The Rev’d Quintin Morrow
St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
Fort Worth, Texas
www.st-andrew.com
The Text Outline:
I. Believers have been SELECTED (predestined) from all eternity (vv. 3-6).
A. We have been chosen:
1. Before the foundation of the world.
2. In Christ.
3. In love.
4. According to the good pleasure of His will.
B. We have been chosen for:
1. Holiness.
2. Adoption as His children.
3. Acceptance in Christ.
4. The praise of His grace.
II. Believers have been SAVED for all eternity (vv. 7-12).
A. We have:
1. Redemption (rescue from wrath).
2. Forgiveness of sins.
3. An everlasting inheritance in heaven.
4. The knowledge of the mystery of His will.
B. What we have been given we have been given:
1. Because of the riches of His grace.
2. Because of His good pleasure.
3. For the unity of all things in Jesus Christ.
4. For the praise of His glory.
III. Believers have been SEALED by the Holy Spirit in anticipation of eternity (vv. 13-14).
A. We received the Holy Spirit when we believed.
B. We received the Holy Spirit to authenticate our adoption (See Rev. 7:1-8).
St. Paul says that essential to the vocation of pastor/teacher is the task of correcting, reproving, persuading and instructing God’s people from the Word of life. And I shall certainly be earning my keep today as I instruct you in one of the most sublime, yet likewise profound, mysterious and possibly the most misunderstood teaching in all of Holy Scripture; namely, the doctrine of predestination. I have roughly 23 minutes to persuade you, with the tools of reason, experience, and theology, buttressed by the clear teaching of the Bible, that as a born again child of God your salvation was the work of God from beginning to end, that you played nothing but a passive role in your own redemption, and that God chose you from eternity past for salvation and wrote your name in the Lamb’s Book of Life before a single particle of matter was even spoken by God into existence. That’s a tall order indeed.
The Letter to the Ephesians is a prison epistle, as the Apostle Paul penned it while languishing in a Roman prison. The theme of the letter is the process and consequences of believers now being “in Christ” by virtue of their regeneration of the Holy Spirit and adoption into God’s family. Paul uses the two-letter Greek phrase en christo—“in Christ”—12 times in 6 short chapters.
The passage under consideration this morning—chapter 1:3-14—is about God’s selecting, electing, predestining believers from eternity past for everlasting life. As we shall see, God chose us without any regard to our own worthiness or merit, but simply because in His sovereign power and gracious will He decided to do so. Lest we think this teaching is some academic abstraction to Paul, you need to know that Ephesians 1:3-14 in the original Greek is one, long sentence, consisting of 202 words of unbroken thought and no period. It is as if the Apostle, once he begins discussing God’s unfathomable love, sovereign will, and predestining power, simply cannot stop until he reaches a suitable finish.
Firstly, in verses 3-6 we see that believers have been selected—that is, predestined—for everlasting life from all eternity.
Just as He chose us in Him (that is, Jesus Christ) 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, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the beloved.
A
few words of explanation are essential here. Firstly, Paul writes about “us.” He isn’t writing to the world at large. The “us” here are regenerate believers. Secondly, “He chose us” is a reflexive verb, meaning that it turns back upon the one doing the action. God chose you for Himself, for His own sake. His choosing you was personal. Thirdly, He “predestined us.” The word predestined means to pre-determine your end, or to establish your destiny beforehand.
Here is the teaching of Scripture in a nutshell. God, sovereignly, and for His own glory, our good, and by His good pleasure, selects—elects, chooses—those with whom He will enter into a covenant of blessing, without regard to their merit, worth, or intrinsic goodness. The Lord chose a pagan, Abram, in the city of Ur, and promised him land, innumerable descendants, and that his offspring would bless the world. Why Abram? Because God decided on Him. The Lord chose the people of Israel to rescue from bondage in Egypt, to give His law to, to bless, to give a blessed land to, and to be His own special people for all time. This selecting of Israel had nothing to do with their innate worthiness. “How odd of God to choose the Jews” the poem goes. They didn’t have Roman legal ability, Egyptian aesthetic, Assyrian military prowess, or Greek philosophical acumen. In fact, in the Psalms God says that He chose the Jews because they were weakest, most backward people just for the purpose of manifesting His power to the nations.
And God chose you, if you are a born again believer in Jesus Christ. He selected you; He elected you; He predestined you for forgiveness of sin, holiness, adoption into His family, and everlasting life. Why you? Why me? I don’t know. Because He did.
And this personal predestining had nothing to do with us. We played no part in the blessings of our own salvation accept passive acceptance. We don’t have time to look at this in depth, but you will find in our passage that the active verbs—all the initiative and action—have God as the subject and believers as the recipients. “He chose us.” “He predestined us.” “We have obtained an inheritance.” It isn’t until verse 13 that we become active: “In Him you also trusted,” Paul says there. But even the faith we exercise for salvation is a gift from God. In the next chapter over, Eph. 2:8-9, we read this: “For by grace”—that is, by God’s unmerited favor—“are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.” There are two things listed here as gifts of God—grace and faith. Which one is the gift? Both! Grace, by its very definition is a disposition of kindness we didn’t merit; and even the faith we exercise to believe to be saved is a gift.
Don’t you see the magnitude of our election by God? Our salvation is the work of God from first to last. We didn’t do anything but receive His goodness, love, mercy, kindness, forgiveness and adoption. He is the active initiator. We are the passive recipients. Why? Firstly, because we do not the power, the capacity, to chose God. I will get to that in a moment. But secondly, so that no one can boast. There will be no one in heaven with their thumbs in their overalls bragging about what they did to get there. As the freed slave who asked by the Northern missionary after the Civil War if he knew the Gospel replied: “Yessir, I done all the sinnin’, and Jesus He done all the savin’.”
“But what about our free will?” This is usually the first objection to predestination. Now we get to the heart of the matter. Just how free is our so-called “free will?” The Bible says that before regeneration our hearts were desperately wicked and beyond comprehension. Paul says in the first 5 chapters of Romans that not only did we inherit the guilt of first parents Adam and Eve, but we also inherited a fallen nature corrupted with a natural proclivity to sin. Consequently, we do not have the capacity, in and of ourselves, to look for God, to turn over enough new leaves, or to pull ourselves up by our spiritual or moral bootstraps. Left to ourselves, we would be lost. “Children of wrath” is what Paul calls us before our conversion.
Paul uses 2 different but related images to describe our spiritual condition before our conversion. The first is death. The second is slavery. In Eph. 2:1 Paul says we were dead in trespasses and sin. I’ve been to a graveyard. Ain’t a whole lot of choosing going on there. And in Romans the Apostle says we were slaves of sin. A slave must do what his master commands. And ask the addict or alcoholic how much free will he has.
The will is that part of our nature which makes moral, ethical, value, and spiritual choices. But before our rebirth by the Holy Spirit, how “free” is it? Free means it is unbiased, undirected, or uninfluenced by any inclination external to it. How many of you here are parents? Let me ask you: How many of you had to teach your kids to lie? To cheat? To be selfish? To be mean? Nope, since Adam’s sin that stuff comes as standard equipment. In fact, the job of parental training is to suppress those natural tendencies.
The truth is, our so-called “free will” isn’t free after all. We have a nature, by birth, which inclines more toward evil than good and which finds more pleasure in evil than good. The truth is, our free will is limited. Article 9 of our 39 Articles of Religion says this:
Original sin…is the fault and corruption which is found in the nature of every person who is naturally descended from Adam. The consequence of this is that man is far gone from original righteousness. In his own nature he is predisposed to evil, the sinful nature in man always desiring to behave in a manner contrary to the Spirit. In every person born into this world there is found this predisposition which rightly deserves God’s anger and condemnation.
Apart from grace we are natural born sinners. Luther described our limited free will with the imagery of a dog on a chain. The dog is free to move about within the length of the circumference of the chain, but not beyond it. So we too are free to chose what tie to wear today, what flavor of ice cream we shall have for desert, or which college to attend. But we have not the power to chose God or righteousness.
The second objection to the teaching of predestination is this: “Why did God choose some and not others?” The answer to this question is profound. Are you ready? I don’t know. This aspect of our election requires trust. God was under no obligation to save anyone. That He saved anyone is sheer and inexplicable mercy. When a man of great financial means gives money to one man and not another, or to one charity and not another, no one accuses the man of means of selfishness. His money was his to do with as he pleased. That he gave any away is considered generous. So it is with God. He chose some for life and not others. John Calvin called this a “horrible decree.” Nevertheless, ask yourself this: Why am I here in church today and not my spouse? my brother? my boss? Is it because you are more worthy? Smarter? Better looking? More clever? No. It sheer grace. God chose you.
This election of some and not other seems unfair to our mind. But God’s ways are not our ways. Turn with me to Romans chapter 9. Paul here is discussing just this issue, and uses Esau and Jacob and Pharaoh as examples. (Read vv. 9-24).
For this is the word of promise: “At this time I will come and Sarah shall have a son.”
10 And not only this, but when Rebecca also had conceived by one man, even by our father Isaac 11 (for the children not yet being born, nor having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of tHim who calls), 12 it was said to her, u“The older shall serve the younger.” 13 As it is written, v“Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.”
14 What shall we say then? wIs there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not! 15 For He says to Moses, x“I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.” 16 So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. 17 For ythe Scripture says to the Pharaoh, z“For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth.” 18 Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He ahardens.
19 You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For bwho has resisted His will?” 20 But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? cWill the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?” 21 Does not the dpotter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make eone vessel for honor and another for dishonor?
22 What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering fthe vessels of wrath gprepared for destruction, 23 and that He might make known hthe riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had iprepared beforehand for glory, 24 even us whom He jcalled, knot of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
“You didn’t chose me, but I chose you” Jesus says in Jn. 15:16. “No one comes to me unless the Father draw him,” Jesus said in Jn. 6:44. Ponder this: Because God elected some, and all that He calls will come to Him, His plan for our redemption is 100% effective. If He only desired that all men should be saved, and did not predestine them, some would come and some would not. Thus, His plan of human redemption would be only a partial success.
Secondly, believers have been saved for all eternity, verses 7-12. “In Him we HAVE redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins” (v. 7). “In Him,” verse 11, “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.”
There are a myriad of blessings we receive as a consequence of our election. Paul lists many of them here in Eph. 1. But one of the most important is eternal security. Once you have been saved you are saved. Nothing can change your eternal destiny. Don’t miss the internal logic here. Since you didn’t do anything to earn your salvation, you can’t do anything to lose it. Jesus said in Jn. 8:39: “This is the will of the Father who sent me, that I should lose none of all whom He has given me.” Again in John 10: “My Father who gave them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.”
Sin impedes our relationship with God and spoils our witness before the world. But nothing can alter the destiny of God’s elect. Nothing. This is a great comfort. It means we don’t have to spend our entire Christian lives navel gazing, and wondering if we’ve done something to lose our salvation. God did everything in saving us, including giving us a new nature that desires to please Him. But notice blessed Paul’s language in Ephesians 1: “We have…” It’s a fact. It is a done deal. It is accomplished.
Thirdly, believers have been sealed by the Holy Spirit in anticipation of eternity. Verses 13-14:
You were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is—notice—the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.
If you’ve ever toured in Britain you’ve undoubtedly seen the shield with the letters E.R. on public buildings around the country. The E.R. stands for Elizabeth Regina and the shield is known as the Royal Warrant. It marks those things that belong to the Crown.
Paul says as believers we have been given the Holy Spirit, in our hearts, as an authenticating proof of our new birth, as a sign to mark us God’s, and as a kind of down payment of the glory that awaits us when Jesus returns.
How do you know if you have the Holy Spirit? If you sin and feel the prick of conscience, you’ve got the Holy Spirit. If you find inexplicable comfort in turmoil, you have the Holy Spirit. If you are assisted in prayer, moved to compassion by others’ pain, have a desire to be in the Word you have the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit takes up residence in the believer and is an authentication of the genuineness of his or her new birth; he is also a deposit, like we used to give on pop bottles, of the glory we await.
This predestination is going to need to sink in, percolate, and be meditated upon. It is profound stuff. You aren’t getting milk this morning, but meat. Accepting this doctrine is very much like looking up and seeing over the top of a door written “Whosoever will may come,” and stepping into the room and looking up and finding over the door written “You were predestined before the foundation of the world.”
Predestination is for our good and God’s glory. Article 17 of the Articles of Religion is entitled On Predestination and Election. There the biblical teaching is laid out, and, it says,
As the godly consideration of Predestination, and our election in Christ, is full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to godly persons, and such as feel in themselves the working of the Spirit of Christ, mortifying the works of the flesh, and their earthly members, and drawing up their mind to high and heavenly things, as well because it doth greatly establish and confirm their faith of eternal salvation to be enjoyed through Christ, as because it doth fervently kindle their love towards God.
It is a sweet decree for the believer, because it means that we are loved, unique, safe and secure, and have value and purpose. It also means that nothing happens by accident; nothing escapes the all-seeing eyes of God; and nothing but His good purposes are accomplished. This means we can trust Him unreservedly. No one wonder every throne room scene in heaven in Revelation has God’s people falling down before Him, casting their crowns before Him, and praising Him. Everything we have been given came from God. We did all the sinnin’, and He did all the savin’. What have we done to boast? Nothing. God predestined us for His glory and our good. And nothing will thwart His sovereign decree. What have we to dread? What have we to fear? Safe and secure from all alarms. Leaning on the everlasting arms.
