“If you cannot travel, remember that our Lord Jesus Christ is more glorious than all else that you could ever see. Get a view of Christ, and you have seen more than mountains, and cascades, and valleys, and seas can ever show you. Thunders may bring their sublime uproar, and lightnings their awful glory; earth may give its beauty, and stars their brightness; but all these put together can never rival Him.”—Charles Spurgeon
“Every spiritual blessing…”
1. Chosen to be Holy (v.4).
2. Predestined to be Adopted (vv.5-6).
3. Redeemed – Forgiven and set free from sin’s penalty, power and (ultimately) its very presence (v.7).
4. The Inside Scoop on God’s Plan to wrap up all of human history (vv.8-10).
5. Chosen by God to be His Inheritance (vv.11-12).
6. Secured by God with His Holy Spirit (vv.13-14).
All of these “spiritual blessings” come to us “IN CHRIST”
• “When we become Christians, we do not merely receive a ‘benefits package’ from Christ – containing forgiveness, new life, new hope and so on. Much more than that is involved: we receive Christ himself.”—Sinclair Ferguson, Let’s Study Ephesians, p. 8
• “The greatest treasure of the gospel, greater than any benefit the gospel brings, is the gift of God himself… Every spiritual blessing that God gives us, he has given us ‘in Christ.’ Christ is the fountain, and our union with him is the fountainhead from which all blessings flow.”—Wilbourne, Union with Christ, p. 28, 77
• “Why, then, would you look for God’s blessing anywhere else than in Christ?”—Ferguson, p.8
I. Blessing #5: Chosen by God to be His Inheritance (vv.11-12)
A. OT background of “possession” (in Eph 1:14) – Exodus 19:5-6; Deut 7:6 (cf. 14:2; 26:18); Ps 135:4. NT: 1 Peter 2:9; Titus 2:14
B. OT background of “Inheritance” (in Eph 1:11)—Deut 32:8-9; 1 Kings 8:51-53; Ps 33:12. NT: Eph 1:18
“Putting these two…expressions together, with their clear OT background, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that Paul is alluding to the church as God’s ‘inheritance’ and ‘possession’. These words used to be applied exclusively to the one nation of Israel, but are now reapplied to an international people whose common factor is that they are all ‘in Christ.’” John Stott, The Message of Ephesians, p.47
“The whole passage is full of references to God’s will (thelema), good pleasure (eudokia) or purpose (prothesis), and to the plan or programme in which these have been expressed. Paul could hardly have insisted more forcefully that our becoming members of God’s new community was due neither to chance nor to [our] choice, but to God’s own sovereign will and pleasure. This was the decisive factor, as it is in every conversion.”—Stott, p.48
“Let no one say, therefore, that the doctrine of election by the sovereign will and mercy of God, mysterious as it is, makes either evangelism or faith unnecessary. The opposite is the case. It is only because of God’s gracious will to save that evangelism has any hope of success and faith becomes possible. The preaching of the gospel is the very means that God has appointed by which he delivers from blindness and bondage those who he chose in Christ before the foundation of the world, sets them free to believe in Jesus, and so causes his will to be done.”—Stott, p.48
II. Blessing #6: Secured by God with His Holy Spirit (vv.13-14).
WHO is doing the sealing? WHOM is being sealed?
What is the SEAL? And what does the “sealing” MEAN?
“TRINITARIAN ETERNAL SECURITY”!
Application: