Ephesians 1:3-4a
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world
Message: The Grace of Predestination
Time: At the end of his second missionary journey and 2 years into his third, Paul ministered at Ephesus. Many came to Christ during His time though Paul was not popular among the pagans. Paul wrote the letter to the Ephesians sometime in AD 60–61, around the same time he wrote Colossians and Philemon, as he sent all three letters by the hand of Tychicus, accompanied by Onesimus. It was during this time that Paul sat in Rome undergoing his first Roman imprisonment, making Ephesians one of the four epistles commonly known as the Prison Epistles. The others are Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon.
What the Lord is Saying:
RC Sproul stated that the doctrine of predestination is difficult. It is complex and difficult to study and requires a lot of care in studying. But, it is still important to study. In my life, it has been difficult for me to understand. I go back to the study of it very often and at times, I never feel like I have it figured out. But rather, I approach it from the ground up over and over. I'm not sure I'm correct in thinking this, but the study of predestination to me is closely related to the understanding of human free will.
I take a moment here to look at the definition of predestination:
the divine foreordaining of all that will happen, especially with regard to the salvation of some and not others
I suppose the reason I see this link with predestination and human free will is there is at times a conflict within me as to whether the two can work together.
This particular lesson has the focus on salvation. As I have discussed in previous recent entries, there is at times the idea in history that each person is responsible for his salvation. In the Edenic covenant God bestowed his blessing completely on Adam and Eve. They were in the garden, with the tree of life and therefore in constant fellowship with God. They were given tasks to do and they did those task completely for there was no sin. In Genesis 1 and 2, in the garden of Eden, God provided man and woman everything needed to live. He commands them to be fruitful, to multiply. to fill the earth, to subdue it, to rule over the animals. They had a mission and God had a plan for them. There was no right and wrong, no good and evil. There was only a mission and they would be successful in this mission. Life was fluid.
Sin, however, broke that original Edenic covenant as man's mission and God's promise of salvation was broken or veered off from the plan when sin was not known. Thus, Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden, from the perfect fellowship with God. [Note: Covenants are established but often man does not fulfill his part of the covenant, resulting in another covenant and eventually a new or final covenant that would never be broken because man had no responsibility in it.] Outside of the garden, Adam and Eve would receive the curse of painful living. They would now toil and experience pain and loss. And the tree of life, which was in the garden, was now not with man and woman.
Both in the pre-sin world and the post-sin world man had tasks to do. But, in the post-sin world man was working outside of the garden, away from the tree of life, and thus curses resulted, like working by the sweat of a brow and toiling. And maybe it is because man broke this fellowship with God, this union, by sinning, that man thinks then he or she must then be the one to bridge fellowship with God. Yet God makes it clear that man is incapable of bridging that fellowship because the sin makes him incapable, makes him imperfect. Thus, Grace follows for God is our provider for peace with Him.
Again, the point here is fellowship with God. The point here is to be in union with God. Union was broken because of sin. Without sin, union was present as man was in the garden, with the tree of life. Man goes from being perfect to now being imperfect, but perfection is what is needed to be in fellowship with God. There is no idea of being "good enough" or "all that we can do."
Paul says in I Corinthians 15:22 -
In Christ all shall me made alive. This is the pinnacle statement, I believe, of the identification of eternal life for all who are in Christ.
In Christ all... In Jesus man now has complete fellowship with God.
So even as we try to believe that God's grace brings us to salvation - which is a point of theology, Many people today still think that certain works bridge the gap. For many Jewish people, it was circumcision or being a holder of the Law and today for many it is being in the right church, following the correct directions or rules, or being of the right religious system. The deception is these things yield our salvation. But, as a sinner man is incapable of being perfect, being righteous, And therefore incapable of choosing for himself salvation.
As I have discussed previously, man naturally thinks that he is involved in this process of being made alive and if this was so, wouldn't Paul saying the words
God chose us in Him hint of controversy? Or can God choose someone and yet
when that person come to faith be decided by that person. On the contrary, He is not involved and here in Ephesians 1:3-4 is Paul making it clear that God chooses us in Christ before creation (
the foundation of the world). That is a loaded thought and immediately it makes us wonder about prayer, about sharing our faith and other things that the Bible prescribes us to do. We are to be His witnesses (Acts 1:8). Paul tells me in I Thessalonians to pray about everything. Jesus continually told us to ask of Him. Yet, saying God chooses us does not nullify other commandments of God.
Throughout scripture God's promises are given first, followed by obedience (e.g. Covenants, Giving of the law, Ephesians 2:8-10). Works are never intertwined with salvation in our New Testament. But, I think this is normal for us as humans to think this. We gravitate towards what we can do and moving past what we have done. We learn from our mistakes. We are constantly changing and improving. We become more wise. Most of us are trying to make today better than yesterday. This is normal and this is good, but the danger lies in us equating this mission with the conclusion that we then earn our salvation.
In addition, some have that God foresaw our natural obedience and therefore knew our choice would one day be for Him. This again focuses only on foreknowledge. And it focuses on our ability to make a good choice towards righteousness. But, this verse in Ephesians says God chose us in Him not God knew our choice would be in Him.
Good works can be present at any time, but obedience to God follows faith. In the eyes of God, our entire lives are like filthy rags (
Isaiah 64:6). Eternal life comes about by faith or believing (
John 3:16). Then once we are in Christ, good works follow (
Ephesians 2:10).
God chooses those to be in Christ. It is His work. Yet, the idea of God choosing and man making choices in life are still compatible. Thus these ideas seem opposed to one another, on the surface, and so I turn to a
video by RC Sproul on Free Will.
RC Sproul discusses Free Will:
1. Humanist View - The ability to make choices is spontaneous. There is no prejudice, prior disposition, or prior inclination toward making a choice. A choice comes comes about on its own. But, if there is no prior disposition toward making a choice, then we can conclude that there is no reason or motivation for the choice - and thus no moral significance.
The Bible, however, focuses not just on choices, but a predetermined reason for choices. In the Bible, it refers to our
intention for the choice and the
motivation from our heart. As an example, in the Bible, Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers. Later, when there is restoration and Joseph speaks to his brothers he says to them that "you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good." Thus, what motivates often can be evil, but God's intent is for good. Here is this thought again I am seeing that man can only choose God is God is in Him.
The humanist view is that the will is neutral, thus there is an effect, but there is no cause to that effect. On the contrary, the Bible states that man's natural tendency is toward evil or away from the things of God - toward pleasing his/her own needs or desires.
2. Jonathon Edwards states that will is the mind choosing. Thus, the mind approves of our choices. The mind and the will work in conjunction; the mind is not independent of the will. Edwards states "Free moral agents always act according to the strongest inclination they have at the moment of choice." When we sin, our desire at that moment is greater than our desire to obey Christ.
Coercion is doing things that we really don't want to do. These are external forces that come into our lives and force us to do things that we don't want to do. Human desires fluctuate. In moments of coercion we can at times be presented with two options, but it is still our desires that help us to choose. Yet when Paul tells us that "I do what I don't want to do" this seems to conclude that Paul believes a person can choose against their desires. As a Christian I have a desire to please Christ, but that desire does not always play itself out when I am given choices in life.
3. RC Sproul says, "Every choice we make is free and every choice we make is determined." Determinism, on the contrary, says that we make choices based upon external forces. Atheists hold to determinism and believe our choices are automatic based upon our traditions, upbringing, environments. But RC Sproul states that what determines our choices is me, thus this is self-determination. Thus, we always choose according to our desires.
Jonathan Edwards also speaks of moral ability and natural ability. I have the natural ability to think, speak, walk upright. I cannot fly or live underwater for lengths of time. Moral ability is the ability to be righteous as well as to be sinful. In his fallen state, man no longer has the ability in his moral state to be perfect because he is born in sin. He can still think and make choices. Augustine said that man has free will but man lost moral liberty in the fall.
“There is none righteous, not even one; There is none who understands, There is none who seeks for God;
12 All have turned aside, together they have become useless; There is none who does good,There is not even one.”
Overall, I think the difficulty of this text and this idea is this is contrary to the way in which we have been trained. It is rather self-defeating to realize that I have gained the greatest gift imaginable without doing anything to earn it. Ever since the curse from Adam and Eve's sin work has been a toil and that work that we do does merit results. Thus, in life, we are naturally conditioned to think that rewards follow good habits of work. But, God is saying in relation to salvation that rewards are not based upon the person receiving them, but rather the person giving them. This is hard because there is so little in our life that is based upon a gift rather than a work. Thus, this is why so many have a problem with substitution atonement.
Promise: God loves us. God knows us. God wants us to be in fellowship with Him. He provides the way and because of sin each of us is incapable of choosing God because there is none righteous.
Prayer: O Father, thank you for loving me with a love that is incomprehensible to me. Despite my failure -- past, present, and/or future -- you still love me and want me to be yours. It has everything to do with You and nothing to do with me. You take my fallen condition and make me acceptable Continue to help me to understand these doctrines. You are explaining more and more what it means.
Note: I follow the readings from the Tabletalk Magazine devotional, though I am a little behind and working through 2017 devotionals. 2017 is a study of key biblical doctrines with the April devotional being about salvation by grace alone and how the Lord never fails to save the one whom He has purposed to save.
