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The Believer's Riches in Christ |
Studies in Ephesians |
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EPHESIANS 1 (Eph. 1:1-3) Blessings from the Father Blessings from the Son
Read the Bankbook (Eph. 1:15-23) EPHESIANS 2 (Eph.
2:1-10) (Eph.
2:11-22) EPHESIANS 3 (Eph. 3:1-13)
(Eph. 3:14-21) (Eph.
4:1-16) (Eph.
4:17-32) EPHESIANS 5 Imitating Our Father (Eph.
5:1-17) (Eph.
5:18-33) (Eph.
6:1-9) (Eph.
6:10-24) |
This
is part of a series that I am currently working on. I have decided
to post this page on the subject of election because I feel led to do
so, and because I find the truth of this to be fantastic and
awesome. As the series on Ephesians becomes more complete I will
post this with the rest of the study. Read and be blessed.
You can feel free to surf the pages that are linked, but they are
incomplete in outline form. Who are the
elect? No one but the believer is Elect or
Chosen. The truths that Paul is talking about have nothing whatsoever to
do with those who are outside of Christ. This is extremely
important. Please don’t mix
election with pre-destination. They are two separate terms as we will
soon see, and we need to understand them both. ELECTION
DEFINED: Election is a divine act of God, whereby God, for reasons known
only to himself, in the blessing of mankind sets to one side all firsts
and chooses all seconds. The Problem of
Election (Romans 9:11,12) Ephesians 1:4 and Romans 9:11,12 do not say everything there is to say about election. But there are people who say a great deal more about election than God does. Some people say that God chooses some to saved and some to be lost. To say this is charging God with something that he cannot do. God cannot lie. He has provided salvation for all. To say that God does this is to limit the atonement of Jesus to only those who are actually saved, and to accuse God with being incredibly cruel. What kind of God would allow people to come into the world only to be born to spend eternity in hell? Again, who is Paul speaking to here? He is speaking to the saints. Who are the saints? They are those who have put their faith and trust in Jesus. The saints are us. Now, what is Paul saying to the saints about election? Lets look at Romans 9. We will focus at verses 11 and 13. But first let's try and set the context. For many, Romans 8 is a life chapter that we go back to again and again. Romans 8 summary In Romans 8 Paul explains in awesome terms that we have gotten over the sin problem by trust in Jesus. Yes we struggle with sin in our mortal bodies, but by the Holy Spirit in our lives, we don't have to live as slaves to our old nature. Yes, we long for the future, and we understand that this world is not our eternal dwelling place. We don't have to live in fear, because we are heirs of God. The trials and sufferings we experience while we are in the flesh don't compare with the glory that will be revealed in us when the Lord redeems his creation and makes things right. Knowing this, we know that we are more than conquerors, that all things work out for the good. God has chosen us, and we are not condemned. Rather, we are conquerors. God is interceding for us, and absolutely nothing can separate us from His love. The passion, power and energy of Paul is so evident here. It's worth pointing out that in the original manuscripts there were no chapter divisions as we see now. Those were added later. In my mind's eye I can see Paul stop, wipe the sweat from his brow, and without missing a beat say "I speak the truth in Christ - I'm not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit - I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart." Why did Paul have such anguish in him? He makes this incredible statement. He wished that he could be cursed, cut off from Christ for his own race! Who was Paul's own race? The people of Israel! Paul was a Jew. Before he was converted he was the Pharisee of Pharisees. His vision was to stamp out Christianity from the face of the earth. His life was transformed by the power of God and he became a messenger of God to bring the Gospel to the Gentiles. Now look what he said. Theirs is the adoption as sons. Theirs the divine glory. Theirs the covenants, the receiving of the law, the promises, the patriarchs, and the human ancestry of Christ. Please understand that the blessings that Paul describes in Ephesians 1, and many others are meant for the children of Israel. But in blindness and unbelief, the Messiah came to His people and they did not receive Him. What went wrong? Did God's Word fail? Next verse. It is not as though God's word had failed. What a relief. This is good. But why? "For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. Nor because they all are his descendants are they all Abraham's children." This is the point at which many will just scratch their heads and give up. But just a little bit of patience will unlock a glorious truth that Paul calls "election". Isaac and Ishmael Who were the natural children of Abraham? He had two. God promised Abraham that through his seed, all the nations of the world would be blessed. But Abraham was getting old, and his wife, Sarah was getting well beyond child-bearing years. So she sent in her Egyptian servant girl to lay with Abraham. Her name was Hagar. Read about it in Genesis 15. Then, God was good on his promise to Abraham, and Sarah did in fact conceive, and Isaac came into the world. Ishmael and Hagar were sent away because of the friction that it caused in Abraham's camp. But even then, God did not abandon Ishmael. In Genesis 21:20, "God was with the boy as he grew up." The Lord promised to make a great nation of Ishmael's descendants. That is exactly what happened. Ishmael took an Egyptian wife, and with that, the birth of all the troubles in the middle east that we see today. But the Lord told Abraham that it was to be through Isaac that his offspring would be reckoned, not Ishmael, because it was to be through Sarah that this son would be born. Jacob & Esau Now Paul mentions the children of Rebekah and Isaac. Even before the twins (Jacob and Esau) were born and done anything good or bad - in order that God's purpose in election might stand - not by works (of Jacob or Esau) but by him who calls (the Lord) she (Rebekah) was told "The older will serve the younger." Just as it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated." God’s purpose in election is that the elder shall serve the younger. In Genesis 25, we read the account of how Esau sold his birthright to Jacob for a pot of stew. They were twins. Esau was first from the womb, and then Jacob. Esau the old, Jacob the younger. But Jacob desired the blessing and the birthright more than Esau. There was enmity between Jacob and Esau, and yes, Jacob did win the birthright by deceit. But still the truth remains that although Jacob and Esau were able to come to agreement, it was through Jacob's line that the Messiah was to come, and the 12 "tribes" of Israel were born of Jacob's line. The elder served the younger, because it was God's purpose in election. Why did God love
Jacob and hate Esau? Because Esau found it more important that he
feed his hungry flesh than retain his birthright as the oldest
son. To Jacob, nothing was more important than the blessing of the
Father and would do anything to get it, even if it meant deceiving his
father. This is not to say that Jacob did not have a price to pay
for his deceit. He certainly did. But he got the
blessing. Let me ask you - how much do you want the Father's
blessing? Manasseh
and There is another fascinating thing that happened with Jacob's descendants. Ephraim was the older, Manasseh the older. Joseph was there, and he was not please because Jacob (Israel) had his right hand upon Ephraim's head to give him the blessing. Joseph was not please with this, and moved Jacob's hand to Manasseh's head because he was the older. But Jacob refused and said "I know, I know. He too will become a great people. Nevertheless his younger brother will be greater than he, and his descendants will become a group of nations." He put Ephraim ahead of Manasseh. Israel and the Church The application here becomes quite obvious as far as God's plan of salvation for the Gentiles is concerned. Israel is the elder, the church the younger. Israel was the first, and like Esau, rejected the blessing of the Messiah. So the Lord has chosen in His infinite wisdom and plan to turn His mercy to the Gentile nations. Now His promised, covenant, patriarchs and lineage make us all His heirs. Esau was more interested in feeding the immediate desire of his flesh than in his own birthright. The Lord hated that. So the Lord has chosen to set aside the things that are carnal and establish things that are spiritual. Notice that Paul goes on to say, "Are we going to say that God is unjust?" No way. For as He said to Moses "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy." Who has the Lord decided to have mercy on? Who gets His mercy? In verse 22 of Romans 9 we find out that it is none other than us. We all are the objects of His mercy. Just as was prophesied by the prophet Hosea; "I will call them "my people who are not my people, and I will call her my loved one who is not my loved one. And It will happen that in the very place where it was said to them "you are not my people", they will be called sons of the living God." It's a good thing too, because if not for this
awesome plan of God, we would all be lost. Now as you read the
rest of Romans 9, it should make more sense to you. The
People who are elect. Isaiah 45:3,4 - God is not done with His people, the Children of Israel. Here Isaiah prophesied that he would bestow on Israel a title of honor, even though they did not acknowledge Him. Because we are now His chosen, we are also entitled to that title of honor. Romans 8:33 - Now as we look back at Romans 8, we can see more clearly that we are chosen by God, and that no one can bring a charge against us, because it is God who justifies in His sovereign will and plan. Matthew 24:22-24 - Jesus said something about the elect too that is very interesting in Matthew 24. In speaking about the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet, in the time of tribulation and distress like the world has never seen or ever will again, that "for the sake of the elect" those days would be shortened. At that time if anyone says to you, "look here is the Christ" or "There He is", don't believe it. For false Christs will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the very elect - if that were possible. See I have told you ahead of time." So we know two things from what Jesus said.
This should make us vigilant, and cause us to desire to increase our knowledge and intimacy with the Lord so that we will know Him and not be deceived when the false prophets appear. There are already many. 1 John 4 tells us to "test the spirits whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you recognize the Spirit of God. Every Spirit that acknowledges that Jesus is the Christ is from God, every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God." An elect is a term
of rank and privilege as shown to them after they are saved. The word
elect is seen 27 times in the Bible and is used with God’s people. A
few times it is used of Christ himself. 1 Peter 2:4 Note: Ephesians
says something wonderful about election. For he chose us in him
before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.
In love The purpose of
election is the setting to one side of all that pertains to the flesh,
with everything that has to do with Carnality, and establishing
everything that has to do with what is spiritual. The most important
phrase of election has to do with service. (Romans 9:11,12) The elder
shall serve. Election has nothing to do with salvation, neither does it
have to do with condemnation. The purpose of election then is that the
first shall become subservient and serve the second. It has to do with
service. It is God’s elect who serve Him. One of the
blessings which comes from the father is that he arranged us in place of
rank and privilege so that we might be holy and without blame before Him
in love.
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