From the MLJ Archive

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The words to which I should like to call your attention this morning are to be found in Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians, in the second chapter, and the seventh verse. The seventh verse in the second chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians.

That in the ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us, through Christ Jesus.

Now that you will remember is the end of this great statement which begins at verse four, "But God who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, by grace are ye saved, and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come, he might show the exceeding greatness, exceeding riches of his grace, in his kindness toward us, through Christ Jesus."

The Apostle, you remember, has here been reminding us of what it is that God has done for us in and through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. When we were in that hopeless state, God has intervened, God has acted, and he has quickened us together with Christ, he has raised us up together with him, in newness of life, and he has made us sit together with him in the heavenly places.

But now the question arises, why has God done all this? What was the motive? What was it that led God to do all this for creatures such as we are? And the answer is given in this seventh verse, and introduced of course by this word that which comes at the very beginning. He has done all this that, in order that, to the intent that, with the object or with the objective in view, that.

Now this word that therefore is a tremendously important word. And it is absolutely vital that we should consider together what it is the Apostle tells us here concerning this great purpose. How important it is for us to study the scriptures carefully and to observe exactly what they say. Because we can so easily misunderstand, as indeed we do.

And here I think as we consider this verse together this morning, we shall all probably feel up to a certain point at any rate that our view of Christianity, our view of the church, our view of ourselves as Christian people is defective, it's inadequate. Indeed, our whole conception of salvation tends to be inadequate.

Now, I think we've already seen that as we've considered those three great steps in our salvation, as we've seen what is already true of us as Christians because we are in Christ. We must have felt that we never truly realized as we ought the full meaning of regeneration. We hadn't fully grasped the completeness of justification, and our standing and status in the presence of God.

And still less perhaps, as we were looking last Sunday morning at that statement about our being seated in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, how, how we fail and how tragically we fail to realize that that is the truth about us even at this present moment.

In other words, it seems to me increasingly that most of our troubles in the Christian life arise from the fact that we will always start with ourselves, and we will live so much in the realm of feeling and the subjective.

Now, let's be clear about this. I've been making that point all these Sunday mornings and again it is of the very essence of what one must say in expounding this seventh verse. Thank God there is a subjective element to salvation. Thank God for every feeling, for every experience, for everything that we are aware of within ourselves. If we are not aware of this subjective element, well then our whole position it seems to me is a very uncertain one.

But on the other hand, there is nothing which is quite so fatal as to think only in the subjective manner, and to fail to grasp with our minds and understanding this objective presentation of the truth, such as we have it in this section and in most of these New Testament epistles.

What I mean is this, that if we only had this true scriptural conception of ourselves as we are as Christians and members of the body of Christ at this moment, believe me, most of the things that worry us would immediately fall off from us altogether. They'd appear to be so trivial, so small, so unimportant.

Now, this is something one can illustrate in this way. The best way to get rid of small things is always just to look at big things. I wonder whether you ever read the interesting statistics which were provided, I think, by the medical authorities in Barcelona in Spain during the Spanish Civil War just before the last World War. They were very interesting. A given number of people had been receiving various forms of psychotherapeutic and psychological treatments of various kinds.

But the moment the civil war came and affected Barcelona acutely, the number dwindled almost to nothing. What was it due to? Well, it was the larger concern that had driven out the lesser concerns. And the same thing of course happened in this country during the last war. Many people when suddenly the crisis came and husbands had to go, had to go off to battle, they forgot their aches and pains.

These things which had been so prominent in their lives and had meant so much to them, they suddenly forgot all about them. Why? Well, a greater fear had driven out the lesser fears. The bigger crisis had made other things so trivial as really to be quite irrelevant.

Now, we are all familiar with something like that. The big thing drives out the little things, and it's equally true in the Christian life. We tend to go on and we are troubled by this and that and we tend to grumble and to complain and we wonder why God is dealing with us like this and why that's allowed to happen to us. And so we go on in the Christian life.

I say the antidote to all that is really to see ourselves as we are objectively in the purpose of God. And if we could but do that, all these things would disappear. Or if, let me put it like this, if we really had but some conception of the glory which awaits us and to which we are going, it would transform our view of life in this world and of the things that happen to us in this world.

Well now, that's the sort of thing that the Apostle, I say, is going to do in this seventh verse. This is the cure for self-centeredness and self-occupation and self-concern, which leads eventually to introspection and morbidity and various other forms of trouble. The thing to do, and that's why the Apostle writes this letter, that's why every New Testament letter was ever written, in order to get these people to lift up their heads and to see themselves objectively in the grand purpose and plan of God.

Very well then, let's look at it like this. Why has God done all this? Why has he intervened? Why has he quickened us and raised us and set us to sit with Christ in the heavenly places? Well, the answer is, says the Apostle, this is a part of his great and his grand purpose that, in order that.

Now, let me put it to you in the form of a number of propositions. The first is this: The chief end, intent, and object of salvation is the glory of God. That's why he's done it. He's done it why? That in the ages to come, he, God himself, might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.

God has done all this, says Paul, in order that he can present a spectacle to all future ages, not only in this world but also in that which is to come. God is going to give a great demonstration. He is going to manifest his own glory.

Now, you notice that that is the thing which the Apostle puts first. That's the chief reason why God has done all this, he says. Now, immediately, you see, the question arises, do we normally think of these things like that? Isn't it the truth to to say of all of us probably that we do the exact opposite, we start with ourselves.

And we think of salvation as something for me, something I need, something I want, something that I'm concerned about. We, we, we are always subjective, we always start with ourselves. But my dear friend, the first thing we've got to learn is this, that the first objective and the first intent in salvation is, don't misunderstand me, in a sense, nothing to do with us at all, but the glory of God.

Now, that's the teaching of the whole scripture from beginning to end. In other words, we must not start, as we habitually do with even our own sins, but with sin. We must learn to view all these things more historically. It's extremely difficult, isn't it? It's extremely difficult for any generation to take the historical view. Because you see, here we are, we are in the world at this moment, and there are these problems.

We hear the news on the wireless, we see the headlines in the papers. In this world in which you and I live at this moment, there are all these problems and trials and difficulties and we are immersed in them and we tend to see nothing else. It's extremely difficult, isn't it, to realize that there were people in this world a hundred years ago. And that they had problems and difficulties.

It's still more difficult to realize that there were people in this world a thousand years ago, who never thought of us at all. We never entered into their minds nor their calculations. We think we are so important, and this is the world, and this is the whole of history, our little sector. They knew nothing about us and never gave us a thought. And we can be equally certain that in a hundred years, and if our Lord has not returned before then, or before a thousand years, the generations at that time will never give us a thought at all.

We'll seem indeed most unimportant and insignificant. But how difficult it is for us to realize that. And yet you know, that's the sort of thing we've got to do. We've got to learn to view ourselves and the whole problem of man, the whole crisis of history, and especially the whole subject of salvation, in this objective historical manner.

What I mean is this: instead of starting with myself and my own sins and my own problems, I must learn to think in terms of sin and the whole problem of man, and the whole problem of evil in this world. Now, it's only as I do that that I'll begin to see what the Apostle means when he says that the first intent and object of salvation is the glory of God.

Now, look at it in this way. It's very difficult for us to realize what sin and the fall meant to God. Sin is that which is utterly opposed to God. And therefore, what has happened as the result of sin, leading to the fall and all its consequences in the world and amongst men, is, if I may put it reverently, a tremendous matter in the sight and in the view of God.

You see, we will persist in thinking of this whole problem in terms of particular sins, this thing that gets me down, and the sins we put up in a list, you know, drunkenness and so on and so forth. That to us is the whole problem. You see, we turn the problem of sin more or less into a social problem. It's either a social problem or the problem of my own personal happiness.

I don't like the feeling of remorse, I don't like repentance, it's painful and so on. Now, we reduce the whole great problem of sin to such proportions and to such dimensions, but the Bible doesn't. The Bible views all this as an attack upon God. The devil came forward and he asserted himself against God. He raised himself up against the majesty and the sovereignty and the glory of God.

He disputed this. He wanted to set himself up at the very least as a rival God. And when he saw God coming to create the world and coming to create man, and God looking at it and saying that it was all very good, and God was pleased with it, the devil said, "I'll show that this isn't the case." And he entered in, and what was his object? Do you think the object of the devil was merely to persuade Eve and Adam to do just one particular thing? Of course it wasn't.

The devil had but one idea in his mind, and that was to detract from the glory and the majesty and the greatness of God. He wasn't merely concerned in what should happen to Adam and Eve. The devil takes very little interest in you and I as persons. We are not persons to him, we are pawns. We are simply things that he can use in the great game. And yet you see we think of it all in terms of ourselves.

The devil regards us with contempt, as he did Adam and Eve. He fawned on them, he flattered them, because he knew that that was the way in order to make pawns of them. He had no interest in them at all. His one object, I say, was to detract from the glory and the majesty and the greatness of God. He was out to spoil God's work and God's world. He was out to ridicule it.

He wanted to stand up and to be able to address all the holy angels and say, "God makes claims for himself. He says he's made a perfect world, but look at it! There it is." That's the way to look at the problem of sin. The fall, I say, was a terrible thing in God's sight. That's the way to look at it. It isn't a social problem. It is this tremendous problem in the sight of God.

And that you see is the way we must look at the world as it is today. Of course, there is a social problem. Sin raises many social problems, but that's the byproduct. That's not the real thing that makes sin sin, that's not the real problem. If I may so put it, God would never have sent his son from heaven to earth and to the cross on Calvary to solve a social problem. He certainly wouldn't, and he hasn't. Oh no.

The problem to God was his own glory, his own majesty, his own everlasting greatness. This has been queried and questioned by the devil and all who belong to him. And what is salvation? Well, salvation, the whole purpose and object of salvation in the first instance is to vindicate God. Is for God again to manifest the truth concerning himself.

The devil is described in the scripture as a liar and the father of lies. And the Apostle John tells us in his first Epistle in the third chapter that God sent his son into this world in order to destroy the works of the devil. That's the first object, that the whole character of God should be vindicated.

Of course, the devil in an ultimate sense did not and cannot and could not affect the being and the character and the nature of God. But in the sight of created beings he can, and he most certainly did. He succeeded in the case of all the fallen angels, he succeeded in the case of Adam and Eve and the whole of their posterity. And the whole problem in the world today is the attitude of men towards God.

And God, I say, has initiated this great movement of redemption and of salvation primarily in order to declare and to manifest and to vindicate again his own glory, his own greatness, the truth concerning himself. Why has he done it? He has done it that in the ages to come, he might show, display the exceeding riches of his grace, in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.

Have you thought of salvation like that, my friends? We are approaching the Christmas season. That's the question to ask. Why did God ever send his son? Why? God forbid that we should give some sentimental, subjective answers only and fail to see that God sent him in order to vindicate himself. It's the grandest theodicy of the ages. God is vindicating and declaring and showing the truth concerning himself.

But let me put it then in the form of a second proposition. Salvation does this, in other words, it vindicates the greatness and the character of God in a special way and manner in which nothing else does so. And there is no question about this. We learn certain things about God in this whole movement of salvation and of redemption which we would never have known otherwise.

Now, that may sound a daring statement, but I venture to make it. People have often asked the question, nobody can answer it, but it's a question that many have asked, and probably all of us have asked it, why did the Almighty God ever allow the fall? Why did he ever allow man to fall into sin? I say the ultimate answer is that we don't know and we shouldn't inquire because it's beyond us.

But at any rate we can say this and we know this, if God had not allowed the possibility man would have not been entirely free and therefore he would not have been entirely perfect. Man as God made him really did have free will. He lost it by falling into sin but he had it originally, and therefore it's a part of man's perfection. But I want to raise another possibility.

Is it conceivable, I wonder, that God permitted it also in order that through redemption he might display certain attributes of his holy being and nature and character which otherwise could never be known in this way, but which now most certainly are known? The Apostle has already mentioned some of them. Listen to him, "God who is rich in mercy."

Would it be possible to have the same conception of the richness of God's mercy if man had not fallen into sin as he has done? It is through this that God manifests the endlessness of his mercy. Rich in mercy. "For his great love wherewith he loved us." Well, man knew something about the love of God before he fell. Adam knew the love of God. I wonder whether the love of God would ever have been known as it's now known, were it not for the fall and the movement of redemption?

God showing it, he's displaying it, he's manifesting it. There is an unveiling of it in a manner that truly is not conceivable apart from this. And then he goes on, you remember, to to this next great term, "Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, by grace," there it comes in, "and by grace are ye saved, and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace."

Oh, there's nothing that enables us to have some understanding of the extent of this grace of God such as this does. It's the ultimate measure of it and nothing can show it as this shows it. And then that last term is the term kindness, you remember. "In his kindness," in his look of benignity. Oh, Adam knew something about the kindness of God.

But you know, I do agree with Isaac Watts when he claims in his hymn, "In him, in Christ, the tribes of Adam burst more blessings than their father lost." I say it reverently and weighing my words, that we in Christ know something of God which Adam didn't know. And which in a sense, I venture to say, Adam could not know.

I don't know, it may be speculation. But it seems to me to be the, the teaching of the scripture that God has shown things here in a unique manner, and in a way that he has never shown anywhere else. But now this is the thing that really is most important for us, my third principle. All this display and vindication of the character and the being and the greatness and the glory of God comes to pass through the church.

God does this tremendous thing by means of us and through us. In the first instance, I must read it again. He's done all this that, in the ages to come, he might show the exceeding richness of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.

Now, this is to me the most overwhelming thought that you and I can ever lay hold of, that the Almighty, everlasting, eternal God is vindicating himself and his holy nature and being by something that he does in us and with us and through us. That's Christianity. That's the meaning of church membership. That's what it is to be a Christian, nothing less than that.

You see, we've been taken right out of our little subjective states and moods and feelings and passing conditions, and we see ourselves suddenly in the in this great plan of eternity which God brought into being and into operation as the result and consequent upon the fall of man into sin.

Now, I want to show you something of this conception. The Apostle teaches it very plainly here in this verse. Did you notice it in the reading at the beginning in the third chapter of this Epistle in the tenth verse? Let me read it to you. The Apostle is again describing this great mystery which been had been hidden but which now has been revealed.

What is it for? It is to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world had been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ. Now then, verse ten, "To the intent that," the same idea, this is the object, this is the intent, this is the purpose, "to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in the heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God."

That's the idea. God is using the church and is going to use the church in the future ages in order to give a demonstration and an exhibition to the principalities and the powers in the heavenly places. God is vindicating himself and his character by you and by me, by people such as ourselves, by the whole of the church gathered out of the world in Christ.

He's going to put us on display as it were. There's going to be a glorious exhibition. He's already doing it, but it's going to continue in the ages to come. And at the final end, God is going to open his last great exhibition, and all these heavenly powers and principalities will be invited to attend, and the curtain will draw back and God will say, "Look at them!" "To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in the heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God."

And you and I are being prepared for that. You read of the artists preparing their paintings and their drawings for the exhibition, don't you? The final touches, the frame must be right, must be put in the right position, the light must be in the right position. We all know about it. You've seen people preparing animals to show them in horse shows or fruit and vegetables for a horticultural show, the picking out, the preparing.

Well, that's what's happening to you and to me. That's the meaning of a service such like this, it's just a part of it. The exhibition, the show, the display, it's coming. And the astounding and amazing thing is that it's through people like ourselves, and as the result of what he's doing to us and has done to us and will do to us, that God is going to vindicate his own eternal wisdom and his majesty and his glory and all the attributes of his holy person to the principalities and the heavenly powers.

I rather like the way it's put in that portion of the Book of Revelation that we read together at the beginning. Did you notice it? It seems to me to put it all very perfectly. John has his vision. "I beheld a great multitude which no man could number, of all nations and kindreds and people and tongues, stood before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes and palms in their hands, and cried with a loud voice saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb."

John saw them, these people clad in the white robes and with the palms in their hands, singing the praise of God and saying, "Salvation to our God that sitteth upon the throne." Then it's the question I like. The angel that stood by him turned to John and said, one, one of the elders rather answered saying unto me, "Who are these? Who are these that are arrayed in white robes, and that are standing here with palms in their hands, and singing the praises of God? Who are these?"

You see, that'll be the question asked by the principalities and powers in the heavenly places. The curtain will be withdrawn, and there they'll be, we'll be in our white robes and with the palms. "Who are these? What are they? What's this phenomenon? What are these people? Where have they come from?" That's the second question. And the answer is, of course, that they're just Christian people. The Christians of all the centuries, of all nations and tribes and countries and colors, gathered out by the power of Christ's redemption throughout the ages, all gathered together finally, there they are in the glory.

"Who are these? Where have they come from? What are they?" And the answer is, "These are the redeemed by the wisdom and the power and the glory and the love and the grace of God." By the church, you and I, miserable creatures that we are, with our aches and pains and mumps and measles of the soul, and our questions and queryings, and why does God do this and that?

Oh, I beseech you, look into heaven, cast your mind into glory. Shame on us Christian people. For our wretched subjectivity and our failure to realize what's happening to us, who we are and what we are, and what God is doing in us and through us. This is the intent of salvation. That all this might be done to the vindication of the character and the glory of God.

I needn't keep you, but I'll give you my headings. The next principle is going to be this, to show you how God does this through the church. We needn't stay, we've already considered it in a sense. There we are in the white robes with the palms in the glory, in the presence of God. How we got there, how is it happened?

Well, the first thing is that he's ever looked upon us at all. Such as we were, dead in trespasses and sins, walking according to the course of this world, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience, amongst whom we all had our conversation in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were the children of wrath even as others. How could he ever have looked upon us?

We deserve nothing but retribution and punishment and hell. If you feel that you deserve anything better, you don't know what you are as a sinner, and you know nothing I'm afraid about the grace of God. Miserable, vile, foul wretches and rebels. That he ever looked upon us even. What a display of his being and of his holy nature.

We are a demonstration of that, you see. If he hadn't looked upon us, we'd be still there and going to perdition. But we are here in glory because he looked upon us and had mercy and had pity upon us. Not only that, he devised and planned a way of delivering us. He made the way of salvation himself. Man didn't ask for it, man didn't want it, man didn't know what he needed, man wasn't consulted.

He hasn't put in a single suggestion. Salvation is entirely God's from beginning to end. That's the Apostle's whole point, "By grace you have been saved," and nothing else. What a display of the being and the character of God. And then that he should have done to us what he has done. That he should have made of us what he has made. That we are already quickened, that he's put a principle of spiritual life into us, who are utterly, absolutely, hopelessly dead.

He's put new life into us. His own life. He's raised us up together with Christ. We are alive to him. We have the new interests and the new outlook. We are seated in the heavenly places as we've seen. He's done all this already to us. And you know, by when we are there in the glory with the white robe and the palm, we shall be absolutely perfect. Without spot, or even a wrinkle, or any such thing.

Not a suspicion of a blemish. The most powerful magnifying glass will find nothing wrong about us. Absolutely whole and entire, purified from all traces of sin. It's not surprising that the elders ask, "Who are these?" "And how have they become like this? What this spotless whiteness, this glory?" And it all, you see, is but this manifestation of God's character and being.

He does all this, not only through the church, he does it in that particular way. Very well, that brings me to my last principle, which is just a series of questions. How should we therefore think of ourselves in the light of all this? Well, it's obvious, isn't it? If you think at all of your own goodness, it just means that you've never seen this at all. If you think that you're a Christian and a good church member because you've lived a good life and never done anybody any harm, and indeed, you're giving a good deal of your time to these things, you're just telling me that you've never seen it.

If you can find anything in yourself at this moment to be pleased about, well, I just know that you've never seen this idea. That God has done it all to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in the heavenly places might be known his own manifold wisdom. That he might display the exceeding riches of his grace. If you feel you've got any plea to offer at the throne of grace and of mercy, save the name of Jesus Christ, you've just never seen it. You're just blind.

Oh, our one thought should be this, "A debtor to mercy alone." "Of covenant mercy I sing. I am what I am." "By the grace of God." "Nothing in me, nothing in my hands I bring. I find no good in myself. In me that is to say, in my flesh dwelleth no good thing at all. I have nothing to recommend me. I have nothing to boast of at all. I'm nothing. He's everything. God is grace in Christ Jesus."

If you see this, that's the inevitable way in which you must think. And it follows from that, doesn't it, that we should also conduct ourselves in a given way. "Every man that hath this hope in him, purifieth himself, even as he is pure." A man who has seen himself as a member of the church and of the body of Christ in this way that we are looking at this morning, will no longer want to keep as near as he can to the world, and he won't regard Christianity as narrow because he knows in his heart of heart that it condemns certain things.

Not for a moment. If we could but see those whom we know who've now gone beyond the veil, we'd say farewell to most of the things of this world. It's because we don't see it, we don't know it, we don't really believe it. Oh, any man who sees this, any man who hath this hope in him, purifieth himself, even as he is pure. If you know you're going to be absolutely pure and spotless, well, get on with it.

Wash your hands, cleanse your hearts, ye double minded. These are the appeals. Get as far away from the world as you can. "Haste on from grace to glory." The other thing I find here is the absolute certainty of it all, and the assurance of it all. If my confidence of my final salvation and of my ultimate perfection rested in myself, my own energy, my own zeal, my own purposes and desires, I know that I'd never get there. My assurance is based on this.

That God, the infinite, eternal God, is vindicating his own eternal character through me. And if he started saving me, and then left it undone or unfinished, and I ever arrived in hell, the devil would have the greatest joke of eternity. He'd say, "There's a being that God began to save and failed to complete." It's impossible, it can't happen.

There is no more monstrous idea than the idea that you can fall away from grace, that you can ever be born again and then be damned. The character of God is involved, it's impossible. It's not merely to save me, it's to vindicate his own being and nature. And I'm being used to that end. I'm getting all the benefits. But the thing's absolutely certain because God's character is involved in it.

"He that hath begun a good work in you, will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." And the last word is an obvious one, isn't it? The privilege of it all, the privilege of being used of God in this way, to vindicate his own eternal, glorious character. Why am I in this? Why did he ever look upon me?

As the elder asks, "Who are these?" I ask, "Who am I?" Do you remember David asking the question when God gave him a glimpse of where he came into this great plan, "Who am I or what is my house that this great honor should come to me?" Don't we all feel like saying that? "Who am I and what am I?" That God should ever have looked upon me and chosen me to be a part of his plan and his purpose, to vindicate himself, his greatness, his glory, his wisdom, his love, his mercy, his kindness, his compassion before the principalities and the powers in the heavenly places.

Christian people, think of yourselves like that, and go on to glory.