Ephesians 1:3-14
We should be amazed at grace—that our Triune God saves us for our greatest benefit, for His sovereign purposes, and for His ultimate glory.
I. The Father plans our salvation (v. 3-6).
A. The Father chose us according to his sovereign purposes.
“Election is an act of God before creation in which he chooses some people to be saved, not on account of any foreseen merit in them, but only because of his sovereign good pleasure.”—Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, 670
“I believe in the doctrine of election, because I am quite certain that, if God had not chosen me, I should never have chosen Him; and I am sure He chose me before I was born, or else He never would have chosen me afterwards; and He must have elected me for reasons unknown to me, for I never could find in myself why He should have looked upon me with special love.”—Charles Spurgeon, Spurgeon’s Autobiography, 51
B. The Father chose us according to his ultimate glory.
“God’s election is free and beats down and annihilates all the worthiness, works and virtues of men.”—John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 33
“But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, ‘Why have you made me like this?’ Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?”—Romans 9:20-24
C. The Father chose us according to our greatest benefit.
II. The Son dies for our salvation (v. 7-12).
“[Redemption means] deliverance by payment of the price.” —John Stott
III. The Holy Spirit applies our salvation (v. 13-14).
“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved…”—Ephesians 2:4-5
Conclusion
“…that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”—Ephesians 3:16-19