That you might be faithful, obedient children in which the Father can take pride.

You remember when Job was there accusing before God, the saints. Remember in the book of Job? The sons of God were presenting themselves to God. Satan also came with them and said, "Hey, where have you been, man? I have been cruising around the world. Oh, hey did you notice that one fellow Job? Good man, isn't he? Perfect, upright, he loves good, and hates evil. Yea, I have noticed that guy, but You put a hedge around him. I can't get close to him. And you have so blessed that guy, he is so wealthy. Who wouldn't serve You if You give them all of that kind of stuff? Anybody would serve You. He doesn't really love You; he just loves the perks he is receiving. You let me at that guy and I can make him curse You to Your face."

God said, "Well, have a go at it, but don't touch his life." And then Job went through the stripping process, family, possessions, friends. And it came another time when the sons of God were presenting themselves before God, Satan also came with them, and God said, "Where have you been?" And Satan said, "Going up and down the earth, to and fro through it." "Well, have you seen my servant Job?" After Satan has stripped him of everything, he lay on the ground naked, destitute, and he said, "Naked I came into the world, naked I am going out. The Lord gives, the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." And in all of these things he didn't curse God, or charge God foolishly. Now God is rubbing it in, "Have you noticed my servant Job? The man loves good; hates evil. My boy." God was proud, taking pleasure, and that is what God desires to do in your life--to take pleasure for your love and your obedience to Him.

"According to the good pleasure of His will,"

To the praise of the glory of his grace ( Ephesians 1:6 ),

That God might receive praise and glory because of His grace.

wherein he hath made us ( Ephesians 1:6 )

And the next blessing:

accepted in the beloved ( Ephesians 1:6 ):

God has accepted me in Christ. Now, I have no acceptance before God in myself. I can't go up and say, "Hey, God. I am Chuck Smith, here is my card. I want in. I want you to accept me, God, because I really tried." I have no acceptance in myself. I am only accepted in Christ, accepted in the beloved. When I stand before God, I will stand before Him in Christ, and as such, will be accepted in the beloved.

In whom we have redemption through his blood ( Ephesians 1:7 ),

So the next blessing. In whom, in Christ we have redemption through His blood,

the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace ( Ephesians 1:7 );

I almost spoke on this subject this morning. I am just going to bypass the temptation to speak on it tonight. In whom we have redemption through His blood, the idea of redemption is that of purchasing something back. The idea here is to purchase a slave off the market who cannot pay his debts. He has been sold into slavery, because of his inability to pay his debts. And someone now has come along and paid his debt for him, has redeemed him. I owed a debt I could not pay. I was sold into the slavery of sin. But Jesus paid the debt that I owed. He redeemed me from the slavery to the life of the flesh that I might become a child of God, forgiven through the blood of Jesus Christ. Oh, how glorious, the forgiveness of my sins according to the riches of His grace.

Wherein he has abounded [that is, His grace has abounded] toward us in all wisdom and prudence; having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in himself ( Ephesians 1:8-9 ):

Again, the good pleasure of God, the purposes of God. And in this He has made known to us the mystery of His will. What is it? That Christ in you is your hope of glory.

That in the dispensation of the fullness of the time ( Ephesians 1:10 )

That is, when the whole cycle is complete and the history of man has concluded,

that he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him ( Ephesians 1:10 ):

God's intention of bringing the whole universe together again into obedience and in subjection to Jesus Christ. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. There was only one government in the universe. It was the government of God, the government of light and life, and every creature within the universe that was created by God was in harmony with God, in subjection to God, and it was a beautiful, glorious universe of light and life.

But one day, one of God's glorious creatures that was perfect in beauty and perfect in wisdom and perfect in all of his ways, decided that he was going to be equal with God. He was going to exalt himself above the other angels. And was going to be as God. And with that rebellion against the will of God there came a second government in the universe. Satan as its head, the government of death and darkness. A government that is in antagonism to the first government, in rebellion against the first government, and thus, the beginning of this struggle within the universe of the good against the evil.

And we have come into time, born on this planet Earth, which happens to be sort of the center of the conflict. And we are born into a spiritual conflict, and even within us we experience the conflict of the good that I would, I often do not do, and that which I would not do, I find myself doing. And I find myself in this conflict of good and evil. And I look around at this weary world, and I see it in this conflict, and I see the tragic byproducts of the conflict. I see the suffering. I see the wars. I see the struggles. All resulting because of the initial rebellion against God. And man caught up in that rebellion. And not living as God would have him to live upon the world. For as we sang "Love, love, this is your call, love your neighbor as yourself," this is God's command, God's call to us. But men aren't living by that standard, and thus, the conflict. And thus, the miseries of the world around us. It could all be solved if we would just start living as God asks us to live.

But one day, thank God, one day Satan is to be cast into Gehenna, and all of those that have chosen to rebel with him, they will be cast into outer darkness, beyond the farthest galaxy, out into the abysmal darkness beyond the light of any of the universe. Loving darkness rather than light, God accommodates them into the eternal darkness forever.

And within this universe of God, once more there will be just one government. And God will gather together in the fullness of times all things into Christ, and all now in subject to His authority, living in a world, in a universe of peace and glory. All in harmony now with Him, all in sync with Him once more. What a glorious universe that is going to be.

You know, this world wouldn't be a bad place if it weren't for sin. I have seen some really beautiful places. If it weren't for man's corrupting of this planet, it has really some gloriously, beautiful places to see. I have been skin-diving in some fabulously, beautiful places. Just enchanted by the corals, by the various fish and all, and then I see some beer can, and I think, "What a tragedy out here in the Pacific. Some inconsiderate person just polluting, trashing." Man has the capacity of trashing everything, it seems. How glorious to live in a world that will all be in subjection to Jesus Christ. When the fullness of time, the cycle is complete, and God brings it all back together in one in Christ.

"Even in Him:"

In whom also we have obtained an inheritance ( Ephesians 1:11 ),

Incorruptible, undefiled, fades not away, reserved in heaven for you. If we are children of God, then we are heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ. And it is through Jesus Christ that I have become an heir to the glorious, eternal kingdom of God and to the riches of that kingdom. They are mine, and I shall enjoy them, world without end.

"In whom also we have this glorious inheritance,"

being predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his own will ( Ephesians 1:11 ):

God doesn't have to ask counselor advice of anybody. He does it all according to His own will. His purposes which He has purposed, they shall come to pass. They shall stand. God's purposes cannot be defeated. That which God has purposed shall be. Thank God He has purposed that I should share with Him in that glorious kingdom. Oh thank God for His purposes. The eternal purposes of God which He has purposed in Himself after the counsel of His own will.

That we should be to the praise of his glory, because of our trust in Jesus Christ ( Ephesians 1:12 ).

When you trust in His Son Jesus, God just says, "Oh, look at them, look at the trust they have." Now, many times this trust is tested. Am I going to trust in Jesus when things go bad? Do I only trust in Him when things are rosy and things are going great? I say, "Oh, man, life is sweet. Life is wonderful. Lord, I trust You for everything." But do I trust Him when it gets tough? Do I trust Him only when I can understand what He is doing? Can I trust Him when I don't understand? Now, many times God places me in situations that I don't understand to see if my trust is really genuine. And as I trust in Him in those dark places, in the places of suffering, in the places of questions, when I trust Him in those places, actually, it brings greater praise to His grace than when I only trust Him in the good times. My trust in Jesus.

In whom you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also, after that you believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise ( Ephesians 1:13 ).

Now, Ephesus was a major seaport in which the goods were coming from the eastern part of the world. And the merchants from Rome would go to Ephesus to the large markets, the wholesale markets, and they would purchase these goods coming from the east. And then they would crate them, and then they would put their seal on the crate. The wax. And each one had their ring, their signet ring, and they would press their ring into the wax. It was the sealing of the merchandise. They would put it on the ships, and then the ships would sail to Puteoli, which was the port for Rome in those days. And when the merchandise would arrive in Puteoli, the merchants' servants that were there would go through the goods as they were unloading them and say, "There, there." And they would pick out their merchandise that was sealed with their master's seal. It was the sign of ownership; that is mine, that belongs to me, that is mine, it has my seal. It was the sign of ownership.

God has purchased you. After you believed in Jesus, after you have trusted Him. And He went one step further, He put on me His seal of ownership. I'll tell you, that makes you feel secure. That God has sealed me. I am His; I belong to God. I have got the seal of God upon my life, His Holy Spirit which He has given to me is God's seal of ownership.

In whom we have been sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise.

Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession ( Ephesians 1:14 ),

Or, it is the down payment.

I put an ad in the paper. I am going to sell my car, and you come along and say, "I like that car. I want to buy it. I have to go to the bank and get the money." And I say, "Do you really want to buy it?" "Yes, I want to buy it, but I have to go to the bank and get the money." "Well, then give me a deposit." "Oh no, no, I will buy it. Just take my word for it." "No, no. I want a deposit, because someone might come along in five minutes and offer me cash and have the cash on hand, and I don't want to be holding the car for you, because you may change your mind on the way to the bank, or the bank may not give you the money, you see. And here I might turn away a valid buyer, trying to hold the thing for you. So I want a deposit. If you want me to hold this car for you, I want a deposit. You give me the deposit and the car is yours."

The deposit is what they call earnest money, which means I am really earnest to buy it. I am earnest in my intent to buy your car, or you are showing that you're earnest in your intent to buy my car, as this case happened to turn out. The deposit--it indicates that you are intending to go ahead and complete the purchase.

Now, God has placed His deposit on me. He has purchased me. I have been redeemed through Jesus Christ. He has sealed me, put His mark of ownership upon me, and He has paid the down payment, the deposit, until that day when He takes me into His glorious kingdom and the redemption is complete. You see, this body is not yet redeemed. I have a redeemed spirit living in a corrupted body. This body is decaying; it is going to pieces, but I have a redeemed spirit, and I am waiting for the redemption of the body. That is, the new body that I have, the building of God, not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, and therein, when I enter into that new body and am in the presence of the Lord, my redemption at that point will be complete. So in the meantime, that God might show to you that He is earnest and sincere about His purpose in redeeming you, He gives to you the deposit, the down payment of the Holy Spirit, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession.

unto the praise of his glory ( Ephesians 1:14 ).

One day God is going to complete this transaction of my salvation, when I am there with Him in His glorious kingdom.

Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and your love unto all the saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers ( Ephesians 1:15-16 );

This is the first of the two prayers that Paul has prayed for the Ephesians. And the one thing that I like about Paul's prayers are the directness of his prayers. And the thing that I think is a weakness in prayer, many times, is the lack of directness in prayer. I think that so often we are praying for things that are actually symptoms rather than getting to the heart of the matter. Here is John; he is having a terrible drinking problem. He has become an alcoholic. "Oh God, help John not to drink anymore. It is destroying his life. He is going down the tubes. He is drinking. God, help him not to drink anymore." So John becomes a sober sinner, rather than a drunk sinner. What does he gain outside of sobriety? His real need is salvation. But you see, we are praying for the symptoms.

If you went to a doctor who only treated your symptoms, he would be a quack. "Doctor, I have this dizziness and these reoccurring headaches. The pressure seems to build up." "Well, here, take some aspirin." Two months later, "Doctor, the aspirin just isn't doing it. The pressure seems to be greater and I am having these dizzy spells and I am blacking out." "Well, I will give you some Demerol. You need something more powerful." And if he only went ahead treating the symptoms while you have a tumor developing in the brain and creating pressure, he is a quack.

But so often, as we are praying in situations, we are praying only for the symptoms. We are not getting at the heart. I think it is important in prayer to come directly to the real heart, because as we pray for symptoms, we're so often are just praying that God will correct the symptom, without really getting at the cause.

Like this fellow that at the Saturday night testimony meeting was talking about how he became entangled in the web of sin this week. "And oh, I was determined to live for Jesus, but sin began to weave its web and I got all tangled in the web of sin and I fell again. Oh, I come tonight and repent." And every Saturday night say his testimony, caught in this web, and it entangled me and I fell again and all. And so finally, one time the guy was giving his testimony, and another fellow sitting by him, said, "Oh God, kill the spider." That is getting to the heart of the issue.

We deal so often in just the peripheral issues rather than coming to the heart of the problem. Paul in his prayers comes to the heart of the issue. And that is why I love Paul's prayers. What is he praying for them? First of all,

That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him ( Ephesians 1:17 ):

One of the most important things that any of us can possess is the true knowledge of God. There is so much false concepts concerning God. You cannot know God by searching. That is what the friend of Eliphaz said to Job. "Who by searching can find out God?" You can't. God has revealed Himself, and it is only by revelation that you can really know God, and it is only as the Spirit opens your heart to the revelation that you can really understand God. You cannot in your intellectual quest come to an understanding of God. It takes a revelation by the Spirit of God. No man can come to the Father except the Spirit draw him. No man can even understand the Father, the natural man cannot understand the things of the Spirit, neither can he know them, they are spiritually discerned. God is a Spirit, they that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and truth. That is an impossibility for the natural man. It takes the Spirit working in my heart, the Spirit of revelation in the wisdom and in the knowledge, the understanding of God. And Paul is praying that God might reveal Himself to them by the Holy Spirit. That is the only help and the only hope that I have of ever knowing God, is through revelation of the Spirit.

That the eyes of your understanding [once I have come to understand God] being enlightened; that then I might know what is the hope of his calling ( Ephesians 1:18 ),

Remember the first thing that Paul was excited about, he was chosen in Him. Oh, if you only knew what the hope is for those that God has called to be His children. You would never, never, never have a problem with death again. You would never have a fear of death. You would never grieve for a child of God who died, if you only knew what is the hope of our calling. We have such peculiar concepts of death. "Oh, what a shame, he was so young. He had everything going for him, his whole life in front of him. What a tragedy his life was snuffed out so early." That is because you don't know the whole calling of the believer. Tragedy for us maybe, because we are going to miss him, but not a tragedy for him. He is there in the presence of the Lord. He doesn't have to go through all of the hell and suffering on this earth. Your life on this earth is all of the hell you are ever going to know. For those that aren't saved, their life on this earth is all of the heaven they're ever going to know.

If you only knew what was the hope of your calling. If you only knew what God has in store for His children. If you only knew the glory that awaits us as children of God. You see, it would correct the false attitude that we have towards the world and the things of the world.

Now, rather than Paul saying, "Oh God, they are getting so embroiled in the world with things, help them to begin to have a distaste and all for those things and all." No, he just prays at the heart of the issue. They don't know what God is preparing for them; they are discouraged because they have lost sight of the glory that God is going to reveal in them. And so he gets right to the heart of the issue, "God, enlighten them as to the hope of their calling. Let them know God, what You have got in store for them. They won't become discouraged anymore, Lord. They only know the glorious things that await them when they get to the end of the road."

Alexander the Great was going over the Himalayas as he was moving to conquer India, having conquered the Persian Empire and all of its wealth. And he saw this one young fellow whose horse was heavy laden, and the horse was weakening under the load and beginning to sort of stumble along. And he was doing his best to help the horse, and finally the horse just collapsed. And so this young boy took the load that was on the horse and put it on his shoulders, and he began to strain and struggle with that load. Alexander the Great became curious, what in the world does he have in those sacks that he is trying so hard to carry them on? Why doesn't he just leave them along the path? And he went up to him and he said, "Young man, what in the world do you have in those sacks that you are trying so hard to get to camp with them?" And he looked at him and he said, "Sir, I bear in these sacks the treasures of Alexander the Great." Alexander shook his head and said, "When we make camp, take them to your tent, they now belong to you." Don't you know, they got a lot lighter. All of a sudden it wasn't nearly as heavy, "Great, now it's mine, wow."

The Lord says, "When we make camp it is all yours." The hope of your calling, the glorious, eternal riches of God's kingdom. When I realize what God has waiting for me. I tell you, it gives me the strength, the energy, the courage, all that I need to go on. If you only knew the hope of your calling. If you knew,

what were the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints ( Ephesians 1:18 ),

Now this is interesting. Watch out now. He is not talking about your inheritance here. He is talking about His inheritance, and this to me is a mystery.

If you only knew how much God treasured you. I have never thought much of that. I have thought a lot about my treasures in God. But God treasures me? Do you remember Jesus said, "The kingdom of heaven is liken unto a man going through a field and discovering a treasure." ( Matthew 13:44 ). Now when you attribute that parable, the treasure turns out to be you. And the person who gave everything to buy the field, the world, in order to obtain the treasure is Jesus. He values you so highly that He gave His life to redeem you, to purchase you. You are His treasure.

Peter said, "We are His peculiar treasure," God's treasure. If you only knew how much God treasured you, you would never treat yourself cheaply again. You would never look down at yourself again. "Hey, I am God's treasure. I am God's inheritance. God values me. God treasures me, glory." Personally, I don't think He is getting much of a deal, but I like it that He likes it. The riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints. And then if you only knew the tremendous power that God has made available to you, in your life.

What is the exceeding greatness of his power to us who believe, according to the work of that might power ( Ephesians 1:19 ),

If you only knew the resources that are available to you as a child of God. The resources of God are now yours. The strength of God, the peace of God. They all become yours, these glorious resources. "Oh God, help them to realize the resources they have if they will just call upon You." That power that is available to them. That same power

Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand ( Ephesians 1:20 ),

That same power of the Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is the power of the Spirit that dwells in you and is going to make alive our mortal bodies, by His dwelling in us. If you only knew what the exceeding greatness of the power of the Spirit of God. Power available. It has set Christ,

in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion ( Ephesians 1:20-21 ),

These are rankings of the spirit beings in the universe. Christ is far above all of these spiritual beings, far above every principality and power and might and dominion.

and every name that is named, not only in this world, but in the one to come ( Ephesians 1:21 ):

That place and position that God has given to Jesus Christ. As we come into Philippians, we will find that God has also highly exalted Him, given Him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord, to the glory of God the Father. He has seated Him there in the heavenly places, far above, a name above every name that is named.

And he has put all things under his feet ( Ephesians 1:22 ),

The authority, the power that He has given to Jesus to reign.

and gave him to be the head over all [power that He has given to Jesus to reign. And He gave Him to be the head over all] things to the church ( Ephesians 1:22 ),

Christ, the head of the body of the church, over all things to the church. Christ, the head of the body, the church.

Every month at our church board meeting we begin the meeting with an acknowledgement that Jesus is the head of the body, the church. We are not there to conduct the business as we see fit, we are there to get the mind of the Lord, that He might direct the activities of the church. We are not there to govern the church, we are there to listen to Him, to find out what He wants done. And we seek His council and we seek His advice, for He is the head of all things to the church.

Which is his body, the fullness of him that fills all in all ( Ephesians 1:23 ).

I am not going to try chapter 2. I am just going to go home and have spiritual indigestion all week. I hope you do. I hope you burp in these scriptures all week long. That God will just bring back to your heart and your mind what you are to Him, how valuable you are to Him, how important you are to Him, how much He loves you, how much He has made available to you, how much He has done for you, just because He loves you with such exceeding great love. And that you might just trust in Him, so completely and so fully that God will just take pleasure and glory in your trust in Him and receive praise and glory because of your total trust in His wisdom as you commit your life into His hands. I pray that this will be one of the richest weeks that you have ever had in your walk with Jesus Christ. That you will come to a new appreciation the Holy Spirit and His work within your life, that sealing you, God owns you. That awareness: I am His property. I'm not my own to do with me what I want to do with me. I have been bought with the price; there has been a deposit paid, and I am waiting for Him to redeem that which He purchased. Oh how rich and blessed you are to be a child of God. Nothing in the world can compare with it, the riches of loving Christ Jesus, far greater than gold or wealth, those riches that are yours in Him.

I feel like David when he said, "Lord, what shall I say to these things? I am speechless, God." How can I respond to God when I see all that God has done for me? How do you respond to something like this? How do you say thank you for these kind of things? Just, "Thanks, God. Appreciate that." Sounds really too trite. How can I do less than give Him my best and live for Him completely after all He has done for me? The natural response is just that total, "Here it is, Lord. Just take it. I give it to You." In the hope of the calling, riches of the eternal kingdom of God that are mine when You have completed Your redemptive process.

God bless you and anoint you with His Spirit and fill you with His love, crown you with His glory. In Jesus' name. Amen. "

Contending for the Faith

In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;

In whom we have redemption: In whom? In Christ we have redemption (6:29). At the time Ephesians was written, redeeming someone meant to pay the necessary ransom to set free a prisoner of war, a captive, or a debtor who was sold into slavery. Because the debtor had nothing with which to repay, he had to give the only thing he had left, the remainder of his life, to pay for his debt. Our self-incurred sin-debt results in our slavery to sin (Romans 6:16-17). The appropriate consequence or "wages" of sin is the wrath of God (5:6) and the death of the sinner (Romans 6:23). We cannot buy our way out of our sin problem. We nave nothing to offer to compensate for our debt (Matthew 16:26). Holiness is required for acceptance, and we lost that when we sinned. This is a debt that requires forgiveness. But justice demands a consequence, a "wage" for our deeds (Romans 2:4-11; Colossians 3:25; 1 Peter 1:17). Only because of Jesus can we experience "redemption" (Romans 3:22-26; 1 Corinthians 1:30; Colossians 1:13-14). The holy Christ Jesus is the only one who can pay the price to set us free from our self-inflicted slavery to sin (John 8:34-36). He gave His life, not for His sin but for ours (Hebrews 7:26-27; Hebrews 9:12-14; Hebrews 9:24-26; Hebrews 10:4; Hebrews 10:9-14; Hebrews 10:18).

through his blood: The price to rescue us was the blood of Jesus:

...You were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ (1 Peter 1:18-23 NASB).

In the very beginning, God began showing that blood was the graphic cost to set someone free from sin (Genesis 4:1-5; Hebrews 11:4; Hebrews 9:22), and later this idea was codified into the law of Moses (Leviticus 17:11).

It was to the Ephesian elders that Paul declares:

Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood (Acts 20:28 NASB).

If Jesus’ blood was the price for our ransom, to whom was the price paid? Some of the early Fathers held that the ransom was paid to Satan; other writers held that the ransom was paid to God himself. The first view would erroneously give Satan the upper hand over God; the second view would have God paying himself off. It is better to see the price as paid to satisfy divine justice. When God "redeemed" his people from their oppressor in Egypt (Psalms 78:42-43), he did not "pay off" the pharaoh or anyone else. He simply did what was necessary to secure the release of his people (Boles 206).

We must contact the redeeming blood of Christ in order to receive the forgiveness of our sins.

the forgiveness of sins: "Forgiveness" is the wondrous result of acquiring access to the shed blood of Jesus. Jesus says, speaking of the fruit of the vine in the Lord’s Supper, "...this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins" (Matthew 26:28 NASB). Jesus’s blood is here called the "blood of the covenant," as also in Hebrews 10:29; Hebrews 13:20. When Jesus died, shedding His blood (John 19:34), He made effective a new covenant with mankind (Hebrews 9:15-18). Through this great new covenant, the benefits of the shed blood of Christ are now administered (Hebrews 8:6-13). While Jesus was alive, He could personally forgive sins (Matthew 9:6). After He died, access to the forgiveness He offered is found in the new covenant, which became effective after His death (Hebrews 9:16-17).

according to the riches of his grace: When we reflect on our unworthiness, we may wonder whether the depth of our sin may exhaust the supply of God’s grace and forgiveness. To this insecurity, God replies He has "riches...of grace" (also 2:7).

That our redemption cost so great a price--the blood of Christ--is the supreme evidence of the riches of the divine grace. And the measure of what God does for us is nothing less than the limitless wealth of his loving favor (Lipscomb 21).

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

1. The purpose: glory 1:3-14

In the Greek text Ephesians 1:3-14 are one sentence. The Holy Spirit carried Paul along in his thinking as he contemplated God’s provision so that he moved quickly from one blessing to the next. It is as though he was ecstatically opening a treasure chest, lifting its jewels with his hands, letting them cascade through his fingers, and marveling briefly at them as they caught his eye.

"Each section ends with a note of praise for God (Ephesians 1:6; Ephesians 1:11; Ephesians 1:14), focusing on a different member of the Trinity. After an opening summary of all the saints’ spiritual blessings (Ephesians 1:3), the first section (Ephesians 1:4-6) offers up praise that the Father has chosen us in eternity past; the second section (Ephesians 1:7-11) offers up praise that the Son has redeemed us in the historical past (i.e., at the cross); the third section (Ephesians 1:12-14) offers up praise that the Holy Spirit has sealed us in our personal past, at the point of conversion." [Note: The NET Bible note on 1:3.]

"Normally, after the greeting Paul gives an introductory thanksgiving for the recipients of the letter. In this epistle he changes the order, for before he gives his thanksgiving in Ephesians 1:15-23, he has in Ephesians 1:3-14 a paean of praise for what God has done for the believer." [Note: Hoehner, p. 153.]

". . . Ephesians 1:3-14 is one of the longest psalms of the New Testament, and it is a praise psalm in its form." [Note: Darrell L. Bock, "A Theology of Paul’s Prison Epistles," in A Biblical Theology of the New Testament, p. 309. Cf. Luke 1:46-55; Luke 1:67-79.]

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

The "Him" in view is the beloved Son (Ephesians 1:6). God can pour out His grace on us only because of what Christ has done for us.

Redemption (Gr. apolytrosin) means release from slavery (cf. Ephesians 1:14; Ephesians 4:30; Luke 21:28; Romans 3:24; Romans 8:23; 1 Corinthians 1:30; Colossians 1:14; Hebrews 9:15; Hebrews 11:35). It involves buying back and setting free by paying a ransom price. Jesus Christ has redeemed us from sin (Hebrews 9:15), namely, set us free from slavery to it (cf. Romans 6). The blood, representative of the life, of the perfect Sacrifice had to flow out of Him for this to happen (Romans 3:24-25; cf. Hebrews 9:22).

The immediate result of our liberation from sin’s slavery is that God has forgiven our sins (Gr. paraptoma, false steps, transgressions).

Jesus Christ’s death accomplished our redemption. This was the extent to which God was willing to go for us. God’s grace was that great. The gift of Jesus Christ did not exhaust the supply of God’s grace, however (cf. Philippians 4:19). Rather that gift is an evidence of the extent of God’s favor to us (cf. Ephesians 1:5).

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

The sacrifice of the Song of Solomon 1:7-12

Barclay's Daily Study Bible

Chapter 1

THE PURPOSE OF GOD ( Ephesians 1:1-14 )

1:1-14 This is a letter from Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, through the will of God, to God's consecrated people who live in Ephesus and who are faithful in Jesus Christ. Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Greetings To God's People ( Ephesians 1:1-2)

1:1-2 This is a letter from Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, through the will of God, to God's consecrated people who live in Ephesus and who are faithful in Jesus Christ. Grace be to you, and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul begins his letter with the only two claim's to fame which he possessed. (i) He is an apostle of Christ. When Paul said that there were three things in his mind. (a) He meant that he belonged to Christ. His life was not his own to do with as he liked; he was the possession of Jesus Christ, and he must always live as Jesus Christ wanted him to live. (b) He meant that he was sent out by Jesus Christ. The word apostolos ( G652) comes from the verb apostellein ( G649) , which means to send out. It can be used, for instance, of a naval squadron sent out on an expedition; it can be used of an ambassador sent out by his native country. It describes a man who is sent out with some special task to do. The Christian all through life sees himself as a member of the task force of Christ. He is a man with a mission, the mission of serving Christ within this world. (c) He meant that any power he possessed as a delegated power. The Sanhedrin was the supreme court of the Jews. In matters of religion the Sanhedrin had authority over every Jew throughout the world. When the Sanhedrin came to a decision, that decision was given to an apostolos ( G652) to convey it to the persons whom it concerned and to see that it was carried out. When such an apostolos ( G652) went out, behind him and in him lay the authority of the Sanhedrin, whose representative he was. The Christian is the representative of Christ within the world, but he is not left to carry out that task in his own strength and power; the strength and power of Jesus Christ are with him.

(ii) Paul goes on to say that he is an apostle through the will of God. The accent in his voice here is not that of pride but of sheer amazement. To the end of the day Paul was amazed that God could have chosen a man like him to do his work.

"How Thou canst think so well of us,

And be the God Thou art,

Is darkness to my intellect,

But sunshine to my heart."

A Christian must never be filled with pride in any task that God gives him to do; he must be filled with wonder that God thought him worthy of a share in his work.

Paul goes on to address his letter to the people who live in Ephesus and who are faithful in Jesus Christ. The Christian is a man who always lives a double life. Paul's friends were people who lived in Ephesus and in Christ. Every Christian has a human address and a divine address; and that is precisely the secret of the Christian life. Alister MacLean tells of a lady in the West Highlands who lived a hard life, yet one of perpetual serenity. When asked the secret of it, she answered: "My secret is to sail the seas, and always to keep my heart in port." Wherever the Christian is, he is still in Christ.

Paul begins with his usual greeting. "Grace to you," he says, "and peace." Here are the two great words of the Christian faith.

Grace has always two main ideas in it. The Greek word is charis ( G5485) which could mean charm. There must be a certain loveliness in the Christian life. A Christianity which is unattractive is no real Christianity. Grace always describes a gift; and a gift which it would have been impossible for a man to procure for himself, and which he never earned and in no way deserved. Whenever we mention the word grace, we must think of the sheer loveliness of the Christian life and the sheer undeserved generosity of the heart of God.

When we think of the word peace In connection with the Christian life we must be careful. In Greek the word is eirene ( G1515) , but it translates the Hebrew word shalowm ( H7965) . In the Bible peace is never a purely negative word; it never describes simply the absence of trouble. Shalowm ( H7965) means everything which makes for a man's highest good. Christian peace is something quite independent of outward circumstances. A man might live in ease and luxury and on the fat of the land, he might have the finest of houses and the biggest of bank accounts, and yet not have peace; on the other hand, a man might be starving in prison, or dying at the stake, or living a life from which all comfort had fled, and be at perfect peace. The explanation is that there is only one source of peace in all the world, and that is doing the will of God. When we are doing something which we know we ought not to do or are evading something that we know we ought to do, there is always a haunting dispeace at the back of our minds; but if we are doing something very difficult, even something we do not want to do, so long as we know that it is the right thing there is a certain contentment in our hearts. "In his will is our peace."

The Chosen Of God ( Ephesians 1:3-4)

1:3-4 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all the spiritual blessings which are only to be found in heaven, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we might be holy and blameless before him.

In the Greek the long passage from Ephesians 1:3-14 is one sentence. It is so long and complicated because it represents not so much a reasoned statement as a lyrical song of praise. Paul's mind goes on and on, not because he is thinking in logical stages, but because gift after gift and wonder after wonder from God pass before his eyes. To understand it we must break it up and take it in short sections.

In this section Paul is thinking of the Christians as the chosen people of God, and his mind runs along three lines.

(i) He thinks of the fact of God's choice. Paul never thought of himself as having chosen to do God's work. He always thought of God as having chosen him. Jesus said to his disciples: "You did not choose me, but I chose you" ( John 15:16). Here precisely lies the wonder. It would not be so wonderful that man should choose God; the wonder is that God should choose man.

(ii) Paul thinks of the bounty of God's choice. God chose us to bless us with the blessings which are to be found only in heaven. There are certain things which a man can discover for himself; but there are others which are beyond his obtaining. A man by himself can acquire a certain skill, can achieve a certain position, can amass a certain amount of this world's goods; but by himself he can never attain to goodness or to peace of mind. God chose us to give us those things which he alone can give.

(iii) Paul thinks of the purpose of God's choice. God chose us that we should be holy and blameless. Here are two great words. Holy is the Greek word hagios ( G40) , which always has in it the idea of difference and of separation. A temple is holy because it is different from other buildings; a priest is holy because he is different from ordinary men; a victim is holy because it is different from other animals; God is supremely holy because he is different from men; the Sabbath is holy because it is different from other days. So, then, God chose the Christian that he should be different from other men.

Here is the challenge that the modern Church has been very slow to face. In the early Church the Christian never had any doubt that he must be different from the world; he, in fact, knew that he must be so different that the probability was that the world would kill him and the certainty was that the world would hate him. But the tendency in the modern Church has been to play down the difference between the Church and the world. We have, in effect, often said to people: "So long as you live a decent, respectable life, it is quite all right to become a Church member and to call yourself a Christian. You don't need to be so very different from other people." In fact a Christian should be identifiable in the world.

It must always be remembered that this difference on which Christ insists is not one which takes a man out of the world; it makes him different within the world. It should be possible to identify the Christian in the school, the shop, the factory, the office, the hospital ward, everywhere. And the difference is that the Christian behaves not as any human laws compel him to do but as the law of Christ compels him to do. A Christian teacher is out to satisfy the regulations not of an education authority or a headmaster but of Christ; and that will almost certainly mean a very different attitude to the pupils under his charge. A Christian workman is out to satisfy the regulations not of a Trades Union but of Jesus Christ; and that will certainly make him a very different kind of workman, which may well end in him being so different that he is expelled from his union. A Christian doctor will never regard a sick person as a case, but always as a person. A Christian employer will be concerned with far more than the payment of minimum wages or the creation of minimum working conditions. It is the simple fact of the matter that if enough Christians became hagios ( G40) , different, they would revolutionize society.

Blameless is the Greek word amomos ( G299) . Its interest lies in the fact that it is a sacrificial word. Under Jewish law before an animal could be offered as a sacrifice it must be inspected, and if any blemish was found it must be rejected as unfit for an offering to God. Only the best was fit to offer to God. Amomos ( G299) thinks of the whole man as an offering to God. It thinks of taking every part of our life, work, pleasure, sport, home life, personal relationships, and making them all such that they can be offered to God. This word does not mean that the Christian must be respectable; it means that he must be perfect. To say that the Christian must be amomos ( G299) is to banish contentment with second bests; it means that the Christian standard is nothing less than perfection.

The Plan Of God ( Ephesians 1:5-6)

1:5-6 He determined in his love before time began to adopt us to himself through Jesus Christ, in the good purpose of his will, so that all might praise the glory of the generous gift which he freely gave us in the Beloved.

In this passage Paul speaks to us of the plan of God. One of the pictures that he more than once uses of what God does for men is that of adoption (compare Romans 8:23; Galatians 4:5). God adopted us as sons into his family.

In the ancient world, where Roman law prevailed, this would be an even more meaningful picture than it is to us. For there the family was based on what was called the patria potestas, the father's power. A father had absolute power over his children so long as he and they lived. He could sell his child as a slave or even kill him. Dion Cassius tells us that "the law of the Romans gives a father absolute authority over his son, and that for the son's whole life. It gives him authority, if he so chooses, to imprison him, to scourge him, to make him work on his estate as a slave in fetters, even to kill him. That right still continues to exist even if the son is old enough to play an active part in political affairs, even if he has been judged worthy to occupy the magistrate's office, and even if he is held in honour by all men." It is quite true that, when a father was judging his son, he was supposed to call the adult male members of the family into consultation, but it was not necessary that he should do so.

There are actual instances of a father condemning his son to death. Sallust (The Catiline Conspiracy, 39) tells how Aulus Fulvius joined the rebel Catiline. He was arrested on the journey and brought back. And his father ordered that he should be put to death. The father did this on his own private authority, giving as his reason that "he had begotten him, not for Catiline against his country, but for his country against Catiline."

Under Roman law a child could not possess anything; and any inheritance willed to him, or any gift given to him, became the property of his father. It did not matter how old the son was, or to what honours and responsibility he had risen, he was absolutely in his father's power.

In circumstances like that it is obvious that adoption was a very serious step. It was, however, not uncommon, for children were often adopted to ensure that some family should not become extinct. The ritual of adoption must have been very impressive. It was carried out by a symbolic sale in which copper and scales were used. Twice the real father sold his son, and twice he symbolically bought him back; finally he sold him a third time, and at the third sale he did not buy him back. After this the adopting father had to go to the praetor, one of the principal Roman magistrates, and plead the case for the adoption. Only after all this had been gone through was the adoption complete.

When the adoption was complete it was complete indeed. The person who had been adopted had all the rights of a legitimate son in his new family and completely lost all rights in his old family. In the eyes of the law he was a new person. So new was he that even all debts and obligations connected with his previous family were abolished as if they had never existed.

That is what Paul says that God has done for us. We were absolutely in the power of sin and of the world; God, through Jesus, took us out of that power into his; and that adoption wipes out the past and makes us new.

The Gifts Of God ( Ephesians 1:7-8)

1:7-8 For it is in him that we have a deliverance which cost his life; in him we have received the forgiveness of sins, which only the wealth of his grace could give, a grace which he gave us in abundant supply, and which conferred on us all wisdom and all sound sense.

In this short section we come face to face with three of the great conceptions of the Christian faith.

(i) There is deliverance. The word used is apolutrosis ( G629) . It comes from the verb lutroun ( G3083) , which means to ransom. It is the word used for ransoming a man who is a prisoner of war or a slave; for freeing a man from the penalty of death; for God's deliverance of the children of Israel from their slavery in Egypt; for God's continual rescuing of his people in the time of their trouble. In every case the conception is the delivering of a man from a situation from which he was powerless to liberate himself or from a penalty which he himself could never have paid.

So, then, first of all Paul says that God delivered men from a situation from which they could never have delivered themselves. That is precisely what Christianity did do for men. When Christianity came into this world men were haunted by the sense of their own powerlessness. They knew the wrongness of the life which they were living; and also that they were powerless to do anything about it.

Seneca is full of this kind of feeling of helpless frustration. Men, he said, were overwhelmingly conscious of their inefficiency in necessary things. He said of himself that he was a homo non tolerabilis, a man not to be tolerated. Men, he said with a kind of despair, love their vices and hate them at the same time. What men need, he cried, is a hand let down to lift them up. The highest thinkers in the pagan world knew that they were in the grip of something from which they were helpless to deliver themselves. They needed liberation.

It was just that liberation which Jesus Christ brought. It is still true that he can liberate men from helpless slavery to the things which attract and disgust them at one and the same time. To put it at its simplest, Jesus can still make bad men good.

(ii) There is forgiveness. The ancient world was haunted by the sense of sin. It might well be said that the whole Old Testament is an expansion of the saying, "The soul that sins shall die" ( Ezekiel 18:4). Men were conscious of their own guilt and stood in terror of their god or gods. It is sometimes said that the Greeks had no sense of sin. Nothing could be further from the truth. "Men," said Hesiod, "delight their souls in cherishing that which is their bane." All the plays of Aeschylus are founded on one text--"The doer shall suffer." Once a man had done an evil thing Nemesis was on his heels; and punishment followed sin as certainly as night followed day. As Shakespeare had it in Richard the Third,

"My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,

And every tongue brings in a several tale,

And every tale condemns me for a villain."

If there was one thing which men knew it was the sense of sin and the dread of God. Jesus changed all that. He taught men, not of the hate, but of the love of God. Because Jesus came into the world, men, even in their sin, discovered God's love.

(iii) There is wisdom and sound sense. The two words in Greek are sophia ( G4678) and phronesis ( G5428) , and Christ brought both of them to us. This is very interesting. The Greeks wrote much about these two words; if a man had both, he was perfectly equipped for life.

Aristotle defined sophia ( G4678) as knowledge of the most precious things. Cicero defined it as knowledge of things both human and divine. Sophia ( G4678) was a thing of the searching intellect. Sophia ( G4678) was the answer to the eternal problems of life and death, and God and man, and time and eternity.

Aristotle defined phronesis ( G5428) as the knowledge of human affairs and of the things in which planning is necessary. Plutarch defined it as practical knowledge of the things which concern us. Cicero defined it as knowledge of the things which are to be sought and the things which are to be avoided. Plato defined it as the disposition of mind which enables us to judge what things are to be done and what things are not to be done. In other words, phronesis ( G5428) is the sound sense which enables men to meet and to solve the practical problems of everyday life and living.

It is Paul's claim that Jesus brought us sophia ( G4678) , the intellectual knowledge which satisfies the mind, and phronesis ( G5428) , the practical knowledge which enables us to handle the day to day problems of practical life and living. There is a certain completeness in the Christian character. There is a type of person who is at home in the study, who moves familiarly amidst the theological and philosophical problems, and who is yet helpless and impractical in the ordinary everyday affairs of life. There is another kind of person who claims that he is a practical man, so engaged with the business of living that he has no time to concern himself with the ultimate things. In the light of the gifts of God through Christ, both of these characters are imperfect. Christ brings to us the solution of the problems both of eternity and time.

The Goal Of History ( Ephesians 1:9-10)

1:9-10 This happened because he made known to us the once hidden but now revealed secret of his will, for so it was his good pleasure to do. The secret was a purpose which he formed in his own mind before time began, so that the periods of time should be controlled and administered until they reached their full development, a development in which all things, in heaven and upon earth, are gathered into one in Jesus Christ.

It is now that Paul is really getting to grips with his subject. He says, as the King James Version has it, that God has made known to us "the mystery of his will." The New Testament uses the word mystery in a special sense. It is not something mysterious in the sense that it is hard to understand. It is something which has long been kept secret and has now been revealed, but is still incomprehensible to the person who has not been initiated into its meaning.

Let us take an example. Suppose someone who knew nothing whatever about Christianity was brought into a Communion service. To him it would be a complete mystery; he would not understand in the least what was going on. But to a man who knows the story and the meaning of the Last Supper, the whole service has a meaning which is quite clear. So in the New Testament sense a mystery is something which is hidden to the heathen but clear to the Christian.

What for Paul was the mystery of the will of God? It was that the gospel was open to the Gentiles too. In Jesus God has revealed that his love and care, his grace and mercy, are meant, not only for the Jews, but for all the world.

Now Paul, in one sentence, drops his great thought. Up till now men had been living in a divided world. There was division between the beasts and men. There was division between the Jew and the Gentile, the Greek and the barbarian. All over the world there was strife and tension. Jesus came into the world to wipe out the divisions. That for Paul was the secret of God. It was God's purpose that all the many different strands and all the warring elements in this world should be gathered into one in Jesus Christ.

Here we have another tremendous thought. Paul says that all history has been a working out of this process. He says that through all the ages there has been an arranging and an administering of things that this day of unity should come. The word which Paul uses for this preparation is intensely interesting. It is oikonomia ( G3622) , which literally means household management. The oikonomos ( G3623) was the steward who saw to it that the family affairs ran smoothly.

It is the Christian conviction that history is the working out of the will of God. That is by no means what every historian or thinker has been able to see. Oscar Wilde in one of his epigrams said: "You give the criminal calendar of Europe to your children under the name of history." G. N. Clark, in his inaugural lecture at Cambridge, said: "There is no secret and no plan in history to be discovered. I do not believe that any future consummation could make sense of all the irrationalities of preceding ages. If it could not explain them, still less could it justify them." In the introduction to A History of Europe, H. A. L. Fisher writes: "One intellectual excitement, however, has been denied to me. Men wiser and more learned than I have discovered in history a plot, a rhythm, a predetermined pattern. These harmonies are concealed from me. I can see only one emergency following another, as wave follows upon wave, only one great fact with respect to which, since it is unique, there can be no generalizations, only one safe rule for the historian: that he should recognize in the development of human destinies the play of the contingent and the unforeseen." Andre Maurois says: "The universe is indifferent. Who created it? Why are we here on this puny mud-heap spinning in infinite space? I have not the slightest idea, and I am quite convinced that no one has the least idea."

It so happens that we are living in an age in which men have lost their faith in any purpose for this world. But it is the faith of the Christian that in this world God's purpose is being worked out; and it is the conviction of Paul that that purpose is that one day all things and all men should be one family in Christ. As Paul sees it, that mystery was not even grasped until Jesus came and now it is the great task of the Church to work out God's purpose of unity, revealed in Jesus Christ.

Jew And Gentile ( Ephesians 1:11-14)

1:11-14 It was in Christ, in whom our portion in this scheme was also assigned to us, that it was determined, by the decision of him who controls everything according to the purpose of his good will, that we, who were the first to set our hopes upon the coming of the Anointed One of God, should become the means whereby his glory should be praised. And it was in Christ that it was determined that you too should become the means whereby God's glory is praised, after you had heard the word which brings the truth, the good news of your salvation--that good news in which after you had believed you were sealed with the Holy Spirit, who had been promised to you, the Spirit who is the foretaste and guarantee of all that one day we will inherit, until we enter into that complete redemption which brings complete possession.

Here is Paul's first example of the new unity which Christ brings. When he speaks of us he means his own nation, the Jews; when he speaks of you he means the Gentiles to whom he is writing; and when in the very last sentence he uses we, it is of Jews and Gentiles together that he is thinking.

First of all, Paul speaks of the Jews. They, too, had their portion assigned to them in the plan of God. They were the first to believe in the coming of the Anointed One of God. All through their history they had dreamed of and expected the Messiah. Their part in the scheme of things was to be the nation from whom God's chosen one should come.

Adam Smith, the great economist, argued that the whole pattern of life was founded on what he called the division of labour. He meant that life can only go on when each man has a job and does that job, and when the results of all the jobs are pooled and become the common stock. The shoemaker makes shoes; the baker makes bread; the tailor makes clothes; each has his own job, and each sticks to his own job; and when each efficiently carries out his job the total good of the whole community follows.

What is true of individuals is true also of nations. Each nation has its part in God's scheme of things. The Greeks taught men what beauty of thought and form is. The Romans taught men law and the science of government and administration. The Jews taught men religion. The Jews were the people who were so prepared that from them God's Messiah should come.

That is not to say that God did not prepare other people too. All over the world God had been preparing men and nations so that their mind would be ready to receive the message of Christianity when it came. But the great privilege of the Jewish nation was that they were the first to expect the coming of the Anointed One of God into the world.

Then Paul turns to the Gentiles. In their development he sees two stages.

(i) They received the word; to them the Christian preachers brought the Christian message. That word was two things. First, it was the word of truth; it brought them the truth about God and about the world in which they lived and about themselves. Second, it was good news; it was the message of the love and of the grace of God.

(ii) They were sealed with the Holy Spirit. In the ancient world--it is a custom still followed--when a sack, or a crate, or a package was despatched, it was sealed with a seal, in order to indicate from where it had come and to whom it belonged. The possession of the Holy Spirit is the seal which shows that a man belongs to God. The Holy Spirit both shows us God's will and enables us to do it.

Here Paul says a great thing about the Holy Spirit. He calls the Holy Spirit, as the King James Version has it, the earnest of our redemption. The Greek word is arrabon ( G728) . The arrabon was a regular feature of the Greek business world. It was a part of the purchase price of anything, paid in advance as a guarantee that the rest would in due time be paid. There are many Greek commercial documents still extant in which the word occurs. A woman sells a cow and receives so many drachmae as arrabon ( G728) . Some dancing girls are engaged for a public entertainment and are paid so much in advance. What Paul is saying is that the experience of the Holy Spirit which we have in this world is a foretaste of the blessedness of heaven; and it is the guarantee that some day we will enter into full possession of the blessedness of God.

The highest experiences of Christian peace and joy which this world can afford are only faint foretastes of the joy into which we will one day enter. It is as if God had given us enough to whet our appetites for more and enough to make us certain that some day he will give us all.

THE MARKS OF THE CHURCH ( Ephesians 1:15-23 )

1:15-23 It is because I have heard of your faith in Jesus Christ, and your love to all God's consecrated people, that I never cease to give thanks for you, as I remember you in my prayers. It is the aim of my prayers that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom, the Spirit which brings you new revelation, as you come to know him more and more fully. It is the aim of my prayers that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know what hope his calling has brought to you, what wealth of glory there is in our inheritance among the saints,. what surpassing greatness there is in his power to us who believe with a belief which was wrought by the might of his strength, that power which wrought in Christ to raise him from among the dead, and to set him at God's right hand in the heavenly places, above every rule and authority and power and lordship. above every dignity which is held in honour, not only in this age, but also in the age to come. God subjected all things to him, and he gave him as head above all to the Church, which is his body, the Church which is his complement on earth, the Church which belongs to him who is filling all things in all places.

The supremely important part, the second great step in Paul's argument, lies at the very end of this passage; but there are certain things we must note in the verses which go before.

Here there is set out before us in a perfect summary the characteristics of a true Church. Paul has heard of their faith in Christ and their love to all God's consecrated people. The two things which must characterize any true Church are loyalty to Christ and love to men.

There is a loyalty to Christ which does not issue in love to men. The monks and the hermits had a loyalty to Christ which made them abandon the ordinary activities of life in order to live alone in the desert places. The heresy hunters of the Spanish Inquisition and of many another age had a loyalty to Christ which made them persecute those who thought differently from them. Before Jesus came the Pharisees had a loyalty to God which made them contemptuous of those whom they thought less loyal than themselves.

The true Christian loves Christ and loves his fellow men. More than that, he knows that he cannot show his love to Christ in any other way than by showing his love to his fellow men. However orthodox a Church is, however pure its theology, and however noble its worship and its liturgy, it is not a true Church in the real sense of the term unless it is characterized by love for its fellow men. There are Churches which seldom make any public pronouncement which is not based on censorious criticism. They may be orthodox, but they are not Christian. The true Church is marked by a double love--love for Christ and love for men.

F. W. Boreham quotes a passage from Robert Buchanan's Shadow of the Sword, in which Buchanan describes the Chapel of Hate. "It stood on a bleak and barren moor in Brittany a hundred years ago. It was in ruins; the walls were black and stained with the slime of centuries; around the crumbling altar nettles and rank weeds grew breast high; whilst black mists, charged with rain, brooded night and day about the gloomy scene. Over the doorway of the chapel, but half-obliterated, was its name. It was dedicated to Our Lady of Hate. 'Hither,' says Buchanan, 'in hours of passion and pain, came men and women to cry curses on their enemies--the maiden on her false lover, the lover on his false mistress, the husband on his false wife--praying, one and all, that Our Lady of Hate might hearken, and that the hated one might die within the year.'" And then the novelist adds: "So bright and so deep had the gentle Christian light shone within their minds!"

A chapel of hate is a grim conception; and yet--are we always so very far away from it? We hate the liberals or the radicals; we hate the fundamentalists or the obscurantists; we hate the man whose theology is different from our own; we hate the Roman Catholic or the Protestant as the case may be. We make pronouncements which are characterized, not by Christian charity, but by a kind of condemning bitterness. We would do well to remember every now and then that love of Christ and love of our fellow men cannot exist without each other. Our tragedy is that it is so often true, as Swift once said: "We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another."

PAUL'S PRAYER FOR THE CHURCH ( Ephesians 1:15-23 continued)

In this passage we see what Paul asks for a Church which he loves and which is doing well.

(i) He prays for the Spirit of Wisdom. The word he uses for wisdom is sophia ( G4678) , and we have already seen that sophia ( G4678) is the wisdom of the deep things of God. He prays that the Church may be led deeper and deeper into the knowledge of the eternal truths. If ever that is to happen, certain things are necessary.

(a) It is necessary that we should have a thinking people. Boswell tells us that Goldsmith once said: "As I take my shoes from the shoemaker, and my coat from the tailor, so I take my religion from the priest." There are many who are like that; and yet religion is nothing unless it is a personal discovery. As Plato had it long ago: "The unexamined life is the life not worth living," and the unexamined religion is the religion not worth having. It is an obligation for a thinking man to think his way to God.

(b) It is necessary that we should have a teaching ministry. William Chillingworth said: "The Bible, and the Bible only, is the religion of Protestants." That is true; but so often we would not think so. The exposition of scripture from the pulpit is a first necessity of religious wakening.

(c) It is necessary that we should have a readjusted sense of proportion. It is one of the strange facts of Church life that in Church courts, such as sessions and presbyteries, and even General Assemblies, a score of hours might be given to the discussion of mundane problems of administration for every one given to the discussion of the eternal verities of God.

(ii) Paul prays for a fuller revelation and a fuller knowledge of God. For the Christian growth in knowledge and in grace is essential. Any man who follows a profession knows that he dare not stop studying. No doctor thinks that he has finished learning when he leaves the classrooms of his university. He knows that week by week, and almost day by day, new techniques and treatments are being discovered; and if he wishes to continue to be of service to those in illness and in pain, he must keep up with them. It is so with the Christian. The Christian life could be described as getting to know God better every day. A friendship which does not grow closer with the years tends to vanish with the years. And it is so with us and God.

(iii) He prays for a new realization of the Christian hope. It is almost a characteristic of the age in which we live that it is an age of despair. Thomas Hardy wrote in Tess: "Sometimes I think that the worlds are like apples on our stubbard tree. Some of them splendid and some of them blighted." Then comes the question: "On which kind do we live--a splendid one or a blighted one?" And Tess' answer is: "A blighted one." Between the wars Sir Philip Gibbs wrote: "If I smell poison gas in Edgeware Road, I am not going to put on a gas mask or go to a gas-proof room. I am going out to take a good sniff of it, for I shall know that the game is up." H. G. Wells once wrote grimly: "Man, who began in a cave behind a windbreak, will end in the disease-soaked ruins of a slum." On every side the voice of the pessimist sounds; it was never more necessary to sound the trumpet-call of Christian hope. If the Christian message is true, the world is on the way not to dissolution but to consummation.

(iv) He prays for a new realization of the power of God. For Paul the supreme proof of that power was the resurrection. It proved that God's purpose cannot be stopped by any action of men. In a world which looks chaotic, it is well to realize that God is still in control.

(v) Paul finishes by speaking of the conquest of Christ in a sphere which does not mean so much to us today. As the King James Version has it, God has raised Jesus Christ "far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named." In Paul's day men strongly believed both in demons and in angels; and these words which Paul uses are the titles of different grades of angels. He is saying that there is not a being in heaven or on earth to whom Jesus Christ is not superior. In essence Paul's prayer is that men should realize the greatness of the Saviour God has given to them.

THE BODY OF CHRIST ( Ephesians 1:15-23 continued)

We come to the last two verses of this chapter, and in them Paul has one of the most adventurous and most uplifting thoughts that any man has ever had. He calls the Church by its greatest title--the body of Christ.

In order to understand what Paul means, let us go back to the basic thought of his letter. As it stands, this world is a complete disunity. There is disunity between Jew and Gentile, between Greek and barbarian; there is disunity between different men within the same nation; there is disunity within every man, for in every man the good strives with the evil; there is disunity between man and the beasts; and, above all, there is disunity between man and God. It was Paul's thesis that Jesus died to bring all the discordant elements in this universe into one, to wipe out the separations, to reconcile man to man and to reconcile man to God. Jesus Christ was above all things God's instrument of reconciliation.

It was to bring all things and all men into one family that Christ died. But, clearly, that unity does not as yet exist. Let us take a human analogy. Suppose a great doctor discovers a cure for cancer. Once that cure is found it is there. But before it can become available for everyone, it must be taken out to the world. Doctors and surgeons must know about it and be trained to use it. The cure is there but one man cannot take it out to all the world; a corps of doctors must be the agents whereby it arrives at all the world's sufferers. That precisely is what the Church is to Jesus Christ. It is in Jesus that all men and all nations can become one; but before that can happen they must know about Jesus Christ. And it is the task of the Church to bring that about.

Christ is the head; the Church is the body. The head must have a body through which it can work. The Church is quite literally hands to do Christ's work, feet to run upon his errands, a voice to speak his words.

In the very last phrase of the chapter Paul has two tremendous thoughts. The Church, he says, is the complement of Christ. Just as the ideas of the mind cannot become effective without the work of the body, the tremendous glory which Christ brought to this world cannot be made effective without the work of the Church. Paul goes on to say that Jesus is bit by bit filling all things in all places; and that filling is being worked out by the Church. This is one of the most tremendous thoughts in all Christianity. It means nothing less than that God's plan for one world is in the hands of the Church.

An illustration which is old and hackneyed perfectly sums up this great truth. There is a legend which tells how Jesus went back to heaven after his time on earth. Even in heaven he bore upon him the marks of the Cross. The angels were talking to him and Gabriel said: "Master, you must have suffered terribly for men down there." "I did," said Jesus. "And," said Gabriel, "do they all know about how you loved them and what you did for them?" "O no," said Jesus, "not yet. Just now only a few people in Palestine know." "What have you done," said Gabriel, "to let everyone know about it?" Jesus said: "I have asked Peter and James and John and a few others to make it the business of their lives to tell others about me, and the others still others, and yet others, until the farthest man on the widest circle knows what I have done." Gabriel looked very doubtful, for he knew well what poor stuff men were made of. "Yes," he said, "but what if Peter and James and John grow tired? What if the people who come after them forget? What if away down in the twentieth century people just don't tell others about you? Haven't you made any other plans?" And Jesus answered: "I haven't made any other plans. I'm counting on them." To say that the Church is the Body means that Jesus is counting on us.

-Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT)

Gann's Commentary on the Bible

Ephesians 1:7

    3) v. 7-8 Redemption Is in Christ

In whom -- "The Beloved" that ends Ephesians 1:6, is described as the One "in whom we have redemption.

we have -- εχομεν we have, ^{G2192 V-PAI-1P} "in whom we are having redemption".

we have redemption -- (G629, N-ASF) The verb is a present participle, so it is durative in action, thus, "in whom we are having redemption." The redemption ^{G629 N-ASF} is an abiding fact from the past, through the present, and into the future.

redemption -- The word "redemption" is apolutrôsis which Thayer defines as follows; the verb, "to redeem one by paying the price, to let one go free on receiving the price"; the noun, "a releasing effected by payment of ransom, deliverance, liberation procured by the payment of a ransom."

    The story of redemption can be told in three Greek words; agorazô, "to buy in the slave market" (1 Corinthians 6:20, 1 Corinthians 7:23, 1 Corinthians 7:30, 2 Peter 2:1, Revelation 5:9).

    The Lord Jesus bought us in the slave market of sin, the ransom price, His blood; we are his bondslaves; exagorazô, "to buy out of the slave market, to buy off, to buy for one’s self" (Galatians 3:13, Galatians 4:5).

    The redeemed are the possession of the Lord Jesus forever, and will never be put up for sale in any slave market again; lutroô "to liberate by payment of ransom" (Titus 2:14, 1 Peter 1:18); the redeemed are set free from the guilt and power of sin now, to be finally set free from the presence of sin...

    The particular aspect of redemption spoken of here is redemption from the guilt and condemnation of sin, for the qualifying phrase, "the forgiveness of sins" is added. - Wuest

redemption -- Involves 5 basic matters:

    1) Those in need of redemption - the lost

    2) Someone to do the redeeming - the redeemer

    3) The price for redemption - the ransom

    4) The actual paying of the price - redemption

    5) Those who receive the benefit - the redeemed

through his blood -- The preposition "through" is dia, the preposition of intermediate agency.

blood -- the price paid for our redemption - Acts 20:28; 1 Peter 1:18-19. The out-poured blood of the Son of God at the Cross is the lutron, "the price for redeeming, the ransom," used of the act of buying slaves, of paying the ransom for a life or of captives.

    The "blood" of Christ sums up the whole process of giving up his life. We should not simply think of the red liquid substance of blood, but the entire whole of a life-sacrifice freely surrendered out of love. - WG

forgiveness -- αφεσιν ^G859, The noun aphesis, used in relation to "sins," means "a release, the letting them go as if they had not been committed, thus, forgiveness, a remission of their penalty" (Thayer). Trench says that the image underlying the verb is that of releasing a prisoner (Isaiah 61:1), or letting go, as of a debt (Deuteronomy 15:3).

of sins [our trespasses] -- Hebrews 9:22; Matthew 26:28. παραπτωματων ^{G3900 ;} The particular word for "sins" here is paraptôma, and means, "a fall beside or near something; a lapse or deviation from truth and uprightness, a sin, a misdeed, a trespass."

    (This is a different word from the usual "sin" ἁμαρτία, hamartia; = to miss the mark. And better translated "trespasses" here, Matthew 6:14.)

our -- Notice the plural pronoun article, "our" sins.

riches of his grace -- The degree of this forgiveness was controlled, dominated by the riches, (ploutos) wealth, abundance, plenitude of God’s grace [unmerited favor]. This forgiveness is therefore a complete, an unqualified, an unchanging one, since it is controlled by the plenitude of God’s grace, and that plenitude is infinite in proportion. - Wuest

    RICHES

    1) Grace - Ephesians 1:7; Ephesians 2:7

    2) Glory - Ephesians 1:18; Ephesians 3:16

    3) Mercy - Ephesians 2:4

    4) Unsearchable - Ephesians 3:8

Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

In whom we have redemption through his blood,.... Redemption supposes captivity and slavery, and is a deliverance out of it; God's elect by nature are in bondage to sin, Satan, and the law; through the grace of Christ, they are redeemed from all iniquity; ransomed out of the hands of him that is stronger than they; and are freed from the law, its bondage, curse, and condemnation, and from every other enemy: and this benefit Christ is the author of; he was called to be the Redeemer of his people from all eternity; and he was sent in the fulness of time, to procure the redemption of them; to which he had a right, being their near kinsman; and for which he was every way fit, being God as well as man; and which he has obtained by his obedience, sufferings, and death: and in whom it resides, as in its proper subject and author; who, by imputation, is made redemption to all the chosen ones; for not angels, but men, share in this redemption; and not all men, but elect men; such as are chosen in Christ, predestinated to the adoption of children by him, and who are accepted in the beloved: and this comes to them through the blood of Christ, which was freely shed on the cross to procure it; and was a sufficient ransom, or redemption price; it being not only the same blood with those who are redeemed, but the blood of an innocent person; and not of a mere man, but of one who is truly and properly God, as well as man; see more of this :-. A branch of this redemption follows, or a blessing that comes by it, and along with it,

the forgiveness of sins; of all sins, original and actual, past, present, and to come; and this is through the blood of Christ, which was shed for the same: and yet is

according to the riches of his grace; for God of his rich grace found the ransom price, and gave his Son, as well as he gave himself, his life, a ransom for many; and how much soever it cost Christ to procure redemption and pardon, they are free to his people; who are redeemed without money and price of theirs, and whose sins are forgiven freely for Christ's sake.

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

      3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:   4 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:   5 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,   6 To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.   7 In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;   8 Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence;   9 Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself:   10 That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him:   11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:   12 That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ.   13 In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,   14 Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.

      He begins with thanksgivings and praise, and enlarges with a great deal of fluency and copiousness of affection upon the exceedingly great and precious benefits which we enjoy by Jesus Christ. For the great privileges of our religion are very aptly recounted and enlarged upon in our praises to God.

      I. In general he blesses God for spiritual blessings,Ephesians 1:3; Ephesians 1:3, where he styles him the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; for, as Mediator, the Father was his God; as God, and the second person in the blessed Trinity, God was his Father. It bespeaks the mystical union between Christ and believers, that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is their God and Father, and that in and through him. All blessings come from God as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. No good can be expected from a righteous and holy God to sinful creatures, but by his mediation. He hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings. Note, Spiritual blessings are the best blessings with which God blesses us, and for which we are to bless him. He blesses us by bestowing such things upon us as make us really blessed. We cannot thus bless God again; but must do it by praising, and magnifying, and speaking well of him on that account. Those whom God blesses with some he blesses with all spiritual blessings; to whom he gives Christ, he freely gives all these things. It is not so with temporal blessings; some are favoured with health, and not with riches; some with riches, and not with health, c. But, where God blesses with spiritual blessings, he blesses with all. They are spiritual blessings in heavenly places that is, say some, in the church, distinguished from the world, and called out of it. Or it may be read, in heavenly things, such as come from heaven, and are designed to prepare men for it, and to secure their reception into it. We should hence learn to mind spiritual and heavenly things as the principal things, spiritual and heavenly blessings as the best blessings, with which we cannot be miserable and without which we cannot but be so. Set not your affections on things on the earth, but on those things which are above. These we are blessed with in Christ; for, as all our services ascend to God through Christ, so all our blessings are conveyed to us in the same way, he being the Mediator between God and us.

      II. The particular spiritual blessings with which we are blessed in Christ, and for which we ought to bless God, are (many of them) here enumerated and enlarged upon. 1. Election and predestination, which are the secret springs whence the others flow, Ephesians 1:4; Ephesians 1:5; Ephesians 1:11. Election, or choice, respects that lump or mass of mankind out of which some are chosen, from which they are separated and distinguished. Predestination has respect to the blessings they are designed for; particularly the adoption of children, it being the purpose of God that in due time we should become his adopted children, and so have a right to all the privileges and to the inheritance of children. We have here the date of this act of love: it was before the foundation of the world; not only before God's people had a being, but before the world had a beginning; for they were chosen in the counsel of God from all eternity. It magnifies these blessings to a high degree that they are the products of eternal counsel. The alms which you give to beggars at your doors proceed from a sudden resolve; but the provision which a parent makes for his children is the result of many thoughts, and is put into his last will and testament with a great deal of solemnity. And, as this magnifies divine love, so it secures the blessings to God's elect; for the purpose of God according to election shall stand. He acts in pursuance of his eternal purpose in bestowing spiritual blessings upon his people. He hath blessed us--according as he hath chosen us in him, in Christ the great head of the election, who is emphatically called God's elect, his chosen; and in the chosen Redeemer an eye of favour was cast upon them. Observe here one great end and design of this choice: chosen--that we should be holy; not because he foresaw they would be holy, but because he determined to make them so. All who are chosen to happiness as the end are chosen to holiness as the means. Their sanctification, as well as their salvation, is the result of the counsels of divine love.--And without blame before him--that their holiness might not be merely external and in outward appearance, so as to prevent blame from men, but internal and real, and what God himself, who looketh at the heart, will account such, such holiness as proceeds from love to God and to our fellow-creatures, this charity being the principle of all true holiness. The original word signifies such an innocence as no man can carp at; and therefore some understand it of that perfect holiness which the saints shall attain in the life to come, which will be eminently before God, they being in his immediate presence for ever. Here is also the rule and the fontal cause of God's election: it is according to the good pleasure of his will (Ephesians 1:5; Ephesians 1:5), not for the sake of any thing in them foreseen, but because it was his sovereign will, and a thing highly pleasing to him. It is according to the purpose, the fixed and unalterable will, of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will (Ephesians 1:11; Ephesians 1:11), who powerfully accomplishes whatever concerns his elect, as he has wisely and freely fore-ordained and decreed, the last and great end and design of all which is his own glory: To the praise of the glory of his grace (Ephesians 1:6; Ephesians 1:6), that we should be to the praise of his glory (Ephesians 1:12; Ephesians 1:12), that is, that we should live and behave ourselves in such a manner that his rich grace might be magnified, and appear glorious, and worthy of the highest praise. All is of God, and from him, and through him, and therefore all must be to him, and centre in his praise. Note, The glory of God is his own end, and it should be ours in all that we do. This passage has been understood by some in a very different sense, and with a special reference to the conversion of these Ephesians to Christianity. Those who have a mind to see what is said to this purpose may consult Mr. Locke, and other well-known writers, on the place. 2. The next spiritual blessing the apostle takes notice of is acceptance with God through Jesus Christ: Wherein, or by which grace, he hath made us accepted in the beloved,Ephesians 1:6; Ephesians 1:6. Jesus Christ is the beloved of his Father (Matthew 3:17), as well as of angels and saints. It is our great privilege to be accepted of God, which implies his love to us and his taking us under his care and into his family. We cannot be thus accepted of God, but in and through Jesus Christ. He loves his people for the sake of the beloved. 3. Remission of sins, and redemption through the blood of Jesus, Ephesians 1:7; Ephesians 1:7. No remission without redemption. It was by reason of sin that we were captivated, and we cannot be released from our captivity but by the remission of our sins. This redemption we have in Christ, and this remission through his blood. The guilt and the stain of sin could be no otherwise removed than by the blood of Jesus. All our spiritual blessings flow down to us in that stream. This great benefit, which comes freely to us, was dearly bought and paid for by our blessed Lord; and yet it is according to the riches of God's grace. Christ's satisfaction and God's rich grace are very consistent in the great affair of man's redemption. God was satisfied by Christ as our substitute and surety; but it was rich grace that would accept of a surety, when he might have executed the severity of the law upon the transgressor, and it was rich grace to provide such a surety as his own Son, and freely to deliver him up, when nothing of that nature could have entered into our thoughts, nor have been any otherwise found out for us. In this instance he has not only manifested riches of grace, but has abounded towards us in all wisdom and prudence (Ephesians 1:8; Ephesians 1:8), wisdom in contriving the dispensation, and prudence in executing the counsel of his will, as he has done. How illustrious have the divine wisdom and prudence rendered themselves, in so happily adjusting the matter between justice and mercy in this grand affair, in securing the honour of God and his law, at the same time that the recovery of sinners and their salvation are ascertained and made sure! 4. Another privilege which the apostle here blesses God for is divine revelation--that God hath made known to us the mystery of his will (Ephesians 1:9; Ephesians 1:9), that is, so much of his good-will to men, which had been concealed for a long time, and is still concealed from so great a part of the world: this we owe to Christ, who, having lain in the bosom of the Father from eternity, came to declare his will to the children of men. According to his good pleasure, his secret counsels concerning man's redemption, which he had purposed, or resolved upon, merely in and from himself, and not for any thing in them. In this revelation, and in his making known unto us the mystery of his will, the wisdom and the prudence of God do abundantly shine forth. It is described (Ephesians 1:13; Ephesians 1:13) as the word of truth, and the gospel of our salvation. Every word of it is true. It contains and instructs us in the most weighty and important truths, and it is confirmed and sealed by the very oath of God, whence we should learn to betake ourselves to it in all our searches after divine truth. It is the gospel of our salvation: it publishes the glad tidings of salvation, and contains the offer of it: it points out the way that leads to it; and the blessed Spirit renders the reading and the ministration of it effectual to the salvation of souls. O, how ought we to prize this glorious gospel and to bless God for it! This is the light shining in a dark place, for which we have reason to be thankful, and to which we should take heed. 5. Union in and with Christ is a great privilege, a spiritual blessing, and the foundation of many others. He gathers together in one all things in Christ,Ephesians 1:10; Ephesians 1:10. All the lines of divine revelation meet in Christ; all religion centres in him. Jews and Gentiles were united to each other by being both united to Christ. Things in heaven and things on earth are gathered together in him; peace made, correspondence settled, between heaven and earth, through him. The innumerable company of angels become one with the church through Christ: this God purposed in himself, and it was his design in that dispensation which was to be accomplished by his sending Christ in the fulness of time, at the exact time that God had prefixed and settled. 6. The eternal inheritance is the great blessing with which we are blessed in Christ: In whom also we have obtained an inheritance,Ephesians 1:11; Ephesians 1:11. Heaven is the inheritance, the happiness of which is a sufficient portion for a soul: it is conveyed in the way of an inheritance, being the gift of a Father to his children. If children, then heirs. All the blessings that we have in hand are but small if compared with the inheritance. What is laid out upon an heir in his minority is nothing to what is reserved for him when he comes to age. Christians are said to have obtained this inheritance, as they have a present right to it, and even actual possession of it, in Christ their head and representative. 7. The seal and earnest of the Spirit are of the number of these blessings. We are said to be sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise,Ephesians 1:13; Ephesians 1:13. The blessed Spirit is holy himself, and he makes us holy. He is called the Spirit of promise, as he is the promised Spirit. By him believers are sealed; that is, separated and set apart for God, and distinguished and marked as belonging to him. The Spirit is the earnest of our inheritance,Ephesians 1:14; Ephesians 1:14. The earnest is part of payment, and it secures the full sum: so is the gift of the Holy Ghost; all his influences and operations, both as a sanctifier and a comforter, are heaven begun, glory in the seed and bud. The Spirit's illumination is an earnest of everlasting light; sanctification is an earnest of perfect holiness; and his comforts are earnests of everlasting joys. He is said to be the earnest, until the redemption of the purchased possession. It may be called here the possession, because this earnest makes it as sure to the heirs as though they were already possessed of it; and it is purchased for them by the blood of Christ. The redemption of it is mentioned because it was mortgaged and forfeited by sin; and Christ restores it to us, and so is said to redeem it, in allusion to the law of redemption. Observe, from all this, what a gracious promise that is which secures the gift of the Holy Ghost to those who ask him.

      The apostle mentions the great end and design of God in bestowing all these spiritual privileges, that we should be to the praise of his glory who first trusted in Christ--we to whom the gospel was first preached, and who were first converted to the faith of Christ, and to the placing of our hope and trust in him. Note, Seniority in grace is a preferment: Who were in Christ before me, says the apostle (Romans 16:7); those who have for a longer time experienced the grace of Christ are under more special obligations to glorify God. They should be strong in faith, and more eminently glorify him; but this should be the common end of all. For this we were made, and for this we were redeemed; this is the great design of our Christianity, and of God in all that he has done for us: unto the praise of his glory,Ephesians 1:14; Ephesians 1:14. He intends that his grace and power and other perfection should by this means become conspicuous and illustrious, and that the sons of men should magnify him.

Spurgeon's Verse Expositions of the Bible

Exposition of Ephesians 1:1-23

1, 2. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus; grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. 3, 4. 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, 4. That we should be holy and without blame before him in love: 5. Having predestinated us 5. Unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, 6. To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. 7, 8. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence; 9, 10. Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself; that in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all thing in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him: 11. In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, 11, 12. Being predestined according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will: that we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ. 13, 14. In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with the holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory. 15-23. Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and love unto all the saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers; that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him; the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; they ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward, who believe; according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: and hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things in the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all. "How Paul glows as he writes on this great theme! He waxes warm, and rises to an enthusiasm of eloquence. We could not stop to explain his words; that were to spoil their mystic poetry. Oh, to have a heart that can glorify Christ as Paul did! Truly, if we know ourselves to be one with Christ, and know the privileges which come to us through that blessed gate, we may indeed extol him with all our heart and soul.

HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK" 232; Psalms 103:1-22 , Version I.; 219; and the Doxology.

Spurgeon's Verse Expositions of the Bible

'Redemption Through Blood, the Gracious Forgiveness of Sins' and 'The Treasure of Grace'

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A Sermon

(No. 2207)

Intended for Reading on Lord's-Day, June 7th, 1891,

Delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

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"In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace." Ephesians 1:7 .

READ THE CHAPTER, and carefully note how the apostle goes to the back of everything, and commences with those primeval blessings which were ours before time began. He dwells on the divine love of old, and the predestination which came out of it; and all that blessed purpose of making us holy and without blame before him in love, which was comprehended in the covenant of grace. It does us good to get back to these antiquities to these eternal things. You shake off something of the dust of time, as you no longer walk adown its restless ages; but traverse the glorious eternity, where centuries seem no more than fallen leaves by the way. Thousands of years are less than a drop of a bucket compared with the lifetime of the Almighty. How sublime a thing to climb, in contemplation, to the everlasting God and the eternal council-chamber, and to see the heart of love beating towards the chosen people before all time, and the infinite mind of God devising and purposing their good! This is an exceeding great refreshment, and the wonder is that so few believers dare to ascend this sublime hill of the Lord, there to commune with him that was, and is, and is to come.

After the apostle had briefly touched upon that subject, he then began to speak of present blessings matters of actual experience; and he commenced by saying, "In whom we have redemption." The grace of the eternal past is a matter of faith; but here is something which is within our grasp and enjoyment. The other we believe; but this we actually and literally receive. "We have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins."

And here let me say what a charming thing it is to deal with experimental divinity; not with theories, but with matters of fact, great facts which are dear to you, because they have been wrought in you, and you have not been merely a delighted spectator of them, but you have been the subject and object of them. "In whom we have redemption." Whether others have it or not, we have "redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins." We do not hope for it, but we have it. We do not merely think so, but we know that we have it. We are redeemed; we are free from bondage; we are forgiven, and are no longer under condemnation.

At this time, as God shall help me, I shall dwell upon the forgiveness of sins. We have not time to plunge into the deeps of the eternal purpose, nor even to dive into the full doctrine of redemption; but, as the swallow with his wing touches the brook, and then is up and away, so must it be with my thought at this time a mere touch of the river of the water of life will be a blessing to myself; and as I cast a little spray over you, I hope it will refresh you also. May the Holy Spirit help our meditation!

I. The first observation, taken distinctly from the text, is this THAT THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS IS A GRAND BLESSING. The apostle has mentioned it, if you notice, amongst the great things of God his electing love, his adoption of us by Jesus Christ, his acceptance of us in the Beloved. Side by side with these colossal mercies he puts this one, that we have "the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace." This is a blessing of no mean stature, for it marches with the giants of election and adoption. Let it stand prominently out before us at this time.

What is this "forgiveness of sins"? Too often, in popular talk, it is supposed that the chief and main thought of the forgiven sinner is that he has escaped from hell. Salvation means much more than this; and what it further means is too much kept in the background, but yet I will begin with rescue from punishment; for if sin be pardoned, the penalty is extinguished. It would not be possible for God to forgive, and yet to punish. That would be a forgiveness quite unworthy of God. It would, indeed, be no forgiveness at all. We are certain that the everlasting punishment of sin declared in Scripture, will never happen to the man who is forgiven. When transgression is removed the soul stands clear at the bar of God, and there can be no further penalty. "I absolve thee," says the great Judge; and that carries with it weight, so that a man that is forgiven is cleared of the punishment which he must otherwise have borne. "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered." "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus."

Yet divine favor restored is a still brighter result of forgiveness to many. Speaking from my own experience, while I was under conviction of sin I had less apprehension of the punishment of sin than I had of sin itself. I do not know that I very frequently trembled at the thought of hell: I did so whenever it came before my mind; but when I was in the hand of the Holy Ghost, as a Spirit of bondage convincing me of sin, my great trouble was that God was angry with me properly and rightly so. I mourned that I had offended my Maker, that I had grieved the living God, that I had sinned against his righteous will, and that I could not rejoice in his favor, nor sun myself in his smile. I felt that it was right on the part of the holy God to be displeased with me. I believe that the great joy of forgiveness, to the believer, is that God has taken away his anger from him. That sweet hymn, which we often sing, is a paraphrase of a passage in Isaiah

"I will praise thee every day,

Now thine anger's turned away;

Comfortable thoughts arise

From the bleeding sacrifice."

"Though thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortedst me." Forgiveness means this among men. A person has grieved and wronged me. I feel hurt in my mind about it. When I forgive him, I no longer feel grieved or angry with him: I think of him as aforetime, and we are on good terms. If my forgiveness is genuine and in God's case it is emphatically so then there is no resentment left. The offense is as though it had never been committed. I say to the person who did me wrong, "I take a sponge, and I wipe it all off the slate: give me your hand, let us stand as we stood before." The pardon of sin by God is after such a fashion. He blots out the sin as the Oriental erases with his pencil the record made upon his waxen tablet, so that no trace of it remains. He smiles where else he must have frowned; he gives complacent love where else there must have been indignation and wrath. Do you not think that this is the sweetest way of looking at the forgiveness of sin? If you are at this time under legal work, feeling the tortures of a guilty conscience, you will appreciate such a pardon very highly. In the case of the poor penitent prodigal, it was the kiss of his father's lip, it was his restoration to his father's heart, it was the cheering words of his father's love, that constituted to him the sweetest fragrance of the rose of forgiveness. Yes, the Lord Jesus Christ has come, that we poor, guilty ones may be restored to the favor of God, and walk consciously in the light of his countenance, because sin is removed.

This pardon of sin, being of this full and sweet character, involving both the reversal of the penalty of sin, and the ending of the distance that intervened between us and God, brings with it the removal of much distress and sorrow from the heart! I do not think that there can be any grief outside of hell that is more terrible to bear than the wounds of conscience. We read that "David's heart smote him"; and, believe me, the heart can smite as with an iron mace, and smite where the bruise is felt intensely. Give me into the power of a roaring lion, but never let me come under the power of an awakened, guilty conscience. Ay, shut me up in a dark dungeon, among all manner of loathsome creatures snakes and reptiles of all kinds but, oh, give me not over to my own thoughts when I am consciously guilty before God! This, surely, is the worm that dieth not, and the fire that is not quenched. I do not speak now what I have merely heard of; though, if you will read Mr. Bunyan's "Grace Abounding," you will find a striking account of it there; but I speak of what I have felt in my own soul. No pains of body can rival, for a moment, the agonized feeling of the heart, when the hot irons of conviction burn their way through the soul. When God sets up the conscience, and makes it a target for his arrows, they drink up the life blood of our spirit, till we cry out, and wonder how such anguish can come to a creature so insignificant. Our soul seems too small a cup to contain such an ocean of misery too narrow a field for so cruel a battle. It is not the Lord that is the author of the misery; but he is giving us up for a while, that we may be filled with our own ways, and learn the bitterness of our own sin. When the Lord comes to us with a forgiving word, these sorrows are gone, like the mists of the morning when the sun arises. We grieve still to think that we have sinned; but that gnawing remorse, that vulture eating up the liver, is smitten with death, and the man breathes hopefully again. Though the penitence remains, the torment is removed from me, when God has forgiven me.

Let me say here, that full forgiveness of sin, consciously enjoyed, will not only lift an enormous weight from off the soul, but it will breathe into the heart a great joy. When you know that sin is forgiven, you cannot be sad as before. The thought of perfect pardon, if it does but fill the spirit, will thrust out gloom, and remove apathy. It will make the lame man leap as a hart: he may still be lame, but he will leap as if he were not. And the tongue of the dumb, even though untrained to speech, shall be made to sing concerning free grace and dying love. When the thoughts are concentrated upon the enjoyment of complete forgiveness, full reception into the divine favor, and the blotting out of sin, then is the heart lifted into the suburbs of heaven. My dear hearers, do you know what I am talking about Some of you do, blessed be the name of the Lord; but I am afraid that some of you do not; and you never can know the sweetness of mercy until you first have tasted the bitterness of sin. You will never know how grace can heal until you have felt how sin can wound. There is no clothing you till you are stripped; there is no making you alive till you are killed; there is no filling you till you are empty. The Lord filleth the hungry with good things, but the rich he sends empty away. God himself will never comfort you till you are driven to self-despair; and if you have already come to that, it is a great privilege to me to be allowed to tell you that the fact of forgiveness of sin is not only a doctrine of the creed, but it is a promise of God's Word. "I believe in the forgiveness of sins:" this is no mere formula, but a realized fact with me. Removal of the penalty, removal of God's offense against us, the clearing away of all the turbid waters within the heart, and the creation of joy and peace through perfect reconciliation to God this is a summary account of the forgiveness of sin. It is a blessing vast and rich.

II. And now, secondly, THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS IS BOUND UP WITH REDEMPTION BY BLOOD. Take the text, "In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins." Redemption and forgiveness are so put together, as to look as if they were the same thing. Assuredly they are so interlaced and intertwisted that there is no having the one without the other. Do you ask "How is it that there should always need to be redemption by blood, in order to the forgiveness of sin?" I call your attention to the expression, "Redemption through his blood." Observe, it is not redemption through his power, it is through his blood. It is not redemption through his love, it is through his blood. This is insisted upon emphatically, since in order to the forgiveness of sins it is redemption through his blood, as you have it over and over again in Scripture. "Without shedding of blood is no remission." But they say they say that substitution is not just. One said, the other day, that to lay sin upon Christ, and to treat him as guilty, and let him die for the unjust, was not just. Yet the objector went on to say that God forgave men freely without any atonement at all. Of this wise critic I would ask Is that just? Is it just to pass by breaches of the law without a penalty? Why any law at all? and why should men care whether they keep it or break it? It was stated by this critic that God, out of his boundless love, treated the guilty man as if he were innocent. I would ask if that be right, where is the wrong of God's treating us as innocent because of the righteousness of Christ? I venture to affirm that pardon is needless, if not impossible, upon the theory that the man, though guilty, is treated as if he were not guilty. If all are treated alike, whether guilty or not guilty, why should any one desire pardon? It were easy to answer cavillers, but they really are not worth the answering. It is to me always sufficient if I find a truth taught in Scripture: I ask no more. If I do not understand it, I am not particularly anxious to understand it: if it be in the Scriptures, I believe it. I like those grand, rocky truths of the Bible which I cannot break with the hammer of my understanding, for on these I lay the foundations of my soul's confidence. Redemption by blood is here linked with forgiveness of sins, and in many other Scriptures we find it plainly stated. It is so. Let that stand for a sufficient answer to all objectors.

And it is so, if we come to think of it, because this reflects great honor upon God. They say, "Let God simply forgive the sin, and have done with it." But where, then, were his justice? "Shall not the Judge of the earth do right?" He threatened sin with punishment. If he does not execute his threatening, what then? Can we be sure that he will fulfill his promise? If he break his word one way might he not break it another? If all the Lord should not execute the penalty which he has threatened to sin, would it not look as if he made a mistake in threatening a penalty at all? Would it not seem as if he had been too severe at the first, and then had to catch himself up, and revise his own judgment afterwards? And shall that be? Might it not be supposed that, after all, God made much ado about nothing, and that he was really jesting with men when he threatened them with fearful punishment on account of sin? Shall God say, "Yea," and "Nay"? Shall he speak and unspeak? This is according to the folly of man. Sometimes it may even be wisdom in a fallible man to reverse his word, and retract his declaration; but with God this cannot be. It is needful for the vindication of his own justice, his wisdom, and his holiness, that he shall not forego one of his threatenings, any more than one of his promises; and, since it is just that sin should be punished, and that, though the sinner should in wondrous mercy be permitted to go free, it is wise and just that Another should step in God's own Self should step in and bear for the sinner what is due to the justice of the Most High. The substitution of our Lord in our room and stead is the central doctrine of the gospel, and it greatly glorifies the name of God.

Besides that, beloved, that sin should not be pardoned without an atonement, is for the welfare of the universe. This world is but a speck compared with the universe of God. We cannot even imaging the multitudes of beings over which the great Lawgiver has rule; and if it could be whispered anywhere in that universe that, on this planet, God tampered with law, set aside justice, or did anything, in fact, to save his own chosen, so that he threw his own threatening behind his back, and disregarded his own solemn ordinance; why, this report would strike at the foundations of the eternal throng! Is God unjust in any cave? Then how can he judge the universe? What creatures, then, would fear God, when they knew that he could play fast and loose with justice? It were a calamity even greater than hell itself that sin should go unpunished. The very reins of moral order would be snatched from the hand of the great Charioteer, and I know not what of mischief would happen. Evil would then have mounted to the high throne of God, and would have become supreme throughout his domains. It is for the welfare of the universe, throughout the ages, that in the forgiveness of sins there should be redemption by blood. Let lovers of anarchy cavil at it; but let good men accept the sacrifice of the Son of God with joy as the great establishment of law and justice.

Moreover, this also is arranged for our comfort and as assurance of heart. I protest before you all that, if I had been anywhere assured, when I was under conviction of sin, that God could forgive me outright without any atonement, it would have yielded no sort of satisfaction to me; for my conscience was sitting in judgment upon myself, and I felt that if I were on the throne of God, I must condemn myself to hell. Even if I could have derived a temporary comfort from the notion of forgiveness apart from atonement, the question would afterwards have come up how is this just? If God does not punish me, he ought to do so; how can he do otherwise? He must be just, or he is not God. It must be that such sin as mine should bring punishment upon itself. Never, until I understood the great truth of the substitutionary death of Christ, could my conscience get a moment's peace. If an atonement was not necessary for God, it certainly was necessary for me; and it seems to me necessary to every conscience that is fairly instructed as to the absolute certainty that sin involves deserved sorrow, and that every transgression and every iniquity must have its just recompense of reward. It was necessary for the perpetual peace of every enlightened conscience that the glorious atonement should have been provided.

Besides that, the Lord meant to save us in a safe way for the promotion of our future reverence for the law. Now, if sin had been blotted out so readily, and nothing more said of it, what effect would that have had on us in the future? I think that everyone who has felt the burden of sin, and has stood at the foot of the cross, and heard the cries of the great Sacrifice, and read God's wrath against sin written in crimson lines upon the blessed and perfect person of the innocent Savior every such person feels that sin is an awful thing. You cannot trifle with transgression after a vision of Gethesmane. You cannot laugh at it, and talk about the littleness of its demerit, if you have once stood on Golgotha, and heard the cry, "Eli, Eli, lame sabachthani?" The death of the Son of God upon the cross is the grandest of all moral lessons, because it is a lesson that affects the very soul of the man, and changes his whole idea of sin. The cross straightens him from the desperate twist which sin gave him at the first. The cure of the first Adam's fall is the second Adam's death the second Adam's grace, which comes to us through his great sacrifice. We love sin till we see that it killed our best Friend, and then we loathe it evermore. I say, again, that if the great Father did forgive you, and said, "There is nothing in it; go your way, it is all over;" you would have lacked that grandest source of sanctified life which now you find in the wounds of him who has made sin detestable to you, and has made perfect obedience, even unto death, the subject of you soul's admiration. Now you long to be unto the great Father, in your measure, what your great Redeemer was to him when he magnified the law, and made it honorable. This is no mean benefit.

O beloved friends, I do bless the Lord, at this time, for the forgiveness of sins through redemption by blood. There is something worth preaching in this truth. You can live on it; you can die on it. I am constantly almost every week at the death-beds of our members here: we are so large a church that one or two every week are going home. When we begin to talk about the precious blood of Jesus the blood of the everlasting covenant, you should see the brightness of dying eyes! I mark the quiet of the departing spirit; and as my dear friends grip my hand, their testimony is unvaryingly, "Jesus is the Rock of our confidence, and all is well."

O Lord Jesus, hold thou thy cross before my closing eyes! O blessed Redeemer, what will a man do in death who has not thy death to be the death of his sin? How can a man live who has never seen thee lay down thy life in his stead, "the Just for the unjust, to bring us to God"? Whatever others may say, let us repeat our text, with solemn assurance, "In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins."

III. But now, thirdly and the text is very clear upon this, as upon the other two points THE FORGIVENESS OF SIN IS STILL A MATTER OF GRACE, AND OF RICH GRACE. "We have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace."

I admit that the forgiveness of sins, on God's part, is a matter of justice, now that the redemption by blood has been completed. The man believes; the man confesses his sin; and it is written, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins." The sacrifice is so great that it justly puts away the sin, and it is righteously forgiven. But observe this: the act of God in forgiving is not one atom the less gracious, because, in his infinite wisdom, he has so contrived that it is unquestionably just. If any make this assertion, they will be called upon to prove it; and they can prove it.

Pardon is the more gracious to us that it does not come to us in an unrighteous way. We see God's great prudence and wisdom in planning the method by which he may "be just, and the Justifier of him that believeth." Those thoughts and plans on God's part are all tokens of great love to us. Beloved, it is only by grace that we are justified; yet that this grace is exercised in a way of justice causes the grace to be not less, but even manifestly more gracious.

The death of Christ, the redemption by blood, instead of veiling the grace of God, only manifests it. Put the thing before your own minds. Suppose that somebody has offended you, and you say, "Think no more of it; it is all forgiven." Very well: that is kind of you, and commendable. It shows the graciousness of your character. But suppose, on the other hand, you were in office as a judge, and felt compelled to say, "I am willing to forgive you, but your offense has resulted in such and such great mischiefs, and all these things have to be cleared away. I will tell you what I will do. I will clear them away myself. I will bear the result of your sin in order that my pardon may be seen to be most sure and full. I will pay the debt in which you have involved yourself. I will go to the prison to which you ought to go, as the consequence of what you have done. I will suffer the effect of your wrongdoing instead of condemning you to suffer it." Well, now, the forgiveness that dost you so much would manifest your graciousness much more than that which costs you nothing beyond a kind will, and a tender heart. Oh, if it be so, that God, the Divine Ruler, the Judge of all the earth, says to guilty man, "I will pardon you, but it is imperative that my law be carried out; and this cannot be done except by the death of my dear Son, who is one with me, who is very God of very God, who himself wills to stand in your stead, and vindicate my justice, by suffering the penalty due to you" then I say that the grace of God is a thousand-fold more clearly shown than by the free forgiveness which "modern thought" pleads for! Pardon which has cost God more than it cost him to make all worlds which has cost him more than to manage all the empires of his providence which has cost him his Only-begotten Son, and has cost that Only-begotten Son a life of sorrow and a death of unutterable and immeasurable anguish I say that this pardon is pre-eminently gracious. Love is more displayed in this, infinitely more, than by a mere word and a wave of the hand, which would dismiss the sinner, without any attempt at an atoning sacrifice.

Besides, beloved, be this always remembered, that it is in the application of redemption, and the personal pardon of any sinner, through the blood of Jesus, that the grace of God is best seen by that sinner. To each one pardon through the Lord Jesus comes, not only according to grace, but "according to the riches of his grace." I can understand that God should forgive you, all of you. I could hear it with full belief, and it would not astonish me. But that he should pardon me that I should have the forgiveness of sins, and redemption by blood that does astonish me. And I believe that any person, under a sense of sin, sees more of the grace of God in his own salvation than in the salvation of anybody else. He may be quite conscious that he has never been a thief, or a drunkard, or a murderer; and yet, when he comes to look at it, he may see reasons why the pardon of sin in his case should be more remarkable than even in the case of a drunkard, or a thief, or a murderer. There may be elements in his own case which may make him seem to have sinned even more grievously than open transgressors, because he transgressed against greater light, with less temptation thereto, and with a direr presumption of rebellion against the Most High. That Jesus died, is unutterable grace; but that he loved me, and gave himself for me, this is overwhelming grace, and makes the heir of heaven say with emphasis, Blessed be God that, in Jesus, I have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace!

Do you not feel at this time, you that have been pardoned, that nothing but the riches of God's grace could ever have pardoned you? No scanty grace could have provided an atonement equal to your iniquities. Poverty of grace would have left you ruined by your debt of sin. Riches of grace were wanted, and riches of grace were forthcoming in redemption by blood, and in the full, perfect, irreversible forgiveness which God gave you in the day when you believed on Jesus Christ your Savior. Oh, that the Holy Spirit would help you to sing of the grace of God to-day and every day!

IV. Thus far have I brought you, then, in three remarks. Kindly follow me in the fourth one, upon which I will not be long.

Fourthly, THIS FORGIVENESS OF SINS IS ENJOYED BY US NOW. "In whom we have" we have "redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace." I remember the astonishment with which I sat in a ministers' meeting, and heard one, who professed to be a preacher of the gospel, assert that he did not think that any one of us could be sure that he was forgiven. I ventured at once to say that I was sure; and I was pleased, but by no means surprised, to find that others dared to say the same. I hope I have hundreds before me who enjoy the same assurance.

Brethren, if there be no consciousness of the forgiveness of sins possible, how can there be any rest for the conscience? Yet Jesus says, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." What rest is possible to the condemned? Can you go to bed to-night with your sins unforgiven? Some of you may have the foolhardiness to do that, but I would not dare to do it. See where you are. Within a moment you may be dead. Within that moment you will be in hell, past all hope. In a single instant you may be eternally lost: can you endure the thought? Our breath has but to stop, or the heart to cease beating, and instantly life is over. How can you be at peace, while sin is unforgiven? Unless sin had made men mad, they would never rest till they were cleared from their sins. There cannot be any true rest without a consciousness of forgiveness. Yet that rest is promised; therefore the present enjoyment of an assurance of forgiveness must be possible.

And, next, where could there ever be that great love in the hearts of men and women which we read of in Scripture? She that washed the Savior's feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head would she have done so if she had not known that she was forgiven? She loved much, because she had had much forgiven her. And the stimulus, the zeal, the fervor that spurs on a man in his service and suffering for the Lord Jesus, must arise out of the consciousness that the Lord has done great things for him, and the conclusion that therefore he must do great things for his Lord. Surely, you have robbed Christianity of its highest moral force, if you have denied the possibility of knowing that you are pardoned.

Moreover, where is there any testimony of the power of grace? We that come and preach to you may be liars unto you if we ourselves have never tasted and handled pardoning grace. We do, at any rate, but retail to you a second-hand gospel, which we have never tested and proved for ourselves. If I did not know, in my very soul, that the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin, how could I dare to face you with the gospel message? I have not impudence enough to tell you of what might be, or might not be, about which I am uncertain myself. God grant me grace to break stones, or sweep chimneys, sooner than come and tell you a cunningly-devised fable, or a tale about which I have no assured certainty, derived from personal knowledge! Could I say to you, "I dare say there is bread, but I myself am hungry, I have never eaten a mouthful of the provision which I offer you"? Think of my saying to one perishing of thirst, "There is living water flowing from the rock; but personally I am thirsty." You might say to me at once, "Then go home to your house, and next time you appear, be sure of the truth of what you tell us. If you do not believe it, how should we believe it?" Beloved, there are thousands, there are tens of thousands, on earth still who know that the Son of God has power on earth to forgive sins; and there are myriads in heaven who passed to their felicity confident that they had been forgiven, and they sang on earth the same song that they sing in heaven, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain." They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. They know it, they have no doubt about it. Many of us know it here, and rejoice therein at this moment.

Dear friend, what would you give to have this assurance? Thou mayest have it "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved." Whoso believeth in him is justified from all sin. "He that believeth in him hath everlasting life." Oh, that God's grace may lead you to cast away all other confidences, and to lay your guilty spirit down at Jesus' feet! Then shall you go your way rejoicing that you also, with us, can say, "In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins."

V. Fifthly and this is only a brief head; but it is a point that must not be left out THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS BINDS US TO OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST. Let us read the text again. "In whom we have redemption through his blood." We have nothing apart from Jesus. Every blessing of the covenant binds us to Christ. Covenant gifts are so many golden chains to fasten the soul of the believer to his Lord. Our wealth of mercy is all in Christ. There is nothing good outside of Christ When are we pardoned, brethren? When have we forgiveness? Why, when we are in him, "in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins." O son of Adam, living without Jesus, hear and take warning! So long as thou art out of Christ, thou must bear thine own burden till it crush thee to the dust; but as soon as thou hast touched the hem of his garment, there is a link of connection; and if thou canst rise from that to holding him by the feet, the union is closer; and if thou canst from that become like Simeon, who took him up in his arms, then mayest thou cry, "Mine eyes have seen thy salvation." When thou hast Christ to the full, thou hast grace to the full. It is as you are in Christ in connection and communion with Christ that you receive the pardon of sin, for all the pardon is in him. Do you see that?

"In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins." The forgiveness is not so much in his office, and in his work, as in himself. When thou gettest Christ, thou hast redemption; for he is redemption. When thou gettest Christ, thou hast forgiveness of sins; for he is the propitiation for our sins. He has put the sin away by the sacrifice of himself. Get Christ, and thou hast the proof, the evidence, the sum, the substance of perfect pardon. If thou acceptest the Beloved, thou art "accepted in the Beloved." When thou art in him, then thou art forgiven; but thy forgiveness is alone in him. In him thou hast redemption: out of him thou art in bondage.

Beloved, every day, as we go afresh to God for a sense of pardon, let us know that we can never got it except as we come still viewing Jesus. I notice that some believers, when they get rather dull and cold, begin the work of self-examination. This may appear very proper, but it is dreary work. I do not believe, dear friends, if you are very poor, that you will ever get rich by looking through all your empty cupboards. If it is very cold, and you have no coals in the cellar, you will not become warm by going into the cellar, and seeing that there is nothing below but an empty coal-hole. No, no; if our graces are to be revived, we must begin with a renewed consciousness of pardon through the precious blood; and the only way to get that sense of pardon is to go to the cross again, even as we went at the first. I sometimes wonder that you do not get tired of my preaching, because I do nothing but hammer away on this one nail. I have driven it in up to the head, and I have gone round to the other side to clinch it; but still I keep at it. With me it is, year after year, "None but Jesus! None but Jesus!" Oh, you great saints, if you have outgrown the need of a sinner's trust in the Lord Jesus, you have outgrown your sins, but you have also outgrown your grace, and your saintship has ruined you! He that has the mind of Christ within him must still come to his Lord, just as he came at the first.

I frankly confess that still I cry to my Lord Jesus

"Nothing in my hand I bring,

Simply to thy cross I cling."

Still, to this day, I have no redemption in myself, but only in Jesus. I am not an inch forwarder as to the ground of my trust. Is it not so with you? Do we not still say of Jesus "In whom we have redemption through his blood"? To this day we find no reason for forgiveness in ourselves. The precious blood is still our one plea. Lost and condemned are we apart from the one offering of our Great High Priest. But cleansed and justified are we in him.

"Oh! how sweet to view the flowing

Of his sin-atoning blood,

With divine assurance knowing,

He has made my peace with God."

You know the story of the poor bricklayer, who fell from a scaffold, and when they took him up, he was so much injured that they fetched a minister to him, who, stooping over him, said, "My dear man, you have a very short time to live. I entreat you to make your peace with God." To the surprise of the minister, the man opened his eyes, and said, "Make my peace with God, sir? It was made for me nearly nineteen hundred years ago, upon the cross of Calvary, by him that loved me, and gave himself for me." Oh, the joy which this creates in the heart! Yes, it is in Jesus that the peace is made effectually made, made for me, made for you, made for all believers. In Jesus is perfect redemption. In Jesus pardon is provided, proclaimed, presented, and sealed upon the conscience. Go and live on Jesus; live with Jesus; live in Jesus; never go away from Jesus; and may he be dearer to you every day of your lives! Blessed be his adorable name! Amen, and Amen.

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PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON Ephesians 1:1-23 .

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HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK" 289, 293, 296.

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Mr. Spurgeon is recovering from the great weakness left upon him by an attack of influenza, and he hopes to preach at the Tabernacle next Lord's-day. May this sickness be sanctified to the glory of God!

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Just Published. Crown 8vo, 64 pages. Price Sixpence.

THE GREATEST FIGHT IN THE WORLD.

The Pastors' College Conference Address, 1891.

By C. H. SPURGEON.

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PASSMORE & ALABASTER, Paternoster Buildings; and all Booksellers.

The Treasure of Grace

A Sermon

(No. 295)

Delivered on Sabbath Morning, January 22nd, 1860, by the

REV. C. H. Spurgeon

At Exeter Hall, Strand.

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"The forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace." Ephesians 1:7 .

AS IS ISAIAH among the prophets, so is Paul among the apostles; each stands forth with singular prominence, raised up by God for a conspicuous purpose, and shining as a star of extraordinary brilliance. Isaiah spake more of Christ, and described more minutely his passion and his death than all the other prophets put together. Paul proclaimed the grace of God free, full, sovereign, eternal race beyond all the glorious company of the apostles. Sometimes he soared to such amazing heights, or dived into such unsearchable depths, that even Peter could not follow him. He was ready to confess that "our beloved brother Paul, according to his wisdom given unto him," had written "some things hard to be understood." Jude could write of the judgments of God, and reprove with terrible words, "ungodly men, who turned the grace of God into lasciviousness." But he could not tell out the purpose of grace as it was planned in the eternal mind, or the experience or grace as it is felt and realized in the human heart, like Paul. There is James again: he, as a faithful minister, could deal very closely with the practical evidences of Christian character. And yet he seems to keep very much on the surface; he does not bore down deep into the substratum on which must rest the visible soil of all spiritual graces. Even John, most favoured of all those apostles who were companions of our Lord on earth sweetly as the beloved disciple writes of fellowship with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ even John doth not speak of grace so richly as Paul, "in whom God first showed forth all long-suffering as a pattern to hem which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting." Not, indeed, that we are at any liberty to prefer one apostle above another. We may not divide the Church, saying, I am of Paul, I of Peter, I of Apollos; but we may acknowledge the instrument which God was pleased to use; we may admire the way in which the Holy Ghost fitted him for his work; we may, with the churches of Judea, "glorify God in Paul." Among the early fathers Augustine was singled out as the "Doctor of Grace;" so much did he delight in those doctrines that exhibit the freeness of divine favour. And surely we might affirm the like of Paul. Among his compeers he outstripped them all in declaring the grace that bringeth salavation. The sense of grace pervaded all his thoughts as the life blood circulates through all the veins of one's body. Does he speak of conversion, "he was called by grace." Nay, he sees grace going before his conversion, and "separating him from his mother's womb." He attributes all his ministry to grace. "To me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ." See him at any time, and under any circumstances, whether bowed down with infirmity, or lifted to the third heavens with revelation, he has but one account to give of himself, "By the grace of God I am what I am."

There are no ministers who contend so fully and so unflinchingly for free, sovereign, unconditional grace, as those who before their conversion have revelled in gross and outrageous sin. Your gentleman preachers who have been piously brought up, and sent from their cradle to school, from school to college, and from college to the pulpit, without encountering much temptation, or being rescued from the haunts of profanity they know comparatively little, and speak with little emphasis of free grace. It is a Bunyan who breathed curses, a Newton who was a ver monster in sin; it is the like of these, who cannot forget for one hour of their lives afterwards, the grace that snatched them from the pit, and plucked them as brands from the burning. Strange indeed that God should have it so. The providence is inscrutable that permits some of the Lord's chosen people to wander and rove as far as sheep can stray. Such men, however, make the most valiant champions for that grace which only can rescue any sinner from eternal woe.

This morning we propose to expound to you "the riches of God's grace; this is the Treasure; then, secondly, we shall speak of the "Forgiveness of Sins," which is to be judged of by that Measure; the forgiveness is according to the riches of his grace; and we shall afterwards wind up by considering some of the privileges connected therewith.

I. First, consider the RICHES OF HIS GRACE. In attempting to search out that which is unsearchable, we must, I suppose, use some of those comparisons by which we are wont to estimate the wealth of the monarchs, and mighty ones of this world. It happened once that the Spanish ambassador, in the haleyon days of Spain, went on a visit to the French ambassador, and was invited by him to see the treasures of his master. With feelings of pride he showed the repositories, profusely stored with earth's most precious and most costly wealth. "Could you show gems so rich," said he, "or aught the life of this for magnificence of possessions in all your sovereign's kingdom?" "Call your master rich?" replied the ambassador of Spain, "why; my master's treasures have no bottom" alluding, of course, to the mines of Peru and Petrosa. So truly in the riches of grace there are mines too deep for man's finite understanding ever to fathom. However profound your investigation, there is still a deep couching beneath that baffles all research. Who can ever discover the attributes of God? Who can find out the Almighty to perfection? We are at a loss to estimate the ver quality and properties of grace as it dwells in the mind of Deity. Love in the human breast is a passion. With God it is not so. Love is an attribute of the divine essence. God is love. In men, grace and bounty may grow into a habit, but grace with God is an intrinsic attribute of his nature. He cannot but be gracious. As by necessity of his Godhead he is omnipotent, and omniprescent, so by absolute necessity of his divinity is he gracious.

Come then, my brethren, into this glittering mine of the attributes of the grace of God. Every one of God's attributes is infinite, and therefore this attribute of grace is without bounds. You cannot conceive the infinity of God, why, therefore, should I attempt to describe it. Recollect however, that as the attributes of God are of the like extent, the gauge of one attribute must be the gauge of another. Or, further, if one attribute is without limit, so is another attribute. Now, you cannot conceive any boundary to the omnipotence of God. What cannot he do? He can crate, he can destroy; he can speak a myriad universe into existence; or he can quench the light of myriads of stars as readily as we tread out a spark. He hath but to will it, and creatures without number sing his praise; yet another volition, and those creatures subside into their naked nothingness, as a moment's foam subsides into the wave that bears it, and is lost for ever. The astronomer turns his tube to the remotest space, he cannot find a boundary to God's creating power; but could he seem to find a limit, we would then inform him that all the worlds on worlds that cluster in space, hick as the drops of morning dew upon the meadows, are but the shreds of God's power. He can make more than all these, can dash those into nothingness, and can begin again. Now as boundless as is his power, so infinite is his grace. As he hath power to do anything, so hath he grace enough to give anything to give everything to the very chief of sinners.

Take another attribute if you please God's omniscience, there is no boundary to that. We know that his eye is upon every individual of our race he sees him as minutely as if he were the only creature that existed. It is boasted of the eagle that though he can outstare the sun, yet when at his greatest height, he can detect the movement of the smallest fish in the depths of the sea. But what is this compared with the omniscience of God? His eye tracks the sun in his marvellous course, his eye marks the winged comet as it flies through space. His eye discerns the utmost bound of creation inhabited or uninhabited. There is nothing hid from the light thereof, with him there is no darkness at all. If I mount to heaven he is there; if I dive to hell he is there; if I fly mounted on the morning ray beyond the western sea,

"His swifter hand shall first arrive,

And there arrest the fugitive."

There is no limit to his understanding, nor is there to his grace. As his knowledge comprehendeth all things, so doth his grace comprehend all the sins, all the trials all the infirmities of the people upon whom his heart is set. Now, my dear brethren, the next time we fear that God's grace will be exhausted, let us look into this mine, and then let us reflect that all that has ever been taken out of it has never diminished it a single particle. All the clouds that have been taken from the sea have never diminished its depth, and all the love, and all the mercy that God has given to all but infinite numbers of the race of man, has not disminished by a single rain the mountains of his grace. But to proceed further; we sometimes judge of the wealth of men, not only by their real estate in mines and the like, but by what they have on hand stored up in the treasury. I must take you now, my brethren, to the glittering treasury of divine grace. Ye know its names, it is called the Covenant, have you not head the marvellous story of what was done in the olden time before the world was made. God foreknew that man would fall, but he determined of his own infinite purpose and will that he would raise out of this fall a multitude which no man can number. The Eternal Father held a solemn council with the Son and Holy Spirit. Thus spoke the Father:--"I will that those whom I have chosen be saved!" Thus said the Son:--"My Father, I am ready to bleed and die that thy justice may not suffer and that thy purpose may be executed." "I will," said the Holy Spirit, "that those whom the Son redeems with blood shall be called by grace, shall be quickened, shall be preserved, shall be sanctified and perfected, and brought safely home." Then was the Covenant written, signed, and sealed, and ratified between the Sacred Three. The Father gave his Son, the Son gave himself, and the Spirit promises all his influence, all his presence, to all the chosen. Then did the Father give to the Son the persons of his elect, then did the Son give himself to the elect, and take them into union with him; and then did the Spirit in covenant vow that these chosen ones should surely be brought safe home at last. Whenever I think of the old covenant of grace, I am perfectly amazed and staggered with the grace of it. I could not be an Arminian on any inducement; the ver poetry of our holy religion lies in these ancient things of the everlasting hills, that glorious covenant signed and sealed, and ratified, in all things ordered well from old eternity.

Pause here, my hearer, awhile, and think before this world was made, ere God had settled the deep foundations of the mountains, or poured the seas from the laver of the bottom of his hand, he had chosen his people, and set his heart on hem. To them he had given himself, his Son, his heaven, his all. For them did Christ determine to resign his bliss, his home, his life; for them did the Spirit promise all his attributes, that they might be blessed. O grace divine, how glorious thou art, without beginning, without end. How shall I praise thee? Take up the strain ye angels; sing these noble themes, the love of the Father, the love of the Son, the love of the Spirit.

This, my brethren, if ye think it over, may well make you estimate aright the riches of God's grace. If you read the roll of the covenant from beginning to end, containing as it does, election, redemption, calling, justification, pardon, adoption, heaven, immortality if you read all his, you will say, "This is riches of grace God, great and infinite! Who is a God like unto thee for the riches of thy love!"

The riches of great kings again, may often be estimated by the munificence of the monuments which they reared to record their feats. We have been amazed in these modern times at the marvellous riches of the kings of Nineveh and Babylon. Modern monarchs with all their appliances, would fail to erect such monstrous piles of palaces as those in which old Nebuchadnezzar walked in times of yore. We turn to the pyramids, we see there what the wealth of nations can accomplish; we look across the sea to Mexico and Peru, and we see the relics of a semi-barbarous people but we are staggered and amazed to think what wealth and what mines of riches they must have possessed ere such works could have been accomplished. Solomon's riches are perhaps best judged of by us when we think of those great cities which he built in the wilderness, Tadmore and Palmyra. When we go and visit those ruins and see the massive columns and magnificent sculpture, we say, Solomon indeed was rich. We feel as we walk amid the ruins somewhat like the queen of Sheba, even in Scripture the half has not been told us of the riches of Solomon. My brethren, God has led us to inspect mightier trophies than Solomon, or Nebuchadnezzar, or Montezuma, or all the Pharaohs. Turn your eyes yonder, see that blood-bought host arrayed in white, surrounding the throne hark, how they sing, with voice triumphant, with melodies seraphic, "Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever." And who are these? Who are these trophies of his grace? Some of them have come from the stews of harlotry; many of them have come from the taverns of drunkenness. Nay, more, the hands of some of those so white and fair, were once red with the blood of saints. I sere yonder the men that nailed the Saviour to the tree; men who cursed God, and invoked on themselves death and damnation. I see there Manasseh, who shed innocent blood so much, and the thief who in the last moment looked to Christ, and said, "Lord, remember me." But I need not turn your gaze so far aloft; look, my brethren, around, you do not know your next neighbour by whom you are sitting his morning, it may be. But there are stories of grace that might be told by some here this morning, that would make the ver angels sing more loudly than they have done before. Well, I know these cheeks have well nigh been scarlet with tears when I have heard the stories of free grace wrought in this congregation. Then are those known to me, but of course not so to you, who were among the vilest of men, the scum of society. We have here those to whom cursing was as their breath, and drunkenness had grown to be a habit; and yet here they are servants of God, and of his church; and it is their delight to testify to others what a Saviour they have found. Ah, but my hearer, perhaps thou art one of those trophies, and if so, the best proof of the riches of his grace is that which thou findest in thy own soul. I think God to be gracious when I see others saved, I know he is because he has saved me; that wayward, wilful boy, who scoffed a mother's love, and would not be melted by all her prayers, who only wished to know a sin in order to perpetrate it? Is he standing here to preach the gospel of the grace of God to you to-day? Yes. Then there is no sinner out of hell that has sinned too much for grace to save. That love which can reach to me, can reach to you. Now I know the riches of his grace, because I hope I prove it, and feel it in my own inmost heart, my dear hearer, and may you know it too, and then you will join with our poet, who says

"Then loudest of the crowd I'll sing,

While heavens resounding mansions ring

With shouts of sovereign grace."

Go a little further now. We have thus looked at the wine and treasures, and at the monuments. But more. One thing which amazed the queen of Sheba, with regard to the riches of Solomon, was the sumptuousness ofhis table. Suth multitudes sat down to it to eat and drink, and though they were many, yet they all had enough and to spare. She lost all heart when she saw the provisions of a single day brought in. I forget just now, although I meant to refer to the passage how many fat beast, how many bullocks of the pasture, how many bucks and fallow deer and game of all sorts, and how many measures of flour and how many gallons of oil were brought to Solomon's table every day, but it was something marvellous; and the multitudes that had to feast were marvellous also, yet had they all enough. And now think my brethren of the hospitalities of the God of grace each day. Ten thousand of his people are this day sitting down to feast; hungry and thirsty they bring large appetites with them to he banquet, but not one of them returns unsatisfied; there is enough for each, enough for all, enough for evermore. Though the host that feed there is countless as the stars of heaven, yet I find that not one lacks his portion. He openeth his hand and supplies the want of every living saint upon the face of the earth. Think how much grace one saint requires, so much that nothing but the Infinite could supply him for one day. We burn so much fuel each day to maintain the fire of love in our hearts, that we might drain the mines of England of all their wealth of coal. Surely were it not that we have infinite treasures of race, the daily consumption of a single saint might out-demand everything that is to be found upon the face of the earth. And yet it is not one but many saints, and many hundreds, not for one day, but for many years; not for many years only, but generation after generation, century after century, race after race of men, living on the fulness of God in Christ. Yet are none of hem starved; they all drink to he full; they eat and are satisfied. What riches of grace then may we see in the sumptuousness of his hospitality.

Sometimes, my brethren, I have thought if I might but get the broken meat at God's back door of grace I should be satisfied; like the woman who said, "The dogs eat of the crumbs that fall from the master's table;" or like the prodigal who said, "Make me as one of thy hired servants." But you will remember that no child of God is ever made to live on husks; God does not give the parings of his grace to he meanest of them, but they are all fed like Mephibosheth; they eat from the kings own table the daintiest dishes. And if one may speak for the rest, I think in matters of grace we all have Benjamin's mess we all have ten times as we could have expected, and though not more than our necessities, yet are we often amazed at the marvellous plenty of grace which God gives us in the covenant and the promise.

Now we turn to another point to illustrate the greatness of the riches of God's grace. A man's riches may often be judged of by the equipage of his children, the manner in which he dresses his servants and those of his household. It is not to be expected that the child of the poor man, though he is comfortably clothed, should be arrayed in like garments to those which are worn by the sons of princes. Let us see, then, what are the robes in which God's people are apparelled, and how they are attended. Here again I speak upon a subject where a large imagination is needed, and my own utterly fails me. God's children are wrapped about with a robe, a seamless robe, which earth and heaven could not buy the like of if it were once lost. For texture it excels the fine linen of the merchants; for whiteness it is purer than the driven snow; no looms on earth could make it, but Jesus spent his life to work my robe of righteousness. There was a drop of blood in every throw of the shuttle, and every thread was made of his own heart's agonies. 'Tis a robe that is divine, complete; a better one than Adam wore in the perfection of Eden. He had but a human righteousness though a perfect one, but we have a divinely perfect righteousness. Strangely, my soul, art thou arrayed, for thy Saviour's garment is on thee; the royal robe of David is wrapped about his Jonathan. Look at God's people as they are clothed too in the garments of sanctification. Was there ever such a robe as that? It is literally stiff with jewels. He arrays the meanest of his people every day as though it were a wedding day; he arrays them as a bride adorneth herself with jewels; he has given Ehtiopia and Sheba for them, and he will have them dressed in gold of Ophir. What riches of grace then must there be in God who thus clothes his children!

But to conclude this point upon which I have not as yet begun. If you would know the full riches of divine grace, read the Father's heart when he sent his Son upon earth to die; read the lines upon the Father's countenance when he pours his wrath upon his only begotten and his well-beloved Son. Read too the mysterious handwriting on the Saviour's flesh and soul, when on the cross quivering in agony the waves of swelling grief do o'er his bosom roll. If ye would know love ye must repair to Christ, and ye shall see a man so full of pain, that his head, his hair, his garments bloody be. 'Twas love that made him sweat as it were great drops of blood. If ye would know love, you must see the Omnipotent mocked by his creatures, you must hear the Immaculate slandered by sinners, you must hear the Eternal One groaning out his life, and crying in the agonies of death, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" In fine, to sum up all in one, the riches of the grace of God are infinite, beyond all limit; they are inexhaustible, they can never be drained; they are all-sufficient, they are enough for every soul that ere shall come to take of them; there shall be enough for ever while earth endureth, until the last vessel of mercy shall be brought home safely.

So much, then, concerning the riches of His grace.

II. For a minute or two, let me now dwell upon THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS. The treasure of God's grace is the measure of our forgiveness; this forgiveness of sins is according to the riches of his grace. We may infer, then, that the pardon which God gives to the penitent is no niggard pardon. Have not you asked a man's pardon sometimes, and he has said, "Yes, I forgive you," and you have thought, "Well, I would not even have asked for pardon if I thought you would have given it in such a surly style as that; I might as well have continued as I was, as to be so ungraciously forgiven." But when God forgives a man, though he be the chief of sinners, he puts out his hand and freely forgives; in fact, there is as much joy in the heart of God when he forgives, as there is in the heart of the sinner when he is forgiven; God is as blessed in giving as we are in receiving. It is his very nature to forgive; he must be gracious, he must be loving, and when he lets his heart of love out to free us from our sins it is with no stinted stream; he doth it willingly, he upbraideth it not. Again: if pardon be in proportion to the riches of his grace, we may rest assured it is not a limited pardon, it is not the forgiving of some sins and the leaving of others upon the back. No, this were not Godlike, it were not consistent with the riches of his grace. When God forgives he draws the mark through every sin which the believer ever has committed, or ever will commit. That last point may stagger you, but I do believe with John Kent, that in the blood of Christ

"There's pardon for transgressions past,

It matters not how black their cast;

And, oh! My soul, with wonder view,

For sins to come there's pardon too."

However many, however heinous, however innumerable your sins may have been, the moment you believe they are ever one of them blotted out. In the Book of God there is not a single sin against any man in this place whose trust is in Christ, not a single one, not even the shadow of one, not a spot, or the remnant of a sin remaining, all is gone. When Noah's flood covered the deepest mountains, you may rest assured it covered the mole-hills; and when God's love covers the little sins it covers the big ones, and they are all gone at once! When a bill is receipted fully there is not an item which can be charged again, and when God pardons the sins of the believer there is not one single sin left; not even half-an-one can ever be brought to his remembrance again. Nay, more than this; when God forgives, he not only forgives all but once for all. Some tell us that God forgives men and yet they are lost. A fine god yours! They believe that the penitent sinner finds mercy, but that if he slips or stumbles in a little while he will be taken out of the covenant of grace and will perish. Such a covenant I could not and would not believe in; I tread it beneath my feet as utterly despicable. The God whom love when he forgives never punishes afterwards. By one sacrifice there is a full remission of all sin that ever was against a believer, or that ever will be against him. Though you should live till your hair is bleached thrice over, till Methuselah's thousand years should pass over your furrowed brow, not a single sin shall ever stand against you, nor shall you ever be punished for a single sin; for every sin is forgiven, fully forgiven, so that not even part of the punishment shall be executed against you. "Well, but," saith one, "how is it that God does punish his children?" I answer, he does not. He chastises them as a father, but that is a different thing from the punishment of a judge. If the child of a judge were brought up to the bar, and that child were freely forgiven all that he had done amiss, if justice exonerated and acquitted him, it might nevertheless happen that there was evil in the heart of that child which the father, out of love to the child, might have to whip out of him. But there is a great deal of difference between a rod in the hand of the executioner, and a rod in a father's hand. Let God smite me, if I sin against him, yet it is not because of the guilt of sin, there is no punishment in it whatever, the penal clause is done away with. It is only that he may cure me of my fault, that he may fetch the folly out of my heart. Do you chasten your children vindictively because you are angry with them? No; but because you love them; if you are what parents should be, the chastisement is a proof of your affection, and your heart smarts more than their body pains, when you have to chasten them for what they have done amiss. God is not angry against his children, nor is there a sin in hem which he will punish. He will whip it out of them, but punish them for it he will not. O glorious grace! It is a gospel worth preaching.

"The moment a sinner believes,

And trusts in his crucified God,

His pardon at once he receives

Redemption in full through Christ's blood."

All is gone; every atome gone; gone for ever and ever; and well he knows it.

"Now freed from sin I walk at large,

My Saviour's blood my full discharge;

At his dear feet my soul I lay,

A sinner saved, and homage pay."

Having thus spoken of the pardon of sin as being fully commensurate with the grace of God, I will put this question to my hearer: My friend, are you a forgiven man? Are your sins all gone? "No," saith one, "I cannot say they are, but I am doing my best to reform." Ah! you may do your best to reform, I hope you will, but that will never wash away a single blood-red stain of guilt. "But," saith one, "may I, just I am, believe that my sins are forgiven?" No, but I tell thee what thou mayst do. If God help thee, thou mayst now cast thyself simply upon the blood and righteousness of Christ; and the moment thou dost that, thy sins are all gone, and gone so that they never can return again. "He that believeth on the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved." Nay, he is saved in the moment of his faith. He is no more in the sight of God received as a sinner; Christ has been punished for him. The righteousness of Christ is wrapped about him, and he stands accepted in the beloved. "Well, but," saith one, "I can believe that a man, after he has been a long time a Christian, may know his sins to be forgiven, but I cannot imagine that I can know it at once." The knowledge of our pardon does not always come the moment we believe, but the fact of our pardon is before our knowledge of it, and we may be pardoned before we know it. But if thou believest on the Lord Jesus Christ with all hine heart, I will tell thee this: If thy faith be free of all self-trust thou shalt know to-day that thy sins are forgiven, for the witness of the Spirit shall bear witness with thy heart, and thou shalt hear that secret, still small voice, saying, "Be of good cheer; thy sins, which are many, are all forgiven." "Oh," saith one, "I would give all I have for that." And you might give all you have, but you would not have it at that price. You might give the firstborn for your transgression, the fruit of your body for the sin of your soul, you might offer rivers of oil, and ten thousand of the fat of fed beasts; you would not have it for money, but you may have it for nothing; it is freely brought to you; you are bidden to take it. Only acknowledge your sin, and put your trust in Christ, and there is not one man among you who shall hear aught about his sin in the day of judgment. It shall be cast into the depth of the sea it shall be carried away for ever.

I will give you a picture, and then leave this subject. See, there stands the high-priest of the Jews. A goat is brought to him: it is called "the scape-goat." He puts his hands upon the head of this goat, and begins to make confession of sin. Will you come and do the like? Jesus Christ is the scape-goat; come and lay your hand on his thorn-crown'd head by faith, and make confession of your sin, as the high-priest did of old. Have you done it? Is your sin confessed? Now believe that Jesus Christ is able and willing to take your sin away. Rest wholly and entirely on him. Now what happens? The high-priest takes the scape-goat, gives it into the hand of a trusty man, who leads it over hill and down dale, till he is many miles away, and then, suddenly loosing its bonds, he frightens it, and the goat flees with all its might. The man watches it till it is gone, and he can see it no more. He comes back, and he says, "I took the scape-goat away, and it vanished out of my sight; it is gone into the wilderness." Ah, my hearer, and if thou hast put thy sins on Christ by a full confession, remember he has taken hem all away, as far as the east is from the west, they are gone, and gone eternally. Thy drunkenness, thy swearing is gone, thy lying, thy theft is gone, thy Sabbath-breaking, thy evil thoughts are gone all gone, and thou shalt never see them again

"Plunged, as in a shoreless sea,

Lost, as in immensity."

III. And now I conclude by noticing THE BLESSED PRIVILEGES WHICH ALWAYS FOLLOW THE FORGIVENESS WHICH IS GIVEN TO US ACCORDING TO THE GRACE OF GOD. I think here are a great many people who do not believe there is any reality in religion at all. They think it is a very respectable thing to go to church and to go to chapel, but as to ever enjoying a consciousness that their sins are all forgiven, they never think about that. And I must confess that, in the religion of these modern times, there does not seem to be much reality. I do not hear at this day that clear ringing distinct proclamation of the gospel that I want to hear. It is a grand thing to carry the gospel to all manner of men, to take it to the theatre, and the like, but we want to have the gospel undiluted the milk must have a little less water with it. There must be a more distinct, palpable truth taught to the people, a something that they can really lay hold of, a something that they can understand, even if they will not believe it. I trust no man will misunderstand me this morning in what I have said. There is such a thing as having all our sins forgiven now. There is such a thing as knowing it and enjoying it. Now I will show you what will be the happiness resulting to you, should you obtain this blessing.

In the first place, you will have peace of conscience, that heart of yours that throbs so fast when you are alone will be quite still and quiet. You will be least alone when you are alone. That fear of yours which makes you quicken your step in the dark because you are afraid of something, and you do not know what, will all be gone. I have heard of a man who was so constantly in debt, and continually being arrested by the bailiffs, that once upon a time, when going by some area railings, having caught his sleeve upon one of the rails, he turned round and said, "I don't owe you anything, Sir." He thought it was a bailiff. And so it is with unforgiven sinners, wherever they are, they think they are going to be arrested. They can enjoy nothing. Even their mirth, what is it, but the colour of joy, the crackling of thorns under the pot; there is no solid steady fire. But when once a man is forgiven, he can walk anywhere, He says, "to me it is nothing whether I live or die, whether ocean depths engulf me, or whether I am buried beneath the avalanche, with sin forgiven, I am secure. Death has no sting to him. His conscience is at rest. Then he goes a step further. Knowing his sins to be forgiven he has joy unspeakable. No man has such sparkling eyes as the true Christian; a man then knows his interest in Christ, and can read his title clear. He is a happy man, and must be happy. His troubles, what are they? Less than nothing and vanity; for all his sins are forgiven. When the poor slave first lands in Canada, it may be he is without a single farthing in his purse, and scarcely anything but rags on his back; but he puts his foot on British soil, and is free; see him leap and dance, and clap his hands, saying, "Great God I thank thee, I am a free man." So it is with the Christian, he can say in his cottage when he sits down to his crust of bread, thank God I have no sin mixed in my cup it is all forgiven. The bread may be dry, but it is not half so dry as it would be if I had to eat it with the bitter herbs of a guilty conscience, and with a terrible apprehension of the wrath of God. He has a joy that will stand all weathers, a joy that will keep in all climates, a joy that shines in the dark, and glitters in the night as well as in the day.

Then, to go further, such a man has access to God. Another man with unforgiven sin about him stands afar off; and if he thinks of God at all it is as a consuming fire. But the forgiven Christian looking up to God when he sees the mountains and the hills, and rolling streams and the roaring flood, he says, "My Father made them all;" and he clasps hands with the Almighty across the infinite expanse that sunders man from his Maker. His heart flies up to God. He dwells near to him, and he feels that he can talk to God as a man talketh with his friend.

Then another effect of this is that the believer fears no hell. There are solemn things in the Word of God, but they do not affright the believer. There may be a pit that is bottomless, but into that his foot shall never slide; it is true there is a fire that never shall be quenched, but it cannot burn him. That fire is for the sinner, but he has no sin imputed to him; it is all forgiven. The banded host of all the devils in hell cannot take him there, for he has not a single sin that can be laid to his charge. Daily sinning though he is, he feels those sins are all atoned for; he knows that Christ has been punished in his stead, and therefore Justice cannot touch him again.

Once more, the forgiven Christian is expecting heaven. He is waiting for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, for if death should intervene before that glorious advent, he knows that to him sudden death is sudden glory; and in the possession of a quiet conscience and of peace with God, he can go up to his chamber when the last solemn hour shall come; he can gather up his feet in his bed; he can bid farewell to his brethren and companions, to his wife and to his children, and can shut his eye in peace without a fear that he shall open them in heaven. Perhaps never does the joy of forgiven sin come out more brightly than it does on a dying bed. It has often been my privilege to test the power of religion when I have been sitting by the bedside of the dying. There is a young girl in heaven now, once a member of this our church. I went with one of my beloved deacons to see her when she was very near her departure. She was in the last stage of consumption. Fair and sweetly beautiful she looked, and I think I never heard such syllables as those which fell from that girl's lips. She had had disappointments, and trials, and troubles, but all these she had not a word to say about, except that she blessed God for hem; they had brought her nearer to the Saviour. And when we asked her whether she was not afraid of dying, "No," she said, "the only thing I fear is his, I am afraid of living, lest my patience should wear out. I have not said an impatient word yet, sir, hope I shall not. It is sad to e so ver weak, but I think if I had my choice I would rather be here than be in health, for it is very precious to me; I know that my Redeemer liveth, and I am waiting for the moment when he shall send his chariot of fire to take me up to him." I put the question, "Have you not any doubts?" "No, none, sir, why should I? I clasp my arms around the neck of Christ." "And have not you any fear about your sins?" "No, sir, they are all forgiven, I trust the Saviour's precious blood." "And do you think that you will be as brave as this when you come actually to die?" "Not if he leaves me, sir, but he will never leave me, for he has said, 'I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.'" There is faith, dear brothers and sisters, may we all have it and receive forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace.

Kelly Commentary on Books of the Bible

In this epistle we have the unfolding of the grace of God in all its fulness, not merely the application of His righteousness to man's need on His part, but God from out of Himself, and for Himself, as the adequate motive and object before Him, even His own glory. Hence it is that righteousness disappears in this epistle. We have had the gospel thus in all the epistles that have gone before. In Romans, in 1st and 2nd Corinthians, and in Galatians righteousness was largely used. It was developed in a positive and comprehensive way, as in Romans. It was brought in either to convict the Corinthians of their utter departure through the spirit of the world, the flesh taking that shape, or it was brought in triumphantly on their restoration. Again, by it the apostle, writing to the Galatians, vindicated God's ways with man, and set the Christian outside the law.

But in Ephesians the aim is of a much more absolute and direct character. It is not the wants of man in any sense, either positively or negatively. Here God from Himself and for Himself is acting according to the riches of His own grace. Accordingly the very opening brings before us this astonishingly elevated manner of presenting the great truth with which the apostle's heart was filled. "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God." (Ephesians 1:1) It was pre-eminently for this that he had been chosen as an apostle; and he represents his apostleship not here as a question of calling, but "by the will of God:" everything in this epistle flows from the will of God; "to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus."

Although about to show us what the church is in its heavenly blessing, that is, in its highest associations, he always begins with the individual. This was peculiarly needed. The tendency is ever to set aside what is personal for that which is corporate. The epistle to the Ephesians truly understood will help none so to do. It may be perverted to this or anything else; but so far is our corporate place from being put in the foreground that we do not hear one word about the assembly as such till the close of the first chapter. Only in verse 22 is the church even named for the first time, where it is said God has given Christ "to be the head over all things to the church." But up to this the saints are contemplated as such. The moral order of this is exceedingly beautiful. In the admirable wisdom and grace of God it is the direct setting aside of that which is found in all earthly systems, where the individual is merely a portion of a vast body which arrogates to itself the highest claims. It is not so in the word of God. There the individual blessing of the soul has the first place. God would have us set thoroughly clear and intelligently appreciating our individual place and relation to Himself. Where these are made and kept right, we can then safely follow what God will show us in due time, but not otherwise.

As usual the apostle salutes the saints with the best wishes for their blessing. "Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ." Then, without delay, the next verses introduce a general view of the glorious topic that occupied him. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." It is God in His proper nature, and in His relationship to Jesus. He is the God of Jesus; He is the Father of Jesus. But the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ "hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ." It is not carnal blessing such as was in measure given under the law to Israel, and will be under the new covenant by and by; it is spiritual blessing. The earth is their sphere; it is there that Israel looks to be blessed, and the Gentiles somewhat farther off, but all in the ordered blessing of the Most High God. Altogether differently here "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" has blessed us where Christ is on high. There is no place good enough for Christ the Son but heaven. There it is God Himself displays most His own glory; there He displays Christ Himself to all the heavenly hosts, delighting to put honour on that Man whom He raised from the dead and set at His own right hand. it is there not merely that He means to bless us, but that He has blessed us already. Such is the character of our blessing, and such its seat. The character is spiritual, the seat heavenly; and as the whole is given by the God and Father of our Lord Jesus, so it is secured in Christ.

In the next verse the apostle opens out that which is move particularly connected with "the God of our Lord Jesus 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." If "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" has blessed us with every spiritual blessing above in Christ, this is the first need to have a nature capable of communion with His God, to have a condition that would do no dishonour, not only to the highest sphere, but to the holiest form and sphere in which God has ever made, Himself known. This is the nature that is given to the believer now. But it is not merely a thing imparted. The special point before the apostle's mind is that this was the choice of God before the world, in which we are brought to know the infinite blessing. It was entirely unconnected with the world. Far different was Israel's case, however favoured as a nation. They were chosen in time. Not only were they called in time as we have been, but they were chosen in time, which we were not. The choice of the saints for heavenly blessedness was before the creation of the universe, before the foundation of the world.

This gives a very peculiar character to our blessedness. It is altogether independent of the old creation, of that which might fail and pass away. It was a choice of God Himself before there was any creature responsible or dependent. God made known His choice, not when the creature was to be proved, but when it had failed to the uttermost; but the choice itself was decided on by God Himself before the creature came into being. It is the moral answer to what was shown in Christ, "that we should be holy and without blame before him in love." Indeed, these are the very qualities of God Himself. He is holy in nature, and blameless in His ways. Man may cavil and murmur now in unbelief; but God will vindicate them every one when man shall be silent for ever. Besides, there is love, the activity, as well as, the moral qualities, of His being. Love it is which, as it were, puts all in movement that belongs to God. It is not something extraneous that acts on God as a motive, but His own love flowing out from Himself according to His holy nature, and in perfect consistency with His character and ways.

This is the moral nature which God confers on us who are born of Him. This and nothing less or else is what He chooses us to be before Him chooses us to be in Christ in His own sight, and therefore with the fullest certainty that it shall be according to His own mind. It is not merely in the presence of an angel, still less before the world. Angels are not adequate judges of what pertains to us; they may be witnesses, but not judges. God Himself is acting for His own glory and according to His own love. But then the possession of a nature capable of communing with God did not and could not satisfy. He would have something more. What could this possibly be? Is He not satisfied with giving us a nature like His own? No, not even so, and for this reason God has relationships, and these relationships are shown in Jesus just as much as His nature is. If we want to know what the holiness, and blamelessness, and love of God is, we must look at Him; but in the same way also, if we desire to know what are the relationships into which God puts those He loves, where shall we find the highest? Certainly not in the first man Adam. Israel's was at best a mere creature relationship, though, no doubt, having a special place in creation. Of all the creatures that live and breathe, man is the only one on earth that became a living soul by the breath of the Lord God, who, as it is written, breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. That is, there is a creative connection between God and man which is the source of man's moral relations with God, and the reason why man, and man alone of all creatures on the earth, shall live again and give an account of himself to God.

But in that which comes before us in our epistle, it is not a question even of the highest creature on earth one that was called to have dominion on earth, and be the image and glory of God here below. God had in view One infinitely above man; and yet He was a man. It was Jesus; and Jesus stood in what was altogether peculiar in a relationship that was perfectly according to God's counsels; but more than that, according to a relationship that was peculiar to His own person. There was counsel, but besides there was intrinsic glory altogether independent of any plans of conferred honour. In other words, the Son of God never was made the Son, He is never even called the child ( τέκνον ) of God.* To us, to be called children of God is more intimate than to be styled His sons; but it would derogate from the Lord. Jesus is never called a child in the sense in which I am now speaking He has His own relationship to the Father eternally. To us it is more to be born of the very nature of God, than to be sons adopted into the family of God. There might be an adopted son without the nature. One might be altogether a stranger to him that adopts. But in Jesus, the Son of God, there was this character of Son in His own title and being from everlasting. Need I say that this is altogether above human comprehension? Yet nothing is more certain than that God so speaks to our faith. Were there an interval of one instant between the Father and the Son, did the Father exist in any respect before the Son as such, all the truth of God as revealed in the Bible perishes. He to whom I look up, by and in whom alone I can know God and the Father, is God Himself Let the notion of time come into the conception given of Godhead and of the persons Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and all would be falsehood and confusion. The Son would be a creature not self-subsisting, not therefore truly God. For if God, He is as such not less truly God than the Father; for there can be no difference as to Godhead. As the Father is everlasting, so is the Son. The relationship in the Godhead has nothing to do with the question of time; and the great mistake that has been wrought by all human philosophy is from introducing notions of time where time can have no place whatever.

* The Lord Jesus is repeatedly called παῖς , translated "son" and "child" in the English version of the Acts of the Apostles, but more properly God's servant as Messiah.

Thus in the Godhead there are the relationships of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. But I confine myself now to the relationship of the Son to the Father from everlasting. And God, having these counsels before Him from everlasting, deigns to have a people, not only capable of enjoying Him as having the very same nature as His own, without which they could not enjoy glory; but, besides, if He has us in His presence, He would have us in the highest relationship into which grace could bring us. Now, the highest being that of the Son, we accordingly are brought into that relationship, though not, of course, in the sense in which He was eternally so. To us it could be but eternal purpose, to Him eternal being; to us pure grace, but to Him His own indefeasible right. But the Son being before the Father as His supreme object of love and delight from all eternity, to bring us as sons before Him was as much a part of His counsels as to make us partakers of divine nature. Thus nature is the subject of verse 4, as relationship is of verse 5. Hence in the latter we find, not exactly choosing, but predestinating us: "Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will."

It is well to mark the difference. To be before Him without having His own nature would be impossible; and therefore it is not stated as a matter of predestination, but of choice. He might have been pleased to choose none; but if we are to be brought into His presence at all, it is impossible to be there without having the divine nature, in a moral sense (and, of course, one only speaks of this). It is not the impartation of Godhead: none can be so foolish as to think of such a thing. But the divine nature is given to us in its qualities of holiness and love. On the other hand, we find that the predestination is "according to the good pleasure of his will," because no necessity operates in this. There was a moral necessity for a nature suitable to God, if we were to be in His presence at all; but there was none for this special relationship. He might have put us in any degree of relationship He pleased. Angels, for instance, are there; but they have no such relationship. His grace has predestinated us to the very highest relation that of sons unto Himself by Jesus Christ "according to the good pleasure of his will." And the apostle concludes the whole of this part of the matter "to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved." All this wondrous scheme is to the glory of His grace. He uses therefore the highest terms in order to express it. Grace alone would not suffice, glory alone would not serve, but both. It is "to the praise of the glory of his grace." Meanwhile it is again presented to us in this new fact, that we are brought in as objects of His perfect favour in the Beloved. Such is the measure, if measure it can be called, of the grace wherein we stand.

But then those in respect of whom God the Father had such thoughts were in point of fact sinners. The next verse shows that this is not forgotten, for account is taken of the fact, and it is provided for. The same "Beloved" who accounts to us for the counsels of God has brought in redemption. In Him we enter into favour, "in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of offences," not exactly according to the praise of his glory, "but according to the riches of His grace." It is a present thing in every sense, though, of course, needed for heaven and eternity. Hence the expression does not go beyond the riches of God's grace. Thus is touched, incidentally, the need of our souls as offenders against God, but only so far as to show that it was in no way overlooked.

Next the apostle turns to the boundless scene that lies before us, as in the preceding verses he had looked at what is behind us. And why is all this? Clearly God has a purpose, a settled and glorious plan to gather the whole universe under Christ as its Head. Are those that He has brought into a share of His own moral nature and the relationship of sons to be left out of this? In nowise: even now He has abounded toward them "in all wisdom and prudence." These words do not attribute to God all wisdom and prudence, which certainly would be nothing new; but they intimate that He has now conferred on His saints all wisdom and prudence. It is truly an astonishing statement. The contrast is with Adam, who had a knowledge that was suited to his own place and relationship. Accordingly we hear inGenesis 2:1-25; Genesis 2:1-25 how he gave names to all that was put under him. And as to his wife, he instantly understands, though he had been in a deep sleep while she was being formed. But when presented to him, he knows all that it was meet for him to know then. He knows instinctively that she was part of himself, and gives her a name suitably. Such seems to have been the measure of Adam's wisdom and prudence. As being the image and glory of God on earth, he is the one that gives names to his companion, or to the subject creation. It is not merely that he accepts names given him by God, but God delights in putting him in this place of lordship, and to a certain extent also of fellowship lordship to that which is below him, and fellowship as regarded his wife. Thus, then, Adam acts and speaks.

But the saints, now being made the objects of these heavenly counsels of God, have a wisdom and prudence of their own, quite peculiar to the new creation in Christ, and its proper relations: God puts no limits to it. In point of fact, He looks for the expression and exercise of it, be assured, from all of us, though no doubt according to our measure. It is no use merely taking it up as a name or barren title. Our God and Father does look for the display of the mind of Christ in us, so that we should be able to form a judgment according to Himself, and to express it about whatever comes before us. For if we are in Christ, we have a vantage ground which makes all things clear. Christ is not darkness but light, and puts all in the light; He makes us to be children of the light, that so we may be able to judge ourselves, not discerned by man as such, but capable of discerning whatever claims our attention. Such is the place of a Christian, and a wondrous place it is, flowing from the nature and relationship which we possess by the grace of our God.

But the connection is important. God has "abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence; having made known unto us [what is the special proof of it] the mystery of his will." This does not yet appear; for there is nothing to indicate to mankind what He purposes to do. It is an absolutely new thing; and this new purpose is "according to the good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: that in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth, even in him; in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will, that we should be to the praise of his glory," etc.

Here the apostle repeats that high, large, and blessed phrase already so familiar to us, "that we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ; in whom ye also [trusted]." It was not confined to those that had their hope founded on Christ while the nation refused Him. Paul was one of those; and there were others at Ephesus, as we well know in point of fact the first nucleus of the assembly there. The first saints and faithful in the city of Ephesus, asActs 19:1-41; Acts 19:1-41 shows, were persons who had been baptized with the baptism of John, and afterwards brought from Jewish to Christian ground by the apostle Paul. Hence he says, "that we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ," referring to himself and any other saints who had been chosen from the people of the Jews. At the same time there is no exclusion of Gentile believers, but the reverse. "In whom ye, also [trusted], after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation." For the mass subsequently brought in were Gentiles, and the gospel of salvation they forthwith received, without going through the intermediate steps that the others knew. The Jews, or those who had been under Jewish teaching, had been for a while in an infantine state, or an Old Testament condition; but the Gentiles by faith passed simply and directly into the full Christian blessing. "In whom also, after that ye believed, ye were sealed with the holy Spirit of promise, who is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory."

It cannot have escaped observation that there are two great parts in that which has come before us. The first is nature; the second is relationship. The Holy Ghost is here viewed according to these two. Connected with nature, He has sealed us, as it is said here and elsewhere; and connected with relationship, He is the earnest. For "if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ." The Holy Ghost thus takes a corresponding part. Just as Christ is the sample and model whether of nature or relationship, so the Holy Ghost is not without His own proper place in bringing the saint into the reality, knowledge, and enjoyment of both. The Holy Ghost gives us the certainty and joyful assurance of our place as saints; the Holy Ghost at the same time gives us the foretaste of the bright inheritance of God that lies beyond.

Then follows a prayer of the apostle the first of those he pours out for the Ephesian saints. Naturally this prayer grows out of the two great truths he had been urging. He prays for the saints "that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory [for this is what his mind connected with it], may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints." These are the two former points. The "hope of his calling" is the bright prospect of the saints themselves, as they are in Christ before God. "The riches of the glory of his inheritance" embrace, of course, that vast scene of creation which is to be put under the glorified saints. He prays accordingly that they might enter into both, realizing the holy peaceful atmosphere of the one, and the glorious expectations that were bound up with the other; for clearly the future is before his mind. But then he adds a third point, which was not given in the previous part of the chapter; namely, that they might know "what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead."

This last was of all-importance to the saints, and the rather as that power had already been put forth. It shines in full contrast with Israel. If the latter enquired how God had interfered most conspicuously for them, no doubt they were reminded of the power that brought them out of the land of Egypt. This was always their comfort in the midst of disasters and troubles. The God that divided the Red Sea, and brought them across Jordan, was equal to any difficulty that might ever assail them again. In the prophets this too remains always the standard, until God exert His power in another way, when He shall be no longer spoken of as Jehovah that brought them out of the land of Egypt, but out of the north country into their land, where He shall settle them for ever. Thus Israel stands in the permanent remembrance of power that redeemed them from the land of Egypt, and in the anticipation of a still greater manifestation that will eclipse whatever had been seen of old.

But the Christian is even now himself, with his fellow-saints, the object of the very same power which never can be outshone the power that raised up Christ from the dead. We wait for nothing greater nor its match; we await the results of this glorious power for the body and the creation; but we look for no new putting forth of power which can enter into competition with that which God has already shown in Christ. The moment that Jesus presents Himself as the answer to what has been put forth already, the saints rise or are changed in the twinkling of an eye. Besides, it is not merely that the body will immediately respond to the call of the Lord Jesus, but even now the very same power Acts wrought toward us in making us Christians which "wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in that which is to come: and hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all." Such is the power that has wrought now wrought toward us even while we are in this world.

Accordingly, in Ephesians 2:1-22, the apostle pursues this train, and shows that it is not another exertion of power, but a part of the very same work of God which raised up Jesus from the dead. In other words, Christ was not raised up as an insulated individual, severed from all others by His glory and their sin and shame. The gospel of God's grace proclaims the very reverse. He was raised up as the great manifestation of divine power for effectuating God's counsels as well as redemption. Not only was His resurrection this manifestation, but also whatever God put forth toward us was in virtue of that display of His energy was, so to speak, morally included in that power which raised up Christ from the dead. This clearly is of the deepest possible interest to the saints. Throughout the epistle all the secret is just this God would associate us with Christ (that is, of course, in everything that is consistent with the maintenance of the divine glory). Whatever could contribute to it, whatever fell in according to it, everything that God Himself could do to bind us up with Christ, sharing with us all that is glorious in Christ His own Son, even to His holy nature and relationship with the Father, as far as this could be conferred on a creature, is no more than God had in His heart yea, is what God has given us now, and will display in heavenly Places ere long.

So the apostle says, "You hath he quickened, who were dead in offences and sins;" for now we can bear to learn anything, however humiliating, and He can speak of anything, no matter how exalted or holy. God had never so spoken of man before. In Romans the sinner is regarded as alive in sins; and death, the death of Christ, is the means of deliverance. In Ephesians death is the very first place where we find even Christ. Not a word is said of sending Him into the world, or of His life and labours there, any more than of our doing this or being that. The first place where Christ is seen is in the grave whence God according to the mightiest action of His almighty power raised Him up. It was an absolutely new thing: never was seen one so glorious, never can there be another so triumphant, as the power there put forth. Man, Satan, yea, the judgment of God that had gone forth against Him because of our sins, had no force to detain Him in the grave. That judgment had fallen on Him necessarily and unsparingly; but in the face of everything calculated to hinder, God's power broke up the last stronghold of the enemy. There was Jesus lying in the grave; and from that grave God raised Him, and set Him on the highest pinnacle of heaven's glory not only of that which then was, but that ever shall be. Such is the very power that has taken you and me up in divine grace, and wrought toward us. The very power that brought you out of the world and of your sins is the power that raised up Christ from the dead, set Him in the heavenly places, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fulness of that glorious Head to whom it is united.

This is pursued then first with reference to the Gentiles, for now the order is reversed. InEphesians 1:1-23; Ephesians 1:1-23 he began with the Jews, and then showed the Gentiles brought in; but now he begins with the outer circle where the Gentiles were. "And you hath he quickened, who were dead in offences and sins; wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience." What can be conceived more dreadful than such a condition, positively without spiritual life, dead in offences and sins! Not only so, but they had walked according to the course of that which is most of all offensive to God "of this world, according to the prince of the authority of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience;" for indeed they were, one as much as another, children of disobedience. "Among whom also we all," etc., for he does not let slip the Jews, but turns round on their estate, equally lifeless as the Gentiles. They might otherwise think themselves more or less superior. He had spoken of the poor idolatrous Gentiles and their awful condition; but "we all," says he, putting himself along with them, Jews as we were, children of the covenant and what not, were none the less dead in offences and sins. "Among whom also we all had our conversation in time past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, quickened us together with Christ (by grace ye are saved), and raised us up together." Now he unites both in this place of richest blessing; for He has even "made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus." In truth it is His grace to the full, and for heaven (not earth), though given to us to know here before we get there; "for by grace are ye saved." The whole work is thus presented in its completeness from first to last; nevertheless, it is only "through faith" as yet. This is and must be the medium, as far as the saints are concerned, grace being the spring on God's part: "and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship."

It is clearly not a question of righteousness here, or consistency with any known standard of judgment. God would frame a new sort of workmanship worthy of Himself; and therefore all question of antecedent measures disappears. Righteousness supposes a claim in the first place, however met; even though it may be God's righteousness, still it is God acting in consistency with Himself and His own claims. But in Ephesians we are in presence of a new creation in Christ, where claim is out of the question. Who would demand of God to make the objects of His mercy like Christ the Son? Who could, before He revealed His purpose, have so much as conceived such a dealing possible? Even now, though plainly made known in this epistle and elsewhere, how few Christians there are who rest in it as their assured portion! So totally and absolutely is it outside the range of human thought and feeling that the difficulty is to drop self, to cut all the strings that bind us to human nature and the world, to see all ended even now that is connected with the present course of this age, so that we may be simply occupied and filled with that heavenly blessedness which God unfolds to our souls.

However this be, "We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works," a peculiar kind of good works, suited to the relationship in which we stand. This is the great point to seize always throughout Scripture. There never can be spiritual understanding, unless souls let in this after all plain principle, that the suited good depends on the relationship in which we are placed, whether to God, or to any other. The, good for an Israelite, for a Gentile, for a man, is wholly different from the good for a Christian, because their relationships are not the same as his. Now we are Christians; and this decides the character of the duties we have to pay, or of the good works which He has before prepared that we should walk in them; for "we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus" for this very purpose. It is not at all put as a question of command according to the law; but "God had before prepared," as a part of His wonderful scheme, "that we should walk in them." He merely now touches on the principle, as he had before let us see not merely God's counsels from before the foundation of the world, but the manner and means of their application through Christ our Lord to us in time. Hence the condition in which we were found here below came into view; and, as we have seen, it was total ruin, whether Jew or Gentile be looked at.

But now fromEphesians 2:11; Ephesians 2:11 the apostle enters into particulars, and shows that the bringing down from God's own heights of these glorious counsels and making them thus manifest in man here below, completely sets aside the Jewish system, or rather supposes the setting aside of all Jewish elements. Hence, being "Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands; [the apostle bids such remember] that at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world." And what had God done now? Had He brought the Gentiles into the place that Israel once occupied? The Jews had rejected their own Messiah. Of old they had forfeited every claim according to the law, and were spared and kept in God's mercy and faithfulness. But now they had consummated their rebellion by refusing the Christ of God. What was to be done? Would God send out and bring in the Gentiles to fill their place? Another plan discloses itself. The Jews who believe are taken out of their former place, as much as the Gentiles, who had no place. Both are now introduced by grace into an entirely new and heavenly place in Christ, which was not so much as heard of before. Accordingly not only does he enforce the truth first presented in the end of chapter 1, the church which is the body of Christ, but he also still more qualifies it as a "new man," and as "one body;" because, in treating of the two objects of grace, and component parts of the church, Jews and Gentiles who believe, he shows that God does not purpose to form two societies of these saints, but one body. It is not a mere aggregate of Gentiles into the well-known line of old blessing, but one new man, not merely fresh in time, but of an absolutely new order, never seen or experienced before. It is not again a simple question of a new nature, but of a new man: the first Adam, with all remedial or corrective dealings in him disappear, and one new man comes before our view.

Here again the apostle brings in the relation of the Holy Ghost to the new things. The consequence is that we find the Spirit of God, now sent down from heaven, not only putting the saints into relationship with the Father, but, besides, dwelling in them and making them God's habitation through the Spirit.

Thus we have at last the church developed in its two main characters. It has its heavenly association as the one body of Christ; it has its earthly place and responsibility as the "habitation of God through the Spirit." All this, it will be observed, is consequent on the cross. The one was not at all, nor was the other in such sort before. God had a dwelling-place of old in Israel; but it was a house made with hands, however magnifical, that followed the tabernacle of witness in the desert, in both of which the Shechinah, or visible sign of His glory, deigned to dwell. Such is not the character of God's dwelling now. It is neither the tabernacle, nor the temple, but His habitation in Spirit. It is not, of course, a display of glory before men's eyes; yet is it most real a proper dwelling of God on earth, answering to, though not necessarily coextensive with, those who are constituted the body of Christ glorified on high. Not that the body is there yet, but that the body of Christ is heavenly in its character, although in fact on the earth now. Besides, as we have seen, the church is the dwelling-place of God through the Holy Ghost's presence here below.

This leads toEphesians 3:1-21; Ephesians 3:1-21, in which the apostle unfolds things parenthetically. It is a revelation of God that comes in at the time when the Jews have, at least temporarily, lost their place altogether. The very structure of the chapter, as has been noticed, is a sort of confirmation of this. The chapter itself is a parenthesis. "For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles, if ye have heard of the dispensation [administration or stewardship] of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward: how that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery (as I wrote afore in few words; whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ); which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed." Observe, therefore, that what was the first in counsel is the last in revelation.

Accordingly, when all was complete in the communication of God's plans in the Bible, there was one subject that was left a blank. Paul was the chosen witness to fill up that blank. He wrote in few words no doubt, but he has written with divine perfection, and clearly enough for those by God's grace made competent to understand, let the words be ever so few. Many wonder that such truths as these should not have more words used in communicating them. But profound truths are for those who have spiritual understandings; and such do not require many words to comprehend them. When persons are only learning the elements of truth, the grace of God provides precept on precept, line on line, for those who want it. If He is showing needy souls how they may be forgiven of God, He displays it in a thousand forms; if the need of righteousness, He repeats it over and over again. But it is not so with the revelation of the mystery. There is a certain spiritual competence supposed, a due preparation not only of heart, but also of knowledge; or, as the apostle said, "we speak wisdom among them that are perfect," Here no lengthy exposition would be wanted about it, because they were not so infantine as to suppose that the truth of God depends on the number of times that a thing is asserted. Once is enough for the intelligent.

God therefore has not been pleased in the heights of divine truth to repeat words in the same way as His grace leads Him to do when He is helping the babes. Hence the apostle Paul, in what is by no means the simplest utterance he has given, writes in few words. He could condescend. We know how he would bend down and be as it were a; Gentile to one without law, and a Jew to one under law, to do good to souls.

But now he speaks briefly. He was not constrained to enter into a full or long explanation. But as he said that by revelation it was made known to him, so he would from God communicate it to them. "Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit." It is remarkable that the mystery, though revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the power of the Holy Ghost, was not revealed by them. It was revealed by Paul alone. Revealed to all the apostles and prophets of the New Testament, to one as much as another, it never seems to have taken such a hold of the others as of Paul. In point of fact, from his conversion right through, the revelation of the mystery was involved. That which comforted his soul was Christ in heavenly glory far above all things. As the light that shone then was brighter, than the sun at noonday, so in the vision the truth about to be learnt was entirely outside and superior to the present or the past. It was grace in its deepest character and in its highest form, and so the apostle Paul was the suited vessel that God employed to instruct others, not merely the one to whom the revelation was made, but by whom the revelation was to be communicated. It is revealed to us here.

We must carefully remember that the mystery does not mean the church merely. It is the mystery of Christ emphatically; and the part about Christ is the higher of the two. The church is but a consequence; and we bless God for this, and bless Him also that we know the church is but the complement of Christ. One might distrust a mystery, if it centred in the church. Who that knows what man is, and God, as Christ has made both known, would dare to rest in any one person or thing which did not find its brightest form in Christ Himself? And the reason is simple; so inadequate is the creature, so untrustworthy is the first Adam, that one might well be certain the true meaning of the Bible was lost to him who judged otherwise. Such an one must have only got the lower end of the line, and not the full truth in its own native purity and freshness from God. Impossible that the Head should not be there as well as the body; and the apostle speaks as to Christ yet more than as to the assembly.

God then brings out His own secret, after having kept it hidden from all past ages and generations, though, of course, it has been before Him from the beginning. If God reveals it now, the idea of man of ourselves being the first and main object in the mind of God is impossible. It is the mystery of Christ; and this is what secures the blessing in its fulness and purity for the church of God. Therefore we need never fear, no matter what the blessing and the privilege may be. If it be illustrated in Christ, if it be bound up with Him, fear not to trust simply and to believe implicitly. Enter boldly into the sweetness of His grace and fulness of His glory. We never can go astray, if we follow the path of the Lord Jesus.

Though it is the mystery of Christ, it is not exclusively about Christ. So in Ephesians 5:1-33 he says, "This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church." Is there not good reason for saying that the church is but a consequence? The church follows; and as it belongs to Christ, so it is a part of Him. Hence, to make the mystery to be the church is a very serious moral as well as doctrinal mistake.

The apostle adds that it was now revealed of the Spirit, "That the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ by the gospel: whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power. Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints" there is nothing like this truth, where it is learnt from the Holy Ghost, for humbling the soul, were it even the greatest of the apostles, "is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; and make all see what is the fellowship [rather administration] of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in, God, who created all things [by Jesus Christ to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God."

God had something more to teach those who are the natural denizens of heaven. They had to learn what they had never known. They had seen creation, and sung at the sight. They had seen the ways of God with man, and with Israel; and surely they had entered into the glory of God that was involved in all His ways. Nevertheless, whether it was creation, whether man or favoured Israel, there was so much the more painful a declension that portended the judgment of God upon them. Thus there were dark shadows, and lowering clouds. But now appeared something altogether new. Latest of all, God divulged His wonderful scheme in which the man that came from above, the Son that became a man, the Word made flesh, had gone down to the very lowest in order to make good the glory of God morally in the scene where He had been most put to shame. But now, consequent on His resurrection from the dead, and of the place given Him in heaven above all, there was made known to these very principalities and powers "the manifold wisdom of God," made known to them before it came to pass, the sure deliverance of the whole scene of creation, of man, of Israel, as well as of the earth. But not merely this. That man who came down but was found alone to the end of His earthly course would now be alone no more; He would have a new and suited body, believing Jews and Gentiles fellow-heirs and of the same body. Most wholesome blessedness! for who should be more above the feelings of jealousy than those who delight in that which shows the greatness, and the glory, and the perfect goodness of God in His greatest work? This, then, was what was needed for the principalities and powers, and this is what they behold in the church of God.

The apostle accordingly is now led at the sight of the mystery of Christ into another prayer, in which he asks "the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ [for now he takes up the other relationship,], of whom the whole [rather, every] family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; being rooted and grounded in love, that ye may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled with all the fulness of God."

Here the prayer is not, as in the first chapter, that they might know the power that had wrought toward them; it is now that their hearts might be in the secret of His grace according to the power that works in them. That is, he looks at the inner source, not merely at the glorious results. Here he prays to the Father of our Lord Jesus, not simply to the God that had raised up the Christ from the dead, and was glorifying Him on high. It will be observed that the desire is not merely that they might be enlightened as to the special glory of their standing, but that their hearts might be filled with the love of Christ, and this too as a present thing filling them to overflowing, though surely not to cease in the ages to come. "Unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end." This is not a question therefore of the place or standing of the Christian, but rather of his condition or state, which the Spirit would have in unison with the love of Him who alone made either possible. Consequently here it is not an energy already put forth, but he pleads that Christ might dwell by faith in their hearts. It is not a conferred position, however blessed, but practical enjoyment even that Christ Himself might be habitually the object before them, now that all question of deliverance and blessing was settled in their favour. It was all a known thing that they were blessed by yea, with Christ, forming a part of Christ, expressly fellow-heirs, and of the same body. But now, founded on this, the apostle prays thus for them, that the Holy Ghost would so act in the inner man that there might be no hindrance to Christ, and that they might know, not the Holy Ghost (for this they did not doubt), but Christ dwelling there by His power constantly.

Unquestionably the Spirit of God does evermore dwell in the Christian, though I am not aware that He is ever said to dwell in our hearts. He may shed abroad the love of God therein; but He is rather said to dwell in us, making the body God's temple. Here the apostle would have Christ to be more the satisfying object of our affections. This is the point. Far be it from us just to know that He loves us through the word of God, as a security to us, like a dry parchment deed of gift that we quietly keep in a strong box. Rather is the very gospel to the sinner free and full, that, having the certainty of the divine fulness of our blessing, our hearts may be now open to enjoy Christ, and be occupied with His love. "That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith;" not that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, but "rooted," etc., that ye "may be able to comprehend with all saints." It is not here deliverance, let it be ever so complete; it is not the knowledge of our position in Christ as inEphesians 1:1-23; Ephesians 1:1-23; but rather the converse Christ dwelling in us by faith, and the heart entering into the positive excellency of the Son, the only adequate object of the Father's own delight. Hence it was that they might "be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and. height; and to know the love of Christ." It is not only the full extent of glory, but the sole satisfying spring, Christ thus dwelling in our hearts in the consciousness of His love "to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God." He is the ultimate blessedness with which we are filled, the One in whom we most confide, being the Son, in whom dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.

Thus, having Him who is the centre of all glory dwelling in our affections by faith, we enter into, and become established in, the grace which is the secret of it all. In communion with the objects of it, we go out into the resulting scenes of glory on every side; knowing Christ's love though unknowable, and filled into God's fulness though infinite. The apostle concludes his prayer with an ascription of glory to Him in the Church unto all generations of the age of the ages, able to do far above all we ask or think according to His power which works in us. It is thus seen to be founded on the great facts and standing privileges mentioned at the end of Ephesians 2:1-22; but it is the desire that the saints should know God's present power to an indefinite extent working in them in spiritual enjoyment, through the Holy Ghost's power, giving us to have Christ the definite and constant object of the heart.

Ephesians 4:1-32 begins the proper exhortatory portion, and here, first of all, urges a walk in view of such a calling as is ours, diligently keeping the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Then the diversities are brought before us. "I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love." The very truth which, learnt and enjoyed in the Holy Ghost, conduces to all lowliness and meekness, as it calls for mutual forbearance in love, flesh would abuse to all pride and vain-gloriousness, to high-minded contempt of others, and bitter self-confidence. Than these nothing less becomes those so blessed. Oh that we might have grace to walk in communion with such grace! But if we are to walk thus, let us not forget the prayer for the state of our hearts which precedes these exhortations. Knowledge of standing and a, state answering to Christ's love, are the basis of a walk worthy of our calling. "The unity of the Spirit" seems to be the general name for that great fact which is now established that unity of which Christ is the chief, and to which we all belong. The apostle treats it as our business diligently to observe it. It is impossible for flesh to be true to it. This is as it should be. An easy path could not be divine, as men and things are on earth. We need, but we have, the Holy Spirit who is surely all-sufficient, if looked to. It is impossible to exaggerate the snares and difficulties of Christendom.

But what are difficulties to the Spirit of God? This is the great want simple, genuine faith in the Holy Ghost. He is equal to all, and, would have us count on His presence and power answering to the name of Christ. What has all the confusion of men to do with the glorious reality that God has established His unity, of which we all form part by the power of His Spirit? What does it matter about times, persons, or circumstances, if the Spirit abide to enable us, according to Scripture, diligently to keep His own unity? Numbers are of small account here. The Lord might be where there are only two gathered together unto His name. If but two acted accordingly, they ought to be and would be an expression of the unity of the Spirit. What is the value of any other unity? It can never rise above its human source. Evidently also, it is no essential matter for present practice of faithfulness, whether few or many see and feel it: this is a question for God's will, who will act for His own glory, whether by many or by few. Let this then rest in His hands. Be it our part with diligence (for this is needed) "to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace."

Then we hear the particulars, and in a very orderly manner. "There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling." This verse states the intrinsic unity that never passes away, beginning with the fact of "one body;" then the efficient power, one Spirit; and lastly the cause of it all in the calling of grace. Nothing touches these.

In the next verse we have that which has been justly designated the unity of profession, where all things may come in to mar. Hence it is said, "One Lord," which is precisely that which is owned in the common creed of Christendom. And as there is one Lord, so "one faith." It is neither "faith" nor "the faith." That is, it may not be sincere, nor even doctrinally the truth that is held; but we hear of lone faith" in contrast with Judaism on one hand, and with Paganism on the other. Hence "one baptism" follows, which the context shows to be the plain initiatory rite of Christian profession, and nothing else. In the verse before the apostle had spoken of the "one Spirit," and hence it would be superfluous to introduce the statement of His baptism here, even if the adjuncts did not exclude the idea.

Thus we have had, first of all, the great spiritual reality which is always true of Christians, and of none else. They, and only they, have "one Spirit" dwelling in them. They only have the "one hope of their calling." But the moment you come to the "one Lord," this city, yea every city in Christendom, is a witness to a wide-spread profession of His name. As He is outwardly called on, so there is everywhere the "one faith," which does not mean (alas! we know too well) saving faith necessarily, but the faith of Christendom; and accordingly "one baptism" is its mark, because thus they are put on or take the ground of professing the one Lord and one faith.

Lastly, "one God and Father of all." Here we come to what is universal. Each circle hitherto was getting larger and larger. First there was the true company that had divine life and the Spirit of God; secondly, the circle of profession very much more extensive; and thirdly remains the universal unity, which embraces not Christendom only, but all the creatures of God included under their one God and Father whatever derived its being from God, the God that created all things, as we were told in Ephesians 3:9. He consequently is the lone God and Father of all," not merely of all believers, for this is a mistake of its force, but of all absolutely; just as we were told in verse 15 of that same chapter, that of Him every family in heaven and earth is named. No matter whether Jews or Gentiles, principalities or powers, every family is derived from this universal source of existence "One God and Father of all, who is above all [there we find His supremacy], and through all [there we find His permeance, if one may so say, as the support, of the whole universe], and in you all" [His intimacy with the saints]. The moment the apostle comes to inward relationship, he leaves the universality of phrase and speaks only of the saints of God "in you all." No statement can be conceived more exact.

Now we must turn to the diversities. "But to every [each] one is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ." And as the unity flowed from the power of the Spirit sent down from heaven; so now when we come to gifts, it is expressly connected with Christ in glory. "Wherefore he saith, when he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended." Yes, but He did not go up as He came down from above. He came a divine person filled with love; and He went a man also, triumphant not with love only but in righteousness and power, to give effect to all the glorious counsels of His Father, which unjudged sin would have for ever frustrated. He went up after all the working of evil had been really defeated and destroyed in the sight of God. Satan is allowed to go on for a little while longer, because God is gathering out the joint-heirs, while the evil develops itself in a new form Man had been shown to be the enemy of all righteousness, and now betrays himself the enemy of all grace. As the end of the latter will be incomparably worse than the former, so judgment will be commensurate with man's apostasy from grace; for the Lord must come from heaven, "in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and on them that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ."

Meanwhile, before a blow is struck at man's failure in the presence of righteousness, or at his apostasy from grace, that blessed Saviour, the only begotten Son in the bosom of the Father, the Son of man who is in heaven, went down to the very uttermost, and (having exhausted the powers of evil, and blotted out all that could rise against the objects of God's grace,) was raised and seated by God in heaven. He takes His place there, of course always the Son; but, wonderful to say, humanity makes an integral and everlasting part, so to speak, of that divine person, the Son of God. And here is the key, and that which accounts for the astonishing display of what God is now doing in man. How could it be otherwise, seeing that He who sits on His throne, tar above every creature in God's presence and in all ages, is a man, but withal the very Son of God? The Son is as truly man as God, and as such gives gifts to men. Angels are not the object. They had a distinguished place before the Son became man. Since then it is not so much they that have lost, but man in and by Christ that has gained such a place as they never had nor could have. Never were they to reign; never will they be one with Christ like the saints. They are "ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation."

But Christ at the right hand of God gives gifts unto men; and, as it is said here, "He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;" bringing in both the highest gifts and also those ordinarily requisite for the good of the saints. I say "requisite," simply in view of Christ's love towards the church. It is not a question of rendering a testimony of the power of God working in man and dealing with the first creation. In Corinthians we have this, and properly in its place. There we have tongues, miracles, etc.; because all that is connected with man in the flesh and in the world is a sign to unbelievers, showing them the goodness of God, and the defeat of that wicked power which governs human nature as it is.

But in the epistle to the Ephesians we have none of these dealings with the first man, but that which forms and nourishes the new creation. Hence we have those gifts alone which are the expression of the grace of Christ toward the saints that He loves, for ministerial work, for the building up of His body. In this order He gave them the body to be edified, and ministry carried on, but always the individual first. The building up of the body is the fruit of God's blessing the individual saints. It cannot be otherwise. It is in vain to look for the church's prosperity, if saints individually do not grow up unto Christ. And so these gifts are given, as it is said, "till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man., unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: that we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; but speaking the truth in love, may grow up unto him in all things, which is the head, even Christ."

Then we have in the centre of this chapter no longer the unity or the gifts differing, but the moral walk of the saints. And what is the first lesson of the truth as it is in Jesus? This; not only that we hear of the one body, and that saints compose this body, but that a new man is seen. Introducing this great practical truth, he reminds them of what they had been, but also tells them what they are now. Our duties flow from what we are, or are made. And what then is the truth as it is in Jesus? Our having put off the old man, and our having put on the new man. Such is the truth, if indeed we have learnt the Christ as God teaches Him. Anything short of this is not the true Christian measure. Jesus could occupy Himself in divine love. Self would have hindered; had there been a particle, it would have ruined both His person and His work; but this is not the truth as it is in Jesus. He came so as to be left absolutely free to occupy Himself in love for God's glory and our desperate need. And now, in Him who is dead and risen, the Christian has put completely off the old man, is being renewed in the spirit of his mind, and has put on the new man, which according to God is created in righteousness and holiness of truth.

Not only is there this new man that God has created after the image of Christ in contrast with the first Adam, but this is the ground why all moral evil is to be judged, beginning with deceit and falsehood. "Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another. Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: neither give place to the devil. Let the stealer steal no more." How solemn to learn what the old man is in its most detestable forms, against all which the Christian is warned! Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers."

But, besides the new man which lives in dependence, we need to guard against losing power according to God. "Grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption." Thus the great basis of all our walk is, that the old man has been judged in Jesus, and the new man we have already put on; but, moreover, the Holy Ghost is given, and we are sealed by Him. Thus we have a new nature which hates sin, and the Holy Ghost which gives power for that which is good.

Then he adds the great exemplar and spirit of it all, according to the forgiveness with which God met us in Christ. "Be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ hath forgiven you." But there is yet more. To forgive another's wrongs is not enough for a Christian. No doubt it is a giving up of self, and therefore the fruit of divine grace. But in Ephesians God cannot but have us imitate His own ways as they have shone in Christ. He Himself is the measure of the walk of the new man, and the manifestation of it is Christ Himself. Nothing short of this suffices. What has God done? He has forgiven you in Christ; and you are called to do the same. But was this all? Was there only this? Was there not positive love, far beyond forgiveness? And what is the manifestation of love? Not the law, but Christ. "Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; and walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour."

Do you think this devotedness too much? yea, impossible? Not so. Take a passage in 2 Corinthians (2 Corinthians 8:5), which has been before us only a short time ago: "And this they did, not as we hoped, but first gave their own selves to the Lord, and unto us by the will of God." How blessed is the character and the spring of Christian service! Think of their giving themselves first to the Lord, then to us by the will of God. It is just the answer to the grace of God in Christ. Nor is there full Christian service, except in proportion as it is according to this pattern and in this power. In Christ it was, of course, absolutely perfect: He did give Himself for us. But this was not enough. He might have given Himself ever so truly in pity for us; but it would not have been perfection, had He not "given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour." And so accordingly all that is acceptable takes this shape. "But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once .named among you, as becometh saints; neither filthiness, nor foolish talking [even light words dishonour the Christian, as being contrary to Christ], nor jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks. For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God."

But there are other elements. God is not only love but light; and inasmuch as this epistle reveals how fully God associates us with Christ according to His own nature, so having first shown us the privilege of loving, as He Himself loved us in Christ, now it shows that we are made "light in the Lord." But it is not said that we are love. This would be too strong, yea, false. Love is God's nature, but it is a sovereign prerogative in Him. In His own actings it has no motive or spring except in Himself. This could not be true of us. We need both motive and object, and hence could not be said to be love; because not we, but only God acts from Himself, as much as for Himself. Impossible that the creature could be or do so; and therefore the creature is never said to be love. But there is love after a divine sort in the new nature, which is said to be light, because this is the necessity of the new nature. Impossible that the new nature could countenance sin; the very essence of it is rejection and exposure of what is contrary to God. It is sensitive about sin; detects and detests it thoroughly. Hence we are said to be "light in the Lord," and we need to shake off the things of death that encumber the light, and hinder it. And so Christ gives us more light. For the word is, "Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." But just as before, in the walk which shuts out hatred, and anger, and so on, we were warned against grieving the Spirit of God; so the power of the Holy Ghost asserts itself here. Here it is not merely "Grieve not the Holy Spirit." He goes farther, and says, "Be filled with the Spirit." "Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord."

And is this all? It is not. There has been the full unfolding of God's love, and the answer to it in the saints here below in their nature, and in the ways that manifest the new nature. But, besides, we have relationships; and now we have God manifesting Himself in each of our positions, and showing us that these are meant to give us opportunity of glorifying God by the good works that were before ordained of God. Accordingly he brings in the most important of them, first, the wife and the husband; then, children and their parents; and, finally, servants and masters.

All through these then we have, but more particularly in the first, the interweaving of the duty with the manifestation of God's grace: "Christ also loved the church." It is not now either sovereign love, or love of complacency. There was the sovereign love of God in Christ forgiving us; there was love of complacency, inasmuch as we were to love according to that love with which we were loved, as shown us in the matchless love of Christ. But now there is love of relationship as well; and here too Christ appears, who is the pattern and perfection of grace in every respect. "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself." Just look into this revelation of His love. How everything is connected with Christ! He gave Himself for us. What was it for? "That he might present it to himself [not merely to the Father, but present it to himself] a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish." More than this; for "no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church." Everywhere Christ Jesus Himself is intermixed with every portion. He Himself is the beginning, He Himself the end, He Himself all the way through. He gave Himself as the beginning; and He presents it to Himself as the end. Meanwhile He tenderly cares for the church. "He that loveth his wife loveth himself; . . . for we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones." "This is a great mystery," he adds at the close; "but I speak as to Christ and as to the church."

Then we have the children, who are called to obey their parents in the Lord. It was not a question of the flesh: how could this be trusted? Let them obey in the Lord. To honour one's father and mother was both an obligation and had a special promise under law. And if children that had a relationship with their parents in the flesh and under law did so (for it was indeed right), how much more did it become Christian children to pay them reverence?

This is followed up by an exhortation to parents: "And ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." Thus is the Lord ever presented as the pattern. Then come the slaves similarly. He was privileged to do all as unto Christ; as the master again must remember that he had his own Master in heaven. This also answers to the grand doctrine of this epistle.

Then the apostle introduces us to another topic. It is not the source of the blessing (Ephesians 1:1-23); nor the place into which we are now brought as being made one with Christ (Ephesians 2:1-22); nor the objects to whom we are bearing testimony. (Ephesians 3:1-21) The closing theme shows us where and with whom are our true conflicts as Christians. As such we have not properly to fight with flesh at all, any more than to fight with the world. All other combats are outside the calling of a Christian.

I do not deny but that a Christian may slip elsewhere. But as long even as he is merely in conflict with his own nature, he can hardly be said to be on Christian ground at all. He may be a converted person; and God may be truly dealing with him in the way of gracious action. A really awakened soul may still have a great many unsettled questions in agitation within him. He has not come to God consciously. Now the very baptism of a Christian man is the confession of the truth, that God has in Christ judged flesh root and branch. Is not this the meaning of the institution? How far the person has realised it is another matter; but such is the meaning of baptism. Judging what I am, I confess that all my blessing is in the Saviour, who did not merely come to bless me as a living man in the world, but died and is risen again; and 1, confessing Him who is thus dead and risen, have part in His death. The conflict of the Christian is not therefore with flesh, still less is it with the world, but with Satan, and with his power, viewed as interposing and hindering our enjoyment of our heavenly blessing.

Is not this the meaning of the combat as described here? The wrestling is not with flesh and blood, "but against principalities, against powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against spiritual wickedness in heavenly places." The English translators did not know what to make of the apostle, and so they changed it to "high places," which was an unwarrantable liberty, and gives the most perverse meaning. This has misled many beside the poor Puritans, who fancied they were called of God, as a Christian duty, to strive against kings and all in authority, when not satisfied with their ways or measures. I mention this, because it is a striking proof that an error imported into Scripture leads even right-minded men into sad evil. It is expressly not against any powers that were living and acting in the world. The conflict is against Satan and his hosts. Just as the Canaanites tried to keep the Israelites out of the land which God assured Moses the tribes were to have for their possession, so Satan's great effort is to hinder the saints of God from realizing their blessedness in heavenly places.

But for this the most careful provision is laid on us. The first thing is to "be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might." That is, all our strength is to lean on another, even the Lord. The next thing is that we take "the whole armour of God, that we may be able to withstand in the evil day, and, having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth [inwardly applied, and thus bracing us morally], and having on the breast-plate of righteousness." The internal state is the great point here. Carefully remember this. Our standing is quite another matter, which itself could not avail here. The panoply is against Satan and not God. It is a question not of acceptance before God, but of resisting the enemy who would take advantage of loose ways and a bad conscience. The breast-plate means the practical righteousness of the saint himself. "And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace." So should our walk be. Besides, take "the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one." It is the confident trust of the heart in the favour of God in which we stand, not the remembrance of our first subjection to the gospel. Finally, "receive the helmet of salvation, [there the head is lifted up, not in presumption, but with none the less joy and courage,] and the sword of the Spirit," which is expressly said to be the word of God. The defensive comes before the offensive; and all should follow dependence on the Lord. The sword must be the real intrinsic power of the word wielded in the Spirit, which does not spare anything. Thus, first blessed, strengthened, and enjoying the grace and truth of God in Christ, we can then go out with the sword of the Spirit to deal with what is contrary to His nature, which Satan would use to obstruct our realization of our heavenly privileges.

Finally, there is the activity now for others, just as before there was dependence for ourselves. "Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints; and for me [as the apostle blessedly adds], that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel" (what a gracious way of encouraging and strengthening saints, giving them a feeling of the value of their prayers, both in the sight of God, and in fellowship with the most blessed apostle that God ever gave the church!) "for which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak." He felt his need and that of the work. Also he counted on their loving desire to know his affairs as well as to have their hearts comforted through Tychicus.