HE PREDESTINED US TO ADOPTION AS
SONS THROUGH JESUS CHRIST TO HIMSELF: proorisas (AAPMSN) hemas eis
huiothesian dia Iesou Christou eis auton: (Ep 1:11; Romans
8:29,30) (Jeremiah 3:4,19; Hosea 1:10; John 1:12; 11:52; Romans 8:14,
15, 16, 17,23; 2Corinthians 6:18; Galatians 4:5,6; Hebrews 12:5, 6, 7,
8, 9; 1John 3:1; Revelation 21:7) (John 20:17; Galatians 3:26; Hebrews
2:10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
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EPHESIANS 1-3 |
EPHESIANS 4-6 |
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Spiritual Wealth |
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The Position
of the Believer |
The Practice
of the Believer |
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Privilege |
Practice |
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In Christ |
Know your resources
in Christ |
Live in the light of your
resources
by faith in Christ |
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Work of Christ |
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We
in Christ |
Christ
in Us |
Word
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Heavenly
Standing |
Earthly
Walk |
The previous verse
ends with In love which leads some commentators to associate the
phrase with the preceding truth. However Nestle in his Greek text
punctuates the verse in such as way as to favor the phrase better
relating to what follows, thus, “in love He predestined us.” In
fairness, it should be noted that there are good expositors favoring the
former and the latter interpretation.
Paul's use of the
verb predestined indicates that like God's choosing of believers
in eternity past, His adoption of us as His sons was settled in the
heart of God even before He created a world for us to live in! (see more
discussion at adoption as sons below) This truth like
that in (Ephesians
1:4) boggles our minds and
fills our hearts with gratitude. What a comforting thought it
is...before our Father raised the majestic mountain peaks on this
planet, He predetermined to raise up sons and daughters that would be
His very own children!
Predestined
(4309)
(proorizo
[word study] from pró = before + horízo = determine
from horos = boundary, limit) means to mark out the boundary or
limits of a place, thing or person in advance or before. The
aorist tense
speaks of a definite
event though not stating necessarily when. The
active voice
indicates that God initiated this action of His Own free will!
Wuest
commenting on proorizo writes that...
The genius of the word is that
of placing limitations upon someone or something beforehand, these
limitations bringing that person or thing within the sphere of a certain
future or destiny. These meanings are carried over into the New
Testament usage of the word. Thus, the “chosen-out” ones, have had
limitations put around them which bring them within the sphere of
becoming God’s children by adoption (Eph. 1:5), and of being conformed
to the image of the Lord Jesus (Ro 8:29).
(Wuest,
K. S. Wuest's Word Studies from the Greek New Testament: Eerdmans)
Proorizo
is used six times in the NT...
Acts 4:28 to do whatever Thy
hand and Thy purpose predestined to occur. (Comment: the
crucifixion of Jesus was predetermined by the will of God not evil men,
although evil men did by their free will execute Jesus and thus are
culpable. Herein lies the unfathomable mystery of God's sovereignty and
man's responsibility. God does not try to explain how they can coexist.
Although Luke does not using the verb proorizo but the root verb horizo,
he presents a similar truth in Acts 2:22-23 writing
"Men of Israel, listen to these
words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles
and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst,
just as you yourselves know--23 this Man, delivered up by the
predetermined (horizo = marked out by a limit) plan (that
which has been purposed and planned) and foreknowledge of God, you
nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.
Romans 8:29 For whom He
foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of
His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren; 8:30 and whom He
predestined, these He also called; and whom He called, these He also
justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified. (Comment:
here we see that one of the purposes of "predestination" is that we are
conformed to the image of God's Son. See also Kenneth Wuest's comments
on proorizo above.)
1Corinthians 2:7 but we speak
God's wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom, which God predestined
before the ages to our glory (Comment: In other words God
predetermined before the ages that the gospel would be proclaimed, a
message of wisdom that is hidden in the sense that it can only be
understood with the Spirit's illumination).
Ephesians 1:11 also we have
obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His
purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will,
The Westminster
Confession of Faith
"All those whom God hath predestined unto life ... He is pleased, in His
appointed and accepted time, effectually to call by His Word and
Spirit."
In other words,
God will get His man (or woman) every time!
To (1519)
(eis) is a preposition indicating motion
into. In the present context eis is used to indicate purpose = in
order to, with a view to, for the purpose of. This proorizo or marking out
beforehand, this setting limits upon, this predestinating had in view
the act of God adopting these selected out ones (eklego) as His spiritual
children, of taking hopeless sinners and miraculously transforming them
into hope-filled sons!
Spurgeon
comments...
The chosen ones are adopted; they
become the children of God. The universal Fatherhood of God, except in a
very special sense, is a doctrine totally unknown to Scripture. God is
the Father of those whom he adopts into his family, who are born again
into his family, and no man hath any right to believe God to be his
Father except through the new birth, and through adoption. And why God
thus elects or adopts is declared here: "According to the good pleasure
of his will." He does as he pleases. That old word of God is still true:
"I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion
on whom I will have compassion." Men do not like that doctrine; it galls
them terribly; but it is the truth of God for all that. He is Master and
King, and he will sit on the throne, and none shall drag him thence.
Adoption as
sons (5206)
(huiothesia
from huios =
son + tithemi = place) literally means "to place one as a son".
Huiothesia thus speaks of adoption or being placed in a
position and rights as one’s own child. It means to to formally
and legally declare that someone who is not one’s own child is
henceforth to be treated and cared for as one’s own child, including
complete rights of inheritance.
Related
Resource:
Adopted as Sons - A Study
Huiothesia
- 5 times all by Paul -Ro 8:15, 23; 9:4; Gal 4:5; Eph 1:5 (Not used in
the Septuagint)
Detzler
writes that...
Throughout the Greek world the
wealthy and influential practiced adoption. Sometimes just a simple
declaration in the marketplace turned a slave into a son. It was an
ancient remedy used when a marriage failed to produce a male heir. No
change in name came, but the adopted son immediately became heir to the
entire wealth and position of his adoptive family. Conversely the
adopted son also assumed responsibility for the parents in their time of
need. Adoption in the Greek and Roman world was a beautiful picture. His
contemporary culture gave the Apostle Paul this word, but he gave the
word a new, Holy Spirit-inspired meaning. (Only Paul uses this word to
describe the relationship of believers to their Heavenly Father.) No
concept is more meaningful to a believer. For adoption deposits
every-thing that God owns to the accounts of His sons and daughters.
Adoption is all about position and privilege... Walking down the dusty
streets of Nazareth one summer afternoon I was almost run over by a
racing boy. As he charged past me the little lad caught sight of his
father. In a shrill, childish voice he screamed: "Abba, Abba."
Then I began to understand the intimacy of relationship which God
sustains to us. What wonderful, God-ordained words to use in prayer:
"Abba, Father." (Detzler,
Wayne E: New Testament Words in Today's Language. Victor. 1986)
(Bolding added)
The concept of
adoption as sons reaches back into the Old Testament, Paul writing
in Romans that
For I could wish that I myself were
accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren (the Jews),
my kinsmen according to the flesh (specifically unbelieving Jews), who
are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons (huiothesia)
and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the temple
service and the promises whose are the fathers, and from whom is the
Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever.
Amen. (Ro 9:3, 4,5 -notes)
Comment: God had "adopted" Israel in the Old
Testament, Jehovah declaring in Exodus 4:22 to Moses "Then you shall say
to Pharaoh, 'Thus says the LORD, Israel is My son, my
first-born."
Here in Ephesians
1:5 Paul reveals the "past tense" aspect of our adoption as
sons, an event predetermined in the heart and mind of God before
the foundation of the world.
In Romans
Paul explains the present tense aspect of adoption as sons
when we were born into God's family and God gave us His Spirit Who
kindles the fire of assurance in our souls for...
all who are being led by the Spirit
of God, these are sons of God. For you have not received a spirit
of slavery (as when we were bound to sin and our "father" Satan) leading
to fear again, but you have received (right now in this life) a spirit
of adoption as sons by which we cry out, "Abba! (Daddy) Father!"
(Ro 8:14, 15-notes)
Comment: Abba is the very name
the Beloved Son used when speaking to His Father, Mark 14:36 recording
"And He [Jesus] was saying "Abba! Father! All things are possible for
Thee. Remove this cup from Me. Yet not what I will, but what Thou wilt."
Again in Romans 8
Paul writes of the future tense aspect of our adoption as sons...
And not only this, but also we
ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit (i.e., the first fruits
is the Spirit, Whose presence in us guarantees the full completion of
our salvation), even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting
eagerly for our adoption as sons (we were adopted in the past
when God predestined us, we are adopted now as believers --see Ro 8:15
above, Gal 4:5 below -- but there awaits the culmination of our
privileges and position as adopted sons awaits our future resurrection
and glorification - adopted as sons, past, present and future!), the
redemption of our body (we have already been redeemed as believers but
there is a future culminating redemption when this mortal body will put
on immortality in glory). (Ro 8:23-note)
Comment: This future tense aspect of adoption as sons of God
includes the ultimate privilege of being like him (1John 3:2-note) and being
conformed to the glorious body of Christ [Php 3:21-note]
In a parallel
passage in Galatians Paul describes the present aspect of
adoption of sons of God writing that...
when the fulness of the time came,
God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, in order
that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive
the adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent
forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!"
Therefore you are no longer a slave (to sin, Satan or the fear he
orchestrates), but a son (we are adopted sons), and if a son then an
heir through God." (Galatians 4:4, 5, 6, 7)
Comment: The intimacy of our
new relationship with God the Father - "Abba! Father!" - stands in
striking contrast to our prior relationship of enslavement to
Sin.)
Adoption
(see
ISBE article on adoption) is a
well known human institution but supernatural adoption of believers by God is far more than a
name. A man adopts one to be his son and his heir that does not at all
resemble him, but whosoever God adopts for His child is like Him (2Pe
1:4-note) he not
only bears His heavenly Father’s name, but His image.
Adoption,
was a commonly known legal procedure in the Hellenistic world, the most
famous example being Julius Caesar’s adoption of his great-nephew
Octavius, who later succeeded him as the emperor Caesar Augustus. Often
a wealthy, childless man would adopt a young slave, who would trade his
slavery for sonship, with all its concomitant privileges. This adoption meant
at least three
things all of which have spiritual parallels for believers who are now
sons and daughters of God...
(1) It brought
about a total break with the old family and a new family
relation with all its rights, privileges and responsibilities. The
adopted person lost all rights in his old family, and gained all the
rights of a fully legitimate son in his new family. In the most literal
sense, and in the most binding legal way, he got a new father!
(2) The adopted son became an heir to his new father's estate. No matter how many
other sons there were at the time or how many were born thereafter, he
was co-heir with them. This was not subject to change.
(3) The old life of the adoptee was completely erased. All debts
and obligations were
legally canceled. The adopted son was regarded by the law as a new person.
William Barclay
cites a case in Roman history that shows how completely this was true.
The Roman emperor Claudius adopted Nero so that Nero could succeed him
as emperor. Claudius had a daughter named Octavia. Nero wished to marry
Octavia to seal the alliance. Although they were not blood relations, in
the eyes of the law they were now brother and sister and could not
marry. The Roman senate had to pass a special law in order for them to
marry.
In like manner, believers, when they are adopted, are removed from under
the authority of their previous father, Satan (see Jn 8:44) and are
given a new
Father. They are guaranteed an inheritance with all the children of God,
and as Paul explains later (Ep 1:14-note) the Holy Spirit is the down payment and guarantee
of their inheritance. The Spirit
is also the witness that adoption has taken place (Ro 8:14, 15-notes).
Finally, the adopted sons are new persons, in that all their sins are
forgiven, and they have a clean slate before God. What a tremendous
blessing to know that God has made us His own and that this was
predetermined most likely before the foundation of the world "according
to the kind intention of His will"!
Second, it is the
Holy Spirit who is the Spirit of adoption who is given to us as a
permanent witness to our adoption. It is the Spirit who assures
believers of their relationship with God and causes them to cry "Abba,
Father" (Ro 8:15-note;
Gal. 4:5). And not only this, but it is the Spirit who assures believers
of their freedom from the bondage of the law (Gal. 4:5) and frees them
from fear (Ro 8:15-note).
Finally, while
adoption is a present possession for believers, it also has a future
aspect. Although believers have received the "first-fruits of the
Spirit," they are still waiting for the redemption of the body, which is
considered to be part of "the adoption" (Ro 8:23-note). It will be complete
only when Jesus returns and changes this vile body into a glorified one.
S Lewis Johnson
writes that when Paul used adoption as sons he may have had in
mind the idea of true adoption as practiced in the Roman Empire at that
time in history. Johnson goes on to say that...
a true adoption, (is the process) by
which an individual is taken out of one family and put in another
family. In the Roman world, the family was based on what was called the
patria potestas, that is “the father’s power.” The father had absolute
power among the Romans. He not only had absolute power over his children
so far as disciplining them is concerned, but he had power over them as
long as he lived. He could actually put children to death in Roman Law.
In fact, even when a son became a magistrate, he was still under his own
father. So, for a child to be taken out of one Roman family, and placed
in another family, was a very, very significant thing. In fact the
ceremony is so interesting I’m going to read a little bit to you about
it.
Deon Cassius tells us that the Roman Law was that the Law of the Romans
gave 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. The right still continues to exist even if the son is
old enough to play an active part in political affairs, even if he’s
been judged worthy to occupy the magistrate’s office, and even if he is
held in honor 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 cases in which a father did condemn his
son unto death. Silast, in the Catiline Conspiracy, tells how a son
called Allus Fulvius joined the rebel Cataline. 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. The father
gave as his reason, “He had begotten him not for Cataline against his
country, but for his country against Cataline.”
Under Roman Law a child could not possess anything, and any inheritance
willed to him or a gift given to him became the property of the father.
So it was a serious step to take a child out of one family and put him
another. 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 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 the praetor, one of
the principal Roman magistrates, and plead the case for the adoption.
And only after all this had been gone through was the adoption complete.
But 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, and furthermore
all his old debts were considered to be paid – he was a new person. (Ephesians 1:1-4 The Work of the Father
- Audio)
Puritan Thomas Gataker writing on adoption into God's family noted that...
"The least degree of sincere
sanctification…is a certain sign of adoption, a sure argument to [the
Christian] that he has it, that he is the adopted child of God."
Through (1223)
(dia) is a preposition of
intermediate agency. Christ is the intermediate agent of the Father to
bring to fruition His purpose of placing believers as adult sons through
His finished work on the Cross, satisfying the just requirements of
God's law that we broke.
To Himself
(846)
(auto)
refers to the Father Who had previously marked us out with a view to adopting
us as sons for Himself for His own satisfaction that He might lavish His
love on us.
God has
preordained that we would share His very nature...like Father, like son!
Am I living up to my potential in Christ? Peter phrases the same idea
this way calling us partakers of His divine nature...
For by these (His own glory and
excellence) He has granted (perfect
tense
= an abiding gift, speaks of
permanence of the grant, He won't renege on His word to His beloved!)
to us His precious (costly, valuable, same word used of the blood of
Jesus in 1Pe 1:19
[note]) and magnificent (very great, exceeding great, preeminent,
in a sense beyond adequate description) promises (assurances), in order
that by them (by what? His promises -- which means we need to saturate
our mind with His word of Truth that the Spirit would renew our
thinking) you might become partakers (those who commune, have
fellowship with, partner with, are companions with - Do you really
believe this? Does your everyday life demonstrate to the lost world you
believe this radical truth?) of the divine nature (no, we are not
"little gods", but His life is now our life Col 3:4
- notes,
His Spirit now our enablement, Ep 5:18-
notes),
having escaped (note past tense! The verb is unique and means we have
escaped completely! Sure we are in the world, but we are no longer of
this decaying world which is passing away) the corruption (state of
ruin, decay, deterioration) that is in the world by lust (epithumia).
(2Pe 1:4-note)
ACCORDING TO THE KIND INTENTION OF
HIS WILL: kata ten eudokian tou thelematos autou: (Ep 1:9-note;
Ep 1:11-note)
(Daniel 4:35; Matthew 1:25;
11:26; Luke 10:21; 11:32; Romans 9:11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16; 1Corinthians
1:1,21; Philippians 2:13; 2Thessalonians 1:11)
According to
(2596)
(kata) does not mean out of
but in proportion to. Let's illustrate. If I am a billionaire and I give you ten dollars, I
have given you out of my riches; but if I give you a million dollars, I
have given to you according to my riches. The first is a portion while the
second is a proportion." In this case the phrase introduces God's
sovereign motivation for predestining believers to adoption as sons.
Kind intention
(2107)
(eudokia
[word study]
from eu = well, good + dokeo = think)
defines the state of being kindly disposed, and so refers to God's
benevolence, good will, or pleasure. Election and predestination transpired
because it pleased Him! God's absolute act of free love grounded totally
in Himself nothing apart from Him which gave His will direction.
Will (2307)
(thelema) refers to God’s
gracious disposition. His electing and predestining us unto adoption are not
due to any good in us or anything outside God Himself, but are acts of
His own pure goodness, originating wholly in the freedom of His own
thoughts loving counsel
><> ><> ><>
Alexander Maclaren's exposition on Ephesians
1:5...
"ACCORDING TO" - Part 1
That phrase, ‘according to,’ is one
of the key-words of this profound epistle, which occurs over and over
again, like a refrain. I reckon twelve instances of it in three chapters
of the letter, and they all introduce one or other of the two thoughts
which appear in the two fragments that I have taken for my text. They
either point out how the great blessings of Christ’s mission have
underlying them the divine purpose, or they point out how the process of
the Christian life in the individual has for its source and measure the
abundances, the wealth of the grace and the power of God. So in both
aspects the facts of earth are traced up to, and declared to be, the
outcome of the heavenly depths, and that gives solemnity, grandeur,
elevation, to this epistle all its own. We are carried, as it were, away
up into the recesses of the mountains of God, and we look down upon the
unruffled, mysterious, deep lake, from which come the rivers that water
all the plains beneath.
Now of these two types of reference
to the divine will and the divine wealth, I should like to gather
together the instances, as they occur in this letter, in so far as I
can, in the course of a sermon, touching them, it must be, very
imperfectly. But I fear that it is impossible to deal with both the
phases of this ‘according to,’ in one discourse. So I confine myself to
that which is suggested by the first of our two texts, in the hope that
some other day we may be able to overtake the other. So then, we have
set before us here the Christian thought of the divine will which
underlies, and therefore is manifest by, the work of Jesus Christ, in
its whole sweep and breadth. And I just take up the various instances in
which this expression occurs in a great variety of forms, but all
retaining substantially the same meaning.
I. Note that that divine will which
underlies and is operative in, and therefore is certified to us by the
whole work of Jesus Christ, in its facts and its consequences, is a
‘good pleasure.’
Now there are few thoughts which the
history of the world has shown to be more productive of iron and steel
in the human character than that of the sovereign will of God. That made
Islam, and is the secret of its power today, amidst its many
corruptions. Because these wild desert tribes were all stiffened, or I
might say inflamed, by that profound conviction, the sovereign will of
God, they came down like a hammer upon that corrupt so-called Christian
Church, and swept it off the face of the earth, as it deserved to be
swept. And the same thought of the sovereign will, of which we are but
instruments-pawns on its chess-board — made the grand seventeenth
century Puritanism in England, and its sister type of men and of
religion in Holland. For this is a historically proved thesis, that
there is nothing which so contributes to the formation, and valuation
of, and the readiness to die for, civil liberty, as the firm grasp of
that thought of the divine sovereignty. Just because a man realizes that
the will of God is supreme over all the earth, he rebels against all
forms of human despotism.
But with all the good that is in that
great thought — and the Christianity of this day sorely wants the
strength that might be given it by the exhibition of that steel medicine
— it wants another, ‘the good pleasure of His will.’ And that word,
‘good pleasure', does not express, as I think, in Paul’s usage of it, the
simple notion of sovereignty, but always the notion of a benevolent
sovereignty. It is ‘the good pleasure’ — as it is put in another place
by the same Apostle — ‘of His goodness.’ And that thought, let in upon
the solemnity and severity of the other one, is all that it needs in
order to make the man who grasps it not only a hero in conflict, and a
patient martyr in endurance, but a child in his Father’s house,
rejoicing in the love of his Father everywhere and always.
Paul would have us believe that if we
will take the work of Jesus Christ in the facts of His life, and its
results upon humanity, as our horn-book and lesson, we shall draw from
that some conceptions of the great thing that underlies it, ‘the good
pleasure of His will.’ We stand in front of this complex universe, and
some of us say: ‘Law’; and some of us say: ‘A Lawgiver behind the law; a
Person at the heart of all things’; but unless we can say: ‘And in the
heart of the Person a will, which is the expression of a steadfast,
omnipotent love,’ then the World seems to me to be a place of unsolvable
riddles and a torture-house. There goes the great steam-roller along the
road. Everybody can see that it crushes down, and makes its own path.
Who drives it? The steam in the boiler, or is there a hand on the lever?
And what drives the hand? Christianity answers, and answers with
unfaltering lip, rising clear above contradictions apparent and
difficulties real, ‘The good pleasure of His will,’ and there men can
rest.
Then there is another step. Another form in which this ‘according to’
appears in this letter is, if we adopt the rendering, which I am
disposed to do in the present case, of the Authorized Version rather
than of the Revised, ‘according to His good pleasure... which He hath
purposed in Himself,’ The Revised Version says, ‘Which He hath purposed
in Him,’ and that is a perfectly possible rendering. But to me the old
one is not only more eloquent, but more in accordance with the
connection. So I venture to accept it without further, ado — ‘His good
pleasure which He hath purposed in Himself.’
That brings us into the presence of
that same great thought, which in another aspect is expressed in saying
‘His name. is Jehovah,’ and in yet another aspect is expressed in saying
‘God is love,’ viz. the thought, which sounds familiar, but which has in
it depths of strength and illumination and joy, if We rightly ponder it,
that, to use human words, the motive of the divine action is all found
within the divine nature.
We love one another because, we
discern, or think we discern, lovable qualities in the being on whom our
love falls. God loves because He is God. That great artesian fountain
wells up from the depths, by its own sweet impulse, and pours itself
out; and ‘the good pleasure of, His goodness’ has no other explanation
than that it is His nature and property to be merciful And so, dear
brethren, we get clean past what has sometimes been the misapprehension
of good people, and has oftener been the caricatured representation of
Evangelical truth which its enemies have put forth -- that God was made to
love and pity by reason of the sacrifice of the Son, whereas the very
opposite is the case. God loves, therefore He sent His Son, ‘that
whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life,’
(John 3:16) and the notion of the Cross of Christ as changing the divine heart is as
far away from Evangelical truth as it is from the natural conceptions
that men form of the divine nature. We shake hands with our so-called
antagonists and say, ‘Yes! we believe as much as you do that God does
not love us because Christ died, but we believe what perhaps you do not,
that Christ died because God loves us, and would save us.’ ‘The good
pleasure which He hath purposed in Himself.’
Then, still further, there is another
aspect of this same divine will brought out in other parts of this
letter, of which this is a specimen, ‘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 the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ,’
which, being turned into more modern phraseology, is just this — that
the great aim of that divine sovereign will, self-originated, full of
loving-kindness to the world, is to manifest to all men what God is,
that all men may know Him for what He is, and thereby be drawn back
again, and grouped in peaceful unity round His Son, Jesus Christ. That
is the intention which is deepest in the divine heart, the desire which
God has most for every one of us. And when the Old Testament tells us
that the great motive of the divine action is for ‘My own Name’s sake,’
that expression might be so regarded as to disclose an ugly despot, who
only wants to be reverenced by abject and submissive subjects. But what
it really means is this, that the divine love which hovers over its
poor, prodigal children because it is love, and, therefore, lovingly
delights in a loving recognition and response, desires most of all that
all the wanderers should see the light, and that every soul of man
should be able to whisper. with loving heart, the name, ‘Abba! Father!’
Is not that an uplifting thought as being the dominant motive which puts
in action the whole of the divine activity? God created in order that He
might fling His light upon creatures, who should thereby be glad. And
God has redeemed in order that in Jesus Christ we might see Him, and,
seeing Him, be at rest, and begin to grow like Him. This is the aim,
‘That they might know Thee, the only true God .... whom to know is
eternal life.’ (John 17:3) And so self-communication and self-revelation is the very
central mystery of the will.
But that is not all Another of the
forms in which this phrase occurs tells us that that great purpose, the
eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord, was that,
‘Now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be
known’ by the Church ‘the manifold wisdom of God.’ (Ephesians
3:10) And so we get another
thought, that that whole work of redemption, operated by the
Incarnation, and culminating in the Crucifixion and Resurrection and
Ascension of Jesus Christ, stands as being the means by which other
orders of creatures, besides ourselves, learn to know ‘the manifold
wisdom of God.’ According to the grand old saying, at Creation the
‘morning stars sang together for joy.’ All spiritual creatures; be they
‘higher’ or ‘lower,’ can only know God by the observation of His acts.
‘Twas great
to speak a world from naught,
‘Tis greater to redeem,’
and the same angelic lips that sang
these praises on the morning of Creation have learnt a new song that
they sing: ‘Glory and honour and dominion and power he unto the Lamb
that was slain.’
Thus to principalities and powers, a
diviner height in the loftiness, and a diviner depth in the
condescension, and a diviner tenderness in the love, and a diviner
energy in the power, of the redeeming God have been made known, and this
is the thought of His eternal purpose.
And that brings me to another
point which is involved in the words that I have just quoted, which
stand in connection with those that I have previously referred to. The
phrase ‘eternal purpose’ literally rendered is, ‘the purpose of the
ages,’ and that, no doubt; may mean ‘eternal’ in the sense of running on
through all the ages; or it may mean, perhaps, that which we usually
attach to the word ‘eternal,’ viz. unbeginning and unending. I take the
former meaning as the more probable one, that the Apostle contemplates
that great will of God which culminates in Jesus Christ, as coming
solemnly sweeping through all the epochs of time from the beginning. In
a deeper sense than the poet meant it, ‘Through the ages an increasing
purpose runs, and that binds the epochs of humanity together — ‘the
purpose of God in Christ Jesus.’
The philosophy of history lies there;
and it is a true instinct that makes the cradle at Bethlehem the pivot
around which the world’s chronology revolves. For the deepest thing
about all the ages on the further side of it is that they are ‘Before
Christ,’ and the formative fact for all the ages after it is that they
are Anno Domini.
And now the last thing that is
suggested by yet another of these eloquent expressions is deduced from
another part of the same phrase. The purpose of the ages is described as
that which He 'purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.’
Now the word ‘purposed’
literally is ‘made.’ And it may be a question whether ‘purposed’
or ‘accomplished’ is the special meaning to be attached to the general
word ‘made.’ Either is legitimate. I take it that what the Apostle means
here is that the purpose of God, which we have thus seen as sovereign,
self-originated, having for its great aim the communication to all His
creatures of the knowledge of Himself, and running through the ages, and
binding them into a unity, reaches its entire accomplishment in the
Cradle, and the Cross, and the Throne of Jesus Christ our Lord.
He fulfils the divine intention.
There is that one life, and in that life alone of humanity you have a
character which is in entire sympathy with the divine mind, which is in
full possession of the divine truth, which never diverges or deviates by
a hair’s-breadth from the divine will, which is the complete and perfect
exponent to man of the divine heart and character; and that Christ is
the fulfilment of all that God desired in the depths of eternity, and
the abysses of His being.
Did He will that men should know Him?
Christ has declared Him.
Did He will that men should be drawn
back to Him? Christ lifted on the Cross draws all men unto Him.
Was it ‘according to the good
pleasure of His goodness’ that we men should attain to the adoption of
sons? By that Son we too became sons.
Was it the purpose of His will that
we should obtain an ‘inheritance’? We obtain it in Jesus Christ, ‘being
heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.’
All that God willed to do is done.
And when we look, on the one hand, up to that infinite purpose, and on
the other, to the Cross, we hear from the dying Him, ‘It is finished!’
(John 19:30) The purpose of the ages is accomplished in Christ Jesus.
Is it accomplished with you? I have
been speaking about the divine counsel which is a ‘good pleasure,’ which
runs through the whole history of mankind, But it is a divine purpose
that you can thwart as far as you are concerned. ‘How often would I have
gathered... and ye would not,’ (Mt 23:37) and your ‘would not’
neutralizes His
‘would.’
Do not stand in the way of the steam-roller. You cannot stop
it, but it can crush you.
Do not have Him say about you, ‘In vain have I
smitten, in vain have I loved.’
Bow, accept, recognise that all God’s
armory is brought to bear upon each of us in that great Cross and
Passion, in that great Incarnation and human life. And I beseech you, in
your hearts, let the will of God be done even as for a world it has been
done by the sacrifice of Calvary.
