Ephesians 1:3-14 -- Chosen by God

Verse by Verse Commentary of the Letter to the Ephesians

Prologue

Ephesians 1:1-2 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by God’s will: To the faithful saints in Christ Jesus at Ephesus.  Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ

Paul blesses the readers with “grace and peace”.  Grace is the Greek word Charis, and is always first in greetings by Paul. Peace is the Hebrew word Shalom.  Grace always precedes peace, for only after grace has dealt with our sin can we have peace.

Romans 5:1 Therefore, since we have been declared righteous by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ

Chosen by God

“In these powerful verses, Paul drew past, present, and future together. He looked at the work of each of the Persons of the Godhead as it relates to you and me. God the Father, in eternity past, chose us in Christ to be holy and blameless.  He predestined us to be adopted as sons, pouring out His grace on us in Christ. God the Son, in history past, redeemed us through His blood, bringing us forgiveness and lavishing on us gifts of wisdom and understanding. 

Even now we are ‘included in Christ’, and looking forward to the complete fulfillment of God’s plan and the glory that fulfillment holds for us. Now too, we have been sealed by God’s gift of the Holy Spirit, the living guarantee of our inheritance to come.” (Bob Damon, Ephesians Commentary, pg 4).

³Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,

• We are blessed now, because we are redeemed now. We have every spiritual blessing – that includes Justification and Sanctification.
• These blessings are in the Heavenly Realm; where they are eternal, where they really matter. Do we appreciate these blessings and invest in them?

⁴just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love,

• We are destined to stand in His presence. God chose us, we didn’t choose Him (2 Thess 2:13, 1 Thess 1:4-7, I Pet 1:2). God planned this in eternity (Acts 15:18, John 15:16, I Pet 1:20).

⁵having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will,

• We are destined for sonship via adoption (Gal 4:4-7, Rom 8:15).

⁶to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.

• We are accepted. We will spend eternity trying to fathom God’s grace. Is He deserving of our praise?

• How much does He loves you if he sacrificed His son to save you?

⁷In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace 

⁸which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence,

• We are redeemed through the blood of Christ. We are chosen to be holy and without blame. Election comes with sanctification (2 Thess 2:13-14).
• Redemption is God’s greatest work. Compare to creation.

⁹having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, God has revealed to us the mystery of His divine will.

• We are to be stewards of these mysteries (1 Cor 4:1)
• Moses, Abraham, Enoch, Noah, Daniel all desired to know the mystery of God’s plan of redemption, and yet without that knowledge they had faith.

¹⁰that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him.

• This is the goal of history, the eternal plan of God: to bring into union everything and everybody , earthly and heavenly, through Jesus Christ.

¹¹In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will,

• Christ redeemed us with His blood, revealed the mystery of His will, and gave us an inheritance (those who were predestined).

¹²that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.

• Our worth and standing is based on the fact that God willed it that we be saved, to His glory, as part of His Plan.

¹³In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, 

¹⁴who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.

• Our purchase is already completed, we are simply waiting for Christ to come and take possession of His own.
• A seal puts an image or imprint on the believer, and denotes ownership.

Discussion Questions

Assurance of Salvation

• Given the Spirit is a witness to this promise, and Christ has already paid the price for our redemption, why do some people still not have assurance of their salvation? Why do they doubt the promise of our inheritance?
• Can you be saved if God did not choose you first? Is there anything you can do to assure your salvation?
• Even if you doubt this assurance, can you still be saved?

Stewardship of Spiritual Gifts

• What work on God’s behalf are you most grateful for? How have you benefited from God’s grace? Why do you think God performed this act of grace on our behalf?
• What is our responsibility as stewards of God’s gift of grace? Do we have an obligation to understand the mysteries of God’s will as revealed in the Bible?

Our Walk of faith

• Given we have the seal of the Spirit, we have “Diplomatic Immunity” from the world. The world has no jurisdiction over believers. How does this affect your walk through life?
• What can we do to be fearless witnesses in this world?

Are you really chosen by God?

God did freely and immutably ordains whatsoever comes to pass: yet He does it such a way that He is not the author of sin, or damage the free will of man. Let’s look at what we mean by these terms “Free Will” and “Sovereignty”:

Free Will of Man

Two views of free will – Humanist and Scriptural:

Humanist view – all choices are made spontaneously, without prior inclination, bias, predisposition, or prejudice; they are merely chemical processes based on external stimuli. This view has at least two flaws:

• Moral flaw – if our choices are purely a spontaneous chemical reaction to the environment, then there is no reason or motive for our choices. If this is true, nothing that we do could have any moral significance. No action we take could be labeled as good or evil. No motive or intention has any meaning or intrinsic goodness or evil

• Logical flaw – if all decisions are the outcome of a chemical reaction based on outside stimuli, how can a decision be the product of “free will”? If the environment drives all thought processes, feelings and decisions, a person is bound by external forces and not in control. However, the logical conclusion to this view is that there is no good or evil, only opinions, which are themselves only products of environmental stimuli.

Scriptural view – It is the “mind” that chooses. Our spirit or conscience can be overridden by the mind, which is involved in all moral decisions, because it is the mind that first makes one “aware” of the choices to be made. Jonathan Edwards wrote, “free moral agents always act according to the strongest inclination they have at the moment of the choice.”

• When we commit a sin, it is because at the moment we make a choice, the strongest desire is to do that which is not righteous. The “devil made me do it” then, is a false statement.

Sovereignty of God

At a minimum in His permissive will, God always retains the power to stop things from happening, but He may allow things to happen, even if they are evil, His sovereignty and righteousness are not impugned. If God directs that something should happen (His efficacious will), then it must happen.

So what is God’s sovereign relationship to a fallen world? God does not owe mercy to anyone, and is therefore not obligated to offer mercy to everyone. Anyone who is not saved receives justice. The lack of mercy is not injustice. God may choose to give justice to one group and mercy to another group, but no one has ever received injustice from God.

There are five ways God can relate to a fallen world in the “church age”:

1. God can give no one the opportunity for salvation. God would retain His sovereignty and righteousness, and it would be just because God is not obligated to be merciful.
2. God could give everyone the opportunity for salvation (via the gospel).
3. God could give “some” the opportunity for salvation (via the gospel).
4. God could intrude into history and assure that everyone is saved.
5. God could intrude into history and assures that some are saved.

• #1 can’t be true, unless the Gospel is a lie.
• #2 is not true because not all have heard the gospel. (Rom 10:15, I Cor 1:21, Gospel defined in I Cor 15:1-5)
• #4 is a Universalist viewpoint and is not scriptural.
• #3 This is the majority viewpoint of the church – called Arminianism. Given the opportunity, some in their fallen state would accept grace.
• Yet only #5 assures that “some” are saved. Since we are “dead” to our sins, we are incapable of “choosing” salvation, and must be resurrected into life (spiritually) to even accept salvation.

What does Jesus have to say about this issue?

The Radical “Fallen-ness” of Man

The problem with free will and self-determination is that the heart of man is predisposed to sin and God must righteously judge sin:

Jeremiah 17:9-10 The heart is deceitful (polluted) above all things, And desperately (incurably) wicked; Who can know it?  I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give every man according to his ways, According to the fruit of his doings.

Jeremiah contends man’s heart is incurably wicked. Man does not have the moral ability to be righteous in his natural fallen state. Heart can be translated will or intellect. Notice verse 10 interchangeably uses heart and mind, which are the will. Paul notes in 2 Cor 4, that when man in his natural state is presented the Gospel, they are blinded to it and despise it:

2 Corinthians 4:3-4 But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.

Therefore, fallen man “chooses” to sin, by his will, as that is the greatest desire at that time. This is universal to a fallen race according to Paul

Romans 3:10-11 There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God.

So how is any man ever saved if they do not pursue God? Christ makes the point that those who are saved are “given” to Him by the Father:

• John 17:6 “I manifested Thy name to the men whom Thou gavest Me out of the world; Thine they were, and Thou gavest them to Me, and they have kept Thy word.”
• John 6:65 “For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me, unless it has been granted him from the Father”.
• John 6:37 “All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.”
• John 6:44 “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him: and I will raise him up on the last day.”
  
  

  What does “draw” really mean? It is the Greek word helkuo means “to drag”. Here are other places where helkuo is used but notice it is translated different ways (Strong’s G1670):

• James 2:6b “Do not the rich oppress you and drag you into the courts?”
• John 21:6b “And He said to them, “Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast, and now they were not able to haul it in because of the multitude of fish.”
• Acts 16:19 But when her masters saw that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to the authorities.”

So, given that man cannot of his own “free will” choose righteousness, God must somehow provide that desire in man first. Then man, who has the desire to seek after God (drawn) to God, in his free will then chooses to follow Christ. However, God must first “choose” who will receive this desire; in His sovereignty some are chosen, or “pre-destined” to receive grace, for they were unable to respond in faith in their fallen state (there was no desire to seek after God until God placed that desire in their hearts).

• Ephesians  2:8 “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,”
• Ephesians 1:4-5: “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.

It gave God pleasure, and was His will, that we should spend eternity with Him. If you have the desire to seek God, that should give you peace and assurance, because it is that very desire that was placed in your heart. 

>>   Ephesians 1:15-23 -- Co-heirs with Christ

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Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960,1962,1963,1968,1971,1972,1973,1975,1977,1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.