11In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, 12in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. 13And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession—to the praise of his glory.
Dig Deeper
We were just getting ready to leave for our special field trip, the one the kids had looked forward to all semester. We were driving to another town over an hour away and going to take a tour at an incredible historical building then off to Pizza Hut for pizza. After that we were going to a beautiful botanical gardens for another tour and some ice cream treats for everyone. The field trip was a reward to everyone who had stuck it out and done well in what was a very tough class. We counted the number of kids on the bus and were ready to leave just as a breathless student sprinted onto the bus just barely making it on time. There was only one problem, though. With the arrival of this student we now had one more student than what was supposed to go on the trip. With a discrepancy in the numbers we had to call off the names of the class roster. It didn’t take long to realize that one of our students from a different class had tried to worm his way onto the field trip. He was just seconds away from making it too, because once the bus had gotten rolling, we would not have turned around. What was clear, however, was that he simply was not in the class and despite how much he begged, he could not attend the field trip with the students who were in the class.
In this opening prayer of Ephesians, Paul talks of all the incredible blessings that come to the children of God. Think of all the things that Paul says God showers on His people. They are adopted as sons, they are immersed in God’s grace, freed and forgiven of sin, lavished with his wisdom and insight, they have the mystery of God’s will revealed to them, received the inheritance of God’s people, and been sealed with the Holy Spirit as a down payment on God’s future age. So many people look forward to all of this and can’t wait to experience both now in part and fully in the future. Just go to any funeral, and despite how someone may have lived their entire life, there is usually an assumption made that everyone gets to take part in the incredible blessings that Paul is talking about. The problem, though, is that all of this applies only to those who have died to themselves and trusted in the life of Christ. In other words, only those in Christ will receive the inheritance that Paul is describing. Those not in Christ will have no more right to this inheritance than the young man trying to sneak into the field trip.
Just underneath the service for Paul here is the story of the Exodus in which the children of God were set free from slavery to go claim their inheritance. Along the way they were led through the wilderness by the presence of God in the cloud during the day and a pillar of fire at night. Many grumbled and complained along the way, a dangerous thing to do, but the cloud and the pillar of fire were their guarantee that they would receive the inheritance. Those in Christ, the church, are the ones in the present age, doing what Israel had done before. Those in Christ have come out of the slavery of sin, rather than Egypt, through the work of Jesus Christ on the Cross and are now on their way to the new promised land to receive their inheritance. What is surprising, perhaps, is that instead of just inheriting one slice of land in the Middle East, those in Christ will inherit the whole world once it has been redeemed and renewed by God. As Paul has already noted, it is God’s plan to sum up everything on heaven and earth in the Messiah. God created the world and has no interest in balling it up and throwing it away. His plan is to restore it and give it to those in Christ to rule over His renewed and perfect creation. Paradise lost will be Paradise restored.
This is all in accordance with the will of God. We tend to think of events in the past causing events in the future, but Paul informs us that this is not the case. It has always been God’s plan to have a people in Christ that would transformed to the image of God. In other words, the future has determined all of past history. It was that end result that has been the impetus for all history and all events leading up to the coming of the Messiah. This was all done in order that those who were the first to hope in Christ, and all of those who have entered into his life since the time Paul penned this letter, might be for the praise of his glory.
In Romans 10, Paul says, "How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent?" Here, he says something similar. It is not Paul’s intention to give a complete checklist of conversion here, for that is not his purpose. As we have already discussed, his purpose was to praise God. In referring to conversion in a shorthand manner, he says that they were included in Christ when they heard the gospel preached and believed that they could only become the children of God by entering into the life of Christ. The part that he only alludes to, of course, is that one enters into the life of Christ at their baptism (Rom. 6:3-4) and that is when they receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38). Paul says that the Holy Spirit is both a seal and a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance. Cargo or letters were sealed in the ancient world to guarantee the validity of the contents. It conveyed the authenticity and ownership of the item. The word he uses for deposit, arrabon, indicates a down payment given that guaranteed the complete payment. Thus, the Holy Spirit is both the sign that we belong to God and the promise that we will enter into His age to come.
There is often much attention given to important biblical doctrines such as faith, justification, and grace, while usually very little is given to the doctrine of being in Christ. Yet, outside of Romans and Galatians, for instance, the term justify appears only four times in the New Testament, none in Ephesians. On the other hand, variants of the phrase "in Christ" appear 164 times in the New Testament, no less than 36 times in Ephesians. Perhaps it is time to recognize this as one of the central doctrines of the New Testament. It certainly is such in Ephesians. Paul has opened this letter with a beautiful prayer of praise to God and recapped the incredible gifts of inheritance that come to God’s people, but just as only those who were in the right class got to go on the field trip, only those in Christ will actually receive the inheritance that God has kept stored in heaven (1 Pet. 1:4) until He restores His creation.
Devotional Thought
God has taken the initiative in redeeming a people for Himself and has made it possible only through the life of the Messiah? Have you embraced your life in Christ or do you take it for granted? When you truly grasp what God has done for us in Christ, how can we help but to break into praise of Him?
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