From the MLJ Archive

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: I should like to call your attention once more to the words which are to be found in Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians, the first chapter, verses 11 to 14.

Reading verses 11 to 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.

Now, we are continuing our discussion of this great statement, our study of this amazing introduction to this Epistle to the Ephesians. The apostle has announced that the great secret which God has revealed concerning his purpose is that in this present age and in Christ he is reuniting the discordant parts, the separate parts, into which sin has divided the world and indeed the whole cosmos. God is restoring the original harmony in heaven and on earth, everywhere.

And he is doing it in and through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. In the dispensation of the fullness of times, it is his purpose that he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in him. And now, in these verses, we are looking at. We are considering the way in which God is doing it. And the great message here is that the first way in which we can see this, and indeed in many senses the greatest part of this, is that which is to be seen in the Christian church.

As the result of sin, the world had been divided into various nations. And God had started his purpose by calling a man called Abraham and turning him into a nation, and dealing with that nation in a very special way. So the world was divided into those who were Jews and those who were not Jews, and there was a middle wall of partition between them. The first astounding thing that God is doing in Christ, says the apostle, is to abolish that middle wall of distinction and to make of twain, Jew and non-Jew, one new man, so making peace.

There is nothing more marvelous than this, as we saw last Sunday morning. Paul never got over the fact that he of all men had been called to be the apostle to the Gentiles. He who had been such a rigid and such a narrow nationalistic Jew. He has been delivered from all that. There is no longer Jew nor Gentile. That is a distinction that is gone. Here is this new thing, the church.

And all who are related to God are related in Christ in the church, and they are both one together. And he puts it in this particularly interesting way, you remember. He puts it in terms of having an inheritance. In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, or we have been made inheritors, or the inheritance, as it were, has been made over to us. And the same thing has happened to the Gentiles.

So that we are fellow heirs together. That is the thing the apostle tells us in the third verse of this third chapter that had been specially made clear to him, that the Gentiles, it is the sixth verse of the third chapter, that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs and of the same body and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel. Here is the new Israel. Here is the spiritual Israel. Here is the true seed of Abraham, consisting of Jews and Gentiles, with the division having gone forever.

And this marvelous harmony and unity thus established and restored. Well now, we say that here in these verses the apostle is working that out and showing us how this is coming to pass. And of course, in doing that, he does give us an extraordinary description of the Christian. The unity is established, I say, by making these different people Christians, whether they are Jews or Gentiles, in Christ, as Christians.

They are brought into this new relationship, and here is this marvelous joint inheritance awaiting us. So, I say, he incidentally tells us a number of things about the Christian. We have considered two of them. The first thing that makes us Christians is that we are in Christ. And the second thing is that because we are in Christ, we are indeed partakers of this inheritance.

We are heirs and fellow heirs and joint heirs with Christ. And as we saw at the end last Sunday morning, we are therefore looking forward to an inheritance which is incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not away. And even here, in this world, we have had the first fruits. We have had a foretaste. That is the teaching here, as we will find later on, as it is the apostle's teaching elsewhere.

We ourselves have had the taste, the first, the foretaste, and we know something of this firstfruits. The great inheritance, as it were, remains, but we are given sufficient of it in this life and in this world to whet our appetites, to encourage us to go on, and to fill us with a joy and sense of glory as we anticipate the fullness. Now then, we have looked at all that very hurriedly, but this morning we come on to the next matter.

Which is the way in which all this has happened to us. Now, you see the astounding thing about us who are Christians is that we are in that position. We are in Christ. And we are going on to that amazing inheritance that baffles our very imaginations, leave alone our understandings. We shall judge angels, we shall judge the world, we shall see Christ face to face, we shall see God.

That is what we are going to. Those of us who are here this morning, here in this world of time, Christian people, that is what we are. Now the question arises, what has brought us to this? How is it that this has ever become true of us, knowing ourselves as we do? How does anyone become a Christian? How does anyone enter into this position in which he is in Christ and a joint heir with Christ?

Well, here, as I pointed out last Sunday morning, the apostle deals with that subject also. He is not content with just saying that this is true of us, he tells us how it has become true. And he does that, of course, because again this was something at which he never ceased to wonder. He was, he never ceased to be surprised at it. So he tells us how it has happened. And that is the thing to which I want to call your attention this morning.

Now, you notice that as he does this, he uses a number of terms which we have already encountered in a sense in dealing with this chapter. We have met them in verses 4 and 5. They are some of those great terms and phrases which are to be found scattered throughout the New Testament. Terms which are obviously of the very greatest importance. And terms which seem to me to be absolutely essential to a true and ultimate understanding of the gospel.

In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things according to the counsel of his own will. Now there they are, these tremendous terms. I say, we have already had them, listen to them in verses 4 and 5. According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ unto himself.

Now there are the terms. Clearly we are here face to face with high doctrine, with some of the great profundities of the Christian faith and of the Christian message. Why does the apostle, someone may ask, repeat these terms here, having already used them in verses 4 and 5? Well, it seems to me the explanation is not only simple, but very important. In verses 4 and 5, the apostle was taking a general view of God's purpose.

He was looking at it, as it were, from that eternal standpoint. He was looking at it in general, God's purpose of grace in general. Here now, he is not only, he is not merely looking at it in general, he is looking at it in its particular application to us. There it was the great scheme itself, here it is the scheme as applied to us, and still he uses the same terms here as he used even there.

The terms apply not only to the thought, but to the application. And it is, I say, very vital and important that we should understand it. Now, as we approach this great matter, nothing is more important than that we should do so in the right way and in the right spirit. There are large numbers of Christian people who never consider terms like these. They never work through these great terms which are to be found in these first 14 verses of this Epistle to the Ephesians.

Let me just prove that contention by asking you a question. How often have you heard anybody going slowly and term by term through this great chapter? Or how often have you read anybody doing so? Isn't there a danger of our avoiding these great terms because of certain associations? It seems to me this is something of which we as Christian people need to be very wary at this present hour.

There are certain aspects of New Testament truth which are just not been considered at all because there is an element of controversy attached to them. Now, I am saying that regularly, Friday by Friday, in this pulpit, there are large numbers of Christian people who are totally ignorant of prophetic truth because their attitude is, "I cannot be bothered with it." It leads to all that arguing and wrangling and those theories and those monstrous theories sometimes. And people say, "Well, I am afraid I cannot be bothered, I don't understand."

And they imagine that that is a very wise and sound position to take up, but what they are actually doing is this: they are deliberately ignoring God's word. They are deliberately bypassing certain aspects and elements of God's revealed truth. Everything in this book God means us to study and to face, whether it is difficult or simple, whether it is involved in controversy or whether it is not.

To say peace at any price at the expense of God's revealed truth is surely an insult to God. These matters have to be faced, whether it be the truth concerning prophecy or whether it be the truth concerning these high matters of doctrine which the apostle puts before us here in these verses, as he has already done in verses 4 and 5. Very well, I say, we approach the truth in this way.

First of all, without prejudice. We all start with prejudices. We take up positions, and having taken them up, we argue for them and we defend them. I have always said this. Perhaps my parents said it before me or somebody else, and therefore I stand. Now, it often happens that we really have never considered the Scriptures concerning these matters. We have never read a book on the subject. We have never considered what those whom God has called and appointed as leaders in the church throughout the centuries have said and have taught.

No, no, we just start with a prejudice, and we hold on to this and we feel it is a part of our very personality, and we must defend it. Our minds are shut and closed, we do not even consider it. I need not waste your time in pointing out to you what a totally un-Christian attitude that is. There is nothing which is further removed from the Christian position than that. That was the attitude of the Pharisees.

It was because of that they hated our Lord. Watch this new idea. It was the thing that confronted the apostles wherever they went to preach. This new theory, this new idea, the prejudice. Oh, may God give us grace to rid ourselves of our prejudices to which we are all liable and to which we are all subject as the result of sin. The second thing I would say that is of importance is this.

That we must submit ourselves and our minds entirely to the Scripture. What I mean by that is this: that I must make a positive effort of the mind to come to the Scripture as if I knew nothing, that I allow the Scripture to speak to me instead of my reading my thoughts into the Scripture. It is a very difficult thing to do. It is difficult for all of us. We all have these preconceived notions, and we tend to put on these spectacles, and we see the Scripture through the spectacles.

We must submit ourselves to the Scriptures. I put that in a negative form by putting it like this. We must not come to these matters in terms of philosophy. Now, I mean this, of course, that we all tend to start with our ideas as to what God should do and what is right for God to do. And that if God does not do that, well then we do not quite see that it is fair.

You know the sort of thing that the apostle puts into the mouth of an objector in that ninth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans that we read just now. A man who says, "Well, now, if that is so, well then is God being fair? Is God being..." That is philosophy. That is a philosopher pitting his mind against God's revelation. And it is the most dangerous thing we can do. It is because they do that that so many people are not Christians today.

They say, "I cannot understand this idea of the Incarnation, two natures in one person." So they reject it. You see, they do not understand it. That is philosophy. They do not understand the Atonement, one dying for. No, no, they cannot. You see, they are thinking philosophically. Most people who reject the gospel of salvation do so simply because they say, "I cannot understand."

They are not technical philosophers, but they are speaking philosophically. Well, I say, it is of vital importance, if we are to submit our minds to the Scripture and their revelation, that we cease to think philosophically. In other words, we must realize that we are face to face with something here that we cannot understand, and I will go further, something that we are not meant to understand.

You notice how the apostle deals with this position. The man puts up his objection, and the apostle simply replies by saying, "I am not going to argue with you about this, but who art thou, O man? Who art thou that pitest thyself against God?" This is not to be understood, says Paul, this is to be received. This is what God himself has told us. And if you think that you can understand and span ultimately the mind of the Lord, well, you just are saying that your whole idea of God is wrong.

That is the trouble. It is your thinking of God that is wrong. "Who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or who hath been his counselor?" That is the question asked by Isaiah and quoted constantly in the New Testament. My dear friends, we are face to face with something here which is the mystery of God's eternal mind. And it is so high above us that we should not even begin to try to understand it.

We just humbly come to it and look at it and receive it. If you therefore try to have a final understanding of these matters or to be able to reconcile certain things intellectually, you are not only doomed to failure, but you are guilty of trying to do something that the apostle rebukes in the strongest and clearest manner in that ninth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans.

And if you want his further rebukes, read the second chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians. The natural mind understandeth not the things of the Spirit of God. He cannot do so. Very well then, let us, I say, take these great matters in that way. It is a truth obviously for Christian people only. It is not a truth to be preached in an evangelistic service. It is a truth for the children.

It is a truth for those who have been led into the secret. It is a truth for those who have been given the Holy Spirit, who enlightens the mind and who gives understanding. Not for the natural man, who does not understand any part of salvation, and least of all this. So, I say, it is a truth for the children. And I would add, it is a truth which the children of God throughout the centuries, as I think I reminded you of by many quotations when we were dealing with verses 4 and 5, it is a truth which the children of God have always found to be the most consoling of all, the most encouraging, and the most reassuring.

Very well. What is it? Well, now then let us start by putting it like this. The controlling thought in these matters is always the glory of God. Listen to it again, that we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ. Again, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.

You remember the whole paragraph started with these words, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." You start there, you end the glory of God. It was there again in the sixth verse, "to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved." I therefore suggest that the ultimate test of every view of salvation is this test of the glory of God.

If you want to know whether your view of salvation is truly scriptural, test it by that test. Does it give all the glory to God, or is just a little reserved for you, or for me, or for somebody else? That is the test. You notice here the apostle keeps on repeating it: to the glory of God, the glory of his grace, to his glory. It is all God's glory. Him that glorieth, says the apostle, let him glory in the Lord.

But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, redemption, according as it is written, he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. Now then, whatever view I may take of the way in which I have become a Christian, the test is, does it promote and minister to the glory of God? Now, that is the apostle's teaching here clearly.

It is nothing in us. Salvation comes to us in spite of ourselves. We are nothing. We are not Christians because of our particular character or because of something that we have done. No, no, it is all of God. It is the apostle's great theme, you remember, in the second chapter, where he puts it like this, "For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast."

There is to be no glory. No man must glory in himself. Lest any man should boast, for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. Now, that you see, is his meaning here. He elaborates it there in the second chapter, as I told you last Sunday. This is a sort of overture. He just hints at the theme, and there he works it out in greater detail.

But, of course, it is not confined to this Epistle to the Ephesians. It is to be found everywhere. It runs as a great theme right through the New Testament. Perhaps most clearly of all in the Gospel of John. This particular aspect of truth is certainly to be found most clearly on the lips of our blessed Lord and Savior himself. Read the sixth chapter of John's Gospel. Read the tenth chapter. Then read the high priestly prayer in the 17th chapter. And there it is in its glory and in its fullness.

It is the great doctrine, I say, running right through the New Testament. But it is equally true to say of it that it is the great doctrine of the Old Testament also. Why was Israel the chosen race? Why were the Jews the chosen people? Now the Old Testament itself answers that question constantly. It was not because of anything in them. Indeed, someone once put it, and I think there was a great deal of justification for his saying it like this, that God seemed to have chosen them in order to show that if he could do that with people like that, he could do it with anybody.

Not because they were better than others. Look at their story. Read your Old Testament history. They constantly wandered away. Well, the whole thing is of God, and God says so. He says it specifically to them. He says, "Don't think that I have chosen you because there was anything in you. I have done it for my own name's sake. I have done it that my glory might be manifested." The whole thing in the Old Testament, from the call of Abraham onwards, is of God.

It is there in the Old. It is sure in the New. "You only have I known of all the nations of the earth," he says through the prophet Amos, and so on. Well, very well. There is the overall aspect of the truth, the glory of God, that it is all of God. But Paul breaks it up into its component parts, and let me just note them to you. The first thing he tells us is this, that God has purposed all this.

In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him. Now, it is God's, I say, in this respect, that the original idea, the thought, the whole purpose in its very inception was something that originated with God. The eternal God evolved this purpose of restoring this unity, this harmony, and of doing so in terms of certain people before the foundation of the world.

That is the great purpose which God has conceived. And it is his purpose. It starts with him. It originates with him. But you notice the apostle is not content with leaving it at that. He adds something to that by putting it like this: "according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will." Now that is a most important phrase, "the counsel of his own will."

It means this: that it is added, it seems to me, to safeguard the previous idea that the purpose is entirely and only God's. That is why the apostle has said it before to us. He said it in verse 5, "having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will." It is again in verse 9, "having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in himself."

Now, you notice that he goes on saying that. Why? Well, for this reason. It is his way of saying that this purpose which God has conceived was not suggested to God by anybody else. You see, there again I quote that great statement in the 40th chapter of Isaiah, "Who hath been God's counselor? Who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been his counselor?" Now, that is Paul's, this is Paul's way of saying that very thing.

It is all according to the counsel of God's own will. Nobody came forward as it were and suggested to God, "Now, wouldn't it be a good thing, perhaps, to do this or that?" Not at all. Not only that, it was not only not suggested to him by anybody else, it was not even suggested to God by anything in anybody else. Now, that is an important statement in this way.

There are those who say that God has done all this and conceived this great purpose simply because of his foreknowledge and because he saw that certain people were going to do certain things, and that having seen that these people were going to be different from others and therefore better than others, because they were going to do these certain things, that God found a kind of suggestion in that, and having got that suggestion, he then decided to do certain things.

That is a complete denial of what the apostle teaches here. It is according to the counsel of his own will. It is absolutely and entirely in God. He thought with himself. If I may put it with reverence, he deliberated and meditated with himself, the counsel of his own will. The whole purpose of salvation from beginning to end is exclusively in God, with nothing coming from the outside anywhere at all.

The purpose according to the counsel of his own will, no suggestion, no hint, no something happening to which God reacts. Not at all. Everything begins in God, everything originates in God, everything comes out of God, the counsel of his own will. You see, he repeats it. It is not only God's purpose, it is God's purpose according to the counsel of his own will, uninfluenced by anything or anyone anywhere.

I said at the beginning that we were considering high doctrine. I know of nothing more wonderful or more glorious than this, that God should have been pleased to reveal these things to us through his servant. Indeed, through his servants, through the book everywhere. Because, you see, this has a personal application to you and to me. We are not considering some abstract truth this morning. My friends, it goes on to say this.

There before time, before the creation of the world, God purposed all this according to the counsel of his own will. Yes, he is going to restore this wonderful harmony, and in particular, he has purposed that you and I should have a part in it and have a place in it. Listen to this: "In whom also we have obtained an inheritance." Well, how have we come into it? Here is the answer: "being predestinated according to the purpose which he purposed according to the counsel of his own will."

Now, then, it means this. You and I are sharing in this. You and I have tasted of the heavenly gift. You and I know something about the first fruits and the foretaste of everlasting bliss and glory. You and I are what we are this morning for this reason: that God purposed according to the counsel of his own will that you and I should be in it and should be sharers of it.

"Being predestinated." Predestinated means predetermined, predetermined. Nothing less than that. What it means, therefore, I say, is this. And if you can tell me of anything greater or more staggering than this, I would like to know what it is. God thought of me. He thought of you there in that eternal counsel of his own will.

He did not merely conceive the plan, he saw you in it. "We," says Paul, "we Jews who first trusted in Christ. You also who have got a part of this inheritance." God has predestined that we should be in it. We are in it because he predestined it. Being predestinated. And I am in it, and I am what I am in spite of my sin, in spite of all that is so true of me.

In spite of the fact that I was with others, dead in trespasses and sins. Being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will. But listen to the next step. You see it, don't you? The purpose conceived entirely and exclusively in God. Particular reference to you, to me, to others, fullness of the Gentiles, fullness of the Jews.

That is the great kingdom. There are the people, the family of God, gathered in that way, being gathered throughout the centuries. There is the plan. Now then, how does this thing actually come into being? How does it actually come to me and to you? How has this great purpose really begun to operate? Then he uses this word. The word "worketh." "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."

Now, what does this mean? Well, this is the apostle's way of saying that God is not only entirely responsible for the initiation and the conception and the thought of the purpose, he is equally responsible for its carrying out. It is being carried out, its efficiency. It is being worked out. Now, this is tremendous. It is startling. But it is of the very essence of the whole teaching of the Bible.

It is indeed the whole story of the Bible. You remember when man fell, God at once revealed his purpose. Man has been a fool. He has listened to the devil. He sinned. He has fallen. He has gone down and dragged the whole of humanity down with him. And the earth has been cursed. And the whole harmony of God's cosmos has been reduced to chaos. And God announced his plan, his purpose: the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head.

That is the announcement. Well then, you go on reading your Old Testament, and you will see God working it out, working. Who worketh all things? Yes, says Paul, in that second chapter, I have already quoted it to you. We are his workmanship. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. How can you do so? It is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

It is God who has given us the Spirit that searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. Otherwise, we wouldn't understand these things at all. The whole thing from beginning to end is a part of God's great scheme and purpose. But listen to Paul putting it still more plainly, perhaps, in the eighth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. Starting at verse 28: "We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose."

You see the same terms: purpose, called, worketh. "For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called, and whom he called, them he also justified, and whom he justified, them he also glorified." It is God who worketh it all from beginning to the very end.

Now, that is not the end of the story. That is only the beginning, the point at which we have to leave it for this morning. The question, I say, we have been looking at is this: "Why am I what I am as a Christian? What accounts for the fact that I am here? That we are all here and not out in the world and living that worldly life as so many others?" What is it? That is the question.

And the first answer is, "Well, it is nothing in us. It is not that we are different or better." Nothing to do with it. We are no better than the world than Jacob was better than Esau. Indeed, were I to put it, I think I could prove that the reverse was the case. That as a natural man, Esau was a much better and nicer and finer type than Jacob. No, no. It is nothing in us at all.

It is God's purpose according to the counsel of his own will. It is what he has predestined, predetermined. It is what he himself has worked out. Yes, but God willing, next Sunday morning, we will consider the means which God uses in order to do this. The way in which God does work it out. And what he asks of you and of me in the working out of his own great and glorious purpose.

It is all here. But we have started, as we must start, with this, because the thing that must ever be most prominent is the glory of God, that we might be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ. Amen.