The World's Richest People

Have you ever inherited anything?  I'm not talking about physical, genetic inheritance of X and Y chromosomes, such as having large ears.  I'm talking about tangible, physical possessions.  Have you ever inherited "riches"?

Both of my grandmothers have now passed on to be with Jesus.  They were of different temperaments, but both of them liked pretty jewelry.  From each I inherited a ring, one white gold, the other yellow.  I wear one of them every day, on the fourth finger of my right hand.  To me, those rings are "riches", not because of their material worth, but because of whom and what they represent. They represent the wonderful memories of my grandmothers, a unique "belonging".

I wear two other rings every day:  my wedding rings, on the fourth finger of my left hand, and a Pandora "betrothal ring" (in the sense that Jewish brides of ancient times wore betrothal rings) on the index finger of my right hand.  This last ring signifies that I am betrothed to Jesus Christ.  All of these rings are treasures to me, because of the love they represent.

In Ephesians 1, Paul begins to describe the vast wealth every Christ-follower, every Believer, possesses, not by his or her own virtue, but by virtue of what God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit have done for us.  As children, heirs, of our triune God, we inherit these riches by faith; and then, we invest our spiritual wealth through our resulting good works.  We are the world's RICHEST people!

Some of the themes in today's passage I wrote about this past January, when we were studying Galatians; among them were Calvinism, Arminianism, election, free will, and adoption as sons.  The posts are linked below, and I'm not going to "plow that ground over".

http://resplendentdaughter.blogspot.com/2016/01/a-galatian-oreo.html

http://resplendentdaughter.blogspot.com/2016/01/heirs-by-adoption.html

What I am going to do in our study of Ephesians is to borrow heavily from the great Warren Wiersbe1 to look at some of the terms in this passage more deeply and to focus on our great spiritual inheritance.

3Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms in Christ. 4For he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world that we may be holy and unblemished in his sight in love. 5He did this by predestining us to adoption as his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the pleasure of his will – 6to the praise of the glory of his grace that he has freely bestowed on us in his dearly loved Son. 7In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace 8that he lavished on us in all wisdom and insight. 9He did this when he revealed to us the secret of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, 10toward the administration of the fullness of the times, to head up all things in Christ – the things in heaven and the things on earth. 11In Christ we too have been claimed as God’s own possession, since we were predestined according to the one purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will 12so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, would be to the praise of his glory.13And when you heard the word of truth (the gospel of your salvation) – when you believed in Christ – you were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit, 14who is the down payment of our inheritance, until the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of his glory.

Ephesians 1:3-14 (NET)

Looking at this passage is sort of like "reading Jesus' will".  He wrote a will, died to make it so and now reigns at the right hand of God the Father as our Advocate (attorney), to ensure that the terms of His will are carried out!  What do we inherit from and through Christ, as Believers, His children?

1.  We were chosen to be Christ Jesus' heirs.
Again, I've covered this elsewhere, but I want to mention Wiersbe's distinction between "election" and "predestination".  He describes "election" as God seeking the lost sinner.  This is the first beginning of salvation.  The lost person, left on his or her own, cannot seek God.  So, He initiates the process.  Salvation begins with God alone, which means it is totally of His grace.  Because He chose us before the foundations of the world were laid is a testament to His unfathomable foreknowledge.  In the Bible, "election" is always TO something; there is always a purpose.  In this case, the purpose of our election is for us to then exercise our free will and accept God's salvation through Jesus Christ, which God knew we would do.  He does not make our choices for us, but He always knows what we will choose.
By contrast, Wiersbe characterizes "predestination" as being a word used to refer to those who have already accepted Christ by faith.  You will never see this word used in scripture in connection with a lost person, someone denied the opportunity to choose salvation.  Predestination is also a word that refers to purpose, namely the "investing" of our inheritance by the good works born from saving faith.
Confused yet, Bible Nerds?  :)  Well, I found Wiersbe's explanation of these terms interesting, and I hope you did also.  It is difficult to explain them, but we certainly cannot ignore them.  Remember, we will not have perfect understanding this side of eternity, and maybe not even then!  That's ok.

2.  We were accepted by God and adopted as sons.
These themes have to do with our legal standing in the sight of God, because of Jesus Christ.  He could have just "accepted us", saved us from Hell, and left it at that.  That blessing of regeneration, of new birth, alone would have been much, much more than any of us deserved.  But, He did not leave us as a relative who was "left" only $1.00 in the will.  He did not leave us as a "red-headed step-child" or a "poor relation", as we Southerners are wont to say.  No.  He went on to adopt us.  What does that mean?

We'll explore this more in tomorrow's post.

Father, I bless Your matchless Name and celebrate Your great grace, by which my riches extend far beyond rings, houses, lands or even beyond the more dear earthly blessings such as human love or physical health!  All of these pale in comparison to Your amazing grace and love, by which You chose to extend salvation to mankind, by which You chose me.  Thank you, Father, Son and Holy Spirit! Amen.  

Source:

Wiersbe, Warren W. The Wiersbe Bible Commentary: The Complete New Testament in One Volume. Colorado Springs: David C Cook, 2007, p. 586. Print.