Review
Eph 1:4c In love,
Eph 1:5 Having predestined us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,
Remember, the Apostle Paul is eulogizing or speaking well of God for His plan for the saints of God in Christ Jesus.
In verse four, we get a glimpse of eternity past, as we learn that God picked out for Himself a people for His own possession. To secure their salvation, God sends His Son to this earth as a baby who would grow up and die a cruel death to redeem sinful people back to Himself. And even though their practice didn’t always match their position, God nevertheless saw them as “holy and blameless” because they are chosen “in Christ”.
In verse five, Paul, by revelation of God, looks forward in eternity and shares the destiny of believers in Jesus Christ. He shares how God not only delivered us from sin, but how He predestined believers to adoption, essentially placing us into His own family, making us His legal and intimate children (sons)!
In love, God takes the repentant sinner…the son of another…to be His son, so that that son has the same position and all the advantages of a son by birth. And, He does it all according to the good pleasure or satisfaction of His own will.
New Material
Paul continues in verse six and writes, “to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.” (NASB)
As the Apostle Paul receives this revelation from God which says that God chose sinful men, women, boys and girls before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless and how in love He determined beforehand to adopt them as His own children and bestow all the rights and privileges of a full-fledged son, Paul writes that these blessings were "to the praise of the glory of His grace".
Let’s break down this statement so that we might understand it more fully.
Praise – Praise is one of humanity's many responses to God's revelation of Himself. Praise comes from a Latin word meaning “value” or “price”, thus, “to give praise to God” is to proclaim His merit or worth.
Many terms are used to express this response from men and angels in the Bible, including "glory," "blessing," "thanksgiving," and "hallelujah," which is a transliteration of the Hebrew for "Praise the Lord."
The Hebrew title of the book of Psalms ("Praises") comes from the same root as "hallelujah" and Psalms 113-118 have been specially designated the "Hallel" ("praise") psalms.
There are many modes or manners of praise, including…
* the offering of sacrifices (Lev. 7:13), Hebrews 13:15 says, “Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise--the fruit of lips that openly profess his name.”
* physical movement like “dancing before the Lord” (2 Sam. 6:14),
silence and meditation (Psalm 77:11-12) that breaks forth into praise (vs. 13-),
Psa 77:11 I will make mention of the deeds of Jehovah; For I will remember thy wonders of old.
Psa 77:12 I will meditate also upon all thy work, And muse on thy doings.
Psa 77:13 Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary: Who is a great god like unto God?
Psa 77:14 Thou art the God that doest wonders: Thou hast made known thy strength among the peoples.
* testimony – “I will tell you what He has done for my soul” (Ps. 66:16),
prayer “Praise the LORD! I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart” (Psalm 111:1),
* and a holy life – The Lord accepts the praise of one who has a broken spirit and a sorrowful heart about their sin. (Psalm 51:15-17).
It should be obvious from these manners of praise that it’s not limited to the four walls of the church building.
Praise is often delivered by way of music, both instrumental (Psalm 150:3-5) and, especially, vocal. Biblical songs of praise are expressed mainly in two ways:
Personal – This is more or less, spontaneous outbursts of thanksgiving for some redemptive act of God
Exodus 15 – When God delivered the Children of Israel from Egyptian bondage. They sang, “I will sing to the LORD. He has won a glorious victory. He has thrown horses and their riders into the sea. The LORD is my strength and my song. He is my Savior. This is my God, and I will praise him, my father's God, and I will honor him.” (vs. 1-2)
Judges 5 – When the prophetess Deborah and Barak defeated the army of the Canaanites and Sisera its commander, they sang a song with the words, “Praise the LORD! Men in Israel vowed to fight, and people volunteered for service. Listen, you kings! Open your ears, you princes! I will sing a song to the LORD. I will make music to the LORD God of Israel.”
Luke 1:46-55,67-79 – When Mary’s cousin Elizabeth, who was pregnant with John the Baptist, said that Mary was blessed for believing that the Lord would keep His promise to her (the one about her giving birth to the Messiah), Mary broke forth with a song that said, “My soul praises the Lord's greatness! My spirit finds its joy in God, my Savior, because He has looked favorably on me, His humble servant. "From now on, all people will call me blessed because the Almighty has done great things to me. His name is holy.”
I was around twenty-five years old (32 years ago) and a relatively new Christian when I wrote a song that gave praise to the Lord for His redemptive work in my life. The song was called, “Thank you Lord”…
Thank You Lord
Lord, I thank you for the One You’ve give to me
I thank you for the One who set the captive free
He came into my life when I didn’t know where to go
He came to give me life and to save my hell-bound soul
I just want you to know—that I’ll never let you go
Lord I want to thank you for given me eternal life, through Jesus Christ
He gives me peace of mind
I just want to thank you for mercy and grace,
You died on the cross; you took my place
Chorus
I once was lost
But now I’m found
You placed my feet on solid ground
You took me in
And saved my soul
I just want to thank you Lord, thank you Lord, thank you Lord
Do you have a personal song of praise to the Lord? One that you oftentimes break forth and sing? That’s “personal praise”.
Praise also takes a formal or a prescribed form…
Formal – These are psalms and hymns adapted for corporate worship in the Temple (2 Chron. 29:30) and the church, the assembly of believers (Col. 3:16).
This is the form of praise that we demonstrated together earlier in this service.
Whatever form of praise that we choose to offer to God, we find in the Bible the occasional warning about the quality of this praise.
* Praise is to originate in the heart and not become a mere outward show (Matt. 15:8). “Not lip theology, but life theology”
* Corporate praise is to be carried on in an orderly manner (1 Cor. 14:40).
* Praise is also firmly linked to the holiness of an individual's everyday life (Amos 5:21-24)
In Ephesians 1:6, “praise" is ushered forth by the children of God in response to a divine glory which appears as a result of God’s grace!
Eph-1:6--to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. - (NASV)
Last time we noted that there is a statement that has become more of a cliché among Christians today: “When the praises go up, the blessings come down.” Well, here in Ephesians, it is just the opposite. Here we are being told, “When the blessings come down, the praises go up!”
Paul’s praise…our praise in Ephesians 1:6, 12 and 14, is in response to the blessings shared in this chapter. This is what Paul is communicating in verse six. The praise is in response to the glory of God’s grace that was freely bestowed upon us in Christ, the Beloved of God.
In our first message in this series from Ephesians we looked at the word, “grace”. We learned that “grace” is unmerited favor. It is God's love demonstrated freely for the benefit of His people.
We also learned that the concept of grace is different from justice and mercy.
* Justice is God giving us what we deserve.
* Mercy is God withholding from us what we deserve.
* Grace is God giving us what we do not deserve.
Grace is God's Riches At Christ's Expense. Grace rules out all human merit (Rom. 11:6). We do not deserve it; we cannot earn it; we cannot buy or purchase it. Grace is that which is given by God because of who He is and not because of who we are.
Now, according to Ephesians 1:6, glory is an attribute (or characteristic) of grace, perhaps like tone is a characteristic of one's voice.
example:
- tone of his voice.
- glory of His grace
* tone is the way the voice displays itself
* glory is the way grace displays itself.
To stretch the illustration further:
* Applause is the way a group of people would respond to a pleasing tone of the voice of a singer
* Praise is the way a Christian responds to the glory of the grace of God in redemption.
It’s like the sun, that projects light and warm rays. The warmth of the sun is felt on the skin and the brightness of the sun shining on the leaves and flowers is seen with the eyes and we say, “It’s a beautiful day that the Lord has made.”
To the believer, true glory is found only in the splendor of God. It is recognized as His character; it is displayed by His actions (or in our context, His grace), and it (His glory) is reflected back to Him as praise.
Theologian Henry Alford says: "The end, God's end, in our predestination to adoption is, that the glory, glorious nature, brightness and majesty, and kindliness and beauty,-- of His grace might be the object of men and angel's praise: both as it is in Him, ineffable (indescribable) and infinite,-- and exemplified in us, its objects." Amen.
When we think and meditate on God’s grace, we contrast His actions to secure our salvation with what He was up against…our sin. In Titus chapter three the Bible says, (GW paraphrase): “We were once stupid, disobedient, and misled. We were slaves to many kinds of lusts and pleasures. We were mean and jealous. We were hated, and we hated each other.”
Then it goes on to say (here comes the grace and the glory), “However, when God our Savior made His kindness and love for humanity appear, He saved us, but not because of anything we had done to gain His approval. Instead, because of His mercy He saved us through the washing in which the Holy Spirit gives us new birth and renewal.”
The believer’s response to “glory” is the feeling you feel or the thoughts you think when you know that you don’t deserve the love of God expressed in the giving of His Son Jesus to die for you, yet, He in His grace, pours it out on you, resulting in your salvation from sin! These feelings and thoughts result in praise!
Wuest says that grace in Ephesians 1:6 is not merely favor or a gift, but it reveals…the divine character of God. He says that in praising God for what He does, we learn to praise Him for what He is.
And so Paul writes in verse six of our text, “to the praise of the glory of his grace” and then he continues with the words, “which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.”
The KJV translates the latter half of verse 6 as "wherein he hath made us accepted."
The better Greek manuscripts use the word,"which" referring to the word "grace" just mentioned, not "wherein" as the KJV does. The translation reads "Which (grace) He freely bestowed upon us in the Beloved."
The words "freely bestowed" are the translation of a Greek word (charitoo) that means, "to pursue with grace; to surround with favor; to honor with blessings."
In other words, God “pursues us, and dumps on and overwhelms us with His grace, favor and blessings” in the Beloved! One could render the clause, "which grace He graced us with in the Beloved."
The Beloved. The word “Beloved”, referring to the Lord Jesus (see verse 7) is the translation of the Greek word “agapao” which is the same word found in John 3:16, Romans 5:8 and 1st John 4:8.
The word agapao describes the love that God is, and with which He loves the lost. This love is the product of the Holy Spirit in the heart of the yielded believer.
Agapao is in the perfect tense, which speaks of an action completed in past time having present and permanent results.
Referring to Jesus in Ephesians 1:6, it speaks of the fact that God the Father has always loved God the Son with an absolute love which is a permanent attitude on His part: “He has made us accepted in the One having been loved.” (MKJV)
Wuest: The words “in the Beloved” are locative of the sphere. Meaning that God the Father freely bestowed on us the grace which saved us and did so in the sphere of the Lord Jesus, His Person and His work on the Cross.
His grace could not operate in our salvation apart from the atoning death of our Lord, for God is not only a loving God, but a righteous and just God who cannot pass by sin, but must require that it must be paid for. Only thus can He manifest His grace.
This “glorious grace” was freely bestowed on us in the sphere of the Beloved.
During the Spanish-American War, Theodore Roosevelt came to Clara Barton, founder of the Red Cross, to buy some supplies for his sick and wounded men. His request was refused. Roosevelt was troubled and asked, "How can I get these things? I must have proper food for my sick men." "Just ask for them, Colonel", said Barton" Oh", said Roosevelt, "then I do ask for them." He got them at once through grace, not through purchase.
Grace, like the supply of medical supplies in this illustration, cannot be bought, it cannot be earned, it can only be sought.
Are you in Christ?
