From the MLJ Archive

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: I should like to call your attention this morning to the words which are to be found in Paul's epistle to the Ephesians, the first chapter, and we shall read this morning from verse 11 to the end of verse 14. From verse 11 to verse 14 in the first chapter of Paul's epistle to the Ephesians.

"In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will, that we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ. In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory."

Obviously, I do not propose to preach on all that this morning, because it is one of those great and massive statements in which this epistle, as we've seen so frequently, abounds. But I have read to you those verses together because this morning I want to deal with them in general. In addition to the particular messages which are to be found in that statement, there is a big, a general statement. And it is only as we're clear about that and grasp it that we can truly appreciate and enjoy the particulars.

Now, obviously, once more, we are looking at a part of this great sentence which starts, you remember, at the beginning of verse 3 and runs right on to the end of verse 14. It's always a foolish thing to say that any one thing in scripture is greater than anything else. But I think we can safely say this, that this is certainly the greatest sentence in the whole Bible. Here is a sentence beginning at verse 3, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ," and on it goes until the end of that 14th verse where I ended my reading just now.

I again remind you of the fact that this is one great sentence because every single particular statement clearly links up with something that has gone before. Here we are this morning at the beginning of verse 11, having worked our way right through until the end of verse 10. But we haven't finished: "In whom also." Who is this whom? Well, someone to whom reference has just been made. Why also? Well, we've already been told certain other things, but here's something additional.

Then it is vital, I say, that we should be carrying, if we can, in our minds the whole sentence as we are considering any particular part of it. The Apostle is unfolding, as we've seen, God's great and grand and eternal purpose. There's no doubt that that is stated in its essence in the 10th verse, the verse we were looking at together last Sunday morning. That is God's ultimate plan. He's got this great purpose, this great idea of restoring again the original, eternal, pristine harmony that obtained in the whole universe. It's been broken, as we saw.

But God in Christ has a plan and a way to restore that broken harmony. And the Apostle has opened that out before us in the 10th verse, having already told us in verses 8 and 9 that he's equipped us with the necessary faculties to understand it. As we are by nature, we don't understand it. The world this morning thinks that you and I, gathering together like this, are doing something quite futile, that we're being rather ridiculous, that this is nothing but some sort of an anachronism. The world doesn't see it. It's interested in the politics and the international politics and the headlines in the newspapers.

But here we are looking at something above all this, something that's going on and will go on whatever may be happening on that lower level. Not that we are saying that what happens on the lower level has no importance, but this is altogether bigger and grander. And this is certain; that's very uncertain. Well, the Apostle, I say, has told us that God, by the Holy Spirit, has given us wisdom. He has given us this wisdom and prudence, without which these things are darkness to us and mean nothing and are utterly remote from life.

But to us they're everything, because we see that God is working this out and that we are involved in it and that our whole eternal destiny is concerned. Well now, here he has told us is this great plan: the restoration of harmony. But now he goes on to tell us something of the way in which God is going to do that and indeed the way in which God is already doing it. That's the theme which he now takes up in verse 11. He's unfolded, exposed to us the plan, and now, I say, he brings us on to the details.

We naturally ask the question, "Well, how is God going to do this? What's it mean? Come down to the practical," says someone. "Very well," says Paul, "I'm coming down to the practical. It's already taking place." Now, the very fact, in a sense, that Paul was writing a letter like this to these Ephesians was a proof of the carrying out of the plan in and of itself. It was an astounding thing that a man like Saul of Tarsus, of everybody, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, should be writing a letter to these Gentile Ephesians. And why is he doing it? Well, it's a part of the unfolding, the carrying out of this great plan of God.

And that's the thing which he takes up in these verses from verse 11 to verse 14. God, I say, is in this plan restoring harmony. And the greatest illustration that the world has seen so far of the carrying out of that plan is what is to be seen in the Christian Church. And that's the theme that the Apostle takes up here. He starts on it. Now, that is, of course, the great theme of this particular epistle. It's one of the great church epistles. And the Apostle gives us here, perhaps, his richest teaching with regard to the nature and the character of the Christian Church.

And he brings it in, I say, as an illustration, the supreme illustration in many ways in time, of this gigantic cosmic plan of his to restore the harmony, as we saw last Sunday, in every realm and in every sphere. It is the great theme of this particular epistle. But we cannot but notice, in passing, the interesting way in which the Apostle states his themes, the way in which he does things. And I personally know of nothing that is so entrancing and so absorbingly interesting as to observe this man's mind in operation.

Every man has his characteristics. Every writer has his own particular characteristics. You can detect the style. Anybody who's ever read the New Testament at all carefully could tell at once whether a paragraph came from Paul or from Peter or from John. Every man has his own characteristics. And these characteristics of the Apostle as a writer come out very clearly in these verses that we are looking at. The way in which he tells us about the working out of this plan in terms of the church betrays at once that it's Paul who's writing.

The terms that he introduces: Paul is not content ever with just saying a thing. He has to add to it. Let me show you what I mean by that. He says, "In whom also we have obtained an inheritance." Well, that's all right. That really says it, doesn't it? It's the great thing that he's emphasizing. But Paul isn't content just to say that we have obtained an inheritance. He tells us how: "being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will." He's already said things like that to us, but he goes on saying them.

And I'm adverting to this and emphasizing it for this good reason: that this elaboration, it seems to me, is a very good test of our understanding of the Christian faith. You see, Paul can't say these things without being astonished and amazed at them. Paul wasn't interested in these things intellectually. He wasn't the sort of lecturer. He was a preacher. He was an evangelist. He was a pastor. He can't regard them in a detached way. And when he says, "We've obtained an inheritance," he seems to ask himself, "Well, how have I ever come into this position?"

And there he falls back upon the only explanation: this predestination, this purpose according to the counsel of his own will. It's God who's working it. He brings it all in and thrusts it, as it were, upon us. He always does it. And you notice that when he comes to talk about the Gentiles, he doesn't just say, "In whom ye also have had your inheritance." No, no, he has to go on telling us a great deal about it. In other words, a very word seems to fire the man, and he sees the whole panorama of salvation and he's constantly giving it us.

Of course, we are told that this is bad in style. The Apostle, we are told, was not a good literary stylist. He hadn't that chaste, pruned style, that directness and simplicity. He's ornate; he multiplies his adjectives. He repeats himself. He crowds epithet upon epithet. Thoroughly bad style. He's guilty, say the authorities, of anacolutha, which means this: that having started a line of argument, a word sets him off and he becomes inflamed and fired and praises his God and forgets in a sense what he said and comes back to it and sometimes doesn't even come back to it. Anacolutha.

But I'm suggesting to you that the anacolutha are the very hallmark of the man's spirituality. He's not a litterateur. He's not a mere hack writer. He's not a man who writes to make his living. He is an evangelist. He's the Apostle of Christ. He's enjoying it himself. And whether syntax and sentences are violated or not, it makes no difference to him. It's the truth that matters. And here it bursts forth upon us. Now, I am constrained to say all that because the Apostle forces one to do so.

You can't read this statement without wondering, "Why does he say all this?" Well, let me put it all in another way. These 14 verses, as I've reminded you frequently, are in a sense the introduction to the whole epistle. And there is a sense in which we can compare this introduction to a kind of overture. You know that in an opera or a great piece of music, you often have an overture, a kind of introduction. And what's the business of the overture? Well, the function of the overture, in a sense, is to introduce us to the great themes that are going to be worked out.

Of course, they're not worked out in the overture. In the overture, they're hinted at. He seems to be writing something quite remote and quite different. Suddenly, a theme will come in. He'll just play with it for a bar or two, then he'll drop it. Then he'll go on, then he'll take up another theme. He's giving you hints and suggestions. He's saying, "Now, these are the themes I'm going to take up, but at the beginning, well, now, let's just have a kind of conspectus. Let's have a kind of synoptic view of it all. Let's look at the whole before we come down to the parts."

And then he works out all the parts, and then he'll wind them all up at the end. That is the kind of structure of these epistles. They are, in many ways, comparable to, as I say, if you like, an opera or a symphony or something like that. There is this wholeness. And the Apostle does that here in this introduction in these first 14 verses. Well, now then, I say, let us look at what he tells us. God is working out this great plan of his to reunite, to head up again in Christ, the whole cosmos.

And how is he doing it? Well, here's the first answer. It's in two phrases: the phrase at the beginning of verse 11 and the phrase at the beginning of verse 13. "In whom also we have obtained an inheritance." "In whom ye also." There it is: "In whom also we, in whom ye also." And that's the whole thing. In those two phrases, he shows us the beginning, the carrying out of this great plan. But, of course, we must be quite clear about this as to who are the "we" to whom he refers in verse 11. "In whom also we have obtained an inheritance." And who does he represent by this "we"?

Now, there are those who say that it's just a sort of editorial "we," that the Apostle is referring to himself, but instead of saying "I," says "we," editorial "we." There are others who say no, it isn't that; the "we" here includes Jews and Gentiles, all Christians, doesn't matter where they've come from, we Christians. But it seems to me perfectly clear that both of those ideas are quite untenable, are utterly wrong. Verse 13, surely, makes that, I say, quite impossible as an explanation. The "we" is in contrast to the "ye also." "We" and "you."

Now then, and it's quite clear that the "you" in verse 13 is a reference to the Gentiles as represented here by the Ephesians and the various other churches to whom this circular letter was probably sent. So that, I say, we must insist upon saying that the "we" here is a reference to the Jews. And I have a further argument that clinches it. You notice that he says about these "we" in verse 12 that "we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ."

Now, in your Revised Versions, you've got "who had before hoped in Christ" or in him. And that is, I say, the final proof that the "we" here is a reference to the Jews. If you take it as we have it here in the Authorized Version as saying "who first trusted in Christ," well, it's simply chronologically true to say that the Jews believed in Christ first, that the first Christians were Jews. They believed first, then others. The gospel is to be preached, as Christ said to his Apostles, first in Jerusalem, then in Samaria, then in the uttermost parts of the world.

And it is historically the case that the Jews were the first. Or if you take the other translation, the Revised Version, which says "who before hoped in Christ," well, it's just a reference to the fact that throughout the Old Testament dispensation, the Jews were looking forward to the hope of the coming Messiah. In any case, it's still the Jews. So that the Apostle here emphasizes the "we" and the "you." "We Jews, you Gentiles." And here's the astounding thing: that they've both been brought together.

They have been made one in Christ. "We also have obtained an inheritance, and you also." We are all together in it. Now, of course, this, as I've already suggested, is not only the great theme of this particular epistle. It is, in a sense, the great theme of the whole of the New Testament and particularly of the New Testament epistles. Of course, here it's the theme everywhere. He keeps on saying it and he's never tired of repeating it. And then you go on to the third chapter, and you find exactly the same thing.

He says, "The thing that's been committed to me as a dispensation, my stewardship, is this: that this truth which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men as it is now revealed—it was known, but not as it's now revealed—unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit, that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs and of the same body." He never got over this. It was indeed a most astounding and thrilling thing to the Apostle. And he goes on in the fourth chapter to say the same thing again.

And you remember that interesting statement, that phrase of his in writing to the Romans. If there was one thing this man had come to be proud of, it was this: that he was the Apostle to the Gentiles. And he says, "I magnify my office." It was just a revolution in the man's whole life. We know about him, don't we? We know what a narrow, bigoted, Jewish nationalist he was, how he prided himself on it and in a sense had every right to be proud of it. But it made him intolerant, and everybody else to him was but a dog, an outsider.

You remember all that. But here he is, and he's an Apostle to Gentiles, and he's writing to Ephesian Gentiles, and he can't get over it. It's so astounding. Well, what is it? Well, it's this tremendous plan of God that's already in operation, and he's a part of it, and they're a part of it. It is, I say, the great theme of all these mighty epistles. He starts on it in the epistle to the Romans: "Not the Jew only, but also of the Gentile. The same God over all is rich unto all that call upon him." It doesn't matter where you've come from, continent and clime and color and all these things are irrelevances. The same God over all is rich unto all that call upon him.

There's a new way. Listen to him: "There is no longer Jew nor Gentile, barbarian nor Scythian, bond nor free." All that's gone. And to perpetuate these distinctions is a denial of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's his teaching. That's the whole glory of it. That's the astounding thing that's happened. Go right through all his epistles and you'll find it everywhere. I've just quoted the epistle to the Galatians to you. "We are the children of Abraham," he says, "the children of faith."

Get rid of these carnal, materialistic, national ideas. All that's finished. It's a spiritual seed that matters. That's the thing that counts in God's sight. There's a new nation. These are God's people, and we Christians are God's people, and we alone are God's people. This is the new way, the great theme of the New Testament, the new dispensation. All the other has been abolished; it's finished with. This was God's purpose. He used the Jews temporarily, but now he's got something bigger and grander. That's the argument.

And as you go on to his epistle to the Colossians, you'll find it there. Indeed, I say, you find it everywhere. And above all, the Apostle in that bit of autobiography in the third chapter of the epistle to the Philippians, he brings it out. He condemns himself as he was. He shows how utterly monstrous and ridiculous it has all been. Well then, the great question that arises is this: how is all this being done? How does God bring it all to pass? And the Apostle goes on to give us the answer in a particularly interesting and entrancing manner.

And I feel that this morning, with the world as it is, with all the clashes and the conflicts and the tensions and the divisions and the various curtains—iron curtain, bamboo curtain, and all the social curtains that have always been with us before these new ones were ever thought of and invented—in the light of all that and against all that background, how wonderful it is to look at this method of God as unfolded by the great Apostle. And how particularly interesting it is to see that God's way in Christ is indeed very different also from that which frequently passes even as Christianity as over against such a situation.

Well now, what is it? Well, let me this morning just give you Paul's statement here. Let me give you my analysis of it. God is restoring the harmony and the unity by means of Christianity, by means of producing Christians. And therefore, Paul here tells us certain things about the Christian. He gives us here a perfect picture of Christianity, and as I understand it, he tells us five things about it. I'm giving you the analysis this morning, and we shall go on with it as far as we can. We obviously can't finish it.

The first thing he tells us is this: that which makes us Christians is that we are in Christ. There's no hope of unity apart from Christianity. There will never be unity amongst men until men are Christians. There is no conceivable lasting unity and harmony and the restoration of that which God originally made except as men are Christians. And we are Christians only as we are in Christ, "In whom." Secondly, there are certain things that are true of us as Christians because we are in Christ. He tells us what they are.

The third thing is this: that he gives us an explanation of the way in which we enter into these blessings—a tremendous statement, showing God's side, showing man's side. Fourthly, he shows us the guarantee of the fact that we have these blessings and, still more important, the guarantee of the fact that we shall never lose them. What a precious thing that is! The Holy Spirit as the seal until the redemption of the purchased possession. Yes, but also sealing you and telling you that you're already in it. And lastly, finally, fifthly, the ultimate object of all this is the glory of God. "To the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ. Unto the praise of his glory." Now, that's the statement.

It's vital, I say, that we should have this scheme in our minds as we consider these verses. That's what he's saying. Unity is only possible in terms of Christianity. It is only as we become Christians we can ever know this. And he tells us here what is true of us because we are Christians, what do we enjoy as Christians, how it's all come to us, how we may know that we've got it and that we'll never lose it, and the whole of it as a manifestation of the glory of the eternal and the ever-blessed God. Well now then, let's start on this.

The first thing I say we are told here is this: that what reconciles Jew and Gentile—and the only thing that can ever reconcile them—is that they should be together Christians in Christ. To be a Christian, I say, means to be in a new relationship to Christ. It means to be in Christ. It doesn't just mean to be a member of a particular society. It doesn't just mean that you've been born in a particular country. It doesn't mean that—well, that your parents or your grandparents were—that isn't Christianity. Christianity means being in Christ.

God, in other words, reconciles men by bringing them into a new relationship. And it is purely a question of relationships. All troubles in the world, whether between nations, between groups, between individuals, they—all these troubles stem from a failure somewhere in the realm of relationships. And there never will be a more perfect illustration of that than this extraordinary picture of Jew and Gentile. There it was, middle wall of partition between them. Jews, Gentiles.

The Jew, you see, looking at himself in a certain way, the Gentile doing exactly the same thing. But their relationships were all wrong. Why? Well, because each made a god of himself and of his position, and there was a clash between these respective gods. The Jew, of course, prided himself on being one of God's people. They had the law. The law had been given to them. Of course, they didn't stop to ask whether they kept the law, whether they honored it; that's not the point. "We have the law. The law was given to us, to our forefathers. What a marvelous people we are!" And anybody else, of course, they've never had the law. They were not given the law. The fact that there were many keeping the law in a much better way than they were didn't count at all. It was the fact that the law had been given to them that mattered. "Our law, our people, our country, our nation."

That's it, isn't it? And they despised the others as dogs. They were outside the commonwealth of Israel, without God in the world. Refuse. Oh yes, but wait a minute. Look at some of the others. Look at the Greeks, for instance, with their amazing heritage of learning and of intellect and of ability, that astounding flowering period of the mind of men when the giants were on earth and when they looked into the problems and elaborated their theories and drew their plans of their utopias. Nobody else had done that. They were quite apart; they were unique. "Jews? Who are they? What are they? They've nothing like this." And so the Greek prided himself. Jew, Greek. And they clashed and they fought, as they must always do, as they're doing in the modern world, and as they all will do until this vital thing happens.

Now, that was the position, wasn't it? This tremendous division of mankind, this middle wall of partition—that's what Paul calls it. You see, that's what corresponds to your modern curtains. It's much more than a curtain; it's a wall. And it's been built carefully by both sides. Each one is repairing it on his side, and it's there and it's come down, it's been put up—put it as you like. There it is. And I say it's the same thing is true as you look at life and all its clashes and divisions and unhappinesses throughout the world this morning. And there's only one way of dealing with a thing like that.

What is it? Well, I say it's Christianity. "Oh, quite right," says someone. "I've always said," says this man, "that what is needed is the application of the teaching of Christ, and what the church has got to do is to tell people to behave in this Christian way and to apply these principles." That isn't what Paul says, and he doesn't say it for this good reason: that that is something that the world never will do because it can't do it. There is no greater heresy, in a sense, than to expect Christian conduct from people who are not Christians. Why should they behave in a Christian way? They don't agree with it; they don't accept it.

You see, you can't live the Christian life before you're a Christian. Did you notice how Paul puts that in the second chapter? He says, "Not of works, lest any man should boast. Listen, for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works." You've got to be created in Christ before you can do these works. You've got to be alive before you can act. A dead man can't act. All who are not in Christ are dead in trespasses and sins. How can that man carry out Christian works? He cannot. He's never done it.

Now, I mention this because this is sometimes a stumbling block to people of weak faith, and it certainly is a stumbling block to many outside the church. This is the favorite argument, isn't it? They say, "I can't possibly believe in your Christianity for this reason. Here it is, it's been preached and taught for nearly 2,000 years, but look at the world. If your message is right, well then, why isn't the world better?" The answer is this: that Christianity never said that the world would become better in that way. It is not a teaching to be applied by men as they are. No, no. This only works when men are together in Christ, in a new relationship.

Oh, let me tell you very hurriedly how it happened. What was it that brought Paul and the Ephesians together? What was it that made Jew and Gentile go together on their knees to God and pray in one Spirit? It was this: Christ. Christ came, and he died, and had to die for Jew as well as Gentile. Why? Because the Jew had not kept the law, was condemned by the very law of which he boasted. When he saw the law as expounded by Christ and especially on the Cross, he saw that the whole world was lying guilty before God, that "there is none righteous, no, not one." The Jew is no better than the Gentile; he hasn't kept the law. That law condemns him. "All have sinned and of come short of the glory of God." The Jew is not superior to the Greek, the Greek is not superior to the Gentile. They're all groveling on the dust in utter failure, sinners in the sight of a holy God.

You see, they're made one even in condemnation and in sin. The pride is taken out of them. They're crushed to the earth. There's nothing one can boast of as over against the other. They're all equally hopeless. And then it goes on to tell them that they both can only be redeemed and reconciled to God and to one another by the blood of Christ. It's only because he's made himself responsible for their guilt and failure and has died for them that they can have this reconciliation. And they've both got it in exactly the same way. It isn't the law that brings a man to it. It isn't philosophy that brings a man to it. It's Christ who brings them both to it.

You see, they're equal at every point. But now they need strength and power to live this new life they've been brought into. They're given the same Holy Spirit. They're given the same nature, the same divine nature. Christ is in them, and they are in Christ. It's all in him and it all comes out of him, and they're all enjoying it together. They're in Christ. "In whom we, in whom you," created anew. Doesn't the church of God waste a lot of her time in talking politics and in imagining that you've simply got to give people the Christian ethic and tell them to do it so you'll solve the problems of the world? It can't be done. Regeneration is essential. And God is going to produce this final harmony again by a regeneration, a new creation: new men in a new world, new heavens and new earth, new everything in Christ.

That is his method, my friends. It is only as we all are in Christ that we're reconciled. We become members severally of his body. These are the pictures: "Ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular." So the eye doesn't say to the foot, "I have no need of thee," nor the hand to any other part. All are essential. That's the picture. All one, all not in Christ as a teacher, but vitally, spiritually, mystically, members of his body, united to him by the Holy Spirit. That's the first thing.

But let me just say another word before I close. What is it that becomes true of us as Christians because we are in Christ? And here Paul has a most interesting statement. He puts it in a most interesting way. You notice his statement is: "In whom also we have obtained an inheritance." Now, that's the Authorized Version. Your Revised Version in the pews puts it like this: "In whom also we were made a heritage." That isn't the same thing, is it? The Revised Standard Version, I regret to say, is pitifully weak again; it has just the word "appointed." And so misses the rich meaning of the word that the Apostle used, which was this: it was a very interesting word. It was an old word. It's the only time in the New Testament that this word is used. What is it? Well, it carries this meaning: it conveys the impression and the idea of an inheritance obtained by lot, by the casting or the drawing of lots. An inheritance that comes as the result of drawing lots.

That's the word that the Apostle used. Well, why this difference in the translation between the Authorized and the Revised, you may ask? Well, it's for this reason: that the word is used in the passive. And it was because they were impressed by that, the revisers obviously put in the word "heritage" instead of "inheritance." It isn't something active we've done; it's we are passive. So they said you've been made a heritage. But I think I can demonstrate you that they're quite wrong, and if they'd only remembered the context instead of the word only, they would never have fallen into that error.

A better way of translating it is this: that we have been made possessors or inheritors by lot. We have been made inheritors by lot. Or if you like, we have been endowed with an inheritance by lot. Now, why do I insist upon this and therefore say that the Authorized is very much nearer the truth? "In whom we have obtained an inheritance." Well, my argument is this: you notice that in the 14th verse, the Apostle definitely and explicitly speaks about an inheritance. He says, "which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession."

It is true, of course, to say that the Christians are God's heritage. Paul himself says that in verse 18 of this first chapter. But here he's not emphasizing that; he's emphasizing rather our inheritance. And what he says is this: that the Jew and the Gentile are made one, yes, not only as they have had their sins forgiven in the same way and so on, but that as they are inheritors together of the same heritage. "We've obtained a stake in it," says Paul. "You've obtained a stake in it. We're in it together. We're fellow heirs."

Then you see how the great doctrine opens out. There is no question that this is what the Apostle is saying here, as I've already reminded you, in the third chapter he says this was the astounding thing committed to him, "that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs and of the same body." Indeed, he tells us the same thing in the second chapter in verses 12 and 13. He says that you at that time were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenant of promise. But now in Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh, and you've become members of the household of God. You're in the same family. That's the idea.

And you see it works out like this. In Christ, Jew and Gentile are not only fellow heirs together. Still more wonderful, they are joint-heirs with Christ. Isn't that his argument in writing to the Romans in the eighth chapter in the 16th and the 17th verse? "If children, then heirs"—we are heirs—"heirs of God and therefore joint-heirs with Christ." We are in him; we belong to him, and therefore we are joint-heirs with him, joint-heirs with one another, joint-heirs with him. Everything is in Christ, "In whom we have obtained an inheritance."

What does it mean, therefore? Well, my friends, if we could but grasp this, we would not only be the happiest people on the face of this earth this morning, we would indeed rejoice with a joy unspeakable and full of glory. What's he telling us? He's telling us this: there is God's great plan, the ultimate restoration of harmony in the whole cosmos, in the whole universe. Well, what about it? "Well," says Paul, "I've got an interest in it. I've got a stake in it. I'm one of the people who's going to share in it. The great day is coming when sin and evil will be destroyed and the devil cast into the lake of perdition and this glorious harmony will be restored. And I shall be enjoying it."

That's the blessing that comes to one who is in Christ, who is a Christian. He's an heir of that; he's going to be an inheritor of it, and so is every other Christian. And we look forward to it. What's it mean? It means seeing God. It means being with Christ and enjoying his glory. It means reigning with Christ. "If we suffer with him," says Paul to Timothy, "we shall also reign with him." It's coming. The Kingdom is coming and nothing can stop it. And we who are in Christ, we're going to be there. We'll be on this new earth under the new heavens, and we'll enjoy its paradise. We'll eat of its celestial fruits. We'll spend our eternity doing so. We shall judge men; we shall judge angels because we're in Christ and are with him. We shall enjoy that eternal, blessed state that shall never end.

And this is the argument, isn't it? People who believe that and who know that that is true of themselves are not very interested in this world and what happens in it. Why do the nations fight? Because they want something. Spread your empire; another man wants to spread his empire. Therefore wars. "Take this bit of land." Why? Well, that's the value, you see, that's his sense of values. And people do the same: they fight over money, they fight over position, they fight over name, they fight over popularity. They'll fight over everything. There's possessiveness, selfishness, greed. They are the only things they know about.

And as long as they look at things like that, they'll fight and quarrel about them whatever you may say to them. If it'll suit their purpose to adopt Christian principles, they'll do so. Nations have often used Christianity to spread empires. But that's not Christianity. The essence of the Christian's position is this: that he has seen that inheritance, incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven by God for them who are in Christ Jesus.

And I say that a man who's ever had a glimpse of those rides very lightly to this life and to this world. He has set his affections on things above, not on things on the earth. And he knows that all others who have done so are fellow heirs with him, so the fight and the quarrel and the middle wall has gone. We're all one looking for these things. And the only harmony that this world will ever know is the harmony that is produced in and through men and women who in Christ have set their affections on those things. "In whom also we have an inheritance, in whom you also."

Fading is the worldling's treasure, all his boasted pomp and show. Solid joys and lasting treasure, none but Zion's children know. Oh, the joy of being amongst the redeemed! The joy of knowing that though we may be stripped of everything here, our final inheritance is guaranteed and safe and sure. Have you got a stake in it? Has the lot been given to you? It has, says the Apostle, to all who are in Christ, who have hoped in him. Amen.