Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Ephesians 1:5

Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,

5. Having predestinated us ] Again an aorist, not a perfect, in the Greek; referring to a definite past act. For the same word, in the Greek, cp. Eph 1:11; Act 4:28 (E. V. “determined”); Rom 8:29-30; 1Co 2:7 (E. V. “ordained”). It is lit. “to define, mark out, set apart, beforehand.” All idea of blind destiny must be excluded; the “pre-ordination” is the act of the Living and Holy God. But while we can thus repose upon its justice, it is none the less sovereign. And it is a cause, not an effect, of good desires and holiness in the saints.

the adoption of children ] For the (one) word rendered thus, cp. Rom 8:15; Rom 8:23; Rom 9:4; Gal 4:5. The sacred truth of the filial relation of the saints to their Lord’s Father (see above on Eph 1:2) comes out further Eph 3:15, Eph 4:6, Eph 5:1. This sonship has two aspects in the N. T.; the generative aspect, a change in the state of will, character, nature, a new birth; and, as here, the adoptive aspect, a divinely legal institution into filial position and privilege. In the eternal Idea this latter may be said to be first in order; and thus it stands here, in this account of the heavenly origin of our salvation.

by Jesus Christ ] Lit., through Jesus Christ; Representative and Mediator. As in the Old Creation (see e.g. Joh 1:3, “all things came into being through Him ” ; and cp. Heb 1:2) so in the New, the Father works through the Son, Whom He “gives,” “anoints,” “sanctifies,” “sends.”

to himself ] As the Father is the Origin of the process of Redemption, so He is continually presented as its End. See the Lord’s discourses in St John’s Gospel, passim, and e.g. 1Co 15:28; Php 2:11. This fact makes it on the other hand the more deeply significant that the same language is used also with reference to the Son; e.g. below ch. Eph 5:27. And cp. “ for Him,” Col 1:16.

according to the good pleasure &c.] The ultimate account of all Divine procedure, from the creature’s point of view. Nothing in that Will is capricious; all is supremely wise and good. But it enfolds an “unseen universe” of reasons and causes wholly beyond our discovery; and here precisely is one main field for the legitimate exercise of faith; personal confidence as to the unknown reasons for the revealed action of a Known God. Cp. Mat 11:26 ; 1Co 1:21. The word rendered “good pleasure” means specially (in N. T.) deliberate beneficent resolve.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Having predestinated us – On the meaning of the word here used, see the notes at Rom 1:4; Rom 8:29, note. The word used prorizo means properly to set bounds before; and then to pre-determine. There is the essential idea of setting bounds or limits, and of doing this beforehand. It is not that God determined to do it when it was actually done, but that he intended to do it beforehand. No language could express this more clearly, and I suppose this interpretation is generally admitted. Even by those who deny the doctrine of particular election, it is not denied that the word here used means to pre-determine; and they maintain that the sense is, that God had pre-determined to admit the Gentiles to the privileges of his people. Admitting then that the meaning is to predestinate in the proper sense, the only question is, who are predestinated? To whom does the expression apply? Is it to nations or to individuals? In reply to this, in addition to the remarks already made, I would observe,

(1)That there is no specification of nations here as such, no mention of the Gentiles in contradistinction from the Jews.

(2)Those referred to were those included in the word us, among whom Paul was one – but Paul was not a heathen.

(3)The same objection will lie against the doctrine of predestinating nations which will lie against predestinating individuals.

(4)Nations are made up of individuals, and the pre-determination must have had some reference to individuals.

What is a nation but a collection of individuals? There is no such abstract being or thing as a nation; and if there was any purpose in regard to a nation, it must have had some reference to the individuals composing it. He that would act on the ocean, must act on the drops of water that make up the ocean; for besides the collection of drops of water there is no ocean. He that would remove a mountain, must act on the particles of matter that compose that mountain; for there is no such thing as an abstract mountain. Perhaps there was never a greater illusion than to suppose that all difficulty is removed in regard to the doctrine of election and predestination, by saying that it refers to nations. What difficulty is lessened? What is gained by it? How does it make God appear more amiable and good?

Does it render him less partial to suppose that he has made a difference among nations, than to suppose that he has made a difference among individuals? Does it remove any difficulty about the offer of salvation, to suppose that he has granted the knowledge of his truth to some nations, and withheld it from others? The truth is, that all the reasoning which has been founded on this supposition, has been merely throwing dust in the eyes. If there is any well-founded objection to the doctrine of decrees or predestination, it is to the doctrine at all, alike in regard to nations and individuals, and there are just the same difficulties in the one case as in the other. But there is no real difficulty in either. Who could worship or honor a God who had no plan, or purpose, or intention in what he did? Who can believe that the universe was formed and is governed without design? Who can doubt that what God does he always meant to do?

When, therefore, he converts and saves a soul, it is clear that he always intended to do it. He has no new plan. It is not an afterthought. It is not the work of chance. If I can find out anything that God has done, I have the most certain conviction that he always meant to do it – and this is all that is intended by the doctrine of election or predestination. What God does, he always meant to do. What he permits, he always meant to permit. I may add further, that if it is right to do it, it was right to intend to do it. If there is no injustice or partiality in the act itself, there is no injustice or partiality in the intention to perform it. If it is right to save a soul, it was also right to intend to save it. If it is right to condemn a sinner to we, it was right to intend to do it. Let us then look at the thing itself, and if that is not wrong, we should not blame the purpose to do it, however long it has been cherished.

Unto the adoption … – see Joh 1:12 note; Rom 8:15 note.

According to the good pleasure of his will – The word rendered good pleasure – ( eudokia) – means a being well pleased; delight in anything, favor, good-will, Luk 2:14; Phi 1:15; compare Luk 12:32. Then it denotes purpose, or will, the idea of benevolence being included – Robinson. Rosenmuller renders the phrase, from his most benignant decree. The evident object of the apostle is to state why God chose the heirs of salvation. It was done as it seemed good to him in the circumstances of the case. It was not that man had any control over him, or that man was consulted in the determination, or that it was based on the good works of man, real or foreseen. But we are not to suppose that there were no good reasons for what he has thus done. Convicts are frequently pardoned by an executive. He does it according to his own will, or as seems good in his sight.

He is to be the judge, and no one has a right to control him in doing it. It may seeM to be entirely arbitrary. The executive may not have communicated the reasons why he did it, either to those who are pardoned, or to the other prisoners, or to anyone else. But we are not to infer that there was no reason for doing it. If he is a wise magistrate, and worthy of his station, it is to be presumed that there were reasons which, if known, would be satisfactory to all. But those reasons he is under no obligations to make known. Indeed, it might be improper that they should be known. Of that he is the best judge. Meantime, however, we may see what would be the effect in those who were not forgiven. It would excite, very likely, their hatred, and they would charge him with partiality or with tyranny. But they should remember that whoever might be pardoned, and on whatever ground it might be done, they could not complain.

They would suffer no more than they deserve. But what if, when the act of pardon was made known to one part, it was offered to the others also on certain plain and easy conditions? Suppose it should appear that while the executive meant, for wise but concealed reasons, to forgive a part, he had also determined to offer forgiveness to all. And suppose that they were in fact disposed in the highest degree to neglect it, and that no inducements or arguments could prevail on them to accept of it. Who then could blame the executive? Now this is about the case in regard to God, and the doctrine of election. All people were guilty and condemned. For wise reasons, which God has not communicated to us, he determined to bring a portion at least of the human race to salvation. This he did not intend to leave to chance and hap-hazard. He saw that all would of themselves reject the offer, and that unless some efficient means were used, the blood of the atonement would be shed in vain.

He did not make known to people who they were that he meant to save, nor the reason why they particularly were to be brought to heaven. Meantime he meant to make the offer universal; to make the terms as easy as possible, and thus to take away every ground of complaint. If people will not accept of pardon; if they prefer their sins; if nothing can induce them to come and be saved, why should they complain? If the doors of a prison are open, and the chains of the prisoners are knocked off, and they will not come out, why should they complain that others are in fact willing to come out and be saved? Let it be borne in mind that the purposes of God correspond exactly to facts as they actually occur, and much of the difficulty is taken away. If in the facts there is no just ground of complaint, there can be none, because it was the intention of God that the facts should be so.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Eph 1:5

Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.

The predestination of believers

I. The benefit itself. Having predestinated.

1. God first loves us to life before the means bringing us to life are decreed.

2. God has not only chosen some, but ordained effectual means to bring them to the end to which they are chosen.

II. The persons who are predestinated. Those who have believed and are sanctified–of them we may say that they have been predestinated, and shall be glorified. A chain of four links, two of which are kept with God in heaven, and two let down to earth; this chain is so coupled, that whoever are within these mid]inks are within the two others also. How precious then is this faith which purifies the heart, and enables us even to read our names in Gods register of life.

III. The thing to which God has predestinated us. Unto the adoption of children.

1. The dignity of being sons of God.

2. The inheritance of light, or a Divine nature.

3. All the glory we look for in heaven is included.

IV. The cause. Through Jesus Christ.

V. The manner. To Himself, i.e., according to the good pleasure of His will.

1. Sending His Word.

2. Working by it with His Spirit.

VI. The end. To the praise of the glory of His grace. (Paul Bayne.)

Adoption

If the thing itself be right, it must be right that God intended to do the thing; if you find no fault with facts, as you see them in providence, you have no ground to complain of decrees as you find them in predestination, for the decrees and the facts are just the counterparts one of the other. I cannot see, if the fact itself is agreeable, why the decree should be objectionable. I can see no reason why you should find fault with Gods foreordination, if you do not find fault with what does actually happen as the effect of it. Let a man but agree to acknowledge an act of providence, and I want to know how he can, except he runs in the very teeth of providence, find any fault with the predestination or intention that God made concerning that providence. Will you blame me for preaching this morning? Suppose you answer, No. Then can you blame me that I formed a resolution last night that I would preach? Will you blame me for preaching on this particular subject? Do, if you please, then, and find me guilty for intending to do so; but if you say I am perfectly right in selecting such a subject, how can you say I was not perfectly right in intending to preach upon it? Assuredly you cannot find fault with Gods predestination, if you do not find fault with the effects that immediately spring from it. Now, we are taught in Scripture, I affirm again, that all things that God choseth to do in time were most certainly intended by Him to be done in eternity, and He predestined such things should be done. If I am called, I believe God intended before all worlds that I should be called; if in His mercy He has regenerated me, I believe that from all eternity He intended to regenerate me; and if, in His loving kindness, He shall at last perfect me and carry me to heaven, I believe it always was His intention to do so. If you cannot find fault with the thing itself that God does, in the name of reason, common sense, and Scripture, how dare you find fault with Gods intention to do it?

I. Adoption–the grace of it. No man can ever have a right in himself to become adopted. If a king should adopt any into his family, it would likely be the son of one of his lords–at any rate, some child of respectable parentage; he would scarce take the son of some common felon, or some gipsy child, to adopt him into his family; but God, in this case, has taken the very worst to be His children. The saints of God all confess that they are the last persons they should ever have dreamed He would have chosen. Again, let us think not only of our original lineage, but of our personal character. He who knows himself will never think that he had much to recommend him to God. In other cases of adoption there usually is some recommendation. A man, when he adopts a child, sometimes is moved thereto by its extraordinary beauty, or at other times by its intelligent manners and winning disposition. But no; He found a rebellious child, a filthy, frightful, ugly child; He took it to His bosom. I was passing lately by the seat of a nobleman, and someone in the railway carriage observed that he had no children, and he would give any price in the world if he could find someone who would renounce all claim to any son he might have, and the child was never to speak to his parents any more, nor to be acknowledged, and this lord would adopt him as his son, and leave him the whole of his estates, but that he had found great difficulty in procuring any parents who would forswear their relationship, and entirely give up their child. Whether this was correct or not, I cannot tell; but certainly this was not the case with God. His only-begotten and well-beloved Son was quite enough for Him; and, if He had needed a family, there were the angels, and His own omnipotence was adequate enough to have created a race of beings far superior to us; He stood in no need whatever of any to be His darlings. It was then, an act of simple, pure, gratuitous grace, and of nothing else, because He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy, and because He delights to show the marvellous character of His condescension.

II. The privileges which come to us through adoption.

1. We are taken out of the family of Satan. The prince of this world has no more claim upon us.

2. We have Gods name put upon us.

3. We have the spirit as well as the name of children.

4. Access to the throne.

5. We are pitied by God. He pities thee, and that pity of God is one of the comforts that flow into thine heart by thine adoption.

6. In the next place, He protects thee. No father will allow his son to die without making some attempt to resist the adversary who would slay him, and God will never allow His children to perish while His omnipotence is able to guard them.

7. Once again, there is provision as well as protection. Every father will take care to the utmost of his ability to provide for his children.

8. And then you shall likewise have education. God will educate all His children till He makes them perfect men in Christ Jesus.

9. There is one thing perhaps you sometimes forget, which you are sure to have in the course of discipline if you are Gods sons, and that is, Gods rod.

10. Lastly, so sure as we are the children of God by adoption, we must inherit the promise that pertains to it–If children, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Jesus Christ. If we suffer with Him, we shall also be glorified together.

III. There are some duties which are connected with adoption. When the believer is adopted into the Lords family, there are many relationships which are broken off. The relationship with old Adam and the law ceases at once; but then he is under a new law, the law of grace–under new rules, and under a new covenant. And now I beg to admonish you of duties, children of God. It is this–if God be thy father, and thou art His son, thou art bound to trust Him. Oh! if He were only thy Master, and thou ever so poor a servant, thou wouldst be bound to trust Him. But, when thou knowest that He is thy Father, wilt thou ever doubt Him? (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Adoption and its privileges

After the battle of Austerlitz, Napoleon immediately adopted all the children of the soldiers who had fallen. They were supported and educated by the State, and, as belonging to the family of the emperor, they were permitted to attach the name of Napoleon to their own.

Adoption confers honour

It was at Vienna, in the year 1805, that Haydn, then seventy-three years of age, first met Cherubini, who, though not a young man, still must have appeared so to the veteran composer, being thirty years his junior, and not having then composed many of those works which have since made his name so famous. Bat the very fact of his own seniority was made use of by the old man to utter one of the most graceful compliments which could have been spoken for the encouragement of a younger worker. Handing to Cherubini one of his latest compositions, Haydn said, Permit me to style myself your musical father, and to call you my son, words which made such an impression on Cherubini that he could not keep back the tears when he parted with the aged Haydn.

Election and adoption into Gods family

I. God chose and predestined these ephesian Christians before the foundation of the world.

1. We must not so conceive of Gods election, and the influence of His grace, as to set aside our free agency and final accountableness.

2. Nor must we so explain away Gods sovereignty and grace as to exalt man to a state of independence.

II. They were chosen to be holy and without blame, before Him, in love. Holiness consists in the conformity of the soul to the Divine nature and will, and is opposed to all moral evil. In fallen creatures it begins in the renovation of the mind after the image of God. Love is a main branch of holiness.

III. The adoption to which believers are predestinated.

1. Adoption implies a state of freedom, in opposition to bondage.

2. Adoption brings us under the peculiar care of Gods providence.

3. Adoption includes a title to a glorious resurrection from the dead, and to an eternal inheritance in the heavens.

IV. All spiritual blessings are derived to us through Jesus Christ.

V. The season of Gods choosing believers in Christ, and predestinating them to adoption, is the good pleasure of His will. The original plan of salvation is from Him, not from us. The gospel is a Divine gift, not a human discovery; and our being in circumstances to enjoy it is not the effect of our previous choice, but of Gods sovereign goodness.

VI. The great purpose for which God has chosen and called us is the praise of the glory of His grace. Goodness is the glory of the Divine character; grace is the glory of the Divine goodness; the plan of salvation for sinners by Jesus Christ is the glory of Divine grace. (J. Lathrop, D. D.)

Regeneration and sonship in Christ

I. Christ is the unique son of God. From what we know of our Lord as He lived among men, nothing so perfectly represents the impression which His character, spirit, and history produce upon us as the title which describes Him as the Son of God. Other men had been Gods servants; He, too, was born under the law; but to speak of Him as a servant does not tell half the truth. He is a servant, and something more. There is an ease, a freedom, a grace about His doing of the will of God, which can belong only to a Son. About the Fathers love for Him He has never any doubt; and there is no sign that His perfect faith is the result of discipline, or that it had ever been less secure and tranquil than it was in the maturity of His strength. When He speaks of the glory which is to come to Him after His death and resurrection, He is still a Son anticipating the honour to which the Father has always destined Him, and which indeed had always been His.

II. Christians are the adopted sons of God. If we are in Christ we, according to Gods eternal purpose, have become Gods sons. The eternal relationship between Christ and the Father cannot belong to us; but all who are one with Christ share the blessedness, the security, and the honour of that relationship; and the life of Christ, which has its eternal fountains in the life of God, is theirs.

III. Christians are made Sons of God by a new and supernatural birth. Regeneration is sometimes described as though it were merely a change in a mans principles of conduct, character, taste, habits. If so, we should have to speak of a man as being more or less regenerate according to the extent of his moral reformation, which would be contrary to the idiom of New Testament thought. The simplest and most obvious account of regeneration is the truest. When a man is regenerated he receives a new life, and receives it from God. A higher nature comes to him than that which he inherited from his human parents; he is begotten of God, born of the Spirit.

IV. The incarnation of Christ effects our adoption and regeneration. The capacity for receiving the Divine life is native to us, but the actual realization of our sonship is possible only through Christ. Not until the Son of God became Man could men, either in this world or in worlds unseen, become the sons of God. The Incarnation raised human nature to a loftier level, lifted it nearer to God, fulfilled in a new and nobler manner the Divine idea of humanity.

V. These blessings are to be ascribed solely to Gods infinite love. We had no claim upon Him for gifts like these. Nor, in conferring them, did He act under the constraint of any law of His own nature which imposed upon Him either a necessity or an obligation to raise us to the dignity of Divine sonship. It is all the result of His free, unforced, spontaneous kindliness. What He has done for us is to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed upon us in the Beloved. (R. W. Dale, LL. D.)

Adoption

1. Wherein does the predestination of the fifth verse differ from the election of the fourth? Election only, and always, refers to the Church; predestination refers to the Church, and the world, and the whole universe. It is a general, all-embracing principle. He elected us that we should be holy, and to accomplish this He predestined us to the adoption of sons. Election is a mere passive preference of some rather than others, while predestination is active, and includes the ideas of ordering, defining, and controlling all things according to a settled purpose and plan. Election is the foundation of a Church, and predestination is the basis of providence.

2. But what is this adoption to which we are predestinated? It is the very first of the privileges which Paul ascribes to the Jewish nation–To whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forever (Rom 9:4-5). In a wide sense, the Jews were nationally the children of God, and the principle of adoption was in their polity; for the Son of God, the Messiah, was the hope of the nation. They were His peculiar people (Deu 14:2). But the adoption is the peculiar privilege and glory of the New Testament Church, in which the incorruptible seed remains, because they are born of God.

3. This adoption into the family of God is by or through Jesus Christ.

4. The two words unto Himself has occasioned the commentators some trouble, and their sentiments are very various. But surely, looked at simply, the most common understanding can see no difficulty in this idea–God has predestinated us unto the adoption of children to or for Himself. Is it not a Scriptural idea that the Church is the peculiar treasure and property of God? (See Exo 19:5; Deu 14:2; Psa 135:4; Tit 2:14)

5. Note here, also, that this predestination and adoption are according to the good pleasure of His will. This is the mode and the measure of His working.

6. We see here the purpose in which all His working, before time and in time, ends–That we might be to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved (Eph 1:6). The phrase glory of His grace is a Hebraism which our translators have rendered literally, but which means His glorious grace. (For similar forms see Col 1:27; 2Th 1:9) The purpose of electing and redeeming love is to form from among the sinners of mankind a people to the praise and glory of God. The glorious grace of God shines forth in the struggling, wrestling Church more than anywhere else in the creation; for it is there put to the severest tests, and, like the rainbow in clouds and storms, it is enhanced by the contrast. As sure, and so far as God is the Ruler and Governor of the world, the great end of every creature must be His glory; and as grace is the form in which His glory has shone forth most brightly on this earth, the highest aim of the redeemed creature–in all states and conditions of being–should ever be to the praise of His glorious grace. (W. Graham, D. D.)

Adoption

I. The adoption of children to himself, unto which we are said to be predestinated. The adoption of children necessarily implies that those admitted or chosen to this honour are not naturally or legally children, but become so only by the will and act of Him who adopts them.

1. The adoption of children is the permanent restitution of sinners unto the favour, love, and enjoyment of God.

2. There is implied or included in this a participation in the Divine Glory, through the gift of the Holy Spirit. The third person in the Trinity receives the peculiar name of the Spirit of Adoption.

3. In the adoption of children, all is included whatsoever is embraced in the inheritance of the saints in light. It doth not yet appear what we shall be. The half hath not yet been told us concerning the dignity and blessedness of heaven.

II. God hath predestinated us unto the adoption of children. Now this predestination stands connected with the election spoken of in the previous verse. In respect of the purpose or design of God, it is not to be distinguished from that election–as if the one preceded the other in the order of time. When He elected or chose us in His love, He also predestinated us in His wisdom and power, and when He predestinated us He also in love chose us. But the term election has respect more to the affection of the Divine Heart, so to speak; whereas the term predestination has respect more to the plan and purpose of the Divine Mind. It leads us to consider a certain definite end, purposed, determined, and secured–which in the present case is the adoption of children to Himself. Infinite wisdom, and infinite power, can infallibly carry out the designs of infinite sovereignty; and He who hath chosen us out of love can easily, in His sovereign wisdom and power, bring us into the possession of all that infinite love would have us to enjoy.

III. The ground of this predestination, viz., According to the good pleasure of His will. The expression is to be understood of that sovereign will of God which acknowledges no superior beyond itself, and no cause whatsoever moving it from without.

IV. That Gods predestination and the good pleasure of His will are carried out by Jesus Christ–the Beloved–in whom we are accepted. The mystery of salvation is not perceived at all until we bring into account the necessity of such an atonement as could be effected only by the Son of God Himself.

V. The final end which God hath proposed in the salvation of the Church is the praise of the glory of His grace. He hath predestinated us unto the adoption of children to the praise of the glory of His grace. God can accomplish no higher or better end than the manifestation of His own glory. Since, in and of Himself, He is infinitely and eternally blessed, therefore it was an act of pure goodness on the part of God to create a race of intelligent beings, who being endowed with freedom of will, might, in the right exercise of their powers and faculties, find their happiness in contemplating His glory and sharing His favour. This freedom having been abused by all, in departing from the true object of delight and satisfaction, it becomes an act of grace on the part of God to renew to any the favours of His love and friendship. Contemplating sinners lying in their guilt and pollution and misery, God found the highest motive for extending to them His goodness entirely in Himself. I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for Mine own names sake. (W. Alves, M. A.)

God wills our salvation

When the Crusaders heard the voice of Peter the Hermit, as he bade them go to Jerusalem to take it from the hands of the invaders, they cried out at once, Deus vult; God wills it; God wills it; and every man plucked his sword from its scabbard, and set out to reach the holy sepulchre, for God willed it. So come and drink, sinner; God wills it. Trust Jesus; God wills it. Father, Thy will be done on earth even as it is in heaven. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Adoption defined and illustrated

Adoption is that act of God whereby men who were by nature the children of wrath even as others, are, entirely of the pure grace of God, translated out of the evil and black family of Satan, and brought actually and virtually into the family of God, so that they take His Name, share the privileges of sons, and are to all intents and purposes the actual offspring and children of God. Did you ever think what a high honour it is to be called a son of God? Suppose a judge of the land should have before him some traitor who was about to be condemned to die. Suppose that equity and law demanded this, but suppose it were possible for the judge to step from his throne and to say, Rebel as thou air, I have found out a way whereby I can forgive thy rebellions. Man, thou art pardoned! There is a flush of joy upon his cheek. Man, thou art made rich; see, there is wealth! Another smile passes over the countenance. Man, thou art made so strong that; thou shalt be able to resist all thine enemies! He rejoices again. Man, saith the judge at last, thou art adopted into the Royal Family, and thou shalt one day wear a crown! Thou art now as much the Son of God as thou art the son of thine own father. You can conceive the poor creature fainting with joy at such a thought. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 5. Having predestinated us] . As the doctrine of eternal predestination has produced much controversy in the Christian world, it may be necessary to examine the meaning of the term, that those who do use it may employ it according to the sense it has in the oracles of God. The verb , from , before, and , I define, finish, bound, or terminate, whence , a boundary or limit, signifies to define beforehand, and circumscribe by certain bounds or limits; and is originally a geographical term, but applied also to any thing concluded, or determined, or demonstrated. Here the word is used to point out God’s fixed purpose or predetermination to bestow on the Gentiles the blessing of the adoption of sons by Jesus Christ, which adoption had been before granted to the Jewish people; and without circumcision, or any other Mosaic rite, to admit the Gentiles to all the privileges of his Church and people. And the apostle marks that all this was fore-determined by God, as he had fore-determined the bounds and precincts of the land which he gave them according to the promise made to their fathers; that the Jews had no reason to complain, for God had formed this purpose before he had given the law, or called them out of Egypt; (for it was before the foundation of the world, Eph 1:4😉 and that, therefore, the conduct of God in calling the Gentiles now-bringing them into his Church, and conferring on them the gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit, was in pursuance of his original design; and, if he did not do so, his eternal purposes could not be fulfilled; and that, as the Jews were taken to be his peculiar people, not because they had any goodness or merit in themselves; so the Gentiles were called, not for any merit they had, but according to the good pleasure of his will; that is, according to his eternal benevolence, showing mercy and conferring privileges in this new creation, as he had done in the original creation; for as, in creating man, he drew every consideration from his own innate eternal benevolence, so now, in redeeming man, and sending the glad tidings of salvation both to the Jews and the Gentiles, be acted on the same principles, deriving all the reasons of his conduct from his own infinite goodness.

This argument was exceedingly conclusive, and must silence the Jews on the ground of their original, primitive, and exclusive rights, which they were ever ready to plead against all pretensions of the Gentiles. If therefore God, before the foundation of the Jewish economy, had determined that the Gentiles, in the fulness of time, should be called to and admitted into all the privileges of the Messiah’s kingdom, then the exclusive salvation of the Jews was chimerical; and what God was doing now, by the preaching of the apostles in the Gentile world, was in pursuance of his original design. This same argument St. Paul repeatedly produces in his Epistle to the Romans; and a proper consideration of it unlocks many difficulties in that epistle. See the notes on Ro 8:29; Ro 8:30; and elsewhere, in the course of that epistle, where this subject is handled. But why is the word , fore-determined, limited, or circumscribed, used here? Merely in reference to the settlement of the Israelites in the promised land. God assigned to them the portions which they were to inherit; and these portions were described, and their bearings, boundaries, vicinities to other portions, extent and length, as exactly ascertained as they could be by the most correct geographical map. As God, therefore, had dealt with the Jews in making them his peculiar people, and when he divided the earth among the sons of Noah reserved to himself the twelve portions which he afterwards gave to the twelve tribes; (See Clarke on De 32:8😉 and as his dealings with them were typical of what he intended to do in the calling and salvation of the Gentiles; so he uses the terms by which their allotment and settlement were pointed out to show that, what he had thus designed and typified, he had now fulfilled according to the original predetermination; the Gentiles having now the spiritual inheritance which God had pointed out by the grant made of the promised land to the children of Israel. This is the grand key by which this predestination business is unlocked. See Clarke on Eph 1:11.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children; having appointed us unto a state of sonship and right to glory. This seems to be more than the former, a greater thing to be the sons of God, and heirs of heaven, than to be holy.

By Jesus Christ; as Mediator, and Head of the elect, and the foundation of all spiritual blessings vouchsafed them, and so of this relation into which they are brought, by being united to him. The adopted children come into that state by the intervention of the natural Son.

To himself; either:

1. In himself, i.e. looking no farther than to himself for the cause of and motive to his adopting them. Or:

2. To himself, (according to our translation), i.e. to God. Or, rather:

3. For himself (as the Syriac renders it); God would have the honour of having many adopted children that shall all call him Father.

According to the good pleasure of his will; his sovereign grace and good will, as the only spring from which predestination issued, God being moved to it by nothing out of himself.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

5. predestinatedmore specialin respect to the end and precise means, than “chosen”or elected. We are “chosen” out of the rest ofthe world; “predestinated” to all things that securethe inheritance for us (Eph 1:11;Rom 8:29). “Foreordained.“

by JesusGreek,“through Jesus.”

to himselfthe Father(Col 1:20). ALFORDexplains, “adoption . . . into Himself,” that is, sothat we should be partakers of the divine nature (2Pe1:4). LACHMANN reads,”unto Him.” The context favors the explanation ofCALVIN: God has regard toHimself and the glory of His grace (Eph 1:6;Eph 1:12; Eph 1:14)as His ultimate end. He had one only-begotten Son, and He was pleasedfor His own glory, to choose out of a lost world many tobecome His adopted sons. Translate, “unto Himself.”

the good pleasure of hiswillSo the Greek (Mat 11:26;Luk 10:21). We cannot go beyond”the good pleasure of His will” in searching into thecauses of our salvation, or of any of His works (Eph1:9). (Job 33:13.) Whyneedest thou philosophize about an imaginary world of optimism? Thyconcern is to take heed that thou be not bad. There was nothing in uswhich deserved His love (Eph 1:1;Eph 1:9; Eph 1:11)[BENGEL].

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Having predestinated us,…. Predestination, taken in a large sense, includes both election and reprobation, and even reaches to all affairs and occurrences in the world; to the persons, lives, and circumstances of men; to all mercies, temporal or spiritual; and to all afflictions, whether in love or in wrath: and indeed providence, or the dispensations of providence, are no other than the execution of divine predestination; but here it is the same with election, and is concerned with the same persons, and has regard to a special blessing, the elect are appointed to, as follows;

unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ unto himself; by which is meant, either the grace of adoption, which is an act of the Father’s love, a blessing provided and secured in the covenant of grace; and is of persons to an inheritance, to which they have no legal right; and is entirely free, there being no need on the adopter’s part, and no worth on the part of the adopted: or rather the inheritance they are adopted to; which exceeds all others, is incorruptible, undefiled, and fades not away; and lies among the saints in light, and belongs to all the children of God: and this they are predestinated unto by God the Father, who takes them into his family, puts them among the children, and gives them a goodly heritage: and that “by Jesus Christ”; or through him; for both the grace of adoption, and the kingdom and glory they are adopted to, come by and through him as Mediator; through his espousing their persons, assuming their nature, and redeeming them from under the law and its curses; through his giving them a power and privilege openly to be the sons of God; and through faith in him, whereby they are manifestly such: the phrase “unto himself”, either refers to God the Father, who has chosen, set apart, formed and reserved his people and children for himself, for his peculiar treasure, and for his own glory; or to Jesus Christ, that he might have some brethren, and they be conformed to him, and he be the firstborn among them, and in all things have the pre-eminence; and that they might be with him, and behold his glory, and he be glorified in them: and this act of divine predestination was

according to the good pleasure of his will: the will of God is the rule of all his actions, and of all his acts of grace and goodness; and the good pleasure of it appears in the predestination of men to grace and glory: and from hence it is manifest, that foreseen faith, holiness, and good works, are excluded from being the moving cases of predestinating grace; and that it is wholly to be resolved into the good will and pleasure of God; the view in it being entirely as follows,

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

Having foreordained us ( ). First aorist active participle of , late and rare compound to define or decide beforehand. Already in Acts 4:28; 1Cor 2:7; Rom 8:29. See also verse 11. Only other N.T. example in verse 11. To be taken with either simultaneous or antecedent (causal).

Unto adoption as sons ( ). For this interesting word see Gal 4:5; Rom 8:15; Rom 9:4.

Unto himself ( ). Unto God.

According to the good pleasure of his will ( ). Here means

purpose like in verse 11 rather than

benevolence (good pleasure). Note the preposition here for standard.

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

Having predestinated [] . Rev. foreordained. From pro before, oJrizw to define, the latter word being from opov a boundary. Hence to define or determine beforehand.

Adoption [] . See on Rom 8:15. Never used of Christ. Good pleasure [] . Not strictly in the sense of kindly or friendly feeling, as Luk 2:14; Phi 1:15, but because it pleased Him, see Luk 10:21; Mt 11:26. The other sense, however, is included and implied, and is expressed by in love.

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

1) “Having predestinated us” (proorisas hemas) “Predestinating us or having predestinated us, or prefixed the destiny of all “in Christ.” God determined, before the foundation of the world, to give to every person who trusted in Jesus Christ “eternal life.” This is the basis of the assurance of the glorified bodily resurrection of all “in Christ,” Joh 10:27-29; 2Co 5:17; Eph 2:10; Rom 8:23.

2) “Unto the adoption of children” (eis huiothesian) “Unto heir-setting or adoption of sons.” The believer’s salvation from the dangers of hell is sealed “in time” when he believes in or trusts Jesus Christ as his personal Savior. The predestination of God in eternity was, and is, that each who trusts in Christ shall have a glorified resurrection body, adopted to an heir-setting with Him in His kingdom, Eph 1:13-14.

3) “By Jesus Christ to himself” (dia lesou christou eis auton) rough Jesus Christ unto himself.” All salvation or deliverance from the presence, power, influence, and consequence of sin is determined to be through or by means of Jesus Christ. The material universe, without a will, is to be redeemed through Him, but responsible men are saved only through an exercise of their volition, will, or choice of Jesus Christ as their Savior, Joh 8:24; Joh 3:16; 1Co 8:6; Rom 8:20-21.

4) “According to the good pleasure of his will” (kata ten eudokian tou thelematos autou) “According to, or in harmony with, the well conceived reasoning of the holy will of Him, the (“elohim” or -theos”) trinitarian God.” God predetermined, or prefixed, or preset the kind of life” (eternal) and the kind of final “position” (heir-son-heritage) every believer in Christ should receive in time and experience in glory with Him, in eternity, 2Pe 3:9. But He did not predestinate, predetermine, or prefix what individuals could and would be saved and write their names down, leaving others out, as is sometimes erroneously supposed, Joh 1:11-12; Joh 3:14-16; Rom 1:14-16; 1Ti 2:5; Rom 10:9-13.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

5. Who hath predestinated us. What follows is intended still further to heighten the commendation of divine grace. The reason why Paul inculcated so earnestly on the Ephesians the doctrines of free adoption through Christ, and of the eternal election which preceded it, has been already considered. But as the mercy of God is nowhere acknowledged in more elevated language, this passage will deserve our careful attention. Three causes of our salvation are here mentioned, and a fourth is shortly afterwards added. The efficient cause is the good pleasure of the will of God, the material cause is, Jesus Christ, and the final cause is, the praise of the glory of his grace. Let us now see what he says respecting each.

To the first belongs the whole of the following statement God hath predestinated us in himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, unto the adoption of sons, and hath made us accepted by his grace. In the word predestinate we must again attend to the order. We were not then in existence, and therefore there was no merit of ours. The cause of our salvation did not proceed from us, but from God alone. Yet Paul, not satisfied with these statements, adds in himself. The Greek phrase is, εἰς αὑτὸν, and has the same meaning with ἐν αὑτῷ. By this he means that God did not seek a cause out of himself, but predestinated us, because such was his will.

But this is made still more clear by what follows, according to the good pleasure of his will. The word will was enough, for Paul very frequently contrasts it with all outward causes by which men are apt to imagine that the mind of God is influenced. But that no doubt may remain, he employs the word good pleasure, which expressly sets aside all merit. In adopting us, therefore, God does not inquire what we are, and is not reconciled to us by any personal worth. His single motive is the eternal good pleasure, by which he predestinated us. (109) Why, then, are the sophists not ashamed to mingle with them other considerations, when Paul so strongly forbids us to look at anything else than the good pleasure of God?

Lest anything should still be wanting, he adds, ἐχαρίτωσεν ἐν χάριτι (110) This intimates, that, in the freest manner, and on no mercenary grounds, does God bestow upon us his love and favor, just as, when we were not yet born, and when he was prompted by nothing but his own will, he fixed upon us his choice. (111)

The material cause both of eternal election, and of the love which is now revealed, is Christ, the Beloved. This name is given, to remind us that by him the love of God is communicated to us. Thus he is the well-beloved, in order that we may be reconciled by him. The highest and last end is immediately added, the glorious praise of such abundant grace. Every man, therefore, who hides this glory, is endeavoring to overturn the everlasting purpose of God. Such is the doctrine of the sophists, which entirely overturns the doctrine of Christ, lest the whole glory of our salvation should be ascribed undividedly to God alone.

(109) “This could not have been obtained by our own strength, had he not by his eternal decree, adopted us into the right and privilege of children, and that by Jesus Christ, to whom he hath so closely united us by faith and love, that we have become his members, and are one with him, and obtain (by communication with him) what was not due to our own merits.” — Erasmus.

(110) “ Il nous a rendu agreables.” “He hath made us acceptable.”

(111) “The original word, ἐχαρίτωσεν, ‘he hath made us accepted,’ is not used by any profane authors; however, the sense of it is plain. It is used in the angel’s salutation to the Virgin Mary, ‘Hail, thou that art highly favored;’ and that the word there is rightly rendered, is plain from the reason which the angel himself gives, ‘Thou hast found favor with God.’ (Luk 1:28) So that the plain meaning of the word, and the true rendering of it in the place before us, is, not as we have translated it, ‘made us accepted,’ but ‘highly favored us.’” — Chandler.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(5) Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself.The idea of Election depends on the union of the sense of actual difference between men, as to privilege and spiritual life, with the conviction of Gods universal sovereignty. Hence, in all cases, it leads back to the idea of Predestination, that is, of the conception of the divine purpose in the mind of God, before its realisation in actual fact. On the doctrine of predestination see Romans 9. It will suffice to note that here (1) its source is placed in Gods love; (2) its meritorious cause is the mediation of the Lord Jesus Christ; (3) its result is adoption, so that He is (see Rom. 8:29) the firstborn of many brethren, who are conformed to His image, and redeemed by Him from bondage to sonship (Gal. 4:5). (It is clear that the adoption here is not the final adoption of Rom. 8:23; but the present adoption into the Christian covenant, there called the firstfruits of the Spirit;) (4) it is in itself the expression of the good pleasure of His will on which all ultimately depends; and (5) its final purpose is to show forth Gods glory in the gift of His grace. In a few words the whole doctrine is summed up, with that absolute completeness, so eminently characteristic of this Epistle.

According to the good pleasure of his will.In our version, good pleasure, there is an ambiguity, reproducing the ambiguity of the original. The word used may signify (as in Mat. 11:26; Luk. 10:21; Php. 2:13) simply Gods free will, to which this or that seemeth good, or (as in Luk. 11:14; Rom. 10:1; Php. 1:15) His good will towards us. Even the old Greek interpreters were divided upon it, and either sense will suit this passage. But the close parallel in Eph. 1:11, according to the counsel (deliberate purpose) of His will, turns the balance in favour of the former rendering.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

5. Having predestinated That neither election nor predestination is identical with foreknowledge, see shown in our note on Rom 8:29. Predestination here, as in that passage, is a destination to a particular thing namely, to sonship in the image of Christ. If election is to be considered as preceding predestination, it does not follow (as Alford) that election and foreknowledge are to be identified; but that it is an intermediate step between foreknowledge and predestination. Unless we suppose the deity blindly to elect and predestinate, foreknowledge must lie in the divine nature as an attribute back of all acts. Election is the preference for the conditioned object, lying in the eternal divine nature; predestination, the specific direction of the object to its particular blessed destiny. It is the divinely established connexion between the conditioned object and his final salvation, never being affirmed of the wicked.

Adoption of children The Greek word is simply sonship, and should have been so rendered. The phrase is parallel to conformed to the image of his Son, in Rom 8:29. It therefore more properly expresses regeneration than adoption; regeneration, in its fullest sense, including restoration to Christ’s glorified likeness in the resurrection.

Good pleasure The Greek word may signify either beneficence, or an absoluteness of purpose which must not be questioned. Thus, taking it in the latter sense, Bengel says, “Beyond this good pleasure it is lawful for us neither to go prying into the causes of our salvation nor into any other of the works of God.” But the very peremptoriness of such language is at entire discord with the flowing and joyous current of the apostle’s thought while reviewing the free grace of God in our salvation. His boast is not in God’s repressive reserve, but in his open revelation of the mystery of his will according to his beneficence, Eph 1:9-10. In regard to the two disputed meanings of the term, all the reasons seem to be for the former, but the majority of commentators favour the latter. 1. As to its philology, it is conceded that in the Septuagint it is used in the former sense in every case; in the New Testament clearly in every case but two. This settles the question, unless the present context excludes that meaning. But, 2. The context requires the meaning. The whole paragraph is almost a hymn of grateful rapture. Every adverse point, such as the reprobacy of the persistently impenitent, or the conditions of salvation, is omitted or postponed. An insertion, therefore, of the stern, repressive absolutism of the divine counsels is wholly out of time and tune. 3. As already intimated, the same term in Eph 1:9 must have the same meaning. This will clearly appear, we think, in our note upon this verse, showing that it designates the divine beneficence of God’s ideal of a universal restoration of all men, through Christ, to holiness and heaven. 4. The parallelism between this and the following clause requires this meaning: according to the beneficence of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace. Beneficence and grace here, are to be held as different, but cumulative, designations of the same thing.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

4. Paul’s thanksgiving for the Ephesians, and prayer for their realization of Christ’s glorious headship, Eph 1:15-23.

15. Wherefore In view of your thus being happily sealed to this inheritance, Eph 1:13-14.

I also In response to ye, Eph 1:13. My prayers are for the sealing which is to result in possession, Eph 1:14.

Heard He probably had not seen them in four or five years.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘Having foreordained us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.’

He has not only chosen us but ‘decided on us beforehand’, ‘marked us out beforehand’ (pro-orizo) for a special purpose, that we might be adopted as His sons. Yet this is not because of our deserving but ‘through Jesus Christ’ and in accordance with His own pleasure and will. It was by His own will that He chose us, and of His own will that He begat us by the word of truth (Jas 1:18). Thus our being saved is not of our own merit but in accordance with the gracious will of God.

When God marked us out it was not because of anything special that He saw in us, but because in His eternal purpose He loved us (Jer 31:3; Deu 7:6-7; Isa 43:4; Mal 1:2; Rom 9:11-13; Rom 9:23-24). And He thus purposed beforehand to adopt us as sons, putting the Spirit of His Son into our hearts so that we cry ‘Abba, Father’ (Gal 4:5-6; Rom 8:15-17), which will result in the final adoption, the redemption of our bodies (Rom 8:23). It is not just as servants that He purposed to bless us but as those who were to be His sons.

‘According to the good pleasure of His will.’ And all this is in accordance with the good pleasure of His will. Compare Rom 8:4 ‘in love’, Rom 8:7 ‘according to the riches of His grace’, Rom 8:9 ‘according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Him’, Rom 8:11 ‘according to the purpose of Him Who works all things after the counsel of His own will’. All that comes to us was and is in His good purpose, in accordance with His good pleasure and wisdom, because of the greatness of His love for His ‘intended’. God cannot be thwarted, nor is He coerced. He carries out His purpose and will throughout the ages without fear or favour.

And fore-ordination guarantees fulfilment. Those whom the Father gives to Him will come to Him (Joh 6:37; Joh 6:39; Joh 6:44; Joh 10:28-29) and of all who are given to Jesus Christ in the purpose and will of God not one will be lost, for they are guarded and kept by Him (Joh 17:12). (The exception proves the rule!)

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Eph 1:5. Having predestinated us It was not by the observances of the law, but by faith alone in Jesus Christ, that God pre-determined to take the Gentiles into the state of sonship, or adoption. This was another particular for which St. Paul blesses God, in the name of the Gentiles; the consideration whereof was fit to raise the thoughts of the Ephesians above the Mosaic law, and keep them in a firm adherence to the liberty of the gospel. According to the good pleasure of his will, is spoken here in the same sense with what is said Rom 9:18; Rom 9:23-24. God, under the law, took the nation of Israel to be his people, without any merit in them; and so it is of his mere good pleasure that he even then purposed to enlarge his kingdom under the gospel, by admitting all, of every nation, to come in and submit themselves, not to the law of Moses, but to the rule and dominion of his Son, Jesus Christ; and this, as it is said in the next words, For the praise of the glory of his grace.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Eph 1:5 . Love was the disposition of God, in which He through this our election predestined us to . Hence this divine motive, therefore, is prefixed with emphasis, quite in keeping with the character of ascription of praise marking the discourse. Consequently: in that He in love predestined us . Homberg has indeed conceived the relation of the time of to as: “ postquam nos praedestinavit adoptandos, elegit etiam nos, ut simus sancti;” but the usual view correctly conceives as coincident in point of time, and accomplished simultaneously with , so that it is regarded as the modus of the latter (see on , Eph 1:9 ). For the praedestinatio (the ) is never elsewhere distinguished from the election as something preceding it; it rather substantially coincides with it (hence at Rom 8:29 only the expression is used, while in Rom 8:33 only are mentioned), and only the is prior , Rom. l.c. Comp. Lampsing, Pauli de praedestinat. decreta , Leovard. 1858, p. 70. See on this use of the aorist participle, Hermann, ad Viger. p. 774; Bernhardy, p. 383; Winer, p. 321 [E. T. 430]. It is, we may add, purely arbitrary to distinguish and , so that the former should apply to individuals , the latter to the whole (Schenkel). Both verbs have in fact the same objects ( , which denotes the persons ); see on Rom 8:29 .

The in , beforehand , points to the future realization . Certainly the predestination has taken place before the creation of the world (Eph 1:4 ); but this is not expressed by , which rather looks always towards the future setting in of the thing predestined. See Rom 8:29 ; 1Co 2:7 ; Eph 1:11 ; Act 4:28 ; Heliod. p. 298, 14, p. 266, 15; Sopater in Walz, Rhet . V. p. 152, 20.

] are to be taken closely together: unto adoption through Jesus Christ in reference to Him , that is, He has destined us to stand in the relation of those assumed as children through mediation of Jesus Christ to Him (to God). Comp. Rom 8:29 . That is nowhere merely childship (as Meier and Bleek still take it here, following Usteri), but adoption , [96] see on Rom 7:15 ; Gal 4:5 . is never predicated of Christ Himself ; for He is the born Son of God (Rom 8:3 ; Gal 4:4 ), who procured for His own the assumption into the place of children (whereby they became de jure His brethren, Rom 8:29 ). The pre-eminence of Christ is therefore essential , not merely prototypal , as of the head of humanity; [97] He is the . Through adoption believers have passed out (comp. Rom 7:24 f.) of their natural state, in which they by sin were liable to the wrath of God (Eph 2:3 ), and have entered into the state of reconciliation, in which they, through the mediation of the reconciling death of Christ (Eph 1:6-7 ), by means of the faith in it which was counted to them for righteousness (Gal 3:26 ; Rom 4:5 ; Rom 4:23 f.), have forgiveness of sins, and are heirs of the Messianic blessedness (Eph 1:14 ; Gal 4:7 ; Rom 8:10-11 ; Rom 8:17 ), as a guarantee of which the Holy Spirit is given to them (Eph 1:14 ; Gal 4:6 ; Rom 8:16 ).

] does not apply to Christ (Anselm, Thomas, Castalio, Vorstius, Menochius, Cornelius a Lapide, and others, including de Wette), since Christ is mediator of the adoption, and this is a relation to God . This simple sense of reference toward is to be maintained, and we must not import either ad gloriam gratiae suae (Piscator; comp. Schenkel) or (Theophylact). At variance with linguistic usage, Beza, Calvin, and Calixtus take it for , and discover in it the independence of the divine ; and Grotius, Wolf, Baumgarten, Koppe, Holzhausen, Meier hold it as equivalent to sibi , (“as children, who rightly belong to Him as His own,” Meier). Comp. also on Col 1:20 .

We may add that here, too, we must not write (with Beza, Stephanus, Mill, Griesbach, Knapp, Meier, and others) , but . Comp. above on .

(not ): conformably to the pleasure of His will , just as it was the purpose of His will. Comp. Mat 11:26 ; Luk 10:21 . So Vulgate, Erasmus, Calvin, Bengel, Flatt, and others, including Rckert, de Wette, Bleek. It may also signify: according to the benevolence of His will (see, generally, Fritzsche, ad Rom. II. p. 369 ff.). So Harless, Olshausen, Baumgarten-Crusius, following older expositors. But this notion is already and more strongly contained in ; and the element which is here meant, of free self-determination , independent of all human desert, as regulative of the , is clearly pointed to in the parallel by . Comp. also Eph 1:11 ; 2Ti 1:9 .

[96] Even the old theocratic was adoption ; for the Jews were as such, and not as men generally, the chosen and peculiar people to whom the Messiah was promised. See on Rom 9:4 .

[97] In opposition to Beyschlag, Christol. d. N.T. p. 222 f.

REMARK.

Predestination is not made dependent on any sort of causa meritoria on the part of man (comp. Eph 1:11 ), but is simply an act of free divine kindness, whose determination has its causa impulsiva only in Christ; so that, in the case of the predestined subjects, faith is set forth as the causa apprehendens of the salvation destined for them (Rom 8:29 ); and with this Rom 9 , when rightly apprehended, agrees. The conditions mentally supplied by expositors (as e.g. Grotius, who finds in our passage “decretum ejus, quod Deus facere vult, si et homines faciant, quod debent; ” comp. already Jerome) remove the relation out of the sphere of the divine into that of dependence on human self-choice, and consequently into the domain of the accidental. The notion of absolute decree, however, breaks down before the as the necessary premiss of the divine a premiss, which doubtless involves the necessity of morally restricting the truncus aut lapis of the Formula Concordiae (comp. Luthardt, Lehre vom freien Willen , p. 272).

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

5 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,

Ver. 5. Having predestinated us ] Interpreters have observed that this word that signifies to predestinate is but six times to be found in the New Testament (never in the Old), being referred but twice to things, Act 4:28 ; 1Co 2:7 , four times to persons, Rom 8:29-30 Eph 1:5 ; Eph 1:11 , and never applied to reprobates, but to elect persons only. Howbeit divines under predestination do usually consider the decree both of election and reprobation. The doctrine hereof men should not adventure to teach till they have well learned and digested it. In the year 1586, Jacobus Andreas, the Lutheran, and Theodore Beza, conferred and disputed for eight days’ time at Montpelier: the issue of which conference was unhappy, for from that time forward the doctrine of predestination was much misused and exagitated. (Alsted. Chron.)

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

5 .] Having predestined us (subordinate to the : see Rom 8:29-30 , where the steps are thus laid down in succession; , , . Now the must answer in this rank to the , and precede the . Stier remarks well, “In God, indeed, all is one; but for our anthropomorphic way of speaking and treating, which is necessary to us, there follows on His first decree to adopt and to sanctify, the nearer decision, how and by what this shall be brought about, because it could only be thus brought about.” , as Pelagius (in Harless), “ad eos refertur qui antea non fuerunt, et priusquam fierent, de his cogitatum est et postea substiterunt”) unto adoption (so that we should become His sons, in the blessed sense of being reconciled to Him and having a place in His spiritual family, should have the remission of our sins, the pledge of the Spirit, the assurance of the inheritance) through Jesus Christ (THE SON of God, in and by whom, elementally and instrumentally, our adoption consists, cf. Rom 8:29 , . , ) to Him (the Father: see Col 1:20 , (Christ) (the Father). So Thdrt., all., Harl., Olsh., Meyer, Stier: and rightly, for the Son could not be in this sentence the terminus ultimus (the whole reference being to the work and purpose of the Father); and had this been intended, as Harl. remarks, we must have had . De W., who, after Anselm, Tho.-Aq., Castal., all., refers it to the Son, fails to answer this objection of Harl.’s. But now arise two questions: (1) the meaning. Does it merely represent , a dativus commodi? So Grot., al., but it cannot be, after the insertion of the special . ., that the sentence should again return to the general purpose. It seems much better, to join it with . . as in Col 1:20 , above: and so Harl., but too indefinitely, taking it only as a phrase common with the Apostle and not giving its full import. As in Col 1:20 , the , though thus intimately connected with , depends on , so here it must depend on , and its import must be ‘ to ( into ) Himself ,’ i.e. so that we should be partakers of the divine nature: cf. 2Pe 1:4 . (2) Should we read or ? It will depend on whether we refer this clause, from to , to the Father as its subject, or consider it as a continuation of the Apostle’s thanksgiving. And the latter is much the most likely; for had the former been the case, we should probably have had, instead of . , . ., so that reference to the Father might still be kept up. I decide therefore for , as Thdrt. certainly read, or his remark, , , would have been needless. And so Erasm., Wetst., Lachm., Harl., Olsh., Meyer. Then in Eph 1:6 naturally takes it up again) according to (in pursuance of) the good pleasure (it is disputed whether has here merely this general meaning of beneplacitum , or that of benevolentia . Harl. (see also Ellicott) examines thoroughly the use of the word by the LXX, and decides in favour of the latter , alleging especially, that a mere assertion of doctrine would be out of place in an ascription of thanksgiving. But surely this is a most unfortunate position. The facts on which doctrines rest are here the very subjects of the Apostle’s thanksgiving: and the strict parallels of Mat 11:26 , Luk 10:21 , should have kept him from adducing it. Granting, as we must, both senses to and , the context must in each case determine which is meant. And its testimony here is clear. It is, as De W. remarks, not in , but in , that the object, to which refers, is to be sought: and the subsequent recurrences to the same idea in Eph 1:9 and Eph 1:11 point out that it is not the Father’s benevolentia , but His beneplacitum , which is in the Apostle’s mind. And so Meyer, De W., Stier, and Ellic. This beneplacitum WAS benevolentia , Eph 1:6 ; but that does not affect the question. See, besides Harl., a long note in Fritz. on Rom 2 . p. 369) of His will ,

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Eph 1:5 . : having foreordained us . Better, in that He foreordained us . Wycl. gives “hath bifore ordeyned us”; Tynd. and Cranmer, “ordeyned us”; and so the RV, “foreordained”. But the Genevan, the Rhemish and the AV, following the praedestinavit of the Vulg., give “did predestinate us,” “hath predestinated us,” “having predestinated us”. While in Romans and Ephesians the AV adopts “predestinated,” in 1Co 2:7 it has “foreordained”. It is best to adopt foreordain all through, as means to determine before . The verb seems not to occur either in the LXX or in any Greek writer before Paul. It is found in Heliodorus, Ignatius, etc. In the NT it is always used of God as determining from eternity, sometimes with the further definition (1Co 2:7 ) decreeing to do something (Act 4:28 ); foreordaining things or persons (1Co 2:7 ; Rom 8:29 ff.); or, as here, appointing one beforehand to something. The in the compound verb expresses the fact that the decree is prior to the realisation of its object. The aor. part, may be taken as temporal (so the Syr.-Phil.), in which case the foreordination would be something prior (not in time , indeed, but in logical order) to the election , and the election would be defined as proceeding on the foreordination (Ell., Alf., etc.). But it may also be taken as modal , not prior to the election but coincident with it, and expressing the mode of its action or the form which it took “in that He foreordained us” (Mey., etc.). On this use of the aor. part, see Winer-Moul., Gram. , p. 430. This is the more probable view, because no real distinction appears to be made between the and the beyond what may be suggested by the in the one and the in the other; the idea in the being understood to be that of the mass from which the selection is made, and that of the the priority of the decree (Ell.). It is also to be noticed ( cf. Mey.) that both in Romans (Rom 8:29 ) and in 1 Peter (1Pe 1:2 ) it is the , not the , that is represented as antecedent to the election or as forming its ground. This Divine , like the Divine , has in the Pauline writings, in which it receives its loftiest, most complete, and most unqualified statement, not a speculative but an intensely practical interest, especially with regard to two things of most immediate personal concern the believer’s incentive to live in newness and holiness of life ( cf. Eph 2:10 ), and his encouragement to rest in the Divine salvation as for him an assured salvation. : unto adoption . Or, as the RV gives it, following the adoptio filiorum of the Vulg., “unto adoption as sons”. It is a Pauline term, and conveys an idea distinct from that of sonship and explanatory of it. The sonship of believers, the fact that they are children of God, with the privileges and responsibilities belonging to such, finds frequent expression in the NT writings. But it is only in the Pauline Epistles that the specific idea of occurs, and there in five instances (Rom 8:15 ; Rom 8:23 ; Rom 9:4 ; Gal 4:5 ; Eph 1:5 ). In one case it is applied to the special relation of Israel to God (Rom 9:4 ); thrice (Rom 8:15 ; Gal 4:5 ; Eph 1:5 ) it is used of the present position of believers in Christ; once (Rom 8:23 ) it refers to their future consummation, the resurrection of life that will be the full manifestation of their sonship. It is a term of relation , expressing our sonship in respect of standing . It appears to be taken from the Roman custom, with which Paul could not fail to be acquainted. Among the Jews there were cases of informal adoption, as in the instance of Mordecai and Esther (Est 2:7 ). But adoption in the sense of the legal transference of a child to a family to which it did not belong by birth had no place in the Jewish law. In Roman law, on the other hand, provision was made for the transaction known as adoptio , the taking of a child who was not one’s child by birth to be his son, and arrogatio , the transference of a son who was independent, as by the death of his proper father, to another father by solemn public act of the people. Thus among the Romans a citizen might receive a child who was not his own by birth into his family and give him his name, but he could do so only by a formal act, attested by witnesses, and the son thus adopted had in all its entirety the position of a child by birth, with all the rights and all the obligations pertaining to that. By “adoption,” therefore, Paul does not mean the bestowal of the full privileges of the family on those who are sons by nature, but the acceptance into the family of those who do not by nature belong to it, and the placing of those who are not sons originally and by right in the relation proper to those who are sons by birth. Hence is never affirmed of Christ; for he alone is Son of God by nature. So Paul regards our sonship, not as lying in the natural relation in which men stand to God as His children, but as implying a new relation of grace, founded on a covenant relation of God and on the work of Christ (Gal 4:5 ff.). : through Jesus Christ ; in this case not in Christ but through Him. That is, it is through the mediation of Christ that our adoption as sons is realised; cf. Gal 3:26 to Gal 4:7 . Elsewhere the ethical side of the sonship is expressed. For God not only brings us into the relation of sons, but makes us sons in inward reality and character, giving us the filial mind, leading us by His Spirit, translating us into the liberty of the glory of His children (Rom 8:12 ; Rom 8:14 ; Rom 8:21 ; Gal 4:6 ). : unto Himself , that is, not unto Christ , as De Wette, V. Soden, etc., still think, but unto God . Here, as in Eph 1:4 , we read , not (as Stephens, Mill, Griesbach, etc., put it), the writer giving it as from his own standpoint. How is this to be understood? It may mean simply that God Himself is the Father to whom we are brought into filial relation by adoption. In that case the point would be the glory of the adoption, inasmuch as it is God Himself and none less than He who becomes our Father by it and to whom the foreordination into the position of sons looks. Or it may be the deeper idea that God Himself is the end of the foreordination, as Christ is its medium or channel. The is not to be confused with , nor would the idea thus be reduced to that of simple possession. Here the may rather have its most definite force, expressing the goal of all. The final object of God’s foreordination of us to the standing of sons is to bring us to Himself, into perfect fellowship with Him, into adoring, loving relation to Himself as the true End and Object of our being. : according to the good Pleasure of His will . Wycl. gives “by the purpose of His will”; Rhem., “according to the purpose of His will”; Tynd., “according to the pleasure of His will”; Cran., Gen., AV, “according to the good pleasure of His will”. The noun (Vulg.-Clem., beneplacitum ) is a biblical term. It is not current in profane Greek, but represents the of the OT (especially in the Psalms), and occurs a good many times in Sir. In the NT it is found thrice in the Gospels (Mat 11:26 ; Luk 2:14 ; Luk 10:21 ), and six times in the Pauline Epistles (Rom 10:1 ; Eph 1:5 ; Eph 1:9 ; Phi 1:15 ; Phi 2:13 ; 2Th 1:11 ), but nowhere else. It has the sense ( a ) of will (Mat 11:26 ; Luk 10:21 ), passing into that of desire (Rom 10:1 ); and ( b ) of good will (Luk 2:14 ; Eph 1:9 ; Phi 1:15 ; Phi 2:13 ), passing into that of delight or satisfaction (2Th 1:11 ). Here it is taken by most (Mey., De Wette, Stier., Alf., Ell., Abbott, etc.) in the sense of beneplacitum, purpose, sovereign counsel , as equivalent to in Eph 1:11 . Light., e.g. , is of opinion that, while its central idea is “satisfaction,” it will “only then mean ‘benevolence’ when the context points to some person towards whom the satisfaction is felt”. He refers to in Mat 3:17 , and contends that without such indication of a personal object “the satisfaction is felt in the action itself, so that the word is used absolutely, and signifies ‘good pleasure,’ in the sense of ‘desire,’ ‘purpose,’ ‘design’ ” ( Notes, ut sup. , 314). But in the Pauline Epistles, when it is used of God, it is a term of grace, expressing “good pleasure” as kind intent, gracious will, and even when used of man it conveys the same idea of goodness (Rom 10:1 ; Phi 1:15 ). Nor does the connotation appear to be different in the occurrences in the Gospels (Mat 11:26 ; Luk 2:14 ; Luk 10:21 ). In the present passage it is only in relation to the grace of His dealings with sinful men that reference is made to the will of God. The clause in question presents that grace in the particular aspect of its sovereign, unmerited action. It adds the last note to the statement of the wonders of the Divine election by expressing the fact that that election and God’s foreordination of us unto adoption are not due to any desert in us or anything outside God Himself, but are acts of His own pure goodness, originating only and wholly in the freedom of His own thoughts and loving counsel.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

EPHESIANS

ACCORDING TO’-I.

Eph 1:5 ; Eph 1:7 .

That phrase, ‘according to,’ is one of the key-words of this profound epistle, which occurs over and over again, like a refrain. I reckon twelve instances of it in three chapters of the letter, and they all introduce one or other of the two thoughts which appear in the two fragments that I have taken for my text. They either point out how the great blessings of Christ’s mission have underlying them the divine purpose, or they point out how the process of the Christian life in the individual has for its source and measure the abundances, the wealth of the grace and the power of God. So in both aspects the facts of earth are traced up to, and declared to be, the outcome of the heavenly depths, and that gives solemnity, grandeur, elevation, to this epistle all its own. We are carried, as it were, away up into the recesses of the mountains of God, and we look down upon the unruffled, mysterious, deep lake, from which come the rivers that water all the plains beneath.

Now of these two types of reference to the divine will and the divine wealth, I should like to gather together the instances, as they occur in this letter, in so far as I can, in the course of a sermon, touching them, it must be, very imperfectly. But I fear that it is impossible to deal with both the phases of this ‘according to,’ in one discourse. So I confine myself to that which is suggested by the first of our two texts, in the hope that some other day we may be able to overtake the other. So then, we have set before us here the Christian thought of the divine will which underlies, and therefore is manifest by, the work of Jesus Christ, in its whole sweep and breadth. And I just take up the various instances in which this expression occurs in a great variety of forms, but all retaining substantially the same meaning.

I. Note that that divine will which underlies and is operative in, and therefore is certified to us by the whole work of Jesus Christ, in its facts and its consequences, is a ‘good pleasure.’

Now there are few thoughts which the history of the world has shown to be more productive of iron and steel in the human character than that of the sovereign will of God. That made Islam, and is the secret of its power to-day, amidst its many corruptions. Because these wild desert tribes were all stiffened, or I might say inflamed, by that profound conviction, the sovereign will of God, they came down like a hammer upon that corrupt so-called Christian Church, and swept it off the face of the earth, as it deserved to be swept. And the same thought of the sovereign will, of which we are but instruments-pawns on its chessboard-made the grand seventeenth century Puritanism in England, and its sister type of men and of religion in Holland. For this is a historically proved thesis, that there is nothing which so contributes to the formation, and valuation of, and the readiness to die for, civil liberty, as the firm grasp of that thought of the divine sovereignty. Just because a man realises that the will of God is supreme over all the earth, he rebels against all forms of human despotism.

But with all the good that is in that great thought-and the Christianity of this day sorely wants the strength that might be given it by the exhibition of that steel medicine-it wants another, ‘the good pleasure of His will.’ And that word, ‘good pleasure,’ does not express, as I think, in Paul’s usage of it, the simple notion of sovereignty, but always the notion of a benevolent sovereignty. It is ‘the good pleasure’-as it is put in another place by the same Apostle-’of His goodness.’ And that thought, let in upon the solemnity and severity of the other one, is all that it needs in order to make the man who grasps it not only a hero in conflict, and a patient martyr in endurance, but a child in his Father’s house, rejoicing in the love of his Father everywhere and always.

Paul would have us believe that if we will take the work of Jesus Christ in the facts of His life, and its results upon humanity, as our horn-book and lesson, we shall draw from that some conceptions of the great thing that underlies it, ‘the good pleasure of His will.’ We stand in front of this complex universe, and some of us say: ‘Law’; and some of us say: ‘A Lawgiver behind the law; a Person at the heart of all things’; but unless we can say: ‘And in the heart of the Person a will, which is the expression of a steadfast, omnipotent love,’ then the world seems to me to be a place of unsolvable riddles and a torture-house. There goes the great steam-roller along the road. Everybody can see that it crushes down, and makes its own path. Who drives it? The steam in the boiler, or is there a hand on the lever? And what drives the hand? Christianity answers, and answers with unfaltering lip, rising clear above contradictions apparent and difficulties real, ‘The good pleasure of His will,’ and there men can rest.

Then there is another step. Another form in which this ‘according to’ appears in this letter is, if we adopt the rendering, which I am disposed to do in the present case, of the Authorised Version rather than of the Revised, ‘according to His good pleasure … which He hath purposed in Himself.’ The Revised Version says, ‘Which He hath purposed in Him,’ and that is a perfectly possible rendering. But to me the old one is not only more eloquent, but more in accordance with the connection. So I venture to accept it without further ado-’His good pleasure which He hath purposed in Himself.’

That brings us into the presence of that same great thought, which in another aspect is expressed in saying ‘His name is Jehovah,’ and in yet another aspect is expressed in saying ‘God is love,’ viz. the thought which sounds familiar, but which has in it depths of strength and illumination and joy, if we rightly ponder it, that, to use human words, the motive of the divine action is all found within the divine nature.

We love one another because we discern, or think we discern, lovable qualities in the being on whom our love falls. God loves because He is God. That great artesian fountain wells up from the depths, by its own sweet impulse, and pours itself out; and ‘the good pleasure of His goodness’ has no other explanation than that it is His nature and property to be merciful. And so, dear brethren, we get clean past what has sometimes been the misapprehension of good people, and has oftener been the caricatured representation of Evangelical truth which its enemies have put forth-that God was made to love and pity by reason of the sacrifice of the Son, whereas the very opposite is the case. God loves, therefore He sent His Son, ‘that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life,’ and the notion of the Cross of Christ as changing the divine heart is as far away from Evangelical truth as it is from the natural conceptions that men form of the divine nature. We shake hands with our so-called antagonists and say, ‘Yes! we believe as much as you do that God does not love us because Christ died, but we believe what perhaps you do not, that Christ died because God loves us, and would save us.’ ‘The good pleasure which He hath purposed in Himself.’

Then, still further, there is another aspect of this same divine will brought out in other parts of this letter, of which this is a specimen, ‘Having made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He hath purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fulness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ,’ which, being turned into more modern phraseology, is just this-that the great aim of that divine sovereign will, self-originated, full of loving-kindness to the world, is to manifest to all men what God is, that all men may know Him for what He is, and thereby be drawn back again, and grouped in peaceful unity round His Son, Jesus Christ. That is the intention which is deepest in the divine heart, the desire which God has most for every one of us. And when the Old Testament tells us that the great motive of the divine action is for ‘My own Name’s sake,’ that expression might be so regarded as to disclose an ugly despot, who only wants to be reverenced by abject and submissive subjects. But what it really means is this, that the divine love which hovers over its poor, prodigal children because it is love, and, therefore, lovingly delights in a loving recognition and response, desires most of all that all the wanderers should see the light, and that every soul of man should be able to whisper, with loving heart, the name, ‘Abba! Father!’ Is not that an uplifting thought as being the dominant motive which puts in action the whole of the divine activity? God created in order that He might fling His light upon creatures, who should thereby be glad. And God has redeemed in order that in Jesus Christ we might see Him, and, seeing Him, be at rest, and begin to grow like Him. This is the aim, ‘That they might know Thee, the only true God … whom to know is eternal life.’ And so self-communication and self-revelation is the very central mystery of the will.

But that is not all. Another of the forms in which this phrase occurs tells us that that great purpose, the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord, was that, ‘Now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known’ by the Church ‘the manifold wisdom of God.’ And so we get another thought, that that whole work of redemption, operated by the Incarnation, and culminating in the Crucifixion and Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus Christ, stands as being the means by which other orders of creatures, besides ourselves, learn to know ‘the manifold wisdom of God.’ According to the grand old saying, at Creation the ‘morning stars sang together for joy.’ All spiritual creatures, be they ‘higher’ or ‘lower,’ can only know God by the observation of His acts.

‘‘Twas great to speak a world from nought,‘Tis greater to redeem,’

and the same angelic lips that sang these praises on the morning of Creation have learnt a new song that they sing; ‘Glory and honour and dominion and power be unto the Lamb that was slain.’

Thus to principalities and powers, a diviner height in the loftiness, and a diviner depth in the condescension, and a diviner tenderness in the love, and a diviner energy in the power, of the redeeming God have been made known, and this is the thought of His eternal purpose. And that brings me to another point which is involved in the words that I have just quoted, which stand in connection with those that I have previously referred to. The phrase ‘eternal purpose’ literally rendered is, ‘the purpose of the ages,’ and that, no doubt, may mean ‘eternal’ in the sense of running on through all the ages; or it may mean, perhaps, that which we usually attach to the word ‘eternal,’ viz. unbeginning and unending. I take the former meaning as the more probable one, that the Apostle contemplates that great will of God which culminates in Jesus Christ, as coming solemnly sweeping through all the epochs of time from the beginning. In a deeper sense than the poet meant it, ‘Through the ages an increasing purpose runs,’ and that binds the epochs of humanity together-’the purpose of God in Christ Jesus.’ The philosophy of history lies there, and it is a true instinct that makes the cradle at Bethlehem the pivot around which the world’s chronology revolves. For the deepest thing about all the ages on the further side of it is that they are ‘Before Christ,’ and the formative fact for all the ages after it is that they are Anno Domini.

And now the last thing that is suggested by yet another of these eloquent expressions is deduced from another part of the same phrase. The purpose of the ages is described as that which ‘He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ Now the word ‘purposed’ literally is ‘made.’ And it may be a question whether ‘purposed’ or ‘accomplished’ is the special meaning to be attached to the general word ‘made.’ Either is legitimate. I take it that what the Apostle means here is that the purpose of God, which we have thus seen as sovereign, self-originated, having for its great aim the communication to all His creatures of the knowledge of Himself, and running through the ages, and binding them into a unity, reaches its entire accomplishment in the Cradle, and the Cross, and the Throne of Jesus Christ our Lord.

He fulfils the divine intention. There is that one life, and in that life alone of humanity you have a character which is in entire sympathy with the divine mind, which is in full possession of the divine truth, which never diverges or deviates by a hair’s-breadth from the divine will, which is the complete and perfect exponent to man of the divine heart and character; and that Christ is the fulfilment of all that God desired in the depths of eternity, and the abysses of His being. Did He will that men should know Him? Christ has declared Him. Did He will that men should be drawn back to Him? Christ lifted on the Cross draws all men unto Him. Was it ‘according to the good pleasure of His goodness’ that we men should attain to the adoption of sons? By that Son we too became sons. Was it the purpose of His will that we should obtain an ‘inheritance’? We obtain it in Jesus Christ, ‘being heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.’ All that God willed to do is done. And when we look, on the one hand, up to that infinite purpose, and on the other, to the Cross, we hear from the dying lips, ‘It is finished!’ The purpose of the ages is accomplished in Christ Jesus.

Is it accomplished with you? I have been speaking about the divine counsel which is a ‘good pleasure,’ which runs through the whole history of mankind. But it is a divine purpose that you can thwart as far as you are concerned. ‘How often would I have gathered … and ye would not,’ and your ‘would not’ neutralises His ‘would.’ Do not stand in the way of the steam-roller. You cannot stop it, but it can crush you. Do not have Him say about you, ‘In vain have I smitten, in vain have I loved.’ Bow, accept, recognise that all God’s armoury is brought to bear upon each of us in that great Cross and Passion, in that great Incarnation and human life. And I beseech you, in your hearts, let the will of God be done even as for a world it has been done by the sacrifice of Calvary.

Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren

predestinated = foreordained. Greek. proorizo. See Act 4:28. Rom 8:29.

unto, to. Greek. eis. App-104.

adoption of children. Greek. huiothesia. See Rom 8:15. Compare App-108.

according to. Greek. kata. App-104.

good pleasure. Greek. eudokia. See Rom 10:1.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

5.] Having predestined us (subordinate to the : see Rom 8:29-30, where the steps are thus laid down in succession;- , – , . Now the must answer in this rank to the , and precede the . Stier remarks well, In God, indeed, all is one; but for our anthropomorphic way of speaking and treating, which is necessary to us, there follows on His first decree to adopt and to sanctify, the nearer decision, how and by what this shall be brought about, because it could only be thus brought about. ,-as Pelagius (in Harless),-ad eos refertur qui antea non fuerunt, et priusquam fierent, de his cogitatum est et postea substiterunt) unto adoption (so that we should become His sons, in the blessed sense of being reconciled to Him and having a place in His spiritual family,-should have the remission of our sins, the pledge of the Spirit, the assurance of the inheritance) through Jesus Christ (THE SON of God, in and by whom, elementally and instrumentally, our adoption consists, cf. Rom 8:29, . , ) to Him (the Father: see Col 1:20, (Christ) (the Father). So Thdrt., all., Harl., Olsh., Meyer, Stier: and rightly, for the Son could not be in this sentence the terminus ultimus (the whole reference being to the work and purpose of the Father); and had this been intended, as Harl. remarks, we must have had . De W., who, after Anselm, Tho.-Aq., Castal., all., refers it to the Son, fails to answer this objection of Harl.s. But now arise two questions: (1) the meaning. Does it merely represent , a dativus commodi? So Grot., al., but it cannot be, after the insertion of the special . ., that the sentence should again return to the general purpose. It seems much better, to join it with . . as in Col 1:20, above: and so Harl., but too indefinitely, taking it only as a phrase common with the Apostle and not giving its full import. As in Col 1:20, the , though thus intimately connected with , depends on , so here it must depend on , and its import must be to (into) Himself,-i.e. so that we should be partakers of the divine nature: cf. 2Pe 1:4. (2) Should we read or ? It will depend on whether we refer this clause, from to , to the Father as its subject, or consider it as a continuation of the Apostles thanksgiving. And the latter is much the most likely; for had the former been the case, we should probably have had, instead of . , . ., so that reference to the Father might still be kept up. I decide therefore for , as Thdrt. certainly read, or his remark, , , would have been needless. And so Erasm., Wetst., Lachm., Harl., Olsh., Meyer. Then in Eph 1:6 naturally takes it up again) according to (in pursuance of) the good pleasure (it is disputed whether has here merely this general meaning of beneplacitum, or that of benevolentia. Harl. (see also Ellicott) examines thoroughly the use of the word by the LXX, and decides in favour of the latter, alleging especially, that a mere assertion of doctrine would be out of place in an ascription of thanksgiving. But surely this is a most unfortunate position. The facts on which doctrines rest are here the very subjects of the Apostles thanksgiving: and the strict parallels of Mat 11:26, Luk 10:21, should have kept him from adducing it. Granting, as we must, both senses to and , the context must in each case determine which is meant. And its testimony here is clear. It is, as De W. remarks, not in , but in , that the object, to which refers, is to be sought: and the subsequent recurrences to the same idea in Eph 1:9 and Eph 1:11 point out that it is not the Fathers benevolentia, but His beneplacitum, which is in the Apostles mind. And so Meyer, De W., Stier, and Ellic. This beneplacitum WAS benevolentia, Eph 1:6; but that does not affect the question. See, besides Harl., a long note in Fritz. on Romans 2. p. 369) of His will,

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Eph 1:5

Eph 1:5

having foreordained us-There is no doubt but there is a certain foreordination taught in the Bible. In the passage before us it is clearly taught, as well as in some others. Jesus said: And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and they shall become one flock, one shepherd. (Joh 10:16). In this he recognizes that he had a flock that were not then following him as the Shepherd. At Corinth the Lord said unto Paul: Be not afraid, but speak and hold not thy peace: for I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to harm thee: for I have much people in this city. (Act 18:9-10). They had not yet believed, but God calls them his people. The meaning of both passages is that there were a number of persons of that frame of mind and disposition of heart that when they heard the gospel they would believe and obey it.

unto adoption as sons-[Adoption is a term of relation, expressing sonship in respect of standing. It was taken from the Roman custom, that was made for the taking of a child who was not ones child by birth to be his son, and legal heir, the transference of a son who was independent, as by the death of his natural father, to another father. Thus among the Romans a citizen might receive a child who was not his own by birth into his family and give him his name, but could do so only by a formal act, attested by witnesses, and the son thus adopted had in all its entirety the position of a child by birth, with all the rights and all the obligations pertaining to that relation. By adoption, therefore, Paul does not mean the bestowal of the full privileges of the family on those who are sons by nature, but the acceptance into the family of those who do not by nature belong to it, and the placing of those who are not sons originally and by right in the relation proper to those who are sons by birth. So Paul regards our sonship not as lying in the natural relation in which men stand to God as his children, but as implying a new relation of grace, founded on a covenant relation to God and on the work of Christ. (Gal 4:5-7). ]

through Jesus Christ unto himself,-It is through the mediation of Christ that the adoption of men is realized. (Gal 3:26 to Gal 4:7). He not only brings men into relation as sons, but makes them sons in inward reality and character, giving them the filial mind, leading them by his Spirit (Rom 8:12-14; Gal 4:6; Gal 5:18), translating them into the liberty of the glory of his children. The final object of Gods foreordination of men to the standing as sons is to bring them to himself, into perfect fellowship with himself as the true end and object of their being.

according to the good pleasure of his will,-God foreordained the provisions of salvation, the characters that should be saved, and the conditions and tests by which they would be saved. He left every man free to choose or reject the terms and provisions of salvation and in so doing to refuse to form the character God has foreordained to be his children and so predestined to everlasting life.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

predestinated

Predestination is that effective exercise of the will of God by which things before determined by Him are brought to pass. See Election,

(See Scofield “1Pe 1:2”)

Foreknowledge, (See Scofield “1Pe 1:20”)

adoption

Adoption (huiothesia, “placing as a son”) is not so much a word of relationship as of position. The believer’s relation to God as a child results from the new birth Joh 1:12; Joh 1:13 whereas adoption is the act of God whereby one already a child is, through redemption from the law, placed in the position of an adult son. Gal 4:1-5.

The indwelling Spirit gives the realization of this in the believer’s present experience Gal 4:6 but the full manifestation of the believer’s sonship awaits the resurrection, change, and translation of saints, which is called “the redemption of the body”; Rom 8:23; 1Th 4:14-17; Eph 1:14; 1Jn 3:2.

Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes

predestinated: Eph 1:11, Rom 8:29, Rom 8:30

unto: Jer 3:4, Jer 3:19, Hos 1:10, Joh 1:12, Joh 11:52, Rom 8:14-17, Rom 8:23, 2Co 6:18, Gal 4:5, Gal 4:6, Heb 12:5-9, 1Jo 3:1, Rev 21:7

by: Joh 20:17, Gal 3:26, Heb 2:10-15

according: Eph 1:9, Eph 1:11, Dan 4:35, Mat 1:25, Mat 11:26, Luk 10:21, Luk 11:32, Rom 9:11-16, 1Co 1:1, 1Co 1:21, Phi 2:13, 2Th 1:11

Reciprocal: Gen 48:5 – are mine Psa 51:18 – thy Isa 43:21 – General Isa 53:10 – the pleasure Mat 18:14 – it is Luk 12:32 – it is Joh 13:31 – and God Rom 8:15 – the Spirit Rom 11:5 – election of grace 1Co 12:18 – as it Gal 1:15 – it 2Th 2:13 – chosen Heb 2:4 – according 1Pe 1:2 – Elect 2Jo 1:1 – the elect lady

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

(Eph 1:5.) – In love having predestinated us for the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself. Still another or third ground of praise. , , , says Chrysostom, and Jerome renders in charitate praedestinans. Saints enjoy the privilege and heritage of adoption. The source of this blessing is love, and that love, unrestrained and self-originated, has developed its power and attachment-according to the good pleasure of His will. This verse is, to some extent, only a different phase of the truth contained in the preceding one. The idea of adoption was a favourite one with the apostle-Rom 8:14-15; Rom 8:19; Rom 8:23; Rom 9:4; 2Co 6:18; Gal 3:7; Gal 3:26; Gal 4:5-7; Heb 2:10; Heb 12:5-8, etc. In the Old Testament, piety is denominated by the filial relationship sons of God. Gen 6:2. The theocratic connection of Israel with God is also pictured by the same tender tie. Exo 4:22; Jer 3:19; Hos 1:10. – -conveys a similar idea, with this distinction, that the sonship is not a natural but a constituted relationship, for the was quite distinct from the . The idea here is not merely that of sonship, as Usteri imagines, but sonship acquired by adoption. Paulin. Lehrbegriff, p. 194. Whatever blessings were implied or shadowed out in the Israelitish adoption, belong now to Christians. For they possess a likeness to their Father in the lustrous lineaments of His moral character, and they have the enjoyment of His special love, the privilege of near and familiar access, the wholesome and necessary discipline withheld from the bastard or foundling-Heb 12:8 -and a rich provision at the same time out of His glorious fulness, for they have an inheritance, as is told in Eph 1:11. God and all that God is, God and all that God has, is their boundless and eternal possession-1Co 3:21-23 -to be enjoyed in that home whose material glories are only surpassed by its spiritual splendours. Adoption is, therefore, a combined subjective view of the cardinal blessings of justification and sanctification.

-The signification of the verb is, to mark out beforehand, and it is the act of God. We were marked out for adoption-; not before others, but before time. The does not of itself express this, but the spirit of the context would lead to this conclusion. The general idea is the same as that involved in , though there is a specific distinction. The end preappointed-, is implied in the one; the mass out of which choice is made-, is glanced at by the other. In the first case, the Divine mind is supposed to look forward to the glorious destiny to which believers are set apart; in the second case, it looks down upon the undeserving stock out of which it chose them. may indicate an action prior to -Having foreappointed us to the adoption of children, He chose us in Christ Jesus. Donaldson, 574; Winer, 45, 1. Homberg-Parerga, p. 286-thus paraphrases, Postquam nos praedestinavit adoptandos, elegit etiam nos, ut simus sancti. But as the action both of verb and participle belongs to God, we would rather take the participle as synchronous with the verb. Bernhardy, p. 383. For though the order of the Divine decrees is a subject too high for us, as we can neither grasp infinitude nor span eternity, yet we may say that there is oneness and not succession of thought in God’s mind, simultaneous idea and not consecutive arrangement. See Martensen’s Christliche Dogmatik, 207, 208, 209; Kiel, 1855. The doctrine taught is, that our reception of the blessings, prerogatives, and prospects implied in adoption, is not of our own merit, but is wholly of God. The returning prodigal does not win his way back into the paternal mansion. This purpose to accept us existed ere the fact of our apostasy had manifested itself , and being without epoch of origin, it comes not within the limits of chronology. It pre-existed time. It is strange to find the German psychology attempting to revive out of these words Origen’s dream of the pre-existence of souls. Surely it forgets that He whose mind comprises beginning and end, calls things that are not, as though they were.

-not simply for Christ’s sake, but by means of His mediation, since but for Him the family had never been constituted. God’s Son is the first-born of the vast household, and fraternal relation to Him is filial relation to God.

-to Himself. It matters not much whether the reading be or . The former, coming so closely after I. X., is certainly preferable, while the latter reading has at least the merit of settling the reference. Griesbach, Knapp, and Scholz, following Beza, Stephens, and Mill, have . Other editors, such as Erasmus, Wetstein, Lachmann, and Tischendorf, prefer , and they are supported by Harless, Olshausen, and Meyer. The reference of the word, however, is plainly to God. , -Theodoret. Some, indeed, refer the pronoun to Christ. The scholastic interpreters, Anselm and Thomas Aquinas, did this, and they have been followed by Vorstius, Bullinger, a-Lapide, and Goodwin, who, however, as his manner is, combines both the views; the Holy Ghost, he adds, intended both. But these expositors are more or less paraphrastic and wide of the truth. Others, referring it to God, give it the signification of a dative, such as Calvin, Beza, and Calixtus, and join the words with , and find in the formula this idea, that the cause of our adoption lies only in God, that predestination is not caused by any motive or power foreign to Himself-extra seipsum. But this exegesis is a capricious and unwarranted construction of with its accusative. Others, again, take it as a dativus commodi for , as Grotius, Koppe, Holzhausen, and Meier: God has made us His own children, a meaning which does not bring out the full force of the word. Not very different is the explanation of Rckert, who makes it equivalent to in the genitive-He has predestined us to His own adoption. The apostle does not use the preposition where a simple dative or genitive woul d have sufficed. Others, retaining the undoubted meaning of the accusative, would render it in various ways. Piscator translates-Ad gloriam gratiae suae. Theophylact, with OEcumenius, explains, -adoption leading to Him. Olshausen’s notion is not dissimilar. De Wette renders simply fr ihn; that is, for Him whose glory is the ultimate end of the great work of redemption. Theodore of Mopsuestia thus expounds it, . Something of the truth lies in all those modes of explanation, with the exception of the view of Calvin, and those who think with him. occurs twice in the verse, first pointing out the nearer object of , and then the relation of the spiritual adoption to God. In such a case as the last, indicates a relation different from the simple dative, and one often found in the theology of the apostle. Winer, 49, a, c (), 31, 5. Adoption has its medium in Christ: but it has its ultimate enjoyment and blessing in God. Himself is our Father-HIS household we enter-HIS welcome we are saluted with-HIS name and dignity we wear-HIS image we possess-HIS discipline we receive-and HIS home, secured and prepared for us, we hope for ever to dwell in. To HIMSELF we are adopted. The origin of this privilege and distinction is the Divine love. That love was not originated by us, nor is it an essential feeling on the part of God, for it has been exercised-

-according to the good pleasure of His will. , as usual, denotes rule or measure. Winer, 49, d (a). , according to Jerome a word coined by the Seventy, rebus novis nova verba fingentes, has two meanings; that of will-it seems good to me-voluntas liberrima-mere good pleasure; and that of benevolence or goodwill. The former meaning is held by Chrysostom ( ), by Grotius, Calvin, Flatt, Rckert, de Wette, Ellicott, and Stier, with the Vulgate and Syriac. The notion of goodwill, or benignant purpose, is advocated by Drusius, Beza, Bodius, Rell, Harless, Olshausen, and Baumgarten-Crusius. Such is its prevailing acceptation in the Septuagint, as representing the Hebrew , H8356. The translators gave this rendering on purpose and with discrimination, for when , H8356, signifies will or decree, as it sometimes does, they render it by . Compare Psa 51:19; Psa 89:18; Psa 105:4, with Est 1:8; Psa 29:5; Psa 40:8; Dan 8:4; Dan 11:3; Dan 11:16, etc. The Seventy render the proper name (Delight), Son 6:4, by , Symmachus by . In the New Testament the meaning is not different. Luk 2:14; Rom 10:1; Php 1:15; Php 2:13. Mat 11:26, and the parallel passage, Luk 10:21, may admit of the other meaning, and yet, as Harless suggests, the context, with its verb , seems to support the more common signification. Fritzsche, ad Rom. 2.369, note. Ellicott virtually gives up his decision, by admitting that goodness is necessarily involved; and the philological and contextual arguments of Hodge for the first view are utterly inconclusive. We agree with de Wette that the reference in is to be sought, not in the , but in ; but it defines His will as being something more than a mere decree resting on sovereignty, and there is on this account all the more reason why praise is due, for the clause is still connected with . OEcumenius well defines it, . Theodoret says, that the Sacred Scripture understands by ,- . . The -not an Attic term (Phrynichus, ed. Lobeck, p. 7)-in itself simple purpose, has in it an element of . Benignity characterizes His unbiassed will.

And the proof of this statement is plain to a demonstration. For though adoption among men usually results from childlessness, and because no son has a seat on their hearth, they bring home the orphaned wanderer, no motive of this kind has place with God. His heart rejoices over myriads of His unfallen progeny, and His glory would not have been unseen, nor His praises unsung, though this fallen world had sunk into endless and hopeless perdition. Again, while men adopt a child not merely because they like it, but because they think it likeable in features or in temper, there was nothing in us to excite God’s love, nay there was everything to quench it in such a ruined and self-ruined creature. So plain is it, that if God love and adopt us, that love has no assignable reason save the good pleasure of His will. In endeavouring to show that the occurrence of after is no tautology, Olshausen says, that refers to the proper essence of God, and that brings out the prominent benevolence of the individual act of His will. The opinion of Harless is similar, that is the general emotion, and that its special expression as the result of will is contained in . Perhaps the apostle’s meaning is, that while adoption is the correlative fruit of love, purpose, special and benign, has its peculiar and appropriate sphere of action in predestination–. There is will, for if God love sinners so as to make them sons, it is not because His nature necessitates it, but because He wills it. Yet this will clothes itself, not in bare decree, but in good pleasure, and such good pleasure is seen deepening into love in their actual inbringing. The idea of this clause is therefore quite different from that of the last clause of Eph 5:11.

Fuente: Commentary on the Greek Text of Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians and Phillipians

Eph 1:5. The pronoun us stands for the apostles, whose work (not personal destiny) had been foreordained by the Lord. That work is designated by the phrase adoption of children. The term adoption is proper, since becoming children by birth can be accomplished only by the actions of the prospective parents. But it is possible for “outside” parties to work upon the individuals concrened, in persuading and arranging for them to be adopted into a family. The apostles did such work through the prospective Elder Brother, Jesus Christ. Good pleasure of his will. Sometimes a man will adopt an orphan from a humane motive or feeling for an unfortunate. But God has a pleasure in adopting the needy ones hence He willed it to be done according to the divine plan,

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Eph 1:5. In love having predestinated us. The tense here used does not imply that the predestination preceded the election; the two may be regarded as synchronous. There is no grammatical objection to the former view, but there seems to be no instance in the N. T. which establishes the priority of predestination. The word predestine (fore-ordain) refers to choosing for a preappointed end; the word translated chose (Eph 1:4) points to the fact that the choice has been made out of a mass. If in love be connected with this verse, it gives special emphasis to the motive of the predestination. These things, at which men cavil, are prompted by love, and will be apprehended only when men respond in love.

Unto adoption. The end of the foreordaining is that we may be placed in the position of sons, enjoy the privileges of sons; comp. Rom 8:15-29. Christ is the first-born, the only begotten Son; we are foreordained unto adoption, to become His brethren.

Through Jesus Christ unto himself. Jesus Christ is the personal mediator through whom this adoption takes place; the end of it is unto Himself, i.e., to lead us into, and unite us to God (Ellicott). Himself does not refer to Christ. All this constitutes the end of the predestination.

According to the good pleasure of his will. The word good-pleasure has two meanings: (1.) good-pleasure, what one pleases to do, because good to him, or (2.) benevolence, what involves good will to others. The former is the sense here, as the context plainly indicates. The freedom of Gods will is here asserted, and for us this thought is an all-important one. If God is not free, then our freedom is impossible. If He is not free, His benevolence is of little value to sinners. On will, see Eph 1:11.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

That is, “having predestinated us Gentiles, who in the esteem of the Jews were accounted dogs, to be his adopted sons and daughters, in and by Jesus Christ, in whom he hath made us accepted, to the abundant praise and glory of his free grace and mercy.”

Observe here, 1. That none are the children of God by nature: none are born sons, but made sons; not of their own, but God’s making; and in order to this glorious privilege, we were predestinated unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ.

Observe, 2. The attribute mentioned here by the apostle, which moved God to predestinate us to the adoption of children: it was the glory of his grace, he mentions not the glory of his holiness, the glory of his justice, or the glory of his power, because the glory of his power is manifested in making of the world, the glory of his holiness in making of his law, the glory of his justice in turning the transgressors of that law into hell; but his grace he shows no where so much as in the predestination ofhis children, and in what he hath predestinated them unto; he showeth indeed all his attributes herein, but grace over and above all the rest.

Observe 3. The effect and fruit of this privilege, namely, of our being predestinated to the adoption of children, and that is, our being made accepted in Christ the Beloved; the word is properly rendered, He hath made us dear, precious, and delightful, to himself; or in one word, He hath ingratiated us.

Here note, That as Jesus Christ is in an eminent manner beloved of God and accepted with him, so in like manner all God’s adopted children do, and shall, find favour with God, and acceptance through Christ: He hath made us freely accepted in the Beloved.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

God’s Sons By Adoption

Under Roman law, a Roman citizen could take one not his child by birth and make him his child through a legal act properly attested to and witnessed. The child would thereby gain all the rights and privileges of a son in the family. Similarly, those who because of their sinfulness were children of the devil can become children of God through the work of Jesus Christ ( Gal 4:4-7 ; Rom 8:1-17 ). All of this was, and is, accomplished in accord with what is pleasing to God. It should be noted that an adopted child is specially chosen, never becoming a son without forethought on the part of the father ( Eph 1:5 ).

We become his adopted sons with the express purpose of praising and glorifying the Father and his great grace ( Mat 5:13-16 ). The words “has made” are in the past tense, which indicates God in a one time act made provision for our acceptance ( Heb 9:28 ). Jesus’ death stands as a one time sacrifice for our sins and can make us accepted in Christ Jesus, or “the Beloved” ( Gal 3:26-27 ). This can only happen in him ( Eph 1:6 ).

Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books

5-8. In love having predestinated us unto sonship in himself through Jesus Christ. Here is a beautiful allusion to the Fathers love, which moved him to interpose the wonderful redemptive scheme.

O for this love let rocks and hills Their lasting silence break, And all harmonious human tongues Their Saviors praises speak.

Angels, assist our mighty joys; Strike all your harps of gold;

But when you reach your highest notes, His love can neer be told.

Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament

Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,

Upppps, more theology, sorry all you pastors that can’t stand theology – just skip over this book would you. I trust that those that demean theology will soon rethink their lack of thought. Theology is throughout the Word of God, AND He parked a goodly amount of it right here in this short book.

In the newspaper recently people have been writing to the editor complaining that their political signs are being stolen from their front lawns. The next statement is usually that Bush is spreading fear and hate throughout the country with such tactics. They then of course suggest that voting for Bush is spreading hate and fear as well.

I have been tempted to write a letter myself, something along the line of – well I would like to use the same logic that these people use in relation to an incident in my life. Recently I found a twenty-dollar bill on the sidewalk. Bush is spreading twenty dollar bills across the nation to cause peace, joy and happiness across the country. If you want to have money and be at peace, vote for Bush. Humm, don’t think there is much thinking going on in our country this election season.

Back to the theology – predestination – adoption – a couple of big doctrines that we want to take a look at.

Predestination, a term that predominates many internet forums, while it appears in Scripture twice – it is a part of a whole, not the predominant entity that is so often made out to be. It is a simple statement of something that God did. It also appears in verse eleven, where we are told basically the same thing as we are told in verse five. It is by His will for his purpose and it is a predestination to sonship which brings with it inheritance.

Now, be sure you understand that this is the whole of the teaching on the word itself. Beware any other passage that is used in relation to it and be sure that the context supports its being used in relation to predestination.

First of all this is an aorist tense, so it is a one time action. The word itself, according to the Lexicon, is to predestinate, determine before, ordain, predetermine, decide beforehand and they mention that God decreed from eternity. It was an act that was done at a point in time; most would agree that it was part of the decrees. It is something that God did – He determined beforehand that we would be sons and enjoy an inheritance.

That is the crux and total of the specific teaching. Now, because we know that this is part of salvation we can relate it to all that is contained in salvation, the regeneration, the justification and all those other items, but specifically we are predestined to be sons in the context of Ephesians.

I might make a statement concerning the decrees. Some suggest that there was only one decree, while others say there were multiple decrees. Whether one or several, most agree on the content of whatever they hold to. The content is normally about the same, though the order is not always the same. As things relate to order, take some time to logically think through the sequence that was needed. Most systematic theologies cover this, including my own.

We are adopted, based on the good pleasure of His will. Rather simple isn’t it. He did it based on his own desire and will. Not on our good looks, not on our good works, not on our anything – nothing we are or can do is related in any way to this decision of the will of God – and it was done long before creation in eternity past. Just what God’s choice was based on, I feel there was good reason for His choice – something other than you, you and you but not you. There was a rational reason why He chose each and every one of us. This was indicated earlier in the meaning of the words used.

Rom 8:29 relates to our discussion. “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate [to be] conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.” Here we see that the term is related specifically to our being conformed to the image of Christ.

Now, specifically the usages relate to results of salvation, not salvation itself. Thus, beware how writers use the term and where they go with it.

It is of great note to me that this adoption and our conforming are pleasurable to God – that is impressive. He found pleasure in making us sons! Again, we see something more than just a cold choosing of some. There was thought and there was pleasure in what He did.

The second usage is of concern to anyone that is not walking with God. He determined before hand that we would be conformed to His Son’s image. Now, I assume that the completion of this is in the end when we are changed and are prepared for eternity, but surely there is the thought that we ought to be bringing ourselves into conformity with His image as we walk with Him. Our walk should reflect that which we will one day be.

All of this heavy doctrine is part of that phrase back in verse three where Paul tells us God ” blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly [places] in Christ:” All this heavy stuff is a blessing and part and parcel with all that God wants to do for us, and all that He has done for us. And this isn’t all – it continues in the next few verses.

He didn’t just zap us into the kingdom, He provided all sorts of benefits and blessings for us – now, hate to say it, but just have to – if we don’t study theology, we can’t know all of what God has done for us.

Fuente: Mr. D’s Notes on Selected New Testament Books by Stanley Derickson

1:5 {8} Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ {h} to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,

(8) Another plainer exposition of the efficient cause, and also of eternal election, by which God is said to have chosen us in Christ, that is, because it pleased him to appoint us when we were not yet born, whom he would make to be his children by Jesus Christ. So that there is no reason for our election to be looked for here, except in the free mercy of God. And neither is faith which God foresaw the cause of our predestination, but the effect.

(h) God respects nothing, either anything that is present, or anything that is to come, but himself only.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

Predestination is the means by which God chose us (cf. Rom 8:30). God chose us by marking us out beforehand (the meaning of proorisas, translated "predestined"). Predestination looks more at the "how" than at the "who" of election. Election emphasizes the people and predestination the means (cf. Eph 1:11; Act 4:25-28; Rom 8:29-30). God predetermined the final destiny of the elect, namely, that we would be His full-fledged sons (cf. Rom 8:15; Rom 8:23; Gal 4:4-7). Jesus Christ was the agent who made that adoption possible by His death. Sons adopted in Roman culture received the same rights and privileges as children born into the family. Likewise our adoption does not imply an inferior status in relation to God. God predestined us to adoption because He delighted to bless us in this way.

"You do not get into God’s family by adoption. You get into His family by regeneration, the new birth (Joh 3:1-18; 1Pe 1:22-25). Adoption is the act of God by which He gives His ’born ones’ an adult standing in the family. Why does He do this? So that we might immediately begin to claim our inheritance and enjoy our spiritual wealth!" [Note: Wiersbe, 2:11.]

Some Calvinistic interpreters have concluded that since God predetermined the final destiny of those He chose for salvation it is only logical that he also predetermined the damnation of the non-elect. It is therefore unnecessary, they say, for us to concern ourselves with the salvation of individuals since God has predetermined this. This view, called "double predestination," goes beyond the teaching of Scripture. The Scriptures never state that God has predetermined the fate of the non-elect. The emphasis of Scripture, on the other hand, is on the possibility, from the human viewpoint, of anyone trusting in Jesus Christ and receiving salvation (Joh 3:16, et al.). [Note: For four views of two Calvinists (John Feinberg and Norman Geisler) and two Arminians (Bruce Reichenbach and Clark Pinnock) on the problem of harmonizing Scriptural revelation on the subject of divine sovereignty and human freedom, see David and Randall Basinger, eds., Predestination and Free Will.]

"We should not see predestination as a grim process whereby God condemns great numbers of people to eternal loss. Rather, it is the outworking of a loving purpose whereby he delivers great numbers of people for salvation." [Note: Leon Morris, Expository Reflections on the Letter to the Ephesians, pp. 17-18.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)