Ephesians 1:6a
"To the praise of the glory of his grace...."
If we have trumpeted any one word it's this word `Grace.' Hey, we deserve none of this or nothing of this world. But what we have and what we enjoy whether it's spiritual or material and physical it's all through the Grace of God. We don't deserve it and we don't think you do either, but it's all by His Grace and as John has said in chapter one, verses 14 and 17 of his book that these are found in Christ or through Christ. Christ introduced these things and because of this He is these things or holds them within Himself. Now continued on in verse 6.
Ephesians 1:6b
"... wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved."
There's that prepositional phrase again. What does it mean to be in the beloved or made acceptable in Him? In Christ! Why am I in Christ? Why are you in Christ? Simply by His Grace. He could have let us slip out into an eternity lost and without hope, but by His Grace He presented us with redemption which is to bring us to the plan of salvation when we've responded in the affirmative of receptivity. Here we are now positionally accepted in the beloved. Now another verse comes to mind in the Book of Colossians chapter 3. This is another one of our seven Church prison epistles and it is on a higher plane of understanding than the first four Epistles were. So Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians are in that next step up in the area of doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness. The Colossians also had some problems. They were trying to enter into the realms of angelic beings and so forth, and so Paul had to correct them and bring them back on line. Now chapter 3 starting with verse 1.
Colossians 3:1-2
"If ye then be risen with Christ, (in other words you have experienced His death, burial, and resurrection by faith through self denial and disobedience. If you have gone through that then) seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. (They, God in Christ and Christ in God become now far more important) Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth."
Remember back in the gospels, Jesus said something similar to this-
Matthew 6:33
"But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you."(Luke 12:31 and John 6:27)
There's absolutely nothing wrong with things provided our priorities are right. If things are more important than the spiritual then it's wrong. But if we have our spiritual priorities where they belong, and all these things have been added, so be it. God isn't tight, but on the other hand we can't demand them of Him, like so many claim. But if He has seen fit in Grace to bless us with things there's nothing wrong as long as they are in the right order of priorities. All right now Colossians 3:3 And here's the reason we are to set our affections on things above.
Colossians 3:3
"For ye are dead, (Wow! I thought I was living. The Old Adam or Satan's sin nature is now dead. God circumcised our heart to bring this about that old sin [of Satan's character] nature of us as believers is now dead) and your life is hid with Christ in God."
Again there is that two-fold position of the believer. We are in Christ, and in God, and nothing can touch us in that glorious safe, secure position. When we talk about something safe and secure like this we've always used the analogy in the past of the black walnut. You peel off that green-blackish soft outer shell, and then we crack the next hard shell, and way down in the middle we find that delicious meat. All right we can find this so often that we are positioned in that place of safety. And there are two analogies in the Old Testament. When the Hebrews, on the night of the Passover, were standing at that kitchen table ready to eat the Passover lamb, what was going on around them? The death angel. And the wailing was already sounding across Egypt, but the Hebrews were safe and secure for only one reason. The blood was on the door-frame. And that blood was so positioned as to form a cross. Then the next one we like to use is Noah and his family in the ark. The horrors and the ravages of the flood were just totally demolishing everything on the planet, but Noah and his family were safe and secure because of the wood and the ark had been lined with pitch, both inside and out and pitch in the Hebrew means atonement. So there they were in the midst of the horrors of the flood and they were safe. So in the midst of all of the wickedness that's taking place on the earth tonight, we're in Christ and we're safe. We have nothing to worry about. Paul says, "Don't worry about him who can destroy the body, when he can't destroy the soul."
Paul wrote his prison Epistles - Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians and Philemon while in prison in Rome shortly before he was martyred. Again we always like to make mention of the fact that in these prison epistles there is no single mention of the Old Testament or to the Hebrews or the contentions they rose again the knowledge of Christ, because now everything has flowed into this teaching of the Body of Christ in which there is no distinction. There is no Jew, there is no Gentile, so far as a division of their backgrounds, so we've all become one as members of the Body of Christ.
We have to keep this in mind that as we study these prison epistles this is strictly Church ground, this is New Covenant ground as well and there is no other portion of Scripture that is so profoundly directed to the position of the Church Age or the New Covenant beginnings for a believer. We won't find these things back in the Old Testament, or the Four Gospels, or even in Acts, and we might say even in the letters of Romans and Corinthians. There is not this emphasis on our position in Christ. And as we've said there are over 90 times that Paul uses the prepositional phrase, "In Him, In Christ, and In Whom" these are depicting our position. We hate to repeat, and repeat, but it's the only way it sinks in. So all the things that we're going to be looking at are primarily directed to our position in Christ. These are the things that we're to contemplate by way of digest-meant of the word of our faith, which body is Christ's flesh as our meat and water or drink. For through His blood we draw strength of His grace.
The average Hebrew and I might add the average church goer of our day knows nothing of this concept. They know only His Covenant relationship, they know all the promises that God had made to their (the Hebrew) forefathers, but they know nothing of a position in Christ. Even for us today it's hard for us to comprehend, or contemplate but we've got to take these things in by faith. We don't feel like we're in Christ in Heaven, but we know that we are because the Word says we are. And this is where every believer has to come to understand that what the Bible says is true, and we take it by faith. We don't necessarily feel it, emotions are not dealt with. Emotions are fine up to a point, but emotions can never take the place of good sound Biblical doctrine. So even though we may not feel like it, yet on the basis of God's Word, that's where we are. We are in Christ, in the heavenliest, and we are part and parcel of everything that God has been building on ever since He began with Adam in the Garden of Eden.
Now continuing on that He has already predestined us into the position, and that is what that word adoption means up in verse 5.
Ephesians 1:5-6
"Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will. To the praise of the glory of his grace, (we don't deserve any of this. We haven't earned it or merited it, but it's all of Grace that God has seen fit to do this on our behalf. Keep this in mind as John has revealed that all Grace and Truth is Christ just as Christ is "Christianity and Christianity is Christ") wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved."
That's how we're accepted in God's eyes because of where we are in Christ. God cannot reject us, because then He would have to reject the Son Himself, and that He'll never do. And so in view of our position then we are in the beloved. When did this take place? At the Last Supper, in the garden, and through the full operation of His vicarious death, burial, resurrection and ascension. When we willingly take of His cup and drink of it to the full or all of it. We become a God-children through the cutting away of the dead flesh of our Adam nature called the circumcision of the heart. Wherein we truly become a son of God and He begins our rehabilitation or restoration of His divine character within us. Now in verse 7 we have another prepositional phrase.
Ephesians 1:7a
"In whom (in the beloved, and Who's the beloved? Christ) we have (we're not working for it, and we're not hoping for it, but we have already the) redemption through his blood,..."
And remember that there are many denominations and one of the big ones in America, which we wont name had literally called in all the old hymn books, and they were going to dispense new ones to all the congregations of that denomination in which there was no more reference to the blood of Christ. They had taken out all those old hymns like, "There's Power in the Blood" and "There is a Fountain Filled with Blood". They just took them all out of their hymn books. Well if they want to do that then they can just throw away the New Testament also. We've got to remember that our hope of eternity rests is in the blood of Christ! So here in verse 7 we have that statement again.
Ephesians 1:7a
"In whom we have redemption through his blood,..."
Now we can't throw that out. We can't ignore that. For as the old testament points out there is strength or power in the blood and to be in the blood means to have passed through what ever it took to shed it. So it's redemption through His blood which also brings about -
Ephesians 1:7b
"...the forgiveness of sins, (and again it's not because we've merited it, but rather) according to the richness of his grace;"
And this is all beyond human comprehension. That is why we've stressed that we need to contemplate on these things. How that God would do all this before we even came on the scene, and doing it with the foreknowledge that we would one day be His, and we would be in Him, and we would be redeemed, and forgiven. Alright as we were thinking on these things, we want to remember that redemption is not a Pauline invention, but rather redemption comes all the way up through from the Garden of Eden. At this time we're not going all the way back to Genesis, but remember when God placed Adam and Woman in the Garden, they were His. Isn't that right? They fellowshiped with Him every day. But sin came in and He lost them, because He couldn't fellowship with them in their new state of death through sin (rebellion which is unbelief). That's why He had to go out into the Garden, not that He didn't know where they were, but to show us that they were now so separated from Him that. And what was the question that He asked first? "Where art you?" Do you see that? Now He had never asked that before, but as soon as sin had separated them, He had lost them, now He could ask the question, "Where are you, Adam?" Adam should have answered, "We're lost!" We can not see You Lord!
It's like the parable of the little lamb in Luke chapter 15. That one out of a hundred, the only one that in the parable the shepherd concerns himself with. Why? Because that little fellow knew he was lost. The ninety and nine went out roaming in the desert in the wilderness without a shepherd, and sheep without a shepherd are lost, but what's the difference? They don't know it! The little lamb knew he was in trouble, and so he was bleating his head off, but the rest, while roaming around, never knew they were. Well that's what it means to be separated from God, God lost the human race. Now we can go back to the Old Testament. Come back if you will to Job chapter 19. This is one of the earlier uses of the word redemption in the Old Testament, and Job understood it.
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