October 2: Understanding God’s Eternal Plan

Ephesians 1:1-14

Sep 21, 2005
WILEY RICHARDS

Wiley Richards is a retired professor of theology and philosophy at The Baptist College of Florida in Graceville.

Speaking about God’s eternal plan can mean the doctrine of election to some readers. Some theologians, speaking historically, pictured God in eternity, sovereignly choosing by name who would by saved, the elect, and who would be lost, the reprobate. The study today turns attention instead to God’s plan rather than His elective decree. In a broad view, verses 1-3 feature God the Father, 4-12, God the Son, and 13-14, God the Holy Spirit. In our study we will emphasize five requirements for understanding God’s eternal plan.

• First, anyone who would grasp the meaning of God’s eternal plan must be spiritually prepared (vv. 1-2). We could almost say God opens His plan to believers as a group rather than to individuals in isolation. He sent the Holy Spirit at Pentecost to anoint the assembled disciples. He was empowering and filling the new temple, granting them the tongues of fire signifying His glory. Paul, as one who had experienced God’s call, wrote as one who had been sent (an apostle) according to God’s will. He sent his letter to the anointed ones (saints) who had proved themselves faithful in their loyalty to Christ. The grace and plan of the Father and Son still characterized their lives.

• Second, the saints realize that God Himself is the source of blessings (v. 3). The verb tense of “hath blessed” indicates a completed transaction in past time which continues to be operative in the present. That is, He has blessed and continues to bless us with heavenly benefits originating in Christ, Who dwells in heaven. The sphere and boundary of the blessings are settled in Christ.

• Third, in God’s eternal plan His choice (election) is centered in Christ (vv. 4-6). He elects those “in Christ” “to be holy and without blame before him in love” (v. 4). He made this decision “before the foundation of the world” to be the way He would effectuate His eternal plan.

What He decided to do He brought about (predestined) in history. These events developed “according to the good pleasure of his will” (v. 5). By the rite of adoption, He formally endowed them with all the rights and privileges as joint-heirs with Christ. They are accepted because they are “in the beloved,” that is, in Christ.

• Fourth, God in His eternal plan, bestows in Christ all spiritual benefits (vv. 7-12). Because believers find themselves in Christ by virtue of the new birth: (1) They have been redeemed by being brought out of Satan’s domain and enrolled in God’s kingdom. (2) Their sins are forgiven, preparing them for a life of holiness. (3) They are thereby enlightened about God’s purpose to gather together the earthly and heavenly realms. (4) They find themselves in the presence of a divine inheritance, a position God predestined to be theirs in Christ Jesus. God works all of these “after the counsel of his own will” (v. 11). In bringing these to fruition, those trusting Christ show forth God’s praise and glory (v. 12).

To guarantee the certainty of these events in this world, God grants the seal of the Holy Spirit ( vv. 13-14). The presence of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers is God’s assurance that the transactions are certified. The Holy Spirit is God’s down payment, so to speak, that He will complete what He proposed in eternity (v. 14). What God the Father decreed in Christ is effected and guaranteed by the Holy Spirit. He is the foretaste of glory divine as the saints await the full enjoyment in the world to come.

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