Part 1 of Ephesians: Understanding Predestination

Ephesians 1:1-14 (CSB)

1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by God’s will:

To the faithful saints in Christ Jesus at Ephesus.

2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

3 Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ. 4 For he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before him. 5 He predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ for himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace that he lavished on us in the Beloved One.

7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace 8 that he richly poured out on us with all wisdom and understanding. 9 He made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he purposed in Christ 10 as a plan for the right time—to bring everything together in Christ, both things in heaven and things on earth in him.

11 In him we have also received an inheritance, because we were predestined according to the plan of the one who works out everything in agreement with the purpose of his will, 12 so that we who had already put our hope in Christ might bring praise to his glory.

13 In him you also were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and when you believed. 14 The Holy Spirit is the down payment of our inheritance, until the redemption of the possession, to the praise of his glory.

To kick off the new year, we are beginning a new sermon series on the book of Ephesians. Today we are looking at the first fourteen verses. There is one word in this section though that continues to muddle-up a lot of peoples’ theology. The word is predestined. In this section, it is only used twice, but it seems like people have grabbed onto this word and built whole doctrines from it. It baffles me, for if you read carefully through this passage, you will clearly see that they’ve got it wrong, and you will see what Paul really means when he uses this word.

As with all Scripture, in order to understand any verse, we must look at it in context, and not just the verses before and after, but the whole of Scripture. So, to begin, let’s read verse 1. It says, “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by God’s will: To the faithful saints in Christ Jesus at Ephesus.”

This introduction is very different from the abrupt beginning of his letter to the Galatians, but it is nearly identical to his introductions in some of his other letters, specifically 1 &2 Corinthians, Colossians, and 2 Timothy. He calls his readers “saints” which simply is a term for ordinary Christians. Unlike the Catholic church’s special designation of that term, he is not implying anything remarkable about these particular believers. Yet as MacLaren says in his commentary on the opening of Romans, in which Paul also calls the believers saints, “There is a solemn obligation laid upon every one of us who call ourselves Christians, to be saints, in the sense that we have consciously yielded up our whole lives to Him; and are trying, body, soul, and spirit, ‘to perfect holiness in the fear of the Lord.’”

What Catholics have called certain “special” people is simply what all of us Christians are to be: set apart, holy, and devoted to the Lord. Paul is simply saying that they are faithful saints; they are faithful Christians whose lives are committed to following Christ Jesus. We should all hope the same is said of all of us.

Verse 2 continues the introduction by saying, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” These words are used by Paul in each of his letters, which adds to the argument that he did not write the book of Hebrews by the way, for it lacks that familiar opening greeting.

I think Paul uses this greeting because it is a complete picture of what we have received from God. He gives us His grace, which is everything we have been given through Christ Jesus, and because of that, His peace rests on us. As Ellicott says in his Commentary for English Readers, “Grace is the peculiar state of favour with God and Christ, into which the sincere Christian is admitted. Peace is the state of mind resulting from the sense of that favour.”

Continuing this same idea, in verse 3, Paul says, “Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ.” This verse is the key to understanding this whole section. Paul will tell us what exactly are these spiritual blessings that are given to us “in Christ.”

I say this is the key for understanding because starting with verse 4, we see the start of what I would call the “predestination problem.” Verse 4 says, “For he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before him.” Paul says, “He chose us in Him” and this has launched a whole train of thought, but through careful reading it doesn’t have to end up in the station of Calvinism, though.

If not the doctrine of predestination, then what is Paul meaning to say? Only what he actually said. Verse 4, in context, simply says, “For God chose us in Christ, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before Him.” That means that before God created the world, He had already made a plan. He chose that the way human beings would be holy and blameless before Him was to be through Christ’s love. God predetermined to do this.

The next two verses, 5-6, need to go together. These verses say, “He predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ for himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he lavished on us in the Beloved One.”

Paul is simply explaining what he said in verse 4. God predetermined that people would be adopted into God’s family through the grace given to us in Jesus Christ.

The doctrine of predestination twists all that to mean something that was never intended. Predestination in the Calvinist sense of the word means God chooses some to be saved. Double predestination, which is the only thing that is logical to believe- if you believe in predestination- means that God chooses some to be saved and chooses to send all others to hell. I say this is only logical for by only choosing some to be saved, then, of course, He is choosing not to save others, thereby sending them to hell. Paul is not making a case for either of these options. He is simply stating that the way of salvation that God chose is that He chose to make people holy and blameless through Christ Jesus. He predestined us to become His children through Jesus Christ. This does not mean that He predetermined and selected those whom He would choose to become His children. He foreknew which of us would have faith and come to salvation, but His invitation is open to all who would believe. He only predestined the avenue of salvation; he did not predestine some people and condemn all the other people.  

The Greek word for predestine according to Strong’s Lexicon is proorizó, and it means, “To predestine, to foreordain, to mark out beforehand.” God marked out beforehand the route of salvation when He chose to send us Jesus to make the way of our salvation.

He further explains this in verses 7-8 which say, “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he richly poured out on us with all wisdom and understanding.”

Again, how did Christ make us holy and blameless before God? It’s through the redemption we receive through Christ’s blood. Why He chose this method of redemption is beyond our understanding. It is mysterious to us. Yet part of the mystery was revealed to us.  

This is what Paul explains next in verses 9-10 which say, “He made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he purposed in Christ as a plan for the right time—to bring everything together in Christ, both things in heaven and things on earth in him.”

At the right time, the time determined ahead of time, the plan came together. Finally, God revealed this part of the mystery when Jesus arrived on earth. Everything started to make sense- the mystery of His will was being unfolded.

The part that now makes sense is how He redeems us and brings us into His family. Verses 11-12 tell us, “In him we have also received an inheritance, because we were predestined according to the plan of the one who works out everything in agreement with the purpose of his will, so that we who had already put our hope in Christ might bring praise to his glory.”

This is what God’s plan has accomplished. We receive an inheritance because we have been adopted into God’s family. Not all people are God’s children, but only those who have been redeemed through Christ’s blood.

But maybe you are saying right now, but Paul clearly says we receive the inheritance “because we were predestined,”- doesn’t that mean predestination is correct? No, it simply means what the rest of that sentence says: “we were predestined according to the plan of the one who works out everything in agreement with the purpose of his will, so that we who had already put our hope in Christ might bring praise to his glory.”

We were predestined according to the plan. What was the plan? That Christ would come to earth, die on the cross, and offer all people the opportunity to be redeemed by His blood. God’s will is that all who would believe in Jesus might be saved. This is His chosen plan of salvation that He offers to all people.

That last part of the sentence, which is verse 12, must not be overlooked. Jesus did all this for us “so that we who had already put our hope in Christ might bring praise to his glory.” It doesn’t say, “so that those whom God elected to be saved might bring praise to His glory.” It would say that if that’s what he meant to say. But he didn’t. It says, “so that we who had already put our hope in Christ might bring praise to His glory.” Who are the “we” in this sentence? We are the people who have put their hope in Christ.

This word, which is translated as “put our hope in,” is, according to Strong’s Lexicon, the Greek word proelpizó, and it means, “To hope beforehand, to trust in advance.” In the Greek, it reads, “having first trusted.” In the same lexicon, it says, “The verb ‘proelpizó’ conveys the idea of having hope or trust in something before it comes to pass. It implies a forward-looking confidence or expectation, often in the context of faith and trust in God’s promises. This term is used to describe a proactive hope that is rooted in faith, anticipating the fulfillment of God’s word and His divine plan.”

All this means that there is action required on our part. It is an act of will by people. We must have faith and put our trust in Christ in order to become children of God.

Verse 13 says, “In him you also were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and when you believed.”

In the King James, this verse is translated more closely to how the Greek words it, but it does add the word “Trusted.” I believe it was added for clarity. The KJV says, “In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise.” In the Greek, it says, “In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.” The addition of the word trusted is because the Greek implies it from the previous verse.

After all, it is after we trust- after we believe- that we are sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. In other words, it’s our faith in Jesus, after hearing the Word of God, that gives us the Holy Spirit.

Paul, too, clarifies this point by saying in verse 14, “The Holy Spirit is the down payment of our inheritance, until the redemption of the possession, to the praise of his glory.”

The Holy Spirit as “down payment” is such an interesting concept, isn’t it? According to Strong’s Lexicon, this is the Greek word arrabón, and it means, “pledge, guarantee, deposit.” We have received only a partial amount. The Holy Spirit is our guarantee of what is yet to come. The giving of the Holy Spirit is the beginning of our promised inheritance, but we haven’t received our full inheritance. We’ve only received a partial part. We have been redeemed by trusting in what we have heard, but we also have yet to be redeemed “until the redemption of the possession,” as this verse stated.

In MacLaren’s commentary, he says the inheritance is “incomplete” on this side of eternity. He says, “Oh, brethren! we have God if we are Christians at all, and God has us. But alas! surely all honest experience tells us that there are awful gaps in the circle, and that our possession of Him, and His possession of us, are woefully incomplete.”

He goes on to say, “The incompleteness is progressively completed, and it is our work as much as God’s work to complete it. For though in our text that redemption is conceived of as a divine act, it is not an act in which we are but passive. The air goes into the lungs, and that oxygenates the blood, but the lung has to inflate if the air is to penetrate all its vesicles. And so the Spirit which seals us unto the redemption of the possession has to be received, held, diffused throughout, and utilized by our own effort.”

In keeping with MacLaren’s metaphor, the oxygen is the grace of God given to us in Christ Jesus, but we must take it in and breath. That oxygen sustains us until we have full possession of our inheritance.

This is the plan of God. This is the way He determined to redeem humankind. He chose to send us His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, into the world, so that all who trust in Him would be redeemed. All of us who hear the Word of God and believe it are given the Holy Spirit as a guarantee of an inheritance that is yet to come. All of us who believe and trust in Jesus for our forgiveness of sins are predestined for salvation.

Never has this word been so clear to me exactly what this means. Our destination is predetermined if we have received the deposit of the Holy Spirit. God has arranged our destination. He has appointed it all to happen in this way. This mystery of who and how we will be saved has been solved. He’s made it known to us, for it has been His plan all along. Look again at what verses 7-10 say: “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he richly poured out on us with all wisdom and understanding. He made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he purposed in Christ as a plan for the right time—to bring everything together in Christ, both things in heaven and things on earth in him.”

This is God’s plan. He has chosen to do all this through Christ, and so all of us who put our trust in Him are predestined to be with Him for all eternity: He has disclosed the mystery of where we will go and how we will get there. And as Paul says, this is all done “to the praise of His glory.”

Look with me one more time at verses 4-6. It says, “For he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before him. He predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ for himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he lavished on us in the Beloved One.”

God has indeed lavished grace on us through Jesus Christ. He heaped, poured, showered, and freely bestowed His grace on us. Putting this section of Ephesians into the context of the rest of Scripture, we see it lines exactly with the Words of Jesus in John 3:16 which says, “For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” He predetermined to do all this because of His love, and this is why we praise Him and give Him thanks and offer our lives in service to Him.

Next week, we will continue on in this first chapter and see how Paul continues this thought. For now, let us give thanks to God for His great love for us, given to us in Christ Jesus.

Pray: Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your incredible plan to adopt us into Your family. Thank You for predestining a way of salvation for all who place their trust in Jesus. We are so thankful for the path You’ve laid out for us to be redeemed. Please help us remain faithful in sharing the good news, so others may hear, believe, and join the ranks of the redeemed. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.