01.03. ESSAY NO. 3

ESSAY NO. 3

“. . .having foreordained us unto adoption of sons through Jesus Christ . . .which he freely bestowed on us in the beloved: in whom we have our redemp­tion through his blood . . . according to the riches of his grace” (Ephesians 1:5-7). In these words Paul makes the transition from God’s grace in purpose, which is the past tense in his three-tense program of redeem­ing grace, to his grace in bestowment which is the present tense. This present tense, the Christian Dis­pensation, spans the time between the inauguration of Christ’s remedial kingdom on Pentecost and its “end when he shall deliver up the kingdom to God.”

Present Bestowment From all eternity God foreknew that, after man was created, he would by sin break fellowship with him. He also knew that man by unaided efforts could never restore this fellowship—that the chasm be­tween them could never be bridged from the earthly side. Consequently when Adam sinned, God promised him a kinsman bridge-builder from the heavenly side. In this prophecy God began to make known the man­ner in which his timeless purpose to redeem man was to be executed. From this fountainhead of proph­ecy, revealing that the Redeemer was to be the wom­an’s seed (Genesis 3:15), an ever-increasing stream of prophecies and types flowed. In due time God dis­closed that the kinsman Deliverer was to be a child begotten by the Holy Spirit and brought forth of a human, virgin mother, thus fusing God and man in one person (Isaiah 7:14; Luke 1:35). In “the fullness of the times,” when God’s clock struck the hour set be­fore time began, the God-man, the kinsman Media­tor, “himself man, Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all” (1 Timothy 2:5) came to earth, accord­ing to God’s endlessly unfolding purpose.

Apparently Adam understood this prophecy, for after receiving it, he “called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living (life)” (Genesis 3:20). Most of his posterity, however, have never be­lieved that Christ, the seed of the woman, is man’s only hope, and that “in none other is there salva­tion.” Instead, they have built their religions on the constitutionally fatal error that sinners can and must do meritorious work to win the favor of an offended god, whereas Christianity begins with God’s doing gracious work to win the favor of helpless sinners. God freely bestows his redemptive grace on dead men, because he actually loves them with a deep, tender, motherly yearning and really rejoices when they ac­cept his eternal program and become fitted for its future glories.

Future Consummation In the last three verses of this marvelous sentence, Paul makes the transition in God’s program from present bestowment to future consummation. By mentioning the pre-Christian distinction between Jew and Gentile, he makes their being “one new man” in Christ, sealed “with the Holy Spirit of promise” strikingly effective. Observe the correlative workings of the Trinity: God’s eternal counsel and election made operative in the blood of Christ, and the fin­ished transaction stamped and sealed by the Holy Spirit. In another setting some ten years earlier, Paul, without elaboration, stated the great doctrines of this remarkable sentence: “God chose you from the be­ginning unto salvation in sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth: whereunto he called you through our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thessalonians 2:13-14). The electrifying truth that “every spiritual bless­ing” we Christians now enjoy is but “an earnest (fore­taste and pledge) of our inheritance unto the redemp­tion of God’s own possession” is an ever-springing foun­tain of hope, courage, and joy to Christian pilgrims on their wayfaring way through a world ruled over by the enemy unto their home “not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” Of course, a risen, deathless body is included . in the redemption of God’s people. As sin ruined the whole triune man, body and soul and spirit, so God’s redemption must restore the whole man. Saints, “spirit and soul and body,” are to be preserved entire (1 Thessalonians 5:23), “Unto the praise of his glory” (Ephesians 1:14).