God's Choice of Us for Our Greatest Good and the Magnification of His Glory: An Overview of Ephesians 1:3-14

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 Christ Jesus, 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. 7 In him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace 8 that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding, 9 and He made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Christ, 10 to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in Heaven and on Earth together under one head, even Christ. 11 In Him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of Him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will, 12 in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of His glory. 13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in Him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of His glory. (Ephesians 1:3-14 NIV 1984)

While God’s eternal choice of us in Christ was made “in love” (1:4) and “in accordance with His pleasure and will” (1:5)—and was therefore not random or arbitrary—His choice was NOT made based on our being better than others or our being lovely in and of ourselves; it is not as if we, prior to becoming Christians, were just so awesome that God couldn’t help Himself but to love us and save us. That would make us the objects of His praise; it would make it so that others should praise us as well. No—look at Ephesians 1:6—God’s choice of sinners like us was made “to the praise of His glorious grace, which He has freely given us in the One He loves”: or, as the ESV has it, “in the Beloved”. The one that God the Father loves—His Beloved—is a reference to Christ. Referring to Christ moves Paul, in Ephesians 1:7-10, to consider the gospel work accomplished by Christ in history. Then the Apostle returns to the theme of God’s sovereign choice of a people in Christ for the end of His glory being magnified; look at Ephesians 1:11-12, “In Him, we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of Him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will, in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of His glory.” Paul wants His readers to be assured that the blessings that he and the other earliest believers enjoyed would be enjoyed by everyone who believes in Christ; look again at the first part Ephesians 1:13, “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation”. All the blessings of God, even His own indwelling presence in “the promised Holy Spirit,” mentioned at the end of Ephesians 1:13, belong to us; as we trust in Christ, we are God’s possession. All of this eternal, sovereign grace, which impacts us in time, is “to the praise of [God’s] glory,” as Paul writes at the end of Ephesians 1:14.