(A) Introduction. (Read the reference)

The little phrase, he chose us in him (v4) has often been used to support the view that God chose some for belief and elected to leave others in unbelief. However, as Marcus Maxwell says in his Commentary for Every Day series: It (the phrase) can be read as a statement that God decided before hand that the church should exist and be blessed: that is, what was foreordained was the blessing rather than the individuals who would receive it. So the phrase is not about God's choice of who should believe but God's choice to bless in distinctive ways those that DO believe. This is a view I take because of the huge problems arising from Calvinistic doctrine. It leads up some very insalubrious cul-de-sacs.

(B) The Believer's Blessings.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly (spiritual) realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. v3.

Warren Wiersbe in his very helpful commentary on Ephesians points out that this verse indicates:

(a) The source of the believer's blessings. Believers who are in Christ are blessed by God, the Father of Jesus.

When I was a little boy the Christmas present I most looked forward to was from my grandparents who were that bit richer than anyone else. They could afford expensive gifts. As I got older and nobody very much bothered to give me presents I received some nice gifts from my uncle David - who loved me. God is both rich and loves us.

(b) The sphere of the believer's blessings. The Christian is blessed in the heavenly realm. I think this just means the spiritual, as distinct from the material, realm. The Old Covenant between God and Israel promised the people material blessings like peace and prosperity if they kept the Law. Under the New Covenant believers receive spiritual blessings. In Christ we know God; we enter a new relationship with God and gain direct access to him.

(c) The scope of the believer's blessings. We do not just receive a few blessings in Christ but God grants us ALL spiritual blessings in him. I think this quote from one of C.H. Spurgeon's sermons puts it better than I ever could.

A benevolent person gave Mr. Rowland Hill a hundred pounds to dispense to a poor minister a bit at a time, thinking it was too much to send him all at once. Mr. Hill forwarded five pounds in a letter with only these words within the envelope, "More to follow." In a few days time, the good man received another letter containing another five pounds and the same information, "And more to follow." A day or two after came a third and a fourth, and still the same promise, "And more to follow." By the time the whole sum had been received, the astonished minister was made familiar with the cheering words, "And more to follow."

Every blessing that comes from God is sent with the same message "And more to follow." "I forgive you your sins, but there’s more to follow." "I justify you in the righteousness of Christ, but there’s more to follow." "I adopt you into my family, but there’s more to follow." "I educated you for heaven, but there’s more to follow." "I give you grace upon grace, but there’s more to follow." "I have helped you even to old age, but there’s still more to follow." "I will uphold you in the hour of death, and as you are passing into the world of spirits, my mercy shall still continue with you, and when you land in the world to come there shall still be more to follow.

So it is time to examine in detail some of the blessings God chooses to give to the believer. He blesses us with:

(1) A special standing.

For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.

I have a great deal of trouble with this statement because it does not seem much of a blessing if the way most commentators interpret it is true. William Barclay, for instance, writes that if the Christian is holy he will stand out from the world; he will be obviously different. If he is blameless he will be like the Old Testament sacrificial animals and without defect. The Christian's life should be without spot or blemish making it worthy of being offered up to God.

At this point it is important to stop and assess our lives! If I examine my life as a cricketer then I was different from my non-Christian team mates. Notwithstanding my intense love of the game I never played on a Sunday or on a Tuesday evening. On Tuesday evenings I attended the prayer meeting and that came before even the final of the local cup contest. My fellow cricketers could never really understand my attitude. But the fact is I preferred the company of my fellow Christians on Tuesday evenings to playing cricket.

But as for my cricketing career being flawless that is far, far from true. I hated losing. I hated even more being out for a low score. If I was out for a duck I was inclined take my disappointment out on others. My life as a cricketer could never, ever be an acceptable offering to God; nor could my career as a teacher or as a carer or as a hockey player.

So then I have a tremendous sympathy for the cows in this anecdote:

Two dairy cows were grazing alongside a highway when a tank-truck of milk on its way to the distributor happened to pass. On one side of the truck in big, red letters was a sign that read, "Pasteurized, homogenized, standardized, Vitamin A added."

One cow turned to the other and said, "Makes you feel sort of inadequate, doesn’t it?" (With thanks to David Hill)

So I am forced by my experience and the experience of other Christians recorded in Scripture to take a different line. I think God's choice of believers to be his people makes them special. They are set apart by God's choice; they acquire status by God's choice. This is a blessing that follows automatically from God's choice.

I can remember applying to study Geography at University College, London. I later received a letter accepting me as a student of that fine institution. I was chosen. It made me feel special. It also changed my standing in the eyes of others. I hadn't done anything. I hadn't even begun my studies let alone successfully completed them but the college's choice put me in a privileged position. When God chooses believers to be his people they are privileged because he will afford them his protection, provision, comfort and power.

God accepts us as without defect in his Christ. I shall never live the blameless life. I have been a Christian for 55 years and I can only look back with the deepest dissatisfaction at my flawed record. It is not something I would willingly present to God. However, I am convinced that my belief in Jesus means his righteousness is credited to me. See Romans4v20to25. That is the only way I shall be made perfected. Count Zinzendor's great hymn sums up my hope:

Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness
My beauty are, my glorious dress;
Midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed,
With joy shall I lift up my head.

In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will - to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the one he loves.

Predestination is a much misunderstood concept. In order to pass the Driving Test in England and be free to drive a vehicle unaccompanied you have to reach a certain standard. For example, you must get a certain percentage of the questions on the Highway Code correct - say 90%.

The decision (or choice) to make the achievement of this figure necessary for passing the Driving Test predestines some to fail. This is perfectly compatible with free will and human responsibility. Failure to pass is not the fault of those who devised the test but the fault of those taking it!

God's decision (or choice) to save those that believe in Jesus predestines some to salvation and adoption into his family and some to remain outside his family and to be for ever lost. God is not to blame for those who don't believe.

It was God's pleasure and will to show his great love for Jesus by adopting as sons all those who believe in him. God's wonderful grace in accepting us is motivated by his love for his only begotten Son.

We should never underestimate God's grace in adopting us with all our faults and failings. Some Christians are more of a liability than a help in Christ's service. Others are disagreeable and unlovely. Others resemble dissatisfied, grizzley babies rather than soldiers of the cross!

It is possible to take a father's love for granted as this charming illustration used by Dave Simmons shows:

One of the best pictures I've ever seen on the current confusion on the placement of fathers comes from Erma Bombeck. She paints a portrait of a little girl who loved her dad but wasn't sure what dads do:

One morning my father didn't get up and go to work. He went to the hospital and died the next day. I hadn't thought that much about him before. He was just someone who left and came home and seemed glad to see everyone at night. He opened the jar of pickles when no one else could. He was the only one in the house who wasn't afraid to go into the basement by himself.

He cut himself shaving, but no one kissed it or got excited about it. It was understood when it rained, he got the car and brought it around to the door. When anyone was sick, he went out to get the prescription filled. He took lots of pictures . . . but he was never in them.

Whenever I played house, the mother doll had a lot to do. I never knew what to do with the daddy doll, so I had him say, "I'm going off to work now," and threw him under the bed. The funeral was in our living room and a lot of people came and brought all kinds of good food and cakes. We had never had so much company before. I went to my room and felt under the bed for the daddy doll. When I found him, I dusted him off and put him on my bed. He never did anything. I didn't know his leaving would hurt so much.

It would be a terrible loss to have no loving, heavenly Father. He is not obtrusive; he doesn't meddle or keep drawing attention to himself but he is there and John tells us, God will take care of you. 1Jn3v1. But, being a child of God doesn't mean we just have privileges but also responsibilities. John also writes: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother. 1Jn3v10.

(3) Freedom.

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.

This wonderful verse describes two things God gives us:

(a) Redemption. If a man was a slave in the time of Paul anyone could buy him and set him free. By paying a price a slave could be redeemed - set free from bondage.

The Israelites were a redeemed people. They were set free from their task masters in Egypt. The Israelites were only able to escape from slavery because they sheltered beneath the blood of the Passover lamb as the angel of death went through the land.

Jesus shed his blood on the cross, the ultimate and final sacrifice for sin, to set men free from anything that binds them whether it be the Jewish Law, the fear and superstition of paganism or the materialism and hedonism of modern Britain. Jesus paid the price to set us free from whatever master holds us in bondage, to serve God.

Forgiveness. Although it is easy to forgive ourselves for sin and to forget about the wrong we have done it is not so easy for God. He cannot take lightly what spoils us; indeed what ruins us. That is why in the Old Testament God's forgiveness was associated with sacrifice. On the Day of Atonement a goat was sacrificed as a sin offering. The Chief Priest in the most solemn of ceremonies took the blood of the goat and sprinkled it on the atonement cover of the ark in the Holy of Holies. see Lev16v15to17. The goat paid the price for sin in the place of the Israelites.

Jesus' death on the cross was in the will and purpose of God because it demonstrated the awfulness of men's sin and our Maker's hatred of it. This allows God to accept the price Jesus paid on our behalf and forgive all those who trust in Christ for salvation.

(a) Lavishly - according to the riches of his grace. Jesus shed blood at Calvary was not enough in itself to secure our redemption and forgiveness. Jesus death was in the will of God and he, our Passover Lamb, was without defect. But even so it was, like every other sacrice, only a token payment to God for the wrong done him. The death of one perfect man could not in strict justice atone for the cumulative sin of millions and millions of men and women. God did not accept what Jesus offered because it satisfied his demand for justice. He accepted the sacrifice Jesus made according to the riches of his grace.

In the 1930's, millionaire John D. Rockefeller used to dress up in a suit and a top hat and have his picture taken giving some poor boy a dime. A dime was a lot of money in those days. It would be the equivalent of $10 today. But even so, the most that could be said of Rockefeller is that he was giving OUT of the abundance of his riches. However, if he had gone to one of those boys and had purchased for him a mansion in the country and given him a chauffeur-driven limousine, then it could be said that he was giving ACCORDING TO his riches. (With thanks to John Stevenson)

Most of us give like Rockefeller - out of the abundance of our riches. Very few give according to their riches. But God does. He gives according to the riches of his grace. More than that, he lavishes his grace upon us. When I was a student in London I would occasionally be invited to Sunday lunch with my uncle Stephen who worked for the Milk Marketing Board. The thing I remember about the lunches was the stewed dried fruit for dessert - figs, dates and apricots - AND the lashings and lashings of cream. The cream was lavished upon me!

God lavishes his grace upon the sinner. There is never too little of it. It doesn't matter how great a sinner is or how desperate his bondage, God's grace will be sufficient both to forgive him and set him free.

(b) With wisdom and understanding. Here is another instance of the passage giving rise to differences of interpretation. Many commentators include wisdom and understanding with repentance and forgiveness as God's gifts. I am very dubious about this. After studying Paul's first and second epistles to the Corinthians it is very evident that most of the Christians to whom he wrote had neither wisdom nor understanding and remained infants in Christ. (See exposition on 1Cor3v1to9. In my experience there remain a considerable number of believers who lack these qualities. Wisdom and understanding, unlike forgiveness and redemption, are acquired with effort and experience.

In my view God showed wisdom and understanding of the human condition in allowing Jesus to make his sacrifice in the way he did - hanging on a cross. What tremendous appeal the cross has had through the centuries right up to the present day.

In the words of John Bowring:

In the cross of Christ I glory
Towering o'er the wrecks of time;
All the light of sacred story
Gathers round its head sublime.

And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfilment - to bring all things in heaven and earth together under one head, even Christ.

Once again the truth contained in this verse could be expressed both more simply and more clearly.

Paul seems to be saying that Christians know that it is in the will of God that a time will come when Jesus will be in complete control of everything. Both the angels of heaven and new men of the new creation will be united in their perfect, unswerving allegiance to Jesus. It is God's good pleasure, at the appropriate time, to end all rebellion, discord and disunity by destroying antagonistic elements whether fallen angels or unredeemed men. All those whom Christ has saved will see him and be changed to be like him henceforward living in the closest harmony with him as do the angels round the throne. It is only in Christ that God's two creations - angels and men - can ever be united.

Needless to say a glorious day will dawn for the redeemed and forgiven - a day of wonderful fellowship - unalloyed by self-seeking, self-interest, self-consciousness and deficiencies of feeling. On that day we will know as we are known. There will be no secrets, no pretence, no dissimulation, no misunderstandings; our mutual love for Jesus will bind us to him, to one another and all created beings.

(C) The believer's indebtedness.

In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. v11and12.

Paul was writing to Gentile believers and felt the need to remind them of their debt to the Jews who were the first to hope in Christ. The Jews were those who looked forward to the coming of the Messiah and it was Jews who were the first to believe in Jesus. The Jews were God's chosen people. They were chosen for the purpose revealed to Abraham: And all people's on earth will be blessed through you. Gen12v3. This promise was repeated after Abraham showed his willingness to obey God - even to the extent of sacrificing his son, Isaac. God said, ".... and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me." Gen22v19. Even here God's choice seems to be influenced by Abraham's faith!

So the Jews were slowly and painstakingly prepared for Christ's coming. His advent among them was predestined and a crucial few believed in him and formed the earliest church. The members of the first church in Jerusalem served God's purpose because through them a record of Jesus' life was preserved and by means of Jewish evangelists the gospel was taken to the Gentiles.

It is important for us to remember our debt to earlier Christians. I am a Christian because of an unbroken chain of witness through the generations from the time of the early church. God can trace the history of my conversion back from century to century to an individual member of the early church in Jerusalem. I have a whole series of spiritual ancestors, perhaps 80 or 100, and the first would be found among that original group of believers in Jerusalem.

If any one of the links in the chain was broken I might not be a Christian today. My salvation is conditional on all of those links being in place. Some of them - like Rahab and Ruth in the genealogy of Jesus - might seem very strange, indeed. Protestants should occasionally remember that a large number of those links would include Roman Catholics who kept the Faith alive during the Middle Ages. I am as much in debt to devout Catholics in the 13th century as I am to my parents in the 20th.

(D) The believer's experience.

And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession - to the praise of his glory. v13and14.

I have heard sermons on Ephesians 1 verses 3 to 14 where the sovereignty of God is dealt with exhaustively and these final two verses are almost overlooked. They deal with the three crucial experiences by which a person becomes a Christian. To become a Christian we must:

(1) Hear about Jesus. And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation.

When Calvinists speak about God's unconditional choice of some to believe they seem to overlook the fact salvation is conditional upon hearing about Jesus. This depends upon Christians fulfilling Christ's Great Commission. See Mt28v19and20.

It is instructive to consider the conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch. He owed a lot to Jews he had doubtless met in his own country. They must have introduced him to the one true God. He had been up to Jerusalem to worship where in all probability he bought a scroll of Isaiah the prophet. As he travelled home he read it. But that was not enough. He didn't understand Isaiah 53 and the Holy Spirit did not deem fit to open his eyes to the meaning of it. He needed Philip and what did the evangelist do? Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus. Acts8v35.

This is the way God has chosen to bring men and women to belief in Christ. In some respects it seems a very inefficent way to proceed. It took centuries for the gospel to reach many, many parts of the world. Indeed, there are some regions still not reached. One can only suppose God chose this method because it is in fact the best. It remains our responsibility to tell others the good news about Jesus.

(2) Believe in Jesus. .... having believed.

Some argue that we are so dead in trespasses and sins that we cannot believe unless the Holy Spirit first regenerates us and gives us the ability to believe. I will deal with this issue in more depth later. It is, however, clear from the passage that the Holy Spirit is given FOLLOWING belief and not in anticipation of it. Belief is something WE must do to receive salvation. It is our responsibility. When the Ethiopian eunuch asked Philip: "Look here is water. Why shouldn't I be baptised?" Philip said, "If you believe with all your heart, you may. Acts8v36and37. He did and he was!

There is nothing in the Bible to suggest that belief is anything other than our responsibility. What would an eminent surgeon say to a cancer sufferer who said, "I'll agree to the operation if ONLY you will give me faith in you?" I think the surgeon would reply with a certain amount of scorn and asperity, "I'm sorry - that's your responsibility."

(3) Receive the Holy Spirit.

The gift of the Spirit is:

(a) A seal. I can just remember my mother using a seal. She had a stick of red sealing wax which she melted for some drops to fall on the string of a parcel. Then she took a stamp with her initials on it and pressed it on the blob of wax before it hardened. She sealed the parcel.

The seal did two things. It guaranteed the parcel came from the sender and that it arrived intact and unopened. Likewise the gift of the Spirit shows that we belong to God and it keeps us true to him - protected from the worst our enemies can do.

We are not left to get on with being a Christian alone. Once we become a Christian, by grace and through faith, we are given a helper. Jesus said that the Holy Spirit would be a better Counsellor to his followers - better even than he was himself! See exposition on John16v5to16.

(b) A deposit guaranteeing our inheritance. A deposit is a down payment on an uncompleted transaction to show an intention of completing it. For instance last year I bought a new three piece suite. It was not ready for delivery. The suite had to be ordered by the furniture store from the manufacturer. I was asked to pay a deposit as evidence that I was serious about the order and intended to see the transaction through to completion.

God has promised a glorious inheritance to his redeemed people - an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade - kept in heaven for you. 1Pet1v4. The Holy Spirit is the earnest of God's good intent - a guarantee that his promise will be kept and the transaction completed. The Spirit is a tangible gift because he is the one who illuminates our minds, gives understanding, guides, strengthens and makes us effective in service. The Spirit is a token of God's love in much the same way as an engagement ring is both a token of love and guarantee that a promise will be kept and a transaction completed.

Warren Wiersbe in conclusion to his excellent, heartening exposition on this passage returns to its main theme, namely that God has made us rich in Christ. God's willingness to do so is a tribute to his glorious grace. So we need to make the most of our riches in Christ. Wiersbe refers to Charles Spurgeon's little devotional book, 'A Check-book on the Bank of Faith.' The book contains short meditations on a promise from the Bible for each day of the year. Spurgeon described each promise as being as good as money deposited in the bank to anyone who would claim it by faith. Anyone claiming a promise by faith is like a person writing a cheque against his bank account. By faith we can claim God's promises and draw on his limitless wealth to meet every need we may face.