Welcome to this week’s episode, a special rerun from our Speaking of Life archive. We hope you find its timeless message as meaningful today as it was when it was first shared.
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Program Transcript
Speaking Of Life 4006 | Already a Good New Year
Cara Garrity
This week, we are blessed to celebrate the coming of another year with fireworks, parties, and cheers of “goodbye” to 2021 and “hello” to 2022. At the start of a new year, many people use the opportunity to take stock in their lives. They make resolutions to lose weight, exercise more, save money, and stop procrastinating. There is nothing inherently wrong with making a New Year’s resolution, however, have you ever noticed that resolutions are often focused on self-improvement?
Why do we often base our New Year’s resolution on things we do not like about ourselves or things we think will make us whole? Why, when reflecting on our lives, do we tend to look at what we do not have versus what we have?
The truth is, God wants something different and better for us. While we do actively participate in the work to become more like Christ, our Triune God invites us to be focused on the blessings we have already received and how we are being transformed by the goodness of God. Paul writes:
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship 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.
Ephesians 1:3-6
The reality is that if we are in Christ, we have already been blessed beyond imagination. It is God’s pleasure to bless his children and he does not withhold his best from us. What would happen if we made our New Year’s resolution in light of what we have received in Christ? What if we saw ourselves as overflowing with blessings? What if we saw ourselves as already chosen and adopted in Christ?
For this new year, I challenge us to rest in the truth of what God says about humanity. Through Jesus Christ, we are holy and blameless in his sight. I pray that we will experience every spiritual blessing in Christ, no matter what this year has in store.
I’m Cara Garrity, Speaking of Life.
Program Transcript
Speaking Of Life 4006 | Already a Good New Year
Cara Garrity
This week, we are blessed to celebrate the coming of another year with fireworks, parties, and cheers of “goodbye” to 2021 and “hello” to 2022. At the start of a new year, many people use the opportunity to take stock in their lives. They make resolutions to lose weight, exercise more, save money, and stop procrastinating. There is nothing inherently wrong with making a New Year’s resolution, however, have you ever noticed that resolutions are often focused on self-improvement?
Why do we often base our New Year’s resolution on things we do not like about ourselves or things we think will make us whole? Why, when reflecting on our lives, do we tend to look at what we do not have versus what we have?
The truth is, God wants something different and better for us. While we do actively participate in the work to become more like Christ, our Triune God invites us to be focused on the blessings we have already received and how we are being transformed by the goodness of God. Paul writes:
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship 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.
Ephesians 1:3-6
The reality is that if we are in Christ, we have already been blessed beyond imagination. It is God’s pleasure to bless his children and he does not withhold his best from us. What would happen if we made our New Year’s resolution in light of what we have received in Christ? What if we saw ourselves as overflowing with blessings? What if we saw ourselves as already chosen and adopted in Christ?
For this new year, I challenge us to rest in the truth of what God says about humanity. Through Jesus Christ, we are holy and blameless in his sight. I pray that we will experience every spiritual blessing in Christ, no matter what this year has in store.
I’m Cara Garrity, Speaking of Life.
Psalm 147:12-20 · Jeremiah 31:7-14 · Ephesians 1:3-14 · John 1:1-18
This week’s theme is praise for God’s blessings. In our call to worship Psalm, the psalmist offers praise to God for His protection and provision over Jerusalem. In Jeremiah, the prophet encourages the people to sing praises to God, as He is going to bless them with restoration. In Ephesians, the apostle declares that we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus. Considering this, we are to offer praise to God. And in John’s Gospel, we read the praiseworthy truth that we have the blessing of becoming children of God.
The Chosen
Ephesians 1:3-14 NIV
There was a family that had two boys, an eight-year-old and a six-year-old. The older brother was a biological child while the six-year-old was adopted. One day the older brother was bragging to his younger brother that he was the only biological child of their parents. The younger brother responded by saying, “Well, at least I can say that I was chosen, but they were stuck with you.”
Imagine yourself as a small child. You have no parents and no real home to go to. Now, imagine being told that someone has chosen you to be their child. Not only have you been chosen, but the person who chose you has an unconditional amount of love that no other parent could come close to. They have also agreed to share their entire estate with you. You just hit the adoption jackpot!
In our sermon today, we’re going to unpack what it means to be adopted by God. We will be looking at the significance of being specifically chosen by the Father, redeemed by the Son, and sealed by the Spirit. In other words, we have hit the adoption jackpot. Our text is found in Ephesians 1:3-14. We will start by looking at verses 3-6.
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship 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. Ephesians 1:3-6 NIV
In the original Greek, this passage (verses 3-14) is one massively long run-on phrase with clause after clause describing the ways in which the Father has blessed us and what the implications of those blessings are for our lives.1 Reading this in its entirety may seem like we are trying to drink from a firehose or a powerful waterfall. While the apostle Paul may not have needed to take a breath as he was writing this, we must pause occasionally if we want to truly digest what he is trying to get across.
Paul employs the use of imagery to explain just how great the privilege of being the Father’s adopted children really is. He does this in a way the Ephesian church could understand by appealing to the practice of adoption. While adoption of children in Jewish society was rarer, the Ephesians were well accustomed to how adoption worked in the Roman Gentile world they inhabited.
In Roman law, when the adoption was complete, the adoptee was free from their old family. Any debts or responsibilities that were incurred by that former family were nullified. The old has passed and the new has come. The adoptee now enjoyed the same rights as a biologically born child. Some have even suggested that they might have even carried more rights than those who were the biological children of their parents.2
Verse 5 indicates that this adoption of ours is based on love. It was out of the Father’s great love that He chose humanity for himself. It was His will to adopt us through the life of His Son, Jesus. This is what truly pleased the Father — to have us for himself.
In Verse 4, Paul informs the Ephesians that all of this was decided before the foundation of the world. All would be included in His plan of election. Jew and Gentile alike. In fact, before the foundation of the world there was neither Jew nor Gentile.
In verse 3, Paul shares the wonderful news that we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing possible. Through the ministry of Christ on our behalf, not one thing is missing; nothing is being held back. And we now stand blameless in His sight. No wonder Paul has such a difficult time containing his enthusiasm as he writes this letter!
Verse 6 speaks about God’s glorious grace that we have received through Christ Jesus. In essence, these four verses direct us toward Christ. He is the focal point of our faith. It is through His life, death, resurrection, and ascension that our adoption has been secured with all its blessings and benefits. This is what the Father has chosen.
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, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reached their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.
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 put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of His glory. Ephesians 1:7-12 NIV
Paul starts this next section by talking about our redemption. This is one of those religious-sounding words that needs a bit of clarification. The Greek word for redemption is apolutrosis. It signifies a release effected by payment of ransom. It carries the idea that something was lost or forfeited but then bought back.3 Again, this word held a lot of significance for the Ephesian believers.
In Ephesus, there were approximately 60,000 slaves, equivalent to a quarter of the population. Most of these slaves were typically conquered or kidnapped individuals, or prisoners of war. Even people’s own families might sell one of their members into slavery.4 This was “business as usual” to the Ephesians, and business was booming.
You can imagine how a person might react to being redeemed, to having their freedom procured. What a relief this must have been. What gratitude they must have displayed! And this is likely why Paul chose to use the word redemption here. We all have been held in bondage to sin and death. Again, it is the Father’s will for His creation to be free.
Through the blood of Christ, we are redeemed. Our deliverance from the bondages to sin and death are a done deal. Sin is no longer our master. The wages of sin and death are paid in full. The chains are released. We are a people made free through the love of God expressed in Christ’s death in our place.
In verse 11, Paul goes back to mentioning how we are chosen. He goes even further by stating that this was all predestined by God. Paul is not addressing here whether certain individuals have or have not been predestined to salvation. What Paul is addressing is that the mystery of God’s will is the inclusion of the Gentiles. The Father is unifying all things together through Christ. Nothing is outside of God’s redemptive plan.
And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you 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. Ephesians 1:13-14 NIV
Notice in verse 13, Paul begins to use the pronoun “you”. The church in Ephesus had a significant number of Gentile believers. Therefore, Paul is communicating here about their great inclusion into being a people chosen and adopted by the Father. What was once only bragged about by the Jews, had now become their privilege as well through Christ. Verse 13 talks about us being marked with a “seal.” What Paul is referring to was an official mark of identification that was placed on a letter, contract, or other important document. Typically, the seal was made from hot wax, which was placed on the document and then impressed with a signet ring. Once this was completed, the document was then officially identified with and placed under the authority of the person to whom the signet belonged.5 This was usually a king, a nobleman, or a high ranking official. The seal authenticated the document. If someone were to have this item in their possession, they were assured of security, authenticity, ownership, and authority.
The “seal” for us is the Holy Spirit. With this seal we are secure in our relationship with God. We know what we have been given is authenticated by the witness of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Under the authority of King Jesus, we have been given the Spirit as a gift. The Spirit is a deposit, who guarantees that we will — and are — taking ownership of all the blessings of Christ in this age and even more in the age to come. Through the Holy Spirit, we come to know more and more how God the Father, and Christ the Son, have chosen us and received us into the family of God.
Christian songwriter, Tim Hughes said:
Worship is about something we do. It involves sacrifice. But at the heart of the gospel is this truth, we are called and chosen by God to join in with the dance of the trinity—Father, Son and Holy Spirit.6
Brothers and sisters, let us praise our wonderful heavenly Father, who has included and chosen us as His very own beloved children. Let us take hold of the blessings that have been lavished upon us through the ministry of Christ on our behalf. And let us live out our lives through the direction of the Holy Spirit, who continually leads us in the dance into which we have been so graciously included.
- Commentary on Ephesians 1:3-14 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary
- Commentary on Ephesians 1:3-14 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary
- Strong’s Greek: 629. ἀπολύτρωσις (apolutrósis) — a release effected by payment of ransom (biblehub.com)
- What Does It Mean to Be Sealed With the Holy Spirit? (gty.org)
- TOP 14 CHOSEN BY GOD QUOTES | A-Z Quotes (azquotes.com)
January 5, 2025 — Second Sunday after Christmas
Ephesians 1:3-14
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Program Transcript
Cullen Rodgers-Gates—Year C Christmas 2
So, let’s go ahead and transition to our first pericope of the month. It’s Ephesians 1:3-14. I’m going to be reading from the New Revised Standard Version, the Updated Edition (NRSVUE). It is a Revised Common Lectionary passage for the second Sunday after Christmas on January 5.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. 5 He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace 8 that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight 9 he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. 11 In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, 12 so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. 13 In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; 14 this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.
That’s an awesome gospel text. So, Cullen, if you were preaching this gospel text to the congregation where you worship, what would be the focus of your gospel proclamation?
Cullen: I think Anthony, I’m struck by this passage. I know it comes from an epistle, it’s a letter. And so, I guess it’s prose, but it definitely sounds like poetry to me. It certainly sounds like a hymn.
Anthony: Yes. A song.
Cullen: It is just hearing you read it again, is just an overwhelming flood. the first thing that I’m struck with is God’s grace in all of this, and the language Paul uses. He uses different words to emphasize just how over the top is this love of God that knows no bounds. This language of “every” — we’ve been blessed with every spiritual blessing.
The idea that we are chosen by Him. Someone once said, I don’t remember who it was, that God is rich in mercy and He’s a big spender. And that’s always stuck with me. I think I would, if I were preaching this, I would really focus on the overwhelming all-sufficiency of God’s grace in our lives.
That we have been so utterly blessed and equipped by God in Jesus that we have no need to turn to any other person or thing or aspiration where we might find our ultimate purpose. That God’s grace and blessing is so all-sufficient that everything we need for life and for purpose and meaning is found in Him.
It makes me think of, I think it was Peter, in John 6, he says, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You alone have the words of eternal life.” And that’s the sense that I get from this passage.
I think another motif here is the inheritance that we have in Christ. And you see the word “destined,” which appears a couple of times. I love that language because it reminds us that our purpose didn’t start with our birth, but our purpose, our destiny, if you will, to use that language, really started long before the foundations of the world.
I think another thing that stands out to me here is that God’s revelation itself is a gift of grace. And that’s a prominent feature in this passage. We see this language of “mystery” throughout Paul’s letters, the mystery of the gospel. And it’s mystery because it had to be revealed to us.
And we were utterly dependent that God would reveal Himself to us in the way He has through Christ. And this really underscores what we would call special revelation. We have special revelation of God in Christ. That’s distinct from general revelation, to all that God makes available to all humanity.
Anthony, I was remembering as I was reflecting on this years ago, I had the opportunity to sit in a class, Old Testament theology class at Wheaton. And I remember being for the first time, my paradigm of the Old Testament, particularly when we think about the law, the giving of the law in the form of the Ten Commandments.
And growing up in Reformed tradition I understood this sort of distinction between law and grace. And it can be really easy to take that, interpret that in ways that actually are not faithful to Scripture in such that you, if you take it to an extreme, you can get to a place where you are understanding the God of Scripture to be almost two different gods.
And I think it was at Marcion, the heretic Marcion, who actually promoted that belief that the God of the old Testament, the God of law and the Ten Commandments, that God is somehow different from the God of the New Testament that we meet in Jesus, the God of mercy and love and forgiveness.
And of course that is not what we believe. We believe all of Scripture points to the triune God. And as Christians we can understand, we can read the Old Testament through a Christo-centric lens recognizing that Christ’s life, death, and resurrection is the interpretive framework for the entire Scripture.
And the professor in my Old Testament class was talking about how radical it was that the people of Israel had been given Ten Commandments. We in the West — particularly in traditions where we are trying to separate ourselves from a legalistic or fundamentalist orientation to the faith that is rules-based, and we’re trying to emphasize the mercy and the grace of God over against the legalism — it’s easy for us — I’ll speak for myself. It’s easy for me sometimes to look at the Ten Commandments a bit askance to be a little bit suspicious. It’s not about works. It’s about we’re saved by grace through faith alone.
Yes, that’s true. But my professor was helping me to recapture the radical nature of God’s grace in giving the Ten Commandments in the first place. And we looked at these prayers and passages from other Israel’s neighboring nations. And the various gods that they worshiped. And you read these texts, these prayers of these other nations to their gods that are basically unknown gods.
And when you read them, there’s this sense of anxiety and foreboding in their prayers because what’s actually happening is they don’t know what those gods require of them. And it’s the not-knowing, it’s the far off and distant God, the inscrutable God that they’re hoping to appease with sacrifices or whatever else they’re doing, that there’s an anxiety there. Because they don’t know how do I satisfy this God’s demands. I don’t even know what’s expected. And so just an incredible anxiety.
And so, when God comes to the people of Israel and, through Moses, gives them the Ten Commandments, He’s showing them, this is grace that I’m showing you the way how you are to be my people. And that clarity, that insight, that revelation is really quite radical. And ultimately, it points back to His grace.
And then I love in verse, I think it’s verse 10 of this passage says, “as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” And Anthony, that makes me think of Colossians 1:20, one of my favorite passages in Scripture, which says, “through Christ, God was pleased to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven by making peace through the blood of His cross.” And so, it’s that comprehensive gospel. So yeah.
Anthony: Yeah. You talked about God’s revelation being grace, and it was grace all along. God is not schizophrenic. He’s not of two minds. He was revealing Himself and His goodness, and it all gets wrapped up and summed up in Christ, right?
That’s why the writer of Hebrews would say, “in the past He spoke through the prophets, but now He speak and has spoken through His Son,” not in pieces, but the full comprehensive revelation of the goodness of God. This is who God is, and this is who God has always been, and this is why this hymn, this poetry that you referred to in Ephesians 1 is so beautiful because Paul is just, it’s almost like he can’t contain himself.
There’s so much good to talk about this goodness of God revealed in Jesus Christ. And this prompts us, this love of God, it compels us to live a certain way. In verse 12 says, “that we might live for the praise of His glory for those who set their hope on Christ.” Maybe give us some insights, Cullen, on what it might look like to live in such a way.
Cullen: Yeah, I think the first thing that comes to mind is joy. Scripture says that the joy of the Lord is our strength and thinking again about my recent time in Congo, as I was sharing earlier. And I was just witness to a powerful display of joy. And so, living for the praise of His glory.
That’s one of the things I think is that we live in such a way that where, when we really begin to understand how much God has lavished on us — and you’re exactly right in this passage. It’s as if Paul, he just can’t contain himself, and he can’t find enough words and enough superlatives to describe the God that we follow, the God we serve.
And so, there’s a joy when we really begin to let the truth of who this God is and the way He’s lavished His grace and mercy on us who are so undeserving, right? When we really let that settle into our bones, if you will, how can we not begin to walk forth with joy that is, again, not a surface level, oh, everything’s fine, but a deep sense of purpose and meaning and recognition of how much God has done for us in Christ.
I think also living for the praise of His glory means that our works, our actions, the way we live really does matter. And there’s a couple things that I would highlight. One is, you mentioned this earlier, the role of humility. It’s His glory, the praise of His glory that we’re living for, not our own.
And so there has to be at the root of this a humility that governs our entire lives. I also think with that humility, there’s a boldness, right? There’s a boldness in knowing, trusting, believing absolutely with every fiber our beings that God is who He says He is and that he has in fact accomplished everything in Christ.
There should be an eagerness. We should live in a way where we are eager to point others to Christ as the source of our hope. So, there’s both a humility — and I think we’ll talk about this a little bit more coming up in a few minutes — of a pointing, pointing others away from us, pointing to God. There’s a humility and a boldness there.
One of my favorites passages in Scripture, Anthony, is the verses that immediately followed the hymn in Philippians 2. Those first 11 verses that talk about Christ’s humiliation that he was obedient to death and even death on a cross and then went all the way down to hell itself and then was raised back up to be seated at the right hand of God, the Father, so that the hymn of Christ’s humiliation and then exaltation.
And then immediately after that it says, “Therefore, work out your salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who is at work in us.” And that’s just such an amazing call to us to work out our salvation. And so, I think that’s another way in which we live for the praise of His glory is that command to us is in the context of Christ’s humiliation and exaltation. And it’s all based on what he’s done that we can then go forth and live out our salvation, knowing that it’s actually God who is at work in us.
Think of Ephesians 2:10: we are God’s workmanship created for God’s works, which He prepared beforehand. And I love that verse for lots of reasons. One of them is that again our calling as believers didn’t begin with our physical birth, but God had actually prepared these works for us to do before we came into existence, which is just an incredible vision. And there’s other things I could say there, but I’ll stop there and see how you might want to respond to that.
Anthony: I’m struck by the paradoxical nature of the Christian life because it looks like humility and boldness would be on opposite ends of the spectrum, but they’re held together in Christ that both are true.
Christ was the one who washed the feet of his disciples, of his friends. And yet he was within just a few hours, the one who boldly submitted to the love of the Father and died for humanity. It’s just — you’re right, they go hand in hand. And yeah, that’s a good word to wrap up that particular passage of Scripture with. Thank you.
Program Transcript
Cullen Rodgers-Gates—Year C Christmas 2
So, let’s go ahead and transition to our first pericope of the month. It’s Ephesians 1:3-14. I’m going to be reading from the New Revised Standard Version, the Updated Edition (NRSVUE). It is a Revised Common Lectionary passage for the second Sunday after Christmas on January 5.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. 5 He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace 8 that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight 9 he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. 11 In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, 12 so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. 13 In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; 14 this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.
That’s an awesome gospel text. So, Cullen, if you were preaching this gospel text to the congregation where you worship, what would be the focus of your gospel proclamation?
Cullen: I think Anthony, I’m struck by this passage. I know it comes from an epistle, it’s a letter. And so, I guess it’s prose, but it definitely sounds like poetry to me. It certainly sounds like a hymn.
Anthony: Yes. A song.
Cullen: It is just hearing you read it again, is just an overwhelming flood. the first thing that I’m struck with is God’s grace in all of this, and the language Paul uses. He uses different words to emphasize just how over the top is this love of God that knows no bounds. This language of “every” — we’ve been blessed with every spiritual blessing.
The idea that we are chosen by Him. Someone once said, I don’t remember who it was, that God is rich in mercy and He’s a big spender. And that’s always stuck with me. I think I would, if I were preaching this, I would really focus on the overwhelming all-sufficiency of God’s grace in our lives.
That we have been so utterly blessed and equipped by God in Jesus that we have no need to turn to any other person or thing or aspiration where we might find our ultimate purpose. That God’s grace and blessing is so all-sufficient that everything we need for life and for purpose and meaning is found in Him.
It makes me think of, I think it was Peter, in John 6, he says, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You alone have the words of eternal life.” And that’s the sense that I get from this passage.
I think another motif here is the inheritance that we have in Christ. And you see the word “destined,” which appears a couple of times. I love that language because it reminds us that our purpose didn’t start with our birth, but our purpose, our destiny, if you will, to use that language, really started long before the foundations of the world.
I think another thing that stands out to me here is that God’s revelation itself is a gift of grace. And that’s a prominent feature in this passage. We see this language of “mystery” throughout Paul’s letters, the mystery of the gospel. And it’s mystery because it had to be revealed to us.
And we were utterly dependent that God would reveal Himself to us in the way He has through Christ. And this really underscores what we would call special revelation. We have special revelation of God in Christ. That’s distinct from general revelation, to all that God makes available to all humanity.
Anthony, I was remembering as I was reflecting on this years ago, I had the opportunity to sit in a class, Old Testament theology class at Wheaton. And I remember being for the first time, my paradigm of the Old Testament, particularly when we think about the law, the giving of the law in the form of the Ten Commandments.
And growing up in Reformed tradition I understood this sort of distinction between law and grace. And it can be really easy to take that, interpret that in ways that actually are not faithful to Scripture in such that you, if you take it to an extreme, you can get to a place where you are understanding the God of Scripture to be almost two different gods.
And I think it was at Marcion, the heretic Marcion, who actually promoted that belief that the God of the old Testament, the God of law and the Ten Commandments, that God is somehow different from the God of the New Testament that we meet in Jesus, the God of mercy and love and forgiveness.
And of course that is not what we believe. We believe all of Scripture points to the triune God. And as Christians we can understand, we can read the Old Testament through a Christo-centric lens recognizing that Christ’s life, death, and resurrection is the interpretive framework for the entire Scripture.
And the professor in my Old Testament class was talking about how radical it was that the people of Israel had been given Ten Commandments. We in the West — particularly in traditions where we are trying to separate ourselves from a legalistic or fundamentalist orientation to the faith that is rules-based, and we’re trying to emphasize the mercy and the grace of God over against the legalism — it’s easy for us — I’ll speak for myself. It’s easy for me sometimes to look at the Ten Commandments a bit askance to be a little bit suspicious. It’s not about works. It’s about we’re saved by grace through faith alone.
Yes, that’s true. But my professor was helping me to recapture the radical nature of God’s grace in giving the Ten Commandments in the first place. And we looked at these prayers and passages from other Israel’s neighboring nations. And the various gods that they worshiped. And you read these texts, these prayers of these other nations to their gods that are basically unknown gods.
And when you read them, there’s this sense of anxiety and foreboding in their prayers because what’s actually happening is they don’t know what those gods require of them. And it’s the not-knowing, it’s the far off and distant God, the inscrutable God that they’re hoping to appease with sacrifices or whatever else they’re doing, that there’s an anxiety there. Because they don’t know how do I satisfy this God’s demands. I don’t even know what’s expected. And so just an incredible anxiety.
And so, when God comes to the people of Israel and, through Moses, gives them the Ten Commandments, He’s showing them, this is grace that I’m showing you the way how you are to be my people. And that clarity, that insight, that revelation is really quite radical. And ultimately, it points back to His grace.
And then I love in verse, I think it’s verse 10 of this passage says, “as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” And Anthony, that makes me think of Colossians 1:20, one of my favorite passages in Scripture, which says, “through Christ, God was pleased to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven by making peace through the blood of His cross.” And so, it’s that comprehensive gospel. So yeah.
Anthony: Yeah. You talked about God’s revelation being grace, and it was grace all along. God is not schizophrenic. He’s not of two minds. He was revealing Himself and His goodness, and it all gets wrapped up and summed up in Christ, right?
That’s why the writer of Hebrews would say, “in the past He spoke through the prophets, but now He speak and has spoken through His Son,” not in pieces, but the full comprehensive revelation of the goodness of God. This is who God is, and this is who God has always been, and this is why this hymn, this poetry that you referred to in Ephesians 1 is so beautiful because Paul is just, it’s almost like he can’t contain himself.
There’s so much good to talk about this goodness of God revealed in Jesus Christ. And this prompts us, this love of God, it compels us to live a certain way. In verse 12 says, “that we might live for the praise of His glory for those who set their hope on Christ.” Maybe give us some insights, Cullen, on what it might look like to live in such a way.
Cullen: Yeah, I think the first thing that comes to mind is joy. Scripture says that the joy of the Lord is our strength and thinking again about my recent time in Congo, as I was sharing earlier. And I was just witness to a powerful display of joy. And so, living for the praise of His glory.
That’s one of the things I think is that we live in such a way that where, when we really begin to understand how much God has lavished on us — and you’re exactly right in this passage. It’s as if Paul, he just can’t contain himself, and he can’t find enough words and enough superlatives to describe the God that we follow, the God we serve.
And so, there’s a joy when we really begin to let the truth of who this God is and the way He’s lavished His grace and mercy on us who are so undeserving, right? When we really let that settle into our bones, if you will, how can we not begin to walk forth with joy that is, again, not a surface level, oh, everything’s fine, but a deep sense of purpose and meaning and recognition of how much God has done for us in Christ.
I think also living for the praise of His glory means that our works, our actions, the way we live really does matter. And there’s a couple things that I would highlight. One is, you mentioned this earlier, the role of humility. It’s His glory, the praise of His glory that we’re living for, not our own.
And so there has to be at the root of this a humility that governs our entire lives. I also think with that humility, there’s a boldness, right? There’s a boldness in knowing, trusting, believing absolutely with every fiber our beings that God is who He says He is and that he has in fact accomplished everything in Christ.
There should be an eagerness. We should live in a way where we are eager to point others to Christ as the source of our hope. So, there’s both a humility — and I think we’ll talk about this a little bit more coming up in a few minutes — of a pointing, pointing others away from us, pointing to God. There’s a humility and a boldness there.
One of my favorites passages in Scripture, Anthony, is the verses that immediately followed the hymn in Philippians 2. Those first 11 verses that talk about Christ’s humiliation that he was obedient to death and even death on a cross and then went all the way down to hell itself and then was raised back up to be seated at the right hand of God, the Father, so that the hymn of Christ’s humiliation and then exaltation.
And then immediately after that it says, “Therefore, work out your salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who is at work in us.” And that’s just such an amazing call to us to work out our salvation. And so, I think that’s another way in which we live for the praise of His glory is that command to us is in the context of Christ’s humiliation and exaltation. And it’s all based on what he’s done that we can then go forth and live out our salvation, knowing that it’s actually God who is at work in us.
Think of Ephesians 2:10: we are God’s workmanship created for God’s works, which He prepared beforehand. And I love that verse for lots of reasons. One of them is that again our calling as believers didn’t begin with our physical birth, but God had actually prepared these works for us to do before we came into existence, which is just an incredible vision. And there’s other things I could say there, but I’ll stop there and see how you might want to respond to that.
Anthony: I’m struck by the paradoxical nature of the Christian life because it looks like humility and boldness would be on opposite ends of the spectrum, but they’re held together in Christ that both are true.
Christ was the one who washed the feet of his disciples, of his friends. And yet he was within just a few hours, the one who boldly submitted to the love of the Father and died for humanity. It’s just — you’re right, they go hand in hand. And yeah, that’s a good word to wrap up that particular passage of Scripture with. Thank you.
Small Group Discussion Questions
- Name some of the blessings that you have from being chosen in Christ
- How would you communicate God’s election/choosing to your neighbor?
- Describe what it means to you to be redeemed?
- What would be a proper response of the person who is aware of their adoption into God’s family?
