When you trust God for everything, you will find everything in Jesus.
Ephesians 1:1-6 – 1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,
To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus:
2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.
What is love? How do you define it or describe it?
A few years ago, a song by Ed Sheeran became extremely popular. One of the lines of lyrics is, “I’m in love with your body.” People loved it because it resonated with their idea of love.
I asked my son, Arius, who is seven years old, “What is love? How would you define it or describe it?” He answered, “When we have a very strong connection in a relationship, that is love.” The example he gave was God’s love. He said it is eternal. Pretty mature for his age, right? Spiritually, maturity has less to do with age and more to do with our walk with the Lord.
The problem is that people connect love with feelings and feelings can change with circumstances. They need to know that for lasting love, they must seek selfless and sacrificial love.
Ephesians 1:1-6 was a reminder to the first-century church that only God’s love is selfless and sacrificial. It was the basis for the work of God the Father in Ephesians 1:4-6, God the Son in Ephesians 1:7-12, and God the Spirit in Ephesians 1:12-14. The Bible teaches that God is love and He showed His love to us in Jesus.
The big idea for us is that lasting love is selfless and sacrificial. We find such love in Jesus because everything is found in Jesus. This means that everything in Ephesians 1:1-6 is the expression of God’s selfless and sacrificial love. So, in Jesus God has blessed, chosen, and loved us.
God Has Loved Us in Jesus (Ephesians 1:5-6)
Ephesians 1:5 reads, “In love 5 he [God] predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will.”
This short phrase, “In love” in the beginning of the verse is God’s selfless sacrificial act toward humanity which is fully expressed in God’s election and adoption. That’s probably why the phrase “in love” is shared by both verse 4 which has the doctrine of election and verse 5 which has the doctrine of adoption. Both the election and adoption are expressions of God’s unconditional, selfless, and sacrificial love.
What does it mean?
It means unconditional love. There is an intimate connection between the doctrines of election and adoption. Last time, looking at the doctrine of election in verse 4, we established two truths about God’s election— it is unilateral and unconditional and it is irrevocable, irrespective of our good or bad deeds, and intentional. Therefore, it is completely independent of human works and unaffected by any human choice; all of that is true for adoption also. Just as humans can neither do more nor less to deserve salvation, they cannot do anything to be adopted by God either. It completely depends on God.
It means selfless love. It is the driving force behind God’s intention to elect us for adoption in Jesus. This love, some say, drove God to madness, for He gave His only Son to die for humanity destined for eternal damnation. That is a sentimental response to the well-calculated cost in the sovereign plan in which the triune God in the community of three— God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit— acted in unity to reconcile everything to God in Jesus.
It means sacrificial love. In the Christian faith, God is one who eternally exists in three persons, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Each has a distinct function. Paul, here in his doxology, outlines distinct functions of each member of the Godhead that we call the Trinity.
So, God’s selection, Christ’s sacrifice, and the Spirit’s seal are the blessings that God has blessed us in Jesus because He loves us in Jesus. The love that compelled God to act in the first place is the same love that compelled His Son Jesus to leave the eternal throne with the Father and take on flesh to become like us to die for our sins. However, Jesus’ love was first and foremost for His Father, which was demonstrated in His obedience. Philippians 2:6-8 says, “6 … though he [Jesus] was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”
I think the ultimate test of love for any child is obedience. The other day, one of my children said, “I love you, Dad” right after he ignored my direct instruction. I replied, “Son, I appreciate you telling me you love me. I love you, too, but I want you to show it by your actions.” Jesus showed His Love for the Father through obedience to the point of death.
How does it work?
Verse 5 says, “In love, he [God] predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ,” so, it works through predestination, adoption, and Jesus Christ.
It works through predestination. In Greek, the word predestined is proorisas, which means “marked out beforehand.” When God elected us before the foundation of the world, He also beforehand marked us to be adopted. Predestined in verse 5 can mean we were destined to be adopted, or our adoption is our destiny. Either way, our destination has always been heaven and the family of God. Many people talk about destiny that they want to fulfill their destiny, but they do not know what it is. The destiny of the elect is to be adopted as sons and daughters of God.
It works through adoption. In Ephesians 1:5-6 of this divinely divided section focused on the work of God the Father, we come face to face with another profound doctrine of the Christian faith— adoption. Not only did God choose to elect us before the foundation of the world, in His love, He also chose to adopt us as His children to be co-heirs with Jesus. Why is adoption necessary? Is the election not enough? We need both. Adoption is a legal transaction in which God the Father brings those whom He elects and regenerates and justifies in Jesus into His eternal family. If you study the Roman legal process of adoption, which is the context here, you will learn when the adoption was complete, it completely wiped out the past of the adoptee. All debts and legal obligations related to the previous family life were gone as if they had never existed. The adoptee was made new with a new identity, name, family, and all the rights of the legitimate son. In love, through adoption in Jesus, God did all that for us and gave us a new identity, name, and family in Jesus.
It works through Jesus. Verse 5 says, “through Jesus Christ.” Like human adoption, it was costly and the cost was the life of His own Son Jesus because it was only through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross that we are saved so that God could grant us access to heaven, give us an inheritance in heaven, and guarantee our security in heaven.
To grant us access. Not too many people have access to our president, right? But his children do. In our present reality as children of God, we have eternal 24/7 access to our Heavenly Father. We do not need an appointment. We can come before Him at any time, in any condition, for any reason. The Bible teaches that we were the enemy of God. However, adoption through Jesus made us children of God. The future reality is that one day, this access will enable us to enter into heaven.
To give us an inheritance. In the present reality, our inheritance is Jesus who is our righteousness before God, but in the future reality, we will inherit the kingdom of God. 1 Corinthians 6:9, says, “…do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?” Jesus is our righteousness now and forever, and our adoption seals the deal.
To guarantee our security. Suppose you made a mistake at work. How many mistakes do you need to make before you are fired? Now suppose you work for your dad. If you have a loving dad like God the Father, no number of mistakes will get you fired, right? Through Jesus, our adoption as God’s children guarantees our security of provision, protection, and salvation regardless of our actions.
Why does it matter?
It matters because it changes everything. It changes how God deals with us and how He expects us to deal with Him and others around us. Ephesians 1:6 says, “…to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.” Would an enemy or an outsider know how your family works? But your children do. As children of God, we should too.
As a father, I do not expect outsiders to respect, obey, nor trust me, but do expect that from my children. Because of adoption, we are no longer strangers and God expects His family to worship Him in truth and spirit. Our adoption fundamentally changed who we are.
In human adoption, the adoptee will receive a family but in God’s adoption, the adoptee not only receives a family, but also a new nature. The moment we put our faith in Jesus, right at the time of our conversion as in 2 Peter 1:4, “we became partakers of the divine nature” through the dwelling of the Holy Spirit. That does not make you God, but it does mean we have the very nature of God within us.
Application
Put that divine nature within you to work for the glory of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. For this, God has blessed, chosen, and loved you in Jesus. As a member of God’s family, you must represent. As an adopted child, thank God and show your thankfulness through obedience to His Word.
To understand the magnitude of how God has loved us in Jesus through adoption, imagine you are a slave in Roman times. A wealthy man comes and looks at you among all the other slaves and elects you to be saved from slavery. He pays the necessary price and liberates you. Now, no longer are you a slave, yet you have no home, no job, no future. There is a higher chance in these circumstances that you will end up back in slavery. Now, the same wealthy man, in his mercy, takes you to the Roman court, fills out the proper documentation and adopts you. Now, you are no longer a slave with no future but a free man with a new identity, a family name, and a family inheritance. The wealth that belonged to that wealthy man is now yours by a legal right of sonship.
This is what God has done for all the elect. We were slaves to sin and destined to death. He elected us to be saved from eternal death, and also, adopted us to receive all rights and privileges of His Son Jesus along with eternal life. God in love, saved us— the sinners enslaved to sin— and made us His children in Jesus so that we may find everything in Jesus. Someone said through adoption, God moved us from the courtroom to His living room.
Action Step
If you are a born-again believer, live your life as a child of God— not in fear but with faith no matter the circumstances. Since you are adopted in Jesus, and thus bear the likeness of Jesus, let people see Jesus in you.
Appeal
If you are not a born-again believer, give your heart to Jesus because if your heart belongs to Jesus, He will satisfy all your needs. Then as a child of God, you will learn to trust God for everything in every season, and when you trust God for everything, you will find everything in Jesus whether job, relationship, hope, peace, joy, whatever that might be because you have an inheritance in Jesus.
Study Questions
- Who is Paul, what do you know about him, and why does he say he is “an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God” in Ephesians 1:1? Read Paul’s testimony in Galatians 1:11-24.
- What is the blessing that Paul discusses in Ephesians 1:3 and how can God bless us in Jesus with every spiritual blessing?
- How has God chosen believers in Ephesians 1:4 before the foundation of the world and predestined them in Ephesians 1:5?
- In Ephesians 1:5-6, how do you understand the idea of adoption? How and why has God predestined us for adoption to Himself?
- What does “saint” mean in Ephesians 1:1? Can humans declare other humans as saints based on their good religious works?
- What does “grace” mean in Ephesians 1:2? What role do we play in our conversion and the conversion of others?
- How has God blessed us in Jesus through adoption in Ephesians 1:5?
- What might be the result of the adoption in Ephesians 1:5?
Deeper Study Questions
- How do you bless God through praise and worship?
- Ephesians 1:4 says that God chose us in Jesus so “that we should be holy and blameless before him.” Discuss the idea of being holy and blameless before God. Focus on your personal life individually and share how your life shows that holiness. Do other people around you witness the holy work of God in your life?
- What role do your good works, that is, works of righteousness, play in the salvation process? Read Paul’s testimony about his own good and righteous works in Philippians 3:1-11.
- Share your testimony of faith about how you were saved and share why you think if you die tonight you believe God will let you in His heaven.
- What is the gospel?
- How often do you share the gospel? Plan a trip to a public place to engage in evangelism.
- How does adoption (Ephesians 1:5) change our relationship with God?
- Discuss the legality of adoption in our country and its application to adoption in Ephesians 1:5. Consider talking about the rights one has as an adopted child.
- Spiritually, since all believers are adopted in Jesus, they are no longer orphans. As an adopted child, how do you show your gratitude to God?
Read More
Ephesians:1:4 Finding Everything in Jesus (Part 2)
