1. What did we learn in our last study regarding the purpose of Christ?
Answer.—The gathering together in one all things in Him.
2. What are we made in Him?
“In whom also we were made a heritage.” Verse 11. Note 1.
3. According to what have we been foreordained?
“Having been foreordained according to the purpose of Him.” Verse 11. Note 2.
4. What is said of His power?
“Who worketh all things after the counsel of His will.” Verse 11. Note 3.
5. What is the object of this foreordination and working?
“To the end that we should be unto the praise of His glory.” Verse 12. Note 4.
6. Who is meant by the “we”?
“We who had before hoped in Christ.” Verse 12. Note 5.
Notes
1. “Made an heritage.”—In our Common Version, it is “have obtained an inheritance.” The thought seems to include both “obtained an inheritance” and “made an heritage.” The Greek word eklērothēmen occurs only here in the New Testament. It comes from klēros, a lot. Hence the verb means literally, to determine, choose, or assign by lot; and Vincent tells us that from the custom of assigning portions of land by lot, klēros acquires the meaning of that which is thus assigned, the possession, or portion of land. See the Septuagint on Num. 24:18; Deut. 3:18. An heir is originally one who obtains by lot. “The Authorized Version here makes the verb active, where it should be passive. The literal sense is, we were designated as a heritage; so the Revised Version correctly, ‘were made an heritage.’ Compare Deut. 4:20, ‘a people of inheritance.’” So God has made His people a people of inheritance. He does not design that they should be pilgrims and wanderers forever. This earth in its present condition is not their home. Moses tells us: “When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when He separated the children of men, He set the bounds of the peoples according to the number of the children of Israel. For Jehovah’s portion is His people; Jacob is the lot of His inheritance.” Deut. 32:8, 9. But this does not pertain to this earth alone, and its present divisions, political and otherwise. “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof;” and when God’s purpose is complete, “the meek shall inherit the earth.” “From sea to sea,” and “from the river to the ends of the earth,” God’s children will have their habitation; and in God’s design every one of His children shall there have inheritance. To that He has called them, for that He has made them “a people of inheritance.” The bounds of the peoples then, and the number of the children of Israel then, will be such as to completely fill the new heavens and the new earth which will be given to them.
2. “Having been foreordained.”—“Predestinated,” Common Version; literally, foremarked out, or limited. It does not mean, as the old Calvinistic idea taught, that God had marked out some to everlasting life and some to everlasting destruction. The thought of the apostle all the way through is not on the negative side of the great question. He is not presenting before us the doom of the impenitent, or of the incorrigibly wicked. What he is setting before us, is God’s purpose concerning His children. Let us bear in mind that nowhere is it said that God has foreordained us to destruction. Hold the assurance of the apostle, “For God appointed us not unto wrath, but unto the obtaining of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.” 1 Thess. 5:9.
“According to the purpose.”—God has a purpose in all that He does. Man works purposelessly many times. That is the whole tendency of sin, to make purposeless the best purposes of humanity, and O, how many times he succeeds! Man has noble purposes which he endeavors to carry out for himself and in himself and by himself, but they fail. There is one purpose, however, which will be carried out, and that is God’s great purpose concerning man, and man’s heritage and man’s future. We briefly note it:
First, the earth was created for the children of men. God gave His command in the beginning that men should multiply and completely fill the earth. This we learn in Genesis 1. In Isa. 45:17, 18, God has made oath by Himself that it is not created in vain; it is formed to be inhabited. And He assures us that that purpose will be carried out by the thought, “I am Jehovah, and there is none else.” He must, in His perfect purpose, design that the earth should be inhabited by a certain number of a certain character. “Behold, . . . God hath made man upright,” said the wise man; He formed them in His own image, we learn in the original account. There should therefore be a certain number of a certain character to inhabit the earth,—not too many, or it would be crowded, and some one would lack inheritance; not too few, or there would be barrenness and lonesomeness and vacancy. Not only9nature, but God, must abhor a vacuum; there will therefore be no unused space. Every one of God’s children should have inheritance, or lot, in that earth as it came from God’s hand “very good.” But sin came in and marred God’s handiwork, and God’s children instead of inheriting the earth have oftentimes been the persecuted ones, and those that have been deprived not only of a portion of earth, but of life as well; they have been pilgrims and strangers. Nevertheless the purpose stands.
We may also readily believe, as intimated elsewhere in His Word, that the names of those characters which should inherit the earth, were written in God’s long roll of life before the world was made. The perfect purpose demanded it. These characters would be overcomers, and there were crowns that should await the character, and they still wait—the crown, the name, the character—for those of earth who shall meet the conditions. When once a soul yields to the Lord Jesus, his own name is written in the Book of Life. Phil. 4:3. His own name is written there as a candidate for the name of the everlasting character, written there in the beginning, before mankind was. The crown that is suitable to that name, awaits the overcomer; but if he fails, his own name will be blotted out of the Book of Life. Rev. 3:5. He will fail to receive his crown. Rev. 3:11. But the name of the character will remain, and the crown will remain, and the inheritance will remain, for some one else that will be called to that name and that crown and that character; for God’s eternal purpose concerning the earth and man and character will not fail.
3. “Who worketh all things.”—How good it is to know that the One who has formed the purpose, who has marked out the character, who in the beginning made the earth, is able to do all that He purposes to do. He “worketh all things”—not after the counsel of human will, not after the perversion of that will by devils or men, but—“after the counsel of His own will.” Despite all the perversions of sin, God’s will will be wrought out. It looks otherwise sometimes. It seems as tho the accusations of the “accuser of the brethren” were true. It seems as tho God had Himself become a tyrant, and so Satan makes men believe. It seems as tho He were weak, or unable to carry out His will. It seems as tho all His purposes were thwarted. It seems as tho He had forgotten humanity. But all these things are in the seeming. God remembers; God cares; and God is love. And so in love, tho our short-sightedness may not see it, He is working out all things after the counsel of His will. Man may fail, He will not fail. Satan may seem to thwart His purposes, but out of the conflict His purposes will come all the more glorious. When the devotees of the gods of Egypt seemed to triumph, Jehovah was above them; and in the great final triumph it will be seen that He is preeminently, gloriously Conqueror, and all those who are with Him are triumphant. He can not arbitrarily set aside the sinner; He can not arbitrarily in His plan overthrow the one who commits the sin in its inception,—that would seem many times to be acting unjustly. He must let sin work out its own essential evils. He must let it bear its crop of fearful fruit, in order that the universe may see in the object-lessons how exceedingly sinful sin is.
4. “The praise of His glory.”—When the earth and man came from the hand of God, and the Creator looked upon His handiwork, “behold, it was very good.” It was such as would be to the praise of His glory. It revealed His Master-handwork. It told to all who looked upon it the wisdom and the power and the love of Him who gave it to man; and man himself reflected the very glory of his Creator in his beauty and character. But sin came in, and since the curse rested upon the earth it has not been to the glory of God. Since man turned from the law of his Creator, he has not been to the praise of the Master who created him. While we read that God hath created all things for His glory, we do not see all things to His glory. But the purpose still holds; and He who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will, has stooped down to this poor, sinful earth, and purposes to take man—sinful, corrupt, perverted, crooked in his ways—and make that man “to the praise of the glory of His grace,” so that throughout all the eternal ages to come, wherever children of this world shall appear among all the hosts of light, they shall in character, in manner, in beauty, be to the praise “of the glory of their Creator and Redeemer.” How glorious and how good is the end, or object, of God concerning man!
5. “We who have before hoped in Christ.”—We who have yielded ourselves as candidates for the name, the crown, the inheritance. It matters not what we are; it matters not who we are, when God calls us. We may be such as those of whom He speak in 1 Cor. 6:9,—fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, effeminate, abusers of themselves with men, thieves, covetous, drunkards, revilers, extortioners. We are there told that such shall not inherit the kingdom of God; but we are also told that such were some of the Corinthian brethren. They once belonged to these classes; “but ye were sanctified, but ye were justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God.”
“God worketh.” All the infinite power of the Creator is behind His call to the sinner. The potency of that call is the potency of perfect character to him who will yield to it, and hope in Jesus Christ. It may seem to be impossible to us—utterly so— having tested our own disposition, having known something of its weaknesses, its utter unholiness and unlikeness to God. How many times we were prepared to listen to the discouraging doubts of the enemy that there is no hope in God for us; but we trust in a Being of all power. He who can take the insensate earth and form it into the marvel of the rose, who can from the slimy, stagnant pool bring all the beauty and purity and fragrance of the lily, can take poor mortals of earth and make them “to the praise of the glory of His grace.”
This lesson in Ephesians is a message for you, discouraged soul, whoever you are. Satan may have overcome you. You may have sinned. You may be discouraged in the progress that you are making. Turn away from all these discouragements. Yield yourself to His will and to the workings of the power of His Spirit. He will enable you day by day to spell out some letter in that new name. Win victories to-day which will entitle you to be the wearer of the crown, and help you by His grace and power to earn some part of that glorious inheritance that awaits the faithful. Yield all to Him, accept all from Him. Your hope is not in princes; it is not in what humanity can do; it is what God in Christ has already done for you. Then hope on, hope ever. He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that you ask or think.
