To The Praise of the Father

The Church as The People of the Triune God:
To the Praise of the Father

We are who we are because of who our Triune God is and what he has done—nothing more, nothing less. The fact is, if we get this wrong, we get everything wrong. This was the big idea introduced in the first article of this mini-series. We began by considering trinitarian orthodoxy as expressed in the Nicene Creed. The argument undergirding this series is that the affirmations of Nicaea were not merely a result of the trappings of philosophy but a necessary development in how the church speaks of biblical teaching concerning the nature of God. As the revealed truth of the Word crashes into culture, there is an ongoing need for both upholding and defending the text of Scripture. 

In keeping with such, this series returns to the text concerning the nature of our Triune God and his works in redemption by considering Ephesians 1:3–14. As me move through the text, we see the specific ways that Paul is directing us to worship the Triune God of our salvation as Father, Son, and Spirit, and this we will do over the course of three articles. In this article, we will consider the sovereign love of the Father in the first four verses. **For a more detailed consideration of the text, you can listen to the sermon here.

We are beloved children, to the praise of the Father’s glory and grace.

We see the Father’s love for us as his children in this passage in three distinct ways. First, we have been Blessed Beyond Measure (1:3); second, we were Chosen Before Time (1:4); and third, we were Predestined for Adoption (1:5). All of this leads to the application that we might live to the praise of his glory and grace (1:6).

Each of these come to us in Christ and are applied to us by the Spirit, but they are attributed to the sovereign grace and love of the Father. In fact, this is how we are to look at all the works of our Triune God. To put it concisely, consider the words of Augustine: “the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as they are indivisible, so work indivisibly.”

Blessed Beyond Measure

After his initial greeting to the Ephesian believers, Paul begins his letter with a blessing to God for salvation in Christ. He does that in a familiar form, found throughout the OT. The earliest forms of this kind of blessing were individual responses to the saving acts of God or his divine providence. The first example we find of such a blessing is in Gen 14:19–20, when Melchizedek pronounces a blessing on Abraham and then blesses God for his deliverance. We find another such personal blessing in Genesis 24:27 when Abraham’s servant worshipped the Lord for his success in finding a wife for Isaac. What began as a spontaneous act of worship became a formula for the praise of God’s people. 

While the blessing itself was their custom, referring to God as Father was unprecedented in personal prayer until the time of Jesus. Jesus taught his disciples to pray to God as Father. Jesus himself was accused of blasphemy when he called God his Father and now Paul is following that lead. 

Paul points us to the love of God as Father—the one who gave his only Son for us, the one who makes us sons and daughters through him, who is working all things for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purposes, and this one, “who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Rom 8:32). 

God, our Father, has not withheld any good thing. We have been blessed beyond measure. In our Father’s hands, even our suffering and weakness is a gift… Often our weakness and struggle are precisely the soil in which God brings growth. I read recently that God does not make anyone wait who will not be the better for it. If God has you in a season of waiting, trust him and receive the gift. What may seem like rocky ground that you are digging into will only sharpen you when you are digging for the Lord. Indeed, we have been blessed with “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” in Christ. We are blessed beyond measure.

Chosen Before Time

This idea of God’s choosing is often referred to as the doctrine of election and it is one that many people struggle with, especially when thinking of the free will and responsibility of man. To some it doesn’t seem right and to others it just doesn’t seem fair! How could God choose one and not the other?

But when we understand what it means to be fallen and worthy of condemnation, when we begin to grasp the holiness of God, we will see ever so clearly that fairness is death! This is what you and I deserve, apart from Christ. God would have been just to destroy all creation. But this was not the plan that he had formed before the foundation of the world. 

This ‘plan’ is the covenant of redemption, the course set forth by Father, Son, and Spirit in creating the world that would ultimately be tainted by sin and fall of man, followed by the promise of a Seed who would break the curse, and the restoration of all things in him. This plan or covenant of redemption was established before the foundation of the world and is meticulous in detail. What I mean here is that there is not one flitting of a butterfly’s wings that is not written down in the book. 

If you are reading this and you are in Christ, you were a part of this plan and you were chosen for a purpose: that you might be presented before God holy and blameless, as a bride fitting for the King (cf. Ephesians 5:25–27). This he did “in love.”

Predestined for Adoption

We were not only chosen before time, but we have been predestined for adoption. Whereas God’s choosing before time speaks to the exclusivity of our identity, this reality speaks to the intimacy of our identity. We are sons and daughters of God the Father! He chose us for himself and predetermined our future relationship with him as one of family relation. We are not only servants blessed to be living on the compound, but heirs with Christ! 

And this the Father has done in Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will. It is the Father’s good pleasure to make us sons and daughters. It is his delight to call us his children! 

“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. 3 And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.” 1 John 3:1–3

Conclusion: that we may live to the praise of his glory and grace

John Chrysostom once reflected on this passage:

“To the praise of His glory.” What is this? that who should praise Him? that who should glorify Him? that we, that Angels, that Archangels, yea, or the whole creation? And what were that? Nothing. The Divine nature knoweth no want. And wherefore then would He have us praise and glorify Him? It is that our love towards Him may be kindled more fervently within us. He desireth nothing we can render; not our service, not our praise, nor any thing else, nothing but our salvation; this is His object in every thing He does. And he who praises and marvels at the grace displayed towards himself will thus be more devoted and more earnest.”

We are who we are as a church because of who our Triune God is and what he has done. 

He has chosen, he has predestined, he has redeemed, he will sanctify, his will present us holy and blameless before himself in splendor, and he has given of his Spirit as a seal and witness to this reality.

If we understand the grace of the Father in our being blessed, chosen, and adopted, if we are in Christ:

Our lives ought to shine the brightness of God’s goodness to those around us, even in the dead of winter! 

Our homes ought to be places of refuge for the broken and the downcast. 

Our tables ought to be meeting places where fellow saints are refreshed in fellowship and prayer.

Our voices instruments of praise, our hands instruments of service, our feet ready to move, our hearts vessels of mercy and compassion and zeal for the Lord…

Our conversations brimming with the evidence of God’s hand in our lives and his faithfulness to his people.

We are who we are because of who He is and what He has done. It is all of grace and all for his glory.

To the praise of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Coram Deo.