EPHESIANS: Newness and Acceptance
EPHESIANS Number 7:
Predestined for Newness and Acceptance
As part of His plan to ensure that we could freely choose Him, He predestinated that all who would choose to trust Him would become the children of God. We would be adopted into His family as heirs; joint heirs with Jesus. Our verse says that He “predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself.” This points us back to 2 Corinthians where we just read that He was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ. It is in Christ that we are reborn as His children. A few verses before that the Spirit said, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” (2 Corinthians 5:17, KJV 1900)
It is this newness that Father had planned from before the foundation of the world. In Jesus Christ, the second Adam, we see God’s re-creation. Jesus is the firstborn of creation and the firstborn from the dead.
“Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:” (Colossians 1:15, KJV 1900)
“And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.” (Colossians 1:18, KJV 1900)
John points this out with clarity saying, “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.” (1 John 3:1–2, KJV 1900)
All of this was “To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.” (Ephesians 1:6, KJV 1900)
We are accepted in the Lord Jesus. Acceptance by God can come about in only on way. We must be holy as our Father in heaven is holy. (see Matthew 5:48) This is not something we could ever do for ourselves and that’s why Paul is going to make it so clear in chapter 2 that it is the gift of God.
Nothing unholy, nothing imperfect, nothing that is not completely pure, righteous, without spot or blemish, and blameless can be in Christ, and He cannot live in anything that does not meet that standard either. If He could, He would not be God. God is perfect and any imperfection is wholly incompatible and consequently unacceptable to Him. As John says, “This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” (1 John 1:5, KJV 1900)
Brothers and sisters, you have been blessed with righteousness. Because of Christ, you are blameless, pure, and spotless.
