Ephesians 1:5-6 September 5, 1999

The Marks of God’s Affection: Predestination

Yesterday Janet and I celebrated our 17^th anniversary. That’s no great milestone for many, but it does provide a time of reflection for counting the memories of the past two decades and to celebrate the affection Janet and I have for one another. It is the affection between a loving couple that may either make our hearts warm or our stomachs nauseated, depending if we are a romantic or a cynic. Affection is that vital ingredient in a successful marriage, but that affection may wax or wane in marriage over the years.

A couple went to bed after a day spent celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary.

The wife says, "When we were young, you used to hold my hand each night." Slowly, his hand reaches out and grasps hers.

"And when we were young," she continued, "you used to snuggle up against me in bed." A little more slowly, her husband's body creaks and turns until it is nestling against hers.

"And when we were young, you used to nibble on my ear." Abruptly the man jumps out of bed in a huff.

"Where are you going?" she disappointedly asked. He said, "I'm going to get my teeth!"

Where there is love, there will be evidence of affection. This is true of God’s love for us. As Paul opens his letter to the Ephesians, he begins by praising God’s tremendous blessings on His people. These blessings are the marks of God’s affection. There are few places in Scripture where we see such a tremendous melding of theology and love, of doctrine and praise. In Ephesians 1:3-14, we read of the triune God securing our eternal destiny with Him. The work of the Father is seen in His election of us, guaranteeing our holiness, adopting us into His family. Next week we’ll see how the Son secured our relationship with the Father through redemption, providing us with the forgiveness of our sins. Finally, the Holy Spirit seals this union, securing our relationship for all eternity.

3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with
every spiritual blessing in Christ.

4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love

5 he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and
will--

6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.

The Focus of the Father’s Affection

Single-mindedness is one sign of affection. During my courtship, no one doubted that I was in pursuit of a blond named Janet Jolly. In my dorm room in college, my closet door looked like some cultic shrine adorned with photos of my love. Once struck by Cupid’s arrow, smitten by the love bug, no other woman caught my eye. I recall giving Janet a fright earlier in our relationship when, at a church hayride, someone asked me what my plans were. Thinking I would saying something vague like finish college and go to seminary, I outlined a year by year itinerary which first included Janet becoming my wife. She was the focus of my attention, of my affection. When a man professes his love for a woman, we all expect that love to be specific. A man whose love is not specific, but encompasses all women, is a philanderer. Likewise we should not be surprised that God’s love is specific.

In Ephesians 1:5 Paul describes God’s specific love, the Father’s focused affection.

While the verse begins with a warm fuzzy love, for some it quickly dissolves into a contentious and controversial word: "predestined." For those of you who carry a picture of John Calvin in your wallet, know what the acrostic TULIP means or say Jacob Arminius with a sneer, this word is like the sweet dew of the morning. For the rest, if the only Calvin you know had a stuffed tiger named Hobbes, tulips are grown in your yard and when someone calls you an Arminian you correct them by saying you're Polish-Irish, "predestined" may be equated with laziness in prayer or evangelism, self-righteous Christians who value their theology more than their Lord. The word may conjure images of a puppet on a string or a robot. But few read this word and picture love.

While last week we briefly examined the word in verse 4, "chose," and discussed the meaning of election, this morning we will look at its sibling: "predestination."  For some this is but a distinction without a difference. But that is not so. Paul is not simply repeating himself by using a slight variation; he is really saying something new, something different.

Being chosen clarifies God’s action in making us His own. It precedes God’s gracious gift of salvation. But to be predestined carries with it a much warm, more loving idea.

The word predestinate comes from the Greek word, pro-oridzo, which means to limit in advance, to determine before, to ordain, to set a circle around something ahead of time. From "oridzo" we get the word "horizon," the circumference around us where earth meets the sky. It was used of making vows, detailing what they promise to accomplish and of setting boundary markers to identify where one person’s property ends and another’s begins.

Rather than thinking this an inconsequential topic designed by ivory tower theologians, let us see this language for what it is: God’s love language to us. It is a term of affection.

Scripture teaches that God’s love is specific. It is God who makes the choice of whom He will love. Yet some people wonder on what basis He makes that choice. Last week when discussing election I briefly explained why, when we talk of election and predestination, we may not set aside this truth of God’s love by explaining it away on the basis of God’s foreknowledge. We need to clarify that more.

Some will say that God’s choice, His predetermination is based on foreknowledge, that He looks down the corridors of time to determine who will respond in faith to the Gospel message: God sees who will respond to Him so that He can respond to them. Aside from the obvious problems of making humans more powerful than God and setting aside what texts such as these say, this misunderstands what the word "foreknowledge" means. Turn to Romans 8:28-30.

First we must not confuse foreknowledge with foresight

The word used of foreknowledge is "prognosis." It means not just to see into the future, but to know the future. If God looked ahead what would He see? He would see first the stain of Adam’s sin in each of us as well as our own rebellion. At no time are we seeking Him.

Second, foreknowledge is an act, not an attribute

Omniscience is an attribute. God by His nature is omniscient meaning that He is all knowing; He certainly knows the future. But foreknowledge is used as an act. The terms listed in Romans 8:29 are actions, not attributes, God did something.

So what does the word mean?

God in His omniscience knows all people, but this verse speaks of His knowing as something special which is comforting and an aspect of our salvation.

Foreknowledge, like predestined, is a term of affection, of love.

When we say God foreknows us, His knowledge of us is His love. When God says He knows someone, He loves them. Rather than trying to use foreknowledge to explain away predestination, the term enhances it all the more. God’s love is so great that He specifically sought you out for a reason. He set His boundary around you before you were even born and claimed you as His own.

The Family of the Father’s Affection

Another characteristic of affection that follows courtship is marriage. Seventeen years ago Janet took on my name; she became a Vogel. Now that may not impress most of you, but that simple action symbolizes the important truth of Scripture that in marriage two individuals become one.

Last week we saw how God’s choice was not a cold deterministic event, but the goal of election is that we be holy and blameless. Rather than an excuse for our complacency, the mark of God’s affection in election produces in us a changed life. In much the same way, predestination is likewise a mark of God’s affection as seen in our adoption whereby we become a part of God’s family

We may think we understand the concept of adoption. In our culture people adopt infants or young children. They are brought into the home and treated no differently than the child who became part of the family through birth. But in the Greek and Roman world adoption was not of a child, but often of a young man. When adopted he obtained the full rights of an adult child. What is more, the adopted child relinquished all rights in his old family while he gained a new and better status. He had a new father, became an heir to the father’s estate.

Adoption denotes status, our legal standing before God. The immediate goal of God’s loving predestination is for us to be taken into His family, made His heir, given the rights and privileges of His child, taking His name as our own. The emphasis here is of our new rank.

We are made a part of God’s family by both new birth and adoption. Each term emphasizes a different aspect. New birth speaks of our new nature, but it says nothing about status in the family. A newborn child may be made an heir or not; a baby has no special privileges. Adoption goes a step further. Here the emphasis is on a special relationship whereby the new member of the family has the full status as an adult heir.

This truth touches us where we hurt the most. It is relational; it fills the void of family and warmth that so many people are missing. It is moving from being an orphan to being adopted as a child. Adoption fills a fundamental need of being wanted, accepted and loved. Justification does not answer this problem. Justification answers "How can I be made right with God?" Adoption answers the question: "How can I be loved by God?"

Our adoption means we no longer have to fear.

In Romans 8:15 Paul explains that in light of our justification we have confidence which dispels fear. As adopted heirs we have the seal of that adoption: the Holy Spirit resides within so that we no longer wonder how we will survive, how we will make it. We have the full rights of God’s family. We have an immensely personal relationship with God. We can call Him Father.

After my mother’s death, my father remarried to a woman with two young children. Shortly after the marriage, my father wanted to be sure they were treated not as stepchildren, but as full heirs, as Vogels. After a formal legal declaration was made in the judge’s chambers, my little sister who had just turned five said, "Well, Drew, I guess I had better start calling you Dad." There was a certainty, an intimacy, now available.

If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all. (Packer, Knowing God 182)

The final phrase in verse 5 gives the immediate reason that God selected us to be His heirs. There is nothing in us but sin; nevertheless, God’s own pleasure and choice decided for us while each of us, apart from Christ, decided only to rebel. God finds pleasure in making us His children.

When the Father chose a people for Himself, deciding to adopt them as His own children, He was motivated by love alone. Hence, what He did was not of sheer determinism but of supreme delight. A person may be fully determined to submit to a very serious operation or he may be just as fully determined to enjoy an elegant meal. Both are matters of the will. However, the latter alone is a matter of delight, that is, of his will’s good pleasure. That is the reason God has gone to such lengths to create you and redeem you. In that you can certainly rest.

The Final Goal of the Father’s Affection

A third characteristic of affection is communication. The loving words used to express affection may be nauseating to those who listen, who are outside the circle of affection, but they declare the strong bonds which exist. I have here a box of letters Janet and I sent to each other while courting. The language in these letters focuses on praising each other’s qualities, extolling the virtues we found attractive in the other person. Where there is love, there will be an expression of that love in the form of praise.

Whenever we encounter this teaching, our immediate response should always be: "Why? God, why would you choose me?" Verse six gives us the clearest and most complete answer: all this is for the praise of God’s glorious grace.

All creation exists for one purpose: to praise a God who gives grace. If we reject God’s sovereign work in our salvation we can never fully grasp who God is and what He has done. We will spend our lives imagining that we somehow are better than others, more deserving of being a child of God. At that moment, our praise will focus on ourselves.

J.I. Packer makes a penetrating observation regarding the effect of the teaching of cooperative salvation when he says: "It is perhaps, no wonder that our preaching begets so little reverence and humility, and that our professed converts are so self-confident and so deficient in self-knowledge and in the good works which Scripture regards as fruit of true repentance." (Packer, A Quest for Godliness, p. 138)

Instead, all in creation and redemption is motivated by our praise of God’s grace.

While this may appear very conceited, conceit is only thinking more highly of oneself than one ought. But an infinite and perfect God can never think too highly, can never imagine anything greater than Himself. Only God can require that He be praised

While all is designed to praise God, the content of our praise is the grace of which we are recipients.

To emphasize the centrality of grace, Paul repeats himself in verse 6: "to the praise of his glorious grace with which he engraced us." This word translated "freely given" is found in Luke 1:28 when the angel greets Mary by calling her "highly favored." But this word is best translated as one endued with favor undeserved.

Why are we the recipients of such favor? Because the Father loves the Son so unspeakably that His love overflows upon all who are found in Him, castled in the security of the everlasting covenant ratified at once with Him and with all whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

The Father’s love of you and me is channeled through His love for His Son. Understanding that suddenly makes God’s love all the more certain. We know it can not be withdrawn. For the Father to pull back from us is to deny His Son whom He has loved for all eternity.

What is the effect of God’s grace in your life? When you consider how God has poured out His affection on you? Are you like those young lovers who can’t but help but speak of the object of their affection? Are you like that old married couple whose flame of passion still burns and who speak of each other fondly?

Does God’s grace fill you with a sense of wonder and praise and amazement? Do you realize that you have been called to the praise of the glory of His grace? As the chief element in sin is not giving God the glory that is due to His Name, so the chief thing about salvation should be that it brings us to a realization of the glory of God.

We gain a glimpse of the affection with which the Father has marked us when we wrestle with the love He poured out on us when He predestined us to be adopted as His sons and daughters. When we begin to see the extent to which the Father went to secure our salvation, we can do nothing but give Him praise. If the great truths of God’s marvelous love are nothing more than academic postulations of predestination or if you are repulsed by God’s intrusion into the lives of His children and run from his sovereignty, I want to challenge you to get a glimpse at His powerful love, at how His sovereignty most clearly is seen in the elements you have before you this morning. In the bread and wine we can taste and see the Lord’s goodness. He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all…will He not also graciously give us all things?